Is there such a thing as a non-tasty shortbread cookie?
We think not!

But when you make these sweet delights with brown sugar and cinnamon… ah, that takes the classic shortbread to a whole new level of yummy.

Shortbreads can be frozen in air-tight plastic containers, to be pulled out later when company comes over unexpectedly — but don’t count on having any cookies left over to freeze unless you make a double batch.

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Shortbread Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup (dark) brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups white flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 tsp cinnamon (or more, to taste)
icing sugar (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350°F, and line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper.

(Yes, you’ll want to use parchment paper — it helps to keep the cookies from browning too much on the bottom. Did you know that you can use parchment paper more than once, sometimes even a couple of times? True. And if you’re out of parchment paper, you can substitute waxed paper instead — not quite as good, but it will work in a pinch.)

Cream together the butter, brown sugar, and vanilla, beating until it’s very light and fluffy. Beat in the flour, cornstarch, and cinnamon until it’s all well-blended into cookie dough.

(For some reason, my corn starch always seems to have tiny lumps in it, so I like to put it through a sieve on its way into the mixing bowl.)

Form the cookie dough into 3/4″ balls between your (clean!) hands and place them on the lined cookie sheet. They can go quite close together because the cookies don’t tend to spread out very much as they bake. Flatten the balls — just a little, just enough so they don’t roll — using the bottom of a glass or the heel of your hand.

Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, then remove from the baking sheet and cool them on a wire rack.

Optional: when the shortbreads are cool, dust them lightly with icing sugar. This is something I don’t usually bother to do, except when I’m trying to be fancy, but it does makes them feel and taste a bit like cinnamon-enhanced polvarones (only a lot less work).

This recipe makes about 40-50 ladylike little cookies.

Outside, the sun sparkles off about a foot of pristine snow. Indoors, the kitchen smells deliciously of cinnamon and chocolate… and the pre-Christmas baking continues…

Each of the keen cooks among our friends and extended family has a different couple of specialties in the Christmas treats category, so one of our annual holiday traditions is for a few of us will get together to bake — using the heat from one oven, so environmentally friendly, plus it’s always more fun to cook with company.

This year is an extra-busy one, however, so we’re going for a straight cookie swap.

You bake yours, I bake mine — and we all get together with our cookies and make a trade. It’s a bit of a relaxed social time (sampling the cookies is a must!) and everyone goes home with an impressive mix of holiday goodies…

Robin Olson has a cookie-exchange party idea that I rather like — you collect all the cookie swap recipes in advance, and print them up in a little booklet as a take-home party favour. Or maybe do up recipe cards, tied together at the corner with a ribbon? Make a nice cover for it (put the kids to work with crayons) and your cookie cookbook could even double as a Christmas card.

Anyway, I didn’t get my truffles made in that last mad flurry of storm day baking, due to a critical shortage of condensed milk (substitute for cream) in the pantry. But it’s on the shopping list, along with the tiny festive paper cups in which to nestle those tasty chocolatey morsels.

Meanwhile, I’ve moved on to meringues — since the Reynolds people were good enough to send a packet of parchment paper today, in a cookie tin along with recipe cards and party invitations and all manner of cookie-related goodness. (If you’re in the US, by the way, you can get Reynolds to send a free sample of parchment paper to you.)

Yeah, yeah, I know, me too… “parchment paper” always reminds me of snooty restaurants serving Aubergine en papillote and such.

But for meringues, it’s just practical.

Non-stick cookie sheets, ordinary cookie sheets, it doesn’t matter — if I don’t use parchment paper under my meringues, a few will always stick and crumble when I try to slide them off the pan… Of course, that does mean I have to eat the crumbs…

Oh! how I love meringues!

Tiny little light-as-air confections to melt on the tongue…. why is it that not a lot of people make them anymore? Perhaps these could be my “signature cookie” for the exchange.

