Bready or Not: Soft Lemon-Ginger Cookies
Lemon and ginger join forces in these luscious cookies!
I found the original recipe in a compilation from Taste of Home. I immediately thought, hey, that looks good but it needs more ginger… and more lemon.
Because if it’s a lemon-ginger cookie, it should scream flavor, right?
And these do, all bound up in a soft, chewy form. These taste delightfully fresh. Perfect for summer, really.
… oh, these would be perfect for the holidays, too. They do have ginger, after all. Make them whenever you want. The dough can be made a day or two ahead of time and kept ready in the fridge!
Bready or Not: Soft Lemon-Ginger Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter softened
- 1 cup brown sugar packed
- 1 egg
- 3 Tablespoons sour cream
- 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon extract
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven at 350-degrees.
- In a large mixing bowl, whip together the butter and brown sugar until it gains a fluffy texture. Beat in the egg, sour cream, and extracts.
- In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, ginger, and salt; make sure to press any lumps out of the cream of tartar and ginger. Slowly mix the dry ingredients into the other bowl.
- Drop by rounded teaspoons onto a baking sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the cookies are lightly browned and no longer jiggly. Watch out--they can overbake quickly. Let them rest on the cookie sheet for just a few minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool.
- OM NOM NOM!
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Bready or Not: Cinnamon Twist Cookies
These Cinnamon Twist Cookies give you an opportunity to play with cookie dough.
You divide the dough in half and mix cinnamon into one half. Then you twist the doughs together, creating delicious braided cookies!
This would actually be a great recipe to involve kids or grandkids! Just keep in mind that the cookies spread as they bake, so you don’t want them too large.
This is one the first cookie recipes I claimed as “mine.” I found it on the Betty Crocker website back in my newlywed days when I was hunting for new cookies that would please my husband.
I made these cookies all the time for about five years, and then the recipe became buried in my growing collection of clippings and print-outs. I was stunned to realize recently that I hadn’t made these cookies in years.
These cookies keep well for several days and they’re durable to pack and bring with you places. They have a kind of snickerdoodle vibe going with that kick of cinnamon, but they’re not messy at all.
Most importantly of all, they are delicious.
Bready or Not: Cinnamon Twist Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter 1 stick, room temperature
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 375-degrees.
- In a large bowl, mix the butter, sugar, vanilla, and egg. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Divide dough in half. Stir cinnamon into one half until it's mixed in and brown.
- Grab equal pinches of both kinds of dough, place them side by side, and gently twist into a short rope. Place on cookie sheet, with several inches around each to account for expansion. Repeat with remaining dough.
- Bake 8 to 10 minutes, until the cookie is set with the pale dough just tinted brown. Let cookies cool on wire rack. Store in a sealed container for several days.
- OM NOM NOM!
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Bready or Not: Snickerdoodle Biscotti
Brace yourself: I’ve been experimenting with biscotti, and this Snickerdoodle version is the first of several you’ll see this year!
Yes, these really do taste like Snickerdoodles, only in a crisper, more dunk-able form. I even added cream of tartar to the recipe, to amp up the Snickerdoodliness. (That should totally be a word.)
For years, I have said that I dislike biscotti. That’s because the only kind I ever tried came from the grocery store, and it was HARD. Like, “this could break my teeth,” hard. It didn’t help that I don’t drink coffee and therefore had nothing to dip the biscotti into to soften it.
Then the Great British Bake Off featured biscotti and my interest was piqued. The bakers made it look easy. Doable. And the fresh version was supposed to be crisp, not teeth-shatteringly hard.
I hunted down some recipes. I started baking. I discovered, once again, that the Great British Bake Off abounds in wisdom. Homemade biscotti is easy and tasty.
These Snickerdoodle Biscotti are fantastic for Snickerdoodle lovers. The cinnamon-sugar top makes these even look and smell like the cookie version, and the flavor….!
Oh yeah. Snickerdoodliness.
Because these are biscotti, they keep well for a few weeks, too. That makes these great to stash away or to even ship across distances.
And even if they go stale, I bet you they are still a million times better than the grocery store version.
Modified from Brown Eyed Baker.
Bready or Not: Snickerdoodle Biscotti
Ingredients
biscotti
- 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter 1 stick, room temperature
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup cinnamon chips
topping
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375-degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, cinnamon, baking powder, cream of tartar, and salt.
- In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl often. Add the eggs, one at a time, followed by the vanilla. Gradually add the dry ingredients, mixing just until a dough forms. Finally, mix in the cinnamon chips.
- Divide the dough in half on the prepared baking sheet. Form each into a log about 4 inches wide and 10 inches long; make sure there is space between the two logs, as they'll grow in the oven.
- Mix together the topping ingredients and sprinkle over both dough logs.
- Bake about 25 minutes, until the biscotti is lightly browned with small cracks forming across the top. Remove the baking sheet from the oven, but be sure to leave the oven on.
- Let the biscotti cool for 10 minutes. Use a large knife, such as a bread knife, to diagonally slice the logs 1/2-inch apart. Use a straight-down motion to cut; don't saw.
- Arrange the biscotti spaced out on the baking sheet. Stand them up if possible, or lay them on their sides. Bake for another 15-20 minutes, flipping them over halfway if necessary, to equally crisp both sides.
- Cool completely on the baking sheet. Store in an airtight container as long as a few weeks.
- OM NOM NOM!
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Bready or Not: Pride O’ Scotland Shortbread
The day after my anniversary, it seems only right to share the shortbread recipe I made for my husband the first day we met: Pride O’ Scotland Shortbread.
The original recipe is from one of my mom’s very battered cookbooks, which she gave to me a few years ago. The pages tenuously cling to the spiral binding. Back when I was a teenager, this shortbread recipe was one of the first I really declared ‘mine.’
