Irish Butter Shortbread

One more St. Patty's Day goodie for your festivities tomorrow.
























These are simple, buttery crisp shortbreads. They practically melt in your mouth. They aren't your most flavorful cookie, but I liked em! I've always been a shortbread kinda girl.

What can I say, I love butter.

























And it only takes 3 ingredients to make: Irish butter (I used Kerrygold), sugar, and flour. I found some Irish butter at my local grocery story in the fancy cheese section, but you may have to go to a specialty store... I hope not though! The 3 ingredients kinda tricked me into thinking these would be so easy to make. They weren't, for me at least. I busted out my Kitchenaid mixer for the first time ever to make the dough! Then used my new rolling pin to flatten out the dough. I think next time I'll try chilling the dough before rolling it because it kept sticking to the rolling pin, even with some flour dusting. With time, I'll learn to perfect making and rolling dough.

Someone said these should be the same color going in as coming out of the oven. Mine were definitely more golden brown, so maybe try cooking them for less than the 30 minutes and check on their doneness. I just cooked mine the whole 30 minutes, but still thought they turned out good even with their golden brown crispness. 

 























Irish Butter Shortbread
from Rachel Gaffney 

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) Irish unsalted butter, softened (you can sit it out at room temp for 15 minutes)
• 1/4 cup + 1/2 tablespoon sugar, divided
• 1 and 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar. With the mixer on low, slowly add flour. Continue mixing until dough comes together to form a ball. 

Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface; roll out dough to about 1/8 or 1/4-inch thickness, dusting rolling pin with flour as necessary to prevent sticking. Using a 2 1/2-inch round fluted cutter, cut out dough. Transfer to prepared baking sheet, spacing about 1 inch apart. Gather up any scraps, gently re-roll, and repeat cutting process. Take care not to overwork dough.

Transfer baking sheet to oven and bake until shortbread just begins to turn golden, about 30 minutes but you may want to check on it after 20 minutes or so. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool. Shortbread may be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
  
Printable Recipe

Oh, and if you're looking for a fluted cutter, I bought a biscuit cutter at Sur La Table, my favorite store in the world. Mine was more like 2.5 inches wide, and I made half the recipe. The original recipe yields about 3 dozen, so half the recipe is about 18 cookies but I got more like 15 or 16 cookies. The recipe below reflects the amount I made, but double the ingredient amounts to yield about 3 dozen if you want more.

What you guys doing for St. Patty's Day? Getting your drink on? I'm actually happy it's on a Sunday, it really concerned me to see people at the bars at 7 AM on weekdays the past couple years. Did they seriously take off work? And who drinks at 7 AM? 

That should only be allowed on weekends :)

Happy St. Patty's Day, peeps!

I'll be watching my man GEORGES ST. PIERRE whoop up on Nick Diaz tonight. That's the highlight of my weekend. OBSESSED!!!!


Peace, and bacon grease!

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Eggnog Cookies with Eggnog Glaze

Ho, Ho, Ho... Merrrrrrrrry Christmas eve!

Add this cookie to your Christmas baking repertoire. 

 

















Because eggnog and cookies are so Christmasy. 

 





Eggnog Cookies with Eggnog Glaze
from Your Cup of Cake 

Eggnog Cookies

• 2 and 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg + additional for garnish
• 1 and 1/4 cups white sugar
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup eggnog
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 egg yolks 

Eggnog Glaze

• 1 and 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 3 tablespoons eggnog

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. 

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon and 1 teaspoon nutmeg.

In a large bowl, cream sugar and butter. Add eggnog, vanilla, and egg yolks. Beat at medium speed with mixer until smooth.

Add the flour mixture and beat at low speed until just combined. Do not overmix.

Spoon onto ungreased cookie sheets or parchment paper, making the dough balls small as they will spread when baking. Sprinkle lightly with nutmeg.

Bake 15-18 minutes or until the edges barely start to brown.

While cookies are in the oven, make the eggnog glaze by whisking together the powdered sugar with 3 tablespoons eggnog. Glaze cookies warm or cooled.

Printable Recipe

Go love on the special people in your lives!

Maybe make them some of these cookies.

Whatever you do, show them you love them and cherish your time together.

I know I will.

 














Merry Christmas to you all!

Peace, and bacon grease!

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Oatmeal Cookies with Dried Fruit

It's no secret that my favourite cookie is oatmeal raisin. There is something about the hearty chewiness and mild sweetness that I find very comforting. A good oatmeal cookie is halfway to being a granola bar, likely more healthy than supermarket granola bars anyway, and can be eaten at any time of day. They are the perfect treat to have in the cake dome for random munchies.