Half of my recipe, I’ll shape as dainty dollops about the same size as the truffles — package them up together in a pretty tin, and there’s a perfect hostess gift for when you’re making the festive rounds!

The other half, I’ll pipe out the meringue into finger shapes, and dip the ends in dark bttersweet chocolate, maybe roll in thin shavings of milk chocolate, too, for decorative effect.

Because really, there’s no such thing as too much chocolate…


Photos: Reynolds, ifindkarma

Three ingredients?
Why, that hardly even counts as a recipe!

But the beauty of meringues is the kitchen miracle of how a few simple egg whites, sweetened and whipped into cloud-like shapes, can bake up gently to such a melt-in-mouth light crispy goodness. Smother a lemon pie, if you must, but I prefer to take my meringues in cookie form…

Basic Meringue Recipe

For each 1 egg white, you’ll need a good pinch (1/8tsp) of cream of tartar and caster sugar to taste (about 2 Tbsp per egg white).

Pre-heat the oven to 200°F.

Whip together the egg whites and cream of tartar, until medium-soft peaks form, then continue whipping as you gradually add the sugar.

When the mixture stands up in firm peaks, spoon it out (or pipe with a pastry bag) onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake about 2 hours for teaspoon-sized dollops, about 3 hours for standard cookie size. You want the meringues to be dry and hard to the touch, but don’t let them start to brown.

How many egg whites?
It depends on how large a recipe you want to make. I find that 3 egg whites is a good number…

Meringue recipe variations

• Tint with food colouring,
• Fold in a generous spoonful of crushed candy canes or peppermints
• Top with sliced almonds or a twist of candied lemon peel,
• Dip a baked meringue lady-finger into melted chocolate…

… the possibilities are endless, so follow your whim and have fun!

Easy, yes? Just as long as you don’t try to bake meringues under very humid conditions, as extra moisture is the one thing you really don’t want. Meringues dry out, rather than bake in any conventional sense, so forget about whipping them up in the middle of a summer thunderstorm…

And here’s a final kitchen tip: If you don’t have caster sugar, just grind up your ordinary white sugar to make it less coarse: in fact, I keep an old spare coffee grinder on hand just for grinding up nuts and sugar and other cooking ingredients that I don’t necessarily want to have enhanced by the flavour of coffee beans.

Photo: ifindkarma
Technorati Tags: cooking, recipes

Sometimes you just need to bake up a fancy treat in a hurry, right?

Well, here’s a recipe that’s bailed out this disorganized cook more than once! In fact, just this past week I managed to forget all about our beekeepers’ potluck supper until that very day… and hadn’t been to the grocery store, so there wasn’t a big choice of exotic ingredients in the pantry.

Jelly cakes to the rescue!

p.s. If you’re wondering about my battered old mini-muffin pans — those were a great frugal find, picked up for mere pennies when a local cooking school yard-saled their old kitchen gear!

And now, on to the recipe…

Lemon Jelly Cakes

¾ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
1 beaten egg
1 Tbsp lemon juice
pinch of salt
1½ cups flour
jam or jelly

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cream together butter and sugar. Add the beaten egg, lemon juice, salt, and flour.

Shape 1 slightly rounded teaspoon of the dough into (greased and floured) miniature cupcake tins.

Make a dent and fill with jelly.

Bake about 12 minutes at 350°F, watching after 10 minutes to make sure that the cakes don’t get brown. Cool slightly before removing from the tins.

Tips:

• One teaspoon of dough doesn’t sound like much, but take my word for this! It’s important not to use too much dough — each muffin cup should be no more than one-third full, because these will rise a great deal.
• Grape jelly or high-bush cranberry jelly are my favourites, because they’re not overly sweet and have a good strong flavour to balance out the lemon cake part — but a nice strawberry jam is a good alternative, too.

Young Emily brought a tin of these delicious little cookies when she came to hang out with my dogs after school on Wednesday, and — love anything with cinnamon — of course, I just had to get the recipe.

