maandag 28 december 2009

Mexican Wedding Cakes: day 9 of 12 Days of Christmas Cookies

The cookies I picked for day 9 of my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies are the Mexican Wedding Cakes. I had never tried these and read rave reviews about them all over the Internet.





I decided to give this recipe from Joy of Baking a try. My cookies turned out great: these feel really light and fragile and look so pretty topped with the confectioner's sugar!!



Mexican Wedding Cakes
adapted from Joy of Baking

2/3 cups of toasted nuts (pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts) (I used pecans)
1 cup butter at room temperature
1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Topping:
1 cup confectioner's sugar


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line 2 bakingsheets with parchment paper. Set aside

Toast nuts: place nuts on a baking sheet and bake for about 8 minutes, or until lightly brown and fragrant. Cool. Once the nuts have cooled completely, place them, along with two tablespoons of the flour from the recipe, in your foodprocessor, fitted with a metal blade , and process until they are finely ground (but not a paste). Set aside.

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes). Beat in the vanilla extract. Add the remaining flour and salt and beat until combined. Stir in the nuts. Cover and refrigerate the dough for about 1 hour or until firm.

Form the dough into 1 inch (2.54 cm) balls and place them 2 inches (5 cm) apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake for about 12-15 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies start to brown. (Mine needed 12 minutes) Remove from oven and pleace on a wire rack to cool for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, line another baking pan or tray with parchment or wax paper. Sprinkel about 1/2 cup of the confectioner's sugar on the bottom of the pan and then place the slightly cooled cookies on top of the sugar. Place the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar in a fine strainer or sieve and then sprinkle the tops of the cookies (or you can just roll the cookies in the sugar, that's what I did).

Store in an airtight container. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

zondag 13 december 2009

World Peace Cookies: Day 5 of 12 Days of Christmas Cookies

So, now on to my favourite chocolate cookie ever!!! For the fifth day of my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies I decided to make World Peace Cookies. We made these for Tuesdays with Dorie in february 2009 and this is another cookie that my coworkers keep requesting me to bake again!

Not only are these cookies delicious, but I also think the name is soooo good and appropriate: I mean, doesn't everybody wish for World Peace around Christmas?
The reason why Dorie Greenspan decided to rename these cookies (originally these cookies were called Pierre Hermé's Korova Cookies) after a neighbour claimed that 'a daily dose of Pierre's cookies is all that is needed to ensure planetary peace and happiness'.



This recipe made 48 cookies and it can be found here.




zaterdag 12 december 2009

White Chocolate Madacamia Nut Cookies: Day 4 of 12 Days of Christmas Cookies

Today's cookie was picked especially for my mom. My mom was really good this year: she lost a lot of weight and restrained from eating sweets and cookies and such. Now she's off the diet and back to eating normally I wanted to put something in my Christmas Cookies that she would absolutely love.



My mom's favourite chocolate is white chocolate and her favourite nuts are macadamia nuts, so I went, googled and found the perfect cookie over at My Tasty Treasures.



Again: another easy to make, scoop & bake cookie. I baked them for 12 minutes and got 54 cookies out of this recipe. My mom got to test them and said that they were the 'bestest' cookies she ever had!



White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
(adapted from My Tasty Treasures)
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups chopped macadamia nuts
2 cups white chocolate chips
  • Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit
  • Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl and set aside
  • Beat together the melted butter, brown sugar, white sugar, egg, egg yolk and vanilla in a bowl with an electrical mixer until creamy
  • Gradually add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture until just mixed
  • Stir in the macadamia nuts ans white chocolate chips by hand
  • Drop by the spoonful onto a greased or lined baking sheet
  • Bake for 12 - 15 minutes or until edges look golden brown (I baked mine for 12 minutes)
  • Cool on the cookie sheet for at least 4-5 minutes so the cookies can set.
  • Remove to rack to cool completely
  • Enjoy


Americans are NOT stupid - WITH SUBTITLES

Oh my God, they must have picked the stupidest people to answer these questions!!!

vrijdag 11 december 2009

Snickerdoodles: Day 3 of 12 Days of Christmas Cookies

Welcome to day three of my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies!! The star of today's post is the amazing Snickerdoodle!!!!
My mom asked me why these cookies had such a seedy name: 'snikkel-doodles'..... You see 'snikkel' is Dutch slang for penis.... I quickly made sure she knew the right name!!