But sometimes I like to switch it up a bit; try new recipes, and new fruits.
For these oatmeal cookies I have used dried figs, apricots, and cranberries. Each cookie is a jeweled treasure.

Oatmeal Cookies with Dried Fruit
adapted from BHG New Baking Book
for Cookbook Sundays #10

Ingredients
¼ cup each- dried figs, apricots and cranberries. Snip the figs and apricots.
¾ cup butter, room temp
1 cup brown sugar, packed
½ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp baking soda
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
2 cups rolled oats
½ cup chopped nuts, such as hazelnuts or pecans (optional)

Directions
Preheat your oven to 375°F
Cream butter in your stand mixer with the paddle for a minute. Add in sugars and beat until well creamed.
Beat in baking powder, cinnamon, and baking soda.
Beat in egg and vanilla until combined.
Add in as much flour as you can with the paddle. Then start stirring with a heavy duty wooden spoon.
Add the remaining ingredients - batter will be quite stiff.
Mix until evenly incorporated.
Drop by large Tbsps onto a prepared baking sheet. I use a disher.
Bake at 375°F for 10 minutes, rotate pans and bake another couple of minutes, until you just start to see some colour around the edges and a little on top.
Let cool on racks.

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December's Secret Recipe Club - Peanut Butter Cookies w/ Peanut Butter Buttercream

Hey yall!

I'm back for another edition of The Secret Recipe Club. Why haven't you joined yet?

For December, I was assigned Katie's delightful blog, Betcha Can't Eat Just One. Man I need to get more on my baking grind like Katie!

Several recipes were calling my name, but when I saw her Peanut Butter Buttercream, I knew it was the one. PJ and I had recently ordered a dozen cupcakes and a few of them had this delicious peanut butter buttercream, so I had to try my hand at it. I decided to make her homemade Peanut Butter Cookies too (minus the bacon) to go along with the buttercream, since I'm not too big on brownies. Genius, I know. And the cookies are supposedly gluten-free so, win-win.

Peanut Butter Cookies with Peanut Butter Buttercream

adapted from Betcha Can't Eat Just One

Peanut Butter Cookies

• 1 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat the peanut butter and sugars together for about 2 minutes.  Add the egg and the baking soda.  Mix two minutes more.

Roll into walnut size balls, roll in sugar and flatten with a fork.

Bake 10-12 minutes. 

Let cool 5 minutes on the pan and then transfer to wire racks.

Peanut Butter Buttercream 

• 1/2 cup of softened, unsalted butter,
• 1/2 cup of peanut butter, 
• about 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp heavy cream. 

Beat the butter and peanut butter until it’s well combined.  Add the sugar, pinch of salt, then drizzle in some heavy cream and mix until everything is light and fluffy. Spread buttercream over cookies or make sandwich cookies. 

Printable Recipe

Make a cookie samich!

And don't forget to check out all of the other delectable recipes in the blog hop below:

Peace, and bacon grease!

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Treatsa: Hand Delivered Treats

It's that time of year again, when you're thinking of what gifts to give or send. As a food lover, I always want to send something food-related, but how do I send it to the people I won't see in person? Many bakeries/ chocolatieres offer some sort of expedited shipping, which tend to be pretty expensive and still take at least one or two days. And what if the products get ruined in transit? Treatsa tries to solve this problem by offering a service for hand delivering treats (currently only available in LA) from their partner bakery, one of the best and most well known in town.

Hand delivery costs $12 - comparable to usual shipping costs from bakeries, regardless of the order amount, so it's better if you go big. Treatsa picks up your order fresh from the bakery and delivers to your door the same day.
They offered to send me the "Premium Chef's Choice Package" ($50). They have smaller and bigger options as well. I scheduled my order for my last day in LA. The bell rang and there was the guy holding two boxes tied with red ribbons.

I think you can figure out which bakery they came from, yeah?

The Platinos

A huge box of cookies and more! And plenty of my fave, Brown Butter cookies with brown butter, chocolate chip, and sea salt.

Of course, the beauty of hand delivery is that you can get goodies that are typically not shippable, like these chocolate fleur de sel babycakes. I hope they will include the butterscotch pot de creme to at some point!

The total for this order is $62, which isn't a small amount to spend, and there were definitely A LOT of goodies. Send this to a big family, or an office. It's sure to please.

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For the Holidays and the Everydays: Valerie Confections

Valerie Confections was probably most well known for their toffees and their salt and pepper truffles, but their other items (including some new offerings) are also not to be missed.

They recently held a week-long Open House where each day they gave out free samples of a different product. I went to the cookies and hot chocolate one, but they also had samples of something else.
The new Super-Choc-O-Food is a collaboration with Commune Design. Much more than a chocolate bar, this dense, addictive goodness is filled with almonds, cashews, peanuts, macadamias, golden raisins, dried pears, apricots, sunflower seeds, soy salt, and caramel. So good, and uhh healthy(ish), right?