Be warned, these cookies may be habit-forming!

Cinnamon Cookies

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
2 ¼ cups flour
4 level tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla

Pre-heat oven to 350°F.

Cream the sugar and butter, then beat in the egg and milk.
Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt, then blend into the creamed mixture.
Stir in the vanilla.
Make the dough into small balls (about the size of a whole walnut).

In a small bowl, combine:
      ½ cup brown sugar
      ½ tsp cinnamon (or a bit more, if you like cinnamon as much as I do!)

Roll the cookie balls in the cinnamon-sugar mixture.
Place on a lightly greased baking sheet.
Bake at 350°F for 8 – 10 minutes.

What could be more cute than teddy bears for a little kid’s birthday party theme? Dariana of Diva Diner shares the recipe for Teddy Bear Cookies: There’s just one batch of cookie dough to mix up — the secret is melted chocolate to colour one part of the vanilla dough. I love her idea of using the tines of a fork to mark the little bears’ claws. You can skip the eyes and mouth if you’re short on time, or decorate them up even more with a touch of icing if you’re feeling ambitious…

p.s. – While you’re browsing the tasty menu over at the Diva Diner, don’t miss Dariana’s recipe for Baseball Cap Cupcakes, perfect for a sports theme birthday party.

We enjoyed these decadent little cookies, called Pulvarones, at a friend’s home in Oaxaca and couldn’t rest until we got the recipe! The oval shape is traditional for Pulvarones in Mexico, apparently, and you can wrap each cookie individually in a piece of bright tissue paper if you want to be truly authentic. Makes a tempting and festive display, piled in a big ceramic bowl on a dining room sideboard!

Pulvarones

Preheat the oven to 300°F.

Combine:
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup sifted confectioner’s sugar (icing sugar)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt

Stir in:
1 tsp vanilla extract

Work in, as for pie crust:
1 cup butter

Roll out about 1/3″ thick and cut into ovals. Place on ungreased cookie sheets and bake about 20 minutes. Watch them! These will burn easily if your oven runs hot!

Combine:
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

While the cookies are still warm, roll them in the sugar/cinnamon mixture. Cool completely, then roll them in it again.

Tip: Don’t even think about using margarine instead of butter — as in shortbreads, you really want the flavour and texture of real dairy butter in these special cookies!

Layer a few colourful ingredients in a wide-mouthed Mason jar, decorate the lid with fabric, ribbon, dried flowers, etc., and tie on a small wooden spoon or cute cookie cutter — and you’ve got a quick and easy gift that’s sure to be appreciated.

Take a little Google around the internet and you’ll find plenty of recipes for cookies, soup mixes, and more.

Better yet, adapt one of your own favourite recipes for a truly personal touch! Makes a nice gift for busy single parents or elderly friends who appreciated home-made goodies, as well as a popular item at craft sales and church bazaars.

Don’t forget to label the jar with instructions for how to mix and bake!

This dog cookies recipe was given to me by my elderly neighbour — our dogs have managed to convince her that we don’t feed them anything tasty (not true!) and love to beg her for these home-made dog treats!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup plus 1 Tbsp water
• 1 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1-1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup cornmeal

Whisk together the first four ingredients. Stir in flour and cornmeal until well mixed. Knead until the dough holds together, then transfer to a lightly floured surface.

Roll out dough to a thickness of about 1/8 inch. Poke holes all over the dough with a fork and cut into pieces of the desired size — use a bone-shaped cookie cutter, if you have one!

Place on a baking sheet about 1/2 inch apart and bake at 350°F for 18 – 20 minutes, until firm. Put the pan on a rack and let the dog cookies cool completely. Reduce the oven heat to 300°F and bake for 20 minutes longer, until hard. Cool, then store in a tightly sealed container.

I’m told that they will keep for about 30 days, but our dogs seem to gobble up their special treats much more quickly than that!