Cinnamon Roll Cookies: Breakfast and Dessert

What do you do if there's no chocolate in the house and you want to bake cookies?

1. Go out and buy chocolate chips.
2. Ask your neighbors for some chocolate.
3. Go buy cookies at the store.
4. Find a recipe with the ingredients you have and try it out.

For once, I actually choose number four even though I really kind of wanted chocolatey cookies. It was kind of easy though when I found this recipe from Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice on Pinterest. So take a deep breath and find a new solution to chocolate-less cookies that's worth the time and the effort.

Cinnamon Roll Cookies

From Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice Cinnamon Bun Cookies

Ingredients

• Dough:
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• Filling:
• 1 large egg white
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Icing:
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup milk (or heavy cream)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

1. In a medium-sized bowl beat together the sugar, butter, salt, and vanilla for the dough until light and fluffy. Add the flour and stir until the dough comes together.
2. Flatten into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap or wax paper and refrigerate for about an hour.
3. Flour wax paper or a piece of parchment and roll out the dough into a rectangle. About the size of a cookie sheet.
4. In a bowl whisk together the egg white and the water for the filling until foamy.
5. In another bowl mix the sugar and cinnamon together.
6. Brush the egg white mixture over the dough and evenly sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the top.
7. Starting with the long edge roll the dough carefully into a log. Seal the edge with any leftover egg white.
8. Wrap this log in wax paper, plastic wrap, or parchment and freeze until firm. You can leave it for a few minutes in the freezer and/or the fridge.
9. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease your cookie sheet.
10. Use a sharp knife to cut the log into about 1/2-inch slices and transfer them to the baking sheets.
11. Bake for 12-15 minutes until lightly golden.
12. Cool cookies before icing.
13. Sift the powdered sugar into a bowl and whisk in the milk and vanilla until smooth. Drizzle over the cookies.

My cookies weren't exactly perfect because I used milk rather than heavy cream for the icing. I prefer to use milk though because while it may not be as thick, it's something that you'll probably have around the house and it'll be less fattening. If you want the nice, thick frosting that looks very much like a cinnamon roll then go for the heavy cream. My icing was just a nice layer to give it a little extra sweetness, but you can't really see it as much.

I also learned that wax paper is your friend when making any type of rolled cookie. While this one isn't as dramatic than others I've made, since there aren't multiple layers of dough, it's not as necessary, but it worked well for me for both keeping the dough in the freezer and rolling it out. Just be sure to use plenty of flour on the wax paper and on your hands while rolling it out. I also didn't keep the dough completely in the freezer for the bit that says to "freeze until firm." I added the bit about a few minutes in the freezer and/or the fridge, because that was a good solution for me. Tossed it into the freezer for a bit and then finished it's solidifying in the fridge. The whole time in the freezer might just live you with an impossible-to-cut log.

While it was originally my treat that I could bake without any chocolate, my boyfriend and I devoured these cookies faster than we thought. I couldn't resist them in the morning since they resembled my mom's cinnamon rolls that I loved as a kid. They're sweet, but not too sweet, so it's a great thing to share at parties that most people will enjoy.

Browning Bananas and a Craving for Cookies

It's that time of the year when the snow begins to thaw, it starts to rain more, and we throw out that old pair of snow boots. Jackets get lighter. The sun shines more often. And the Girl Scouts set up their stands around town to sell cookies of all flavors. Sadly, I wasn't able to buy my Girl Scout cookies before Lent - where I gave up chocolate and candy. Now all I can do is drool over samoas and tagalongs from afar. This drooling has led me to craving cookies like the cookie monster.

This morning I discovered that our last two bananas were starting to turn brown. This is usually the key sign to make banana bread, but it didn't interest me as a baking adventure. I wanted something new. And I still desperately wanted cookies. This meant in between classes I would scour the internet for recipes (on cooking light, all recipes, real simple, and my recipes). I found a lot of awesome recipes, but this idea I fell in love with: Banana Oatmeal Cookies.

An episode of Good Eats got me into using Oats, especially for their health benefits. Plus I could make a healthier snack that didn't break my lenten promise - or hopefully my waistband. I set out later that night on a fun baking adventure adapted from this original recipe at all recipes.com.

Banana Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients
 - 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
 - 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
 - 1 teaspoon salt
 - 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
 - 3/4 teaspoon (generous) ground cinnamon
 - 1/2 cup plain greek yogurt
 - 1 teaspoon cornstarch
 - 1 cup sugar (I used splenda half and half blend, meaning I only used 1/2 cup)
 - 1 egg
 - 2 medium mashed bananas
 - 1 3/4 cups cooking oats
 - 1/2 cup pecans (or your favorite nuts, preferably chopped)

Directions
 1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease baking sheets.
         Since we actually don't have any cookie sheets here right now (go figure), I used a mini cupcake pan and a pizza brick to hold my dough. The mini cupcake can made adorable little muffin shaped cookies. My sister called them muffins, but they're softer inside with a nice crunch outside.

