Candy Shop Biscotti

Every once in a while I need to do a "pantry clean out" of sorts to take stock of all of my random baking supplies.  More often than not, this ends up spawning some kind of creative cookie idea, once I realize I'm hoarding a certain ingredient, or I need to use leftover supplies to make room etc...  I've made a lot of "chip cookies" as of late, and upon cupboard inspection I discovered a plethora of nearly empty "chip bags" Chocolate chip, butterscotch chip, white chocolate chips and M&M's. 

After some deliberation I figured I would use all of these tasty leftovers together for a super-candy-packed creation.  I dumped them all together, busted out a basic biscotti recipe, and went to work.

Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
random candy mixture

First off, mix together all of your dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Form a "well" in the flour mixture, and add your eggs and egg yolks to the well.  Also add in your vanilla extract.

Mix the eggs and vanilla into the flour, then add in your melted butter and mix until evenly distributed.  The dough will be a bit crumbly at this point.  That's OK.  But if it looks too dry, try adding a couple tablespoons of milk.

Now its candy time!

Form your dough into 3 11 inch long logs.  Flatten out the tops of the logs, as the dough will rise and spread out a bit during baking.  As always, place them on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake at 325 for about 27-28 minutes, just until the logs are golden brown, and pass the toothpick test.  Allow them to cool off for 15 minutes or so, before attempting to slice.

During the slicing process, there was a tiny bit of drama, whereby I nearly sliced my thumb off with our super sharp serrated bread knife.  Joe had to step in and finish the slicing for me.

Thanks Hubby.

Pop these suckers back in the oven for 8 more minutes.

Flip them over, then back in for a final 8 minutes.

Yum.  I was planning on also dipping these in some chocolate that I had lying around, but after the near thumb-amputation, I lost my motivation.  They were still very tasty, but the chocolate dip would have put them over the edge...

Maybe next time.  Until then, I will be avoiding sharp objects.

Have a great weekend everyone!

M&M and Butterscotch Cookies for the New Year

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope you all had a fabulous holiday season.  Baking has been minimal the last week or so as I wind down from the holiday craziness, but I did whip up some kid friendly cookies for a group trip up to New Hampshire on New Years Eve!

I made some colorful M&M cookies.

As well as (my favorite) Butterscotch Chip Cookies. 

Both were well received, and on the two night weekend away, the two batches only lasted about half way through the first night.  That, my dears, is affirmation of yumminess.  Note the improved quality of the photos. Thanks for the new camera mama bear :) I'm a lucky girl. 

Here's me in my new apron that my husband bought me for Christmas!  Love!

And Munchkin.  The cutest cat on earth.

Confirmed.

Coffee Snap Cookies

Happy hump day blog readers!  Time for me to share one of my all-time favorite cookies.  I don't know why I love these so much, but I do.  They are different and light and super yummy with a nice cup of coffee or tea.  The recipe is slightly adapted from the frequently mentioned Ultimate Cookie Book.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter softened
1/4 cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
dash salt
2 tablespoons instant coffee powder
1 tablespoon hot water
1 egg
2 cups flour
sugar for dusting
whole coffee beans (about 36)

First off, cream together your butter, shortening and sugars until well blended. (Check out the action shot). Add in your baking powder and salt.

Next up dissolve your instant coffee in 1 tablespoon of hot water.  Then add that into your butter mixture, along with the egg.

Form your dough into 3 7-inch long logs.  The width of the log will be the size of your cookie, so don't go too thin.  Then it's time to chill the dough.  I stuck mine in the freezer for about an hour or so.

While the dough was chilling, I got my little work station set up, complete with a cup of coffee and baileys.  Yum.

Start slicing your cookies about 1/4 inch in width.  They will spread out a little bit on the cookie sheet, so definitely don't make them too thin....

Then it's time to adorn them with a little extra sugar sprinkle and a coffee bean.  I went for one bean on each cookie, but the original recipe called for 3, along with a sprinkle of espresso powder.  I opted to keep things simple.

Into the oven at 375 for 9 minutes.

These definitely weren't the prettiest cookie on the platter.  But I love them. Like really love them.  It's a good thing I gave them all away.  Otherwise I would have eaten every. last. one.

 All in all, it was a good holiday for baking.  I also whipped up a pie:

And oogled over my cat:

I hope you're all having a good week settling in post-holiday.  Enjoy your New Years and Happy Baking!

Oreo-Stuffed Chocolate Chip and Confetti Sugar Cookies

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas yesterday!  As a part of my big cookie platters this year, I took 2 ideas away from the huge Food Blogger Cookie Swap round ups: Confetti Cookies which I did a bit differently but used the some basic concept (so pretty!) and Oreo-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies which are just as ridiculously wonderful as they sound!

For the confetti cookies, I decided to use my own basic Sugar cookie recipe (I like sticking to the tried and true) and add in the confetti sprinkles.  I then decorated them as I normally would rolled sugar cookies, although I will definitely try them as sandwich cookies at some point.  Yum.

I really love the concept of these cookies, they are so so pretty and festive. 

I used the same pink/red (really it was pink) frosting and a few white decorating sprinkles to come up with these cute little guys.  They were my Cousin Steve's favorite.

Next up I worked on the oreo-Stuffed chocolate chip cookies. 

These bad boys were ENORMOUS.

Haha, I think I maybe put a little too much dough around the outside of the oreos....but hey, who doesn't love a giant cookie?

I didn't bite into any of them because I only got about 14 out of the batch.  But you can sneak a peak at an oreo here:

Yum.

Stay tuned this week for a full recipe for MY favorite cookie from this years Christmas platter: The Coffee snap.  Happy shopping to those who are braving the malls today.... I will be plopped in front of the fireplace for the duration.

Happy Baking!

Holiday Baking: Rice Krispie Wreaths

Merry Almost Christmas!  Today was my annual bakepalooza day where I made 5 different kinds of cookies for both a cookie platter headed to our Buell Family Christmas Eve party and also Cookie gift boxes that I've been giving out to friends and family the last couple of years.  I will Share the recipes for each of the cookies above, but for now I'll star with the Rice Krispie Wreaths.

Following the same basic recipe I've used in the past, I basically just added TONS of green food coloring to the melted Marshmallow and Butter.

Then I folded the green stuff into the awaiting rice krispies....

Then I shaped the ooey goey mess into little wreaths, like so...

Then it was time to decorate them with little bows.  I didn't have an gel food coloring (fail) so I used regular red food coloring, which really just gave me pink frosting.  But hey, I like pink.  I went with it...

I also made the anise biscotti that was such a big hit a few months back to add to the cookie boxes....

Recipes to come: Confetti Sugar cookies, Coffee Snaps, and (brace yourself) Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies!  I'll get the recipes up as soon as I can!  Everyone have a fabulous holiday, enjoy, relax and be safe!

-S