There are three different packaging for the Super Choc-o-Food. You'll find parts of a picture inside that you can collect, completing this Adam and Eve picture.

Among their cookies, my favorites were the Durango Cookies and the Gingersnap. The Durango was the best in flavor, made with chocolate chip and smoked salt, while the Gingersnap was the chewiest.

Valerie Confections also launched a new line of tea, blended for them by the American Tea Room in Beverly Hills. I got samples of three but so far have only tried one, the Black and Blue Tea, a blend of black tea and blueberry which smelled absolutely divine.

There are other products appropriate for that gift basket you're planning on giving your favorite food lover (*cough* me) like their hot chocolate mix, truffles, and preserves. Or, you can just treat yourself to some cookies.

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November's Secret Recipe Club - Nana's Snickerdoodles

That's right, friends. I'm back for another round of The Secret Recipe Club. I just can't get enough of it!

This month I was assigned the lovely blog, Miz Helen's Country Cottage, which I have been a longtime follower of anyway!  I love linking up to Miz Helen's weekly linky, Full Plate Thursday, and seeing how she fills her plate up each week. I was stoked to be able to actually take time to look through every single one of her recipes to pick the perfect one for us. Several caught my attention, but I finally settled on Nana's Snickerdoodles because I love her What's in the Cookie Jar segments, and these homemade cookies seemed perfect for a windy fall night to warm us up.

 

(Not My) Nana's Snickerdoodles

from Miz Helen's Kitchen

• 1 and 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup butter at room temperature
• 2 eggs
• 2 and 3/4 cups sifted flour
• 2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• equal parts cinnamon and sugar

Cream together the sugar, shortening, and butter in a large bowl. Add beaten eggs, one at a time. Stir in the remaining dry ingredients. Mix well. Roll dough into small balls using heaping teaspoons, and then roll the balls in a mixture of one part cinnamon and one part sugar. Place the small balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Do not flatten the dough balls. 

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Do not over bake, or they will get hard.

Printable Recipe

 

These were some tasty cookies, especially when eaten warm right out of the oven. PJ isn't a huge fan of cinnamon, so he thought they were fine but lacked flavor. I think I may have rolled them in too much cinnamon though, and next time I'd make sure to coat them in more sugar than cinnamon. They also were a bit eggy... I wonder how they would turn out with one egg instead of two. Overall, I was pleased with these cookies and would make them again, trying those changes. Nothing like the smell of cinnamon and some warm cookies to spruce up a fall evening.

As always, it's been fun participating in this month's Secret Recipe Club, and secretly following Miz Helen for the past month, hehe. Feel free to join in for next month! Also, be sure to check out the other awesome recipes in the blog hop below.

*Update: I just thought I'd let you guys know that I've been munching on these cookies for a couple days now, and they are still just as good... maybe even better! I'm beginning to think that maybe I like my cookies at room temp the next day best. They are sooooo good! They seem sweeter now, or maybe I was just crazy then? Either way, they're delicious. I'm off to finish them off now.

Peace, and bacon grease!

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Candy Cookies {Week 6 of The 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies and Sweets!}

I'm back for Week 6 of The 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies and Sweets challenge, though a little late I must admit. Usually we all post our recipes on Thursday. But luckily, she leaves the linky open for awhile for people like me to still link up a little late. Thank goodness, cuz I didn't wanna miss a week!

I had some Halloween candy leftover and thought this would be the perfect chance to use some up. So I adapted this recipe using the candy I already had: reeces pieces, heath bars, and butterfingers. Yes, all of that is going into these cookies! Can you say sugar overload?

And it was. Delicious and packed full of sweets. These cookies baked up large and thick, but not too cake-like. We both really liked them! I loved the crunch from the reeces pieces. I really just love reeces pieces anyways. And next time I think I'd add more butterfinger and heath. The bites that I did get that tasted like butterfinger were amazing. I want more of those next time, so I'll definitely add more butterfinger. I used 3 bite-sized butterfingers, chopped into pieces. Next time maybe I'd try 5, just to really get the butterfinger flavor. I've reflected that change in the recipe below. I also baked mine on a silicone baking mat, and they were a little too soft when I took them out after 15 minutes, so I stuck them in just a couple minutes longer. But start with 15 minutes and see how they're looking at that point.

I kinda wish I had more candy leftover to make more.

Maybe I should put those leftover candy sales at Kroger to good use and purchase some more so I can make more cookies like these? Should??? Probably not. But will I? Probably so.