2. In a medium bowl, add flour, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

3. Cream together the greek yogurt, cornstarch, and sugar.
          I decided to use greek yogurt instead of the 1 cup of shortening, to cut down on fat and give it a moist and soft texture inside. I found out that it's good to add cornstarch to your recipes from the Livestrong website for tips on baking with Greek yogurt. It keeps the yogurt soft and from clumping or really mixing up the texture of the baked goods. They also recommend keeping some of the original, such as butter or oil, but I just avoided that all together and went with all Greek yogurt. This is okay with cookies, but might not work as well for cakes.

4. Add egg, banana, oatmeal, and nuts to the mixture and mix well.
         This step was interesting since I don't have a stand mixer or a hand mixer. I started off doing step 3 in a small food processor. This worked fine until all this stuff was supposed to get tossed in. The egg and banana were more important to get really blended - so I added them into the food processor and got that mixed in while I added the oatmeal and nuts to the dry mixture.

5. Mix together the wet and dry ingredients.
        This is where it was fine for me using the small food processor. It all gets put together. Of course, it may have taken me longer to get everything incorporated, it works if you would like to focus on the egg and banana in the wet mixture and the oatmeal and nuts in the dry. They are combined very quickly.

6. Drop by teaspoon fulls onto cookie sheet - or into a mini cupcake pan. Or whatever way you feel like mixing up this recipe.

7. Bake at 400 for around 15 minutes, or until they just start to brown. For smaller cookies (or muffins) they end at 10 minutes, but the larger are about 15. Let them cool completely and store in a closed container to keep that moist banana flavor.



Trust me, this is a sweet treat you can keep coming back to and not feel bad about - either for a Lenten promise, your waistline, or your heart health.

- Mollie

Never Too Many Turtles

My sister's boyfriend has stated that he would trade her for Turtles - that's just how much he loves them. From then on there has been an overwhelming love for and joking about Turtles in my family. This is why when I got my daily My Recipe cookie recipe e-mailed to me, I sent this one straight to my sister and swore I'd make them when I got home.

Peanut Butter-Toffee Turtle Cookies.

Just take that in.
Peanut Butter. Toffee. Peanuts. Chocolate. Caramel. All of that sweet indulgence packed into a little cookie. If you aren't drooling on your keyboard yet, I'm not doing my job - or you're allergic to peanuts.

I had to hide these cookies to be able to bring some to Christmas Eve - where they were quickly and thoroughly devoured. Although a lot of intricate work with the tough peanut butter dough and spreading the chocolate, these cookies are worth every inch of frustration I put into them. So here we go...

Peanut Butter Toffee Turtle Cookies
 recipe from Southern Living
 
Ingredients
  1/2 cup unsalted butter - softened
  1/2 cup sugar
  1/2 cup light brown sugar - firmly packed
  2/3 cup creamy peanut butter
  1 large egg
  2 cups Bisquick Baking Mix (If you have it: If not use a substitute = 2 cups of flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons Crisco. Mix everything except the Crisco and then cut Crisco into the mix. This makes the full 2 cup substitute and I think it's even better than Bisquick)
  2/3 cup toffee bits
  2/3 cup coarsely chopped peanuts
  2/3 cup milk chocolate chips
  10 ounces of vanilla caramels (approx.)
  2 - 3 tablespoons whipping cream
  1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  2/3 cup milk chocolate chips, melted (save the melting till after the cookies are baking/cooling)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Beat together softened butter, sugar, light brown sugar, and peanut butter on medium speed until nice and creamy. Add the egg and beat until blended.

3. Add Bisquick or Bisquick substitute at slow speed until just mixed together.

4. Stir in toffee bits, chopped peanuts, and 2/3 cup of chocolate chips.

5. Drop by spoonfuls onto your baking sheet and flatten it with your hand. I used my hands to round them out as well, but be careful they'll fall apart easily and the dough is a bit crumblier than say sugar cookie dough. The peanut butter and all the bits make it a bit difficult, but be patient.

6. Bake cookies at 350 degrees for about 10 to 12 minutes. Watch these carefully and know your oven, they want to be just golden and not with burnt bottoms. Cool and put on plates, a wire rack, something away from the oven to finish off the cooling.

7. Microwave caramels and the 2 tablespoons whipping cream in a bowl at high heat for 1 minute. Stir. Microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring after, until the caramels melt completely and it's nice and smooth. If it's still thick add more whipping cream and continue with the 30 second intervals.

8. Stir the vanilla into the caramel mixture. Then spoon the mixture evenly on top of cookies. Be careful, because you don't want too much to run all over the kitchen, but you want to be able to spread it evenly across.

9. Drizzle across the top with melted chocolate.
   Although this sounds like the easiest step, trust me, it was the worst. My chocolate wanted to cool and harden much faster than I could get it on the cookies. It also didn't want to drip nicely off the spoon, knife, chopstick, every utensil I tried to use to get the nice drizzle affect. I think using milk chocolate makes this very different - I think mine were semi-sweet and that has a different consistency. So be prepared and maybe even use chocolate made for drizzling if you want them to look really nice. You can see mine are a bit lumpy.