About two years ago I made these for the first (and only) time, I loved how simple it was to make these cookies and how wonderful they tasted and smelled. This was probably because of the cinnamon as my two most favourite smells are vanilla and cinnamon!
This time I used the recipe that I found over at eat me, delicious., the original recipe is by Martha Stewart.


Again, another cookie that is very quick and easy to make! As I love my cinnamon I made two batches of the 'topping'. It tastes great, nice and fluffy and cinnamonny!! This recipe is supposed to make 20 cookies, 40 when you make very small balls. I used my small icecream scoop and got 56 Snickerdoodles out of this recipe, after baking they had a diameter of 6 cm....






Snickerdoodles (as adapted from eat me, delicious)

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter (I always use salted butter as it is way cheaper than unsalted butter.... I haven't tasted a huge difference so far!)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs

2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
(I had to double this sugar and cinnamon because I had so many cookies!!)

  • Preheat the oven at 35o F.
  • Sift together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.
  • Put butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar in a bowl and mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy.
  • Mix in eggs.
  • Reduce speed to low; graually mix in flour mixture.
  • Stir together cinnamon and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar in a small bowl (I doubled the amounts for this step).
  • Shape dough into 20 (1 3/4 inch) balls; roll in cinnamon sugar (I simply scooped and dropped the scoops in the cinnamon sugar, then rolled them around).
  • Space 3 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
  • Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until edges are golden, 12 to 15 minutes (12 minutes were perfect for mine!).

donderdag 10 december 2009

Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops: Day 2 of 12 Days of Christmas Cookies

So today is the second day of 12 Days of Christmas Cookies. For today I picked Dorie Greenspans Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops. We made these a while ago for Tuesdays with Dorie and the friends I shared them with loved them so much that they kept requesting me to make them again.
Photo's are from the last time I made these because I totally forgot to take pictures while baking them. One recipe made 32 cookies for me.


The recipe can be found at Confessions of a Tangerine Tart as she was the one who picked this recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie. This time I got 30 cookies out of the recipe.



woensdag 9 december 2009

M&M Cookies: Day 1 of 12 Days of Christmas Cookies

On my search for 12 delicious cookies for my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies to give away for Christmas I found a recipe for M&M Cookies over at Blisstree that sounded really appealing to me.



These were supereasy to put together, one batch made 49 cookies. I baked them for 12 minutes and they turned out perfect: the edges were crunchy whereas the middle stayed nice and chewy: yum!!



Don't you just love my new nail polish? This is 'Smitten with Mittens' by OPI, it's part of the Holiday 2009 collection and it's a gorgeous shimmery red with red/golden glitters in it!
(Sorry guys, I know this is offtopic, but I'm really loving this colour right now!!)



The bottom of these M&M cookies are sooooo cool, the colour of the M&M's sort of rubbed off on the cookies a bit, aren't they 'groovy'?


Here's the recipe, adapted from Blisstree:

M&M Cookies
1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown suger
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1 12 oz package M&M's baking bits (I used a 260 gram bag regular size M&M's)
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional) (I skipped these)

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  • In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy; beat in egg and vanilla
  • In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt; blend into creamed mixture. Stir in M&M's and walnuts it you are using them
  • Drop by heaping tablespoons about two inches apart apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10-13 minutes (12 minutes wa perfect for me) or until edges are lightly browned and centers are still soft. Cool on cookie sheet for one minute, then transfer to wire racks.
  • Makes about 3 dozen cookies (I got 49 cookies out of this recipe)
  • Enjoy!!

zondag 6 december 2009

Giveaway winner!!

So the winner of my giveaway is Steph of Obsessed with Baking. Steph could you please leave me a message or send me an email to let me know which Rookworst you would like me to send you?

Steph is an amazing baker, I have seen loads of great recipes on her blog and tried some too (e.g. these Cranberry Orange Scones I served at my 30th birthday party) I love her New Moon-inspired Werewolf Cupcakes, go check them out: aren't they the cutest???

This means that the 12th cookie for my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies is the NYT Chocolate Chip Cookie!!