Back in those dark ages before widespread internet shopping and Cost Plus World Market, my family was only able to obtain shortbread once or twice a year–at the Fresno Highland Games, and maybe at Christmas. Those red boxes of Walker’s Shortbread brought us great joy.
So when I found this recipe and my relatives declared that my shortbread was BETTER than Walker’s brand… whoa. I felt like I’d made something magical.
Maybe I did. It helped snare me a husband, after all.
Bready or Not: Pride O' Scotland Shortbread
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cups white sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter 2 sticks, softened
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 375-degrees. Grease two 9-inch pie pans.
- Place dry ingredients in mixing bowl; add butter, egg yolk, and vanilla. Mix with fingers until dough holds together. Divide dough into two balls and press each ball into a pan. Flatten evenly with palms; prick surface all over with floured fork. Slash into wedges.
- Bake for 17 to 22 minutes, until the edges are golden brown. Remove from oven. Immediately cut again following slash marks and carefully run the blade around the edge of the crust to loosen the shortbread.
- Let shortbread cool. Cut again along slash marks and the crust, then remove wedges to eat. Shortbread keeps in sealed container for several days.
- OM NOM NOM!
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Bready or Not: Oatmeal Cream Pies
Today I present something seriously delicious: Oatmeal Cream Pies, aka Sandwich Cookies.
These things are about the size of a sandwich, too, and about as filling because of the chewy oatmeal cookies. You have two tablespoons worth of dough with a teaspoon of marshmallow cream between them. So yeah.
I don’t think I’d make smaller cookies, though, for sheer reasons of space and time. The recipe makes over four dozen cookies, which makes for over two dozen sandwich cookies. This is a recipe to make for a lot of hungry adults or kids!
If you love commercial-made cream pies like the ones from Little Debbie, these homemade ones will blow your mind. They have that same taste and texture, but with some extra chewy freshness.
I highly advise that you use tablespoon and teaspoon scoops for this recipe, too. It helps a lot if the cookies are of uniform size and that the amount of filling is equally distributed.
Modified from Taste of Home.
Bready or Not: Oatmeal Cream Pies
Ingredients
Cookies:
- 1 1/2 cups shortening
- 2 2/3 cups brown sugar packed
- 4 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
Filling:
- 3/4 cup shortening
- 3 cups confectioners' sugar sifted
- 7 oz marshmallow creme 1 jar
- 1 - 3 Tablespoons milk or half & half
Instructions
- Preheat the oven at 350-degrees. In a large bowl, cream together the shortening and brown sugar until they are light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract.
- In another bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and nutmeg; gradually add this dry mix to the creamed mix. Stir in oats. If you're using a stand mixer, you'll probably need to stir the last of the oats in by hand. This is a lot of dough!
- Use a tablespoon scoop to dole out the dough onto a cookie sheet, keeping two inches between each spoonful. These will spread.
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes; they brown very fast, so keep an eye on them at the end. Remove them when they are turning golden brown. Let sit on cookie sheet for 10 minutes before transitioning them to a rack to cool.
- To make the filling, start by sifting the confectioners' sugar into a large bowl. Add the shortening and marshmallow crème. Add a tablespoon of milk and gradually add more as needed to get it to spreadable consistency. Use a heaping teaspoon to dollop filling onto the base of a cookie. Spread it with a knife, top with another cookie, and press together to get cream to the edges.
- End result: about 30 large sandwich cookies.
- OM NOM NOM!
Bready or Not: Stuffed Churro Nuggets
With Cinco de Mayo two days away, let’s revisit a classic Holy Taco Church recipe: Stuffed Churro Nuggets.
This recipe is EASY. It uses store-bought puff pastry. (I mean, you can use a homemade version, but even the great Mary Berry of the Great British Bake Off says she prefers the store kind.) I haven’t tried it with gluten-free puff pastry, but I know that it exists; if anyone uses that with this recipe, let me know how it turns out!
You can choose whatever filling you want. I like to make this and fill half with Nutella and half with Dulce de Leche, but you could try this with any kind of thick, spreadable delicious stuff.
Maybe try peanut or other nut butters? Or maple butter? (OOOOOOOOH.) But trust me, you can’t go wrong with Nutella and Dulce de Leche (and if you can find the squeeze bottle Dulce de Leche, it’s especially convenient).
These nuggets are best eaten the same day, but if you take this to any sizable gathering, that won’t be a problem. These are a perfectly-sized hors d’oeuvres, and I doubt that anyone will have just one!
Bready or Not: Stuffed Churro Nuggets
Ingredients
Nuggets
- 1/2 package puff pastry 1 bag out of a 2 pack box
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter 1/2 stick
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
Choose your stuffing! One of these or something else
- Nutella
- Dulce de leche squeeze bottle, can, etc
Note that if your filling is stiff, you can make it more spreadable with a zap in the microwave. Make sure you do so in a microwave-safe container.
Instructions
- Let puff pastry come to room temperature. Preheat oven at 425-degrees.
- Get out a large cookie sheet and line it with parchment paper. Unfold puff pastry onto the surface and use a pizza cutter to quickly cut the dough into 1-inch cubes.
- Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until the squares are puffed and golden.
- Set out whatever will be used to stuff the nuggets. Mix together the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. In another bowl, melt the butter.
- Remove the puff pastry from the oven. Pop open each cube by removing the top completely or opening it as if on a hinge--it's surprisingly easy, with those flaky layers--and add a dab of filling. Close the pastry, then roll it in butter and then in cinnamon-sugar.
- Churro Nuggets are best eaten the same day. Store them in a sealed container, with parchment or waxed paper between layers.
- OM NOM NOM!
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