These cookies were rich, full of flavors, and a surprising delight for our Christmas celebrations. I think I might make them for Valentines day as well, they're that good and show the love you put in.

So if you've been offered in exchange for turtles, show them you're worth more and make your own turtle cookies - I'm sure it'll raise your value double if not tenfold. Enjoy!

- Mollie

Classic Christmas: Spritz Cookies

Although Christmas is over the first snow just hit Chicago and I don't know about you, but the white fluffy stuff makes me want to drink hot cocoa and bake Christmas cookies.

It was really strange not having a white Christmas, or even that cold of a Christmas, this year. I distracted myself with mountains of cookies, including my favorite and our classic Christmas cookie: The Spritz cookie.

These are the best to bring to parties, share with friends, and just snack on while working on wrapping presents, trimming the tree, and watching Christmas movies. I got the recipe when my mom bought me a cookie press at a Pampered Chef cookware party. I am in love with this cookie press and most people I know are jealous of mine. I'd recommend getting one, especially if you're always baking a ton of Christmas cookies and it takes too long. These are much faster than sugar cookies, just as sweet, and fun to decorate.

This year I used my sister's press (because who knows where mine went in the move) and we had Christmas ornaments, trees, wreaths, and stars to make with lots of colorful sprinkles. So here we go.

The Pampered Chef’s

Classic Spritz Cookies

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter or margarine, softened 

1 cup sugar 

 1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Fun colored sugar or sprinkles to decorate!

 Directions:

 1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. 

 2. In a large bowl, beat butter on medium speed until it's creamy.

 3. Add sugar, egg, and vanilla. Beat well until all are incorporated.

 4. Add flour 1 cup at a time, mixing well after each cup. Dough will be soft, don't worry, you want it this way. It will go into the cookie press easier.

 5. Push into cookie press or make dough into balls or other shapes. 

         For the cookie press you want to make sure once it's put together that the plunger part that presses the dough is forward so the dough is at the end and against the shape. Place the shaped side of the press on the cookie sheet and do roughly 2 clicks - depending on how hard/long you click the trigger.

6. Once you've filled a sheet, decorate with sugar or sprinkles. Have fun!

 7. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until firm. I like to see the edges just barely browning - make sure they're on the top rack to avoid burnt bottoms.

 8. Cool on cookie rack or plate.

It should make 6-7 dozen cookies. Some presses are smaller, like my sister's, so you'll get mountains of them. The best part too? 2 cookies are 120 calories. Merry Christmas!

Okay, so they don't have to be Christmas cookies either, that's just become the staple in my house. If you have the press it also usually contains other fun, seasonal shapes. So whether it's Christmas joy, another celebration, or just enjoying life, these cookies are perfect for the occasion.

- Mollie

I Never Thought I'd Say... I love Digestive Biscuits.

When you hear the phrase "Digestive Biscuit" in America, you wouldn't be thinking of anything resembling a cookie. Instead, I would run away for fear of laxatives and a lot of time with the toilet. That is exactly why, I believe, the British insist on Americans trying them. The crinkle of our noses when we first hear the word must make them giggle.

So then we see this. "When Digestive met Cadbury chocolate" at least made me feel a lot better about eating these biscuit things. Although I was still skeptical, I had to think to myself: Mollie biscuit is pretty much a cookie hear, right? So it can't be anything bad. You LOVE cookies.

and it's true. I do love cookies, so what could go wrong?

I reach into the sleeve and pull one of these babies out. Okay, I'm digging the milk chocolate. It looks like it's been dipped in it, since it's just the one side. Not as perfectly lined like a wafer or the cover, but who can get that right? I mean, it is by Cadbury still so it's a packaged thing created by a machine. So I give the slight imperfections on the lines a glance over and nervously take a bite.

This is chocolate. It's a light dipped chocolate on one side of a crumbly, crunchy cookie. Not too hard when you bite into it, a nice chocolate taste (especially when you put the chocolate side closest to your taste buds) and it crumbles neatly like a cookie should. Yet it's not exactly a cookie. Not like a chocolate chip one you would bake with grandma.

I mean, it does have this side to it. No wafer-like qualities. Instead these little holes that remind me of crackers and the imprint of "Cadbury Digestives". I watched one friend dip hers in her tea. That's what makes sense. It's not supposed to be a moist cookie, fresh from the oven. It's more like a biscuit, so if you'd like you could dip it - though I think I'd prefer milk. It has a few wafer like qualities, some crumbly cookie qualities, a nice dip of chocolate, and this sweet, but not too sweet, side that's almost like shortbread.

Fascinating.

Okay, so I didn't go through all of this at first bite. At first I just dove in and ended up devouring two cookies pretty quickly, then went out and bought my own package which was gone in exactly 7 days. Although the name may seem strange, they're worth a try. I've found them to be quite addicting and easily to toss back without feeling like you're having something really awful, while still getting a sweet treat in during the day.

So yes, here I am saying it. I love Digestive Biscuits.

- Mollie