Butterscotch Macadamia Cookies

Hey Blog peeps!  Apologies again for the long pause between recipes.  Having a baby is a lot of work, it turns out. HAHA. That probably is not a huge surprise to many of you, but this is definitely more time consuming than I initially anticipated.  Holy diapers. and Laundry. And lack of nap time. yikes.

Yesterday my sister was on baby duty keeping him well entertained, so I decided to whip up a twist on an old favorite, butterscotch macadamia nut cookies. yummers.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking powder
dash salt
1 1/4 cups flour
1 cup butterscotch chips
1/2 cup macadamia nuts, chopped

Per the usual process, start with the butter and sugar, then mix in the other ingredients, leaving the chips and nuts for last.  Then roll into 1 inch balls, and spread out on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

Bake at 375F for 10  minutes, and voila!

These were very tasty and gooey straight out of the oven.  I am currently struggling to not eat every last one of them.  Makes about a dozen cookies.  Enjoy!

Chocolate Mint Snowcap Cookies

Hi blog readers!  I've finally gotten around to blogging about my holiday baking, which, in comparison to past years, was rather underwhelming.  Unfortunately I was only able to pull of 2 different kinds of cookies in between diaper and outfit changes, as opposed to my usual 6-8.  Maybe next year I'll have a better handle on this baby-stuff and I'll be back to business as usual.  I do have a fun new recipe to share with you though!  These chocolaty, minty gooey cookies are really tasty, and definitely have a great winter flavor combo going on.  Give them a shot!

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp peppermint extract
1 cup melted semi sweet chocolate pieces
1 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
dash salt
powdered sugar for rolling

Mix together your butter and sugar first, then add in your eggs, extracts and melted chocolate.  Finally mix in the flour, baking powder, and salt until evenly mixed.  Then fold in your white chocolate chips.  Stick the dough in the fridge for a good 30 minutes to make it easier to handle.

To form your cookies, take tablespoon sized balls and roll them in powdered sugar so they are completely covered.  Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

Super sunny kitchen.  Moving on. Bake at 350F for 12 minutes.

yummers.

I also made some Oreo-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies since they were so well received last year.

These things were just as ridiculous as I remembered.  Yum.

We hope you all had a fabulous holiday!

Dark Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Yayyy!  I finally managed to bake something.  It was quite a process and it wasn't easy, what with the feedings and burpings and changes in between.  but I did it successfully and now I'm attempting to even blog about it.  Go me, Go.

I found this lovely recipe on pinterest and its really quite delicious and very Oreo-like.  I think I'll even try that sometime with a simple sandwich cookie.  But this time around, i decorated some sugar cookies for our upstairs neighbors, who just welcomed a little person of there own, only a few days before us.

Ingredients:
1/2 lb. (two US sticks) butter
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 scant cup dark cocoa powder
Pinch of salt

So, this little adventure started out with this....

You see: sleeping baby.  I see: Opportunity. So I gathered my baking tools.  Which included cookie cutters, and a baby monitor...

Then I got to work!

First off, I whipped up the dough according to the recipe.  Then I went to feed the baby and came back several hours later....

 

Roll out, and cut into various baby and holiday themed shapes.

 

I particularly liked the advice to refrigerate the cut outs for 30 minutes, which allowed them to better keep their shape in the oven.  Fabulous advice.  And gave me an opportunity to check on this guy.

 

 

Bake for 25 minutes at 350F

 

So, that was about all I could accomplish in one parenting filled day.  However, after a night of hanging out in tupperware, I managed to whip up some quick frosting and decorate these bad boys.

 

 

 

I decorated a few for us too, some were cuter than others.  The Christmas bells were particularly bad.

 

 

 

Into a little gift box  and we're ready for delivery!

 

 

Hopefully it wont be too long until my next baking endeavor.  I'll definitely be doing some Christmas baking if time (and Hunter) allows!

 

Happy Holidays!