Candy Cookies

adapted from Cookie Madness

* Yields 12 cookies

• 8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup Ghiradelli premium milk chocolate baking chips
• 1/2 cup reeces pieces
• 1/4 cup heath bars
• 5 bite-sized butterfingers

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Beat butter and brown sugar until creamy. Add egg and vanilla; beat well. Beat in baking soda and salt. Add flour and stir until mixed in.

Stir chocolate chips into the dough. Cut candy bars into small pieces and stir some into the dough, leaving some for decoration.

Scoop spoonfuls of dough onto cookie sheet and flatten slightly into mounds. Leave about 3 inches between cookies because they will spread as they bake. Press remaining candy decoratively into cookie mounds. 

Bake 15 minutes or until cookies are almost set. Do not overbake; centers should be slightly soft. Cool on baking sheet for about 7 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Printable Recipe

Don't forget to check out all of the wonderful holiday treats in the blog hop below :)

Peace, and bacon grease!

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Maple Cookies { Week 2 of The 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies and Sweets!}

Yes, yes you read that right. I am posting a recipe for Christmas in the beginning of October. That's cuz I'm playing along in a blog hop called The 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies (and Sweets!), hosted by the lovely Brenda at Meal Planning Magic. Every Thursday for 12 weeks leading up to Christmas, we link up a holiday cookie or dessert recipe. I really want to start baking more so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity, plus I love themed goodies! We're in week 2 of the 12 weeks, I missed the 1st week but it's all good :)


I found this recipe over at Big Flavors From A Tiny Kitchen some time ago, and finally found the perfect opportunity to make them. 

The batter was actually very sticky and hard to manage. Definitely couldn't roll it into balls like Ashley did (dunno what I did wrong!) because it just got stuck all over my hands and would NOT form into a ball. So after I had to wipe all the gunk off and wash my hands, I decided to just scoop the balls by the spoonful onto the greased baking sheet, and then attempt to flatten it with a spoon, again with not very much success as it kept sticking to the spoon. Mess fest! And since I couldn't form balls I also didn't roll it in sugar, so I just sprinkled some granulated sugar on the top of each glob. Next time I'd try chilling the batter first and seeing if that makes it more roll-able.


I thought they turned out pretty good. I wasn't blown away by them, as I didn't think they were sweet enough. Maybe they needed more brown sugar or more sprinkled sugar on top? But then again, I didn't measure out the granulated sugar, I just sprinkled some on top of each cookie before baking. So maybe I needed to sprinkle more on. They also came out to more of a cake-like, blondie-like consistency... maybe because I didn't and couldn't flatten them very much? PJ wasn't too fond of them because he doesn't like thick, super soft cookies that taste more like cake than a cookie. Also, there was a hint of maple flavor but I could definitely up that amount too! 

So for next time, I would up the sugar and maple amount, as well as attempt to flatten them more somehow so that they don't bake so thick but more thin and possibly less cake-like. But I love the idea of it, because I really do love maple flavor. 


I cut the recipe down quite a bit since I didn't need to make 60 cookies! I only made 15 cookies so I pretty much cut all measurements down by 1/4th. Also, the original recipe calls for one egg, so I just tried to add about 1/4th of an egg, which obviously isn't an exact measurement. Maybe this could have possibly contributed to some of the mishaps? But how the heck do you measure out 1/4th of an egg?! I also didn't bother measuring out the granulated sugar because the original recipe called for 1/3 cup and there was no way I was going to try to measure out 1/12 cup lol! Again, that may have been a reason they weren't sweet enough.

Maple Cookies

ever so slightly adapted from Big Flavors From A Tiny Kitchen

*Yields: 15 cookies

• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/4 of an egg
• 1/4 cup real maple syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• granulated sugar, for topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease cookie sheet with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar. Add the egg, syrup and vanilla. Mix until well blended. Sift together the flour, salt and baking soda. Stir into mixture until well blended. Chill the batter for 5 to 10 minutes at least to make it moldable. Shape into 1 inch balls or scoops with a spoon, placing on cookie sheet about 2 inches apart and flatten slightly. Sprinkle cookies with granulated sugar.

Bake 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Let cool on a wire rack.

Printable Recipe

Though this recipe is for a Christmas-themed linky, you sure can make these cookies any ole time. They feature maple, so they're also perfect for fall and Thanksgiving as well. 


My blogging friend, Kristen, suggested that I maybe add some kind of frosting. Well that's genius! I've still got some cookies left... maybe I'll find some kind of maple frosting to put on top to make them even sweeter and to bring out more of the maple flavor. Thanks, girl!

You can check out all of the other delicious holiday treats below! And feel free to contact Brenda if you wanna join in on the fun :)

Peace, and bacon grease!

 

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