Tag Archives: cookies

Oatmeal Lace Cookies

My Food Network Magazine arrived just in time this year — just in time for me to put some of their recipes from the December/Holiday issue to test over Thanksgiving. Next weekend I am attending a friend’s annual cookie exchange party and it’s always fun because I get to: stuff my face with cookies, have about a week’s worth of cookies in my kitchen (which usually lasts me the weekend), and I pick up on some great baking inspiration — and lets admit it, I need as much baking advice & tips as I can get! We all know, I am a cook — not a brilliant baker.

My sister can agree with me on that, that I am not the best baker. One holiday she asked me to help her bake dozens of cookies to put together some holiday cookie tins for her boyfriend’s family (they are now her inlaws). Well, in a nutshell, I accidentally flung several egg whites across her kitchen — causing a major mess on her walls. Then, I, um, probably was the one that accidentally, um, put in double the amount of baking soda into her chocolate chip cookie recipe.

So what, that’s the past. And now, I am at least much more aware of my baking actions.

Below is my favorite cookie recipe that I tested out this weekend from FNM’s brilliant “Cookie Countdown” spread. I have to say they were a hit at my friend Jesse’s Thanksgiving lunch, they were adored by my father who is a more “traditional oatmeal cookie type of man”, and my mother put in a special request that I bake her more before heading off to work again tomorrow.

So here they are — FNM’s Oatmeal Lace Cookies. Try not to eat the batter, it’s pretty darn tasty and you probably won’t be able to stop gobbling up all of the buttery batter; but I promise the baked cookies will be just as fabulous!

Nom, nom! Enjoy! And, Happy Holidays!


The Recipe for Oatmeal Lace Cookies:
Ingredients:
1 Stick Unsalted Butter
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup rolled oats (not instant)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon beaten egg white
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

Directions:
1. Position the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Melt the butter with the sugar in a saucepan over low heat, stirring, until the mixture thickens and the sugar is almost dissolved, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in the oats, flour, vanilla and salt. Let cool 10 minutes, then stir in the egg white.
3. drop 6 rounded tablespoonfuls of the batter onto each prepared baking sheet, about 3 1/2 inches apart. Spread each mound into a 3-inch circle. Bake, switching the position of the pans halfway through, until golden brown, 12-15 minutes. Let cool on the baking sheets until firm, about 3 minutes, then carefully remove using a thin metal spatula and transfer to a rack to cool completely.
4. Put the chocolate in a small microwave-safe bowl and microwave in 30-second intervals, stirring, until melted. Drizzle on the cookies and let set, about 30 minutes.

(note: this isn’t my own personal recipe, it’s taken word-for-word from FNM. And, I highly recommend trying this recipe, it’s brilliant and is perfect for Holiday cookie parties, and just plain ol’ every day cookie eating!)

Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have been on one heck of a Ree Drummond kick lately! This chef is a fairly new addition to the Food Network channel and I am loving her show every Saturday morning. There’s something about homemade food, cooked in the middle of nowhere, that’s whipped up on a ranch filled with cowboys. Anything that’s homemade, homestyle, and baked with love I’m sure tastes fantastic.

The other week I made Ree’s Spinach and Mushroom Quesadillas — and since then I have managed to pass this recipe along to all of my coworkers and a number of friends. All have cooked-up the recipe and they loved it!

I was totally infatuated with Ree’s episode the other week where she baked Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies. Here’s what I loved about it: she adds an ingredient that I never knew could be added to a cookie recipe — malted milk, while the cookies bake they end up spreading out and baking flat because of this special ingredient, and you have the choice of making the cookie crunchy or chewy. Since I prefer my cookies to be crunchy, yet so many prefer them to be chewy, I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and make half the batch my preferred way and the other half the way my friends would enjoy it.

Since I recently got a KitchenAid mixer for Christmas, I knew baking these cookies would be easy. But, I realized quickly that I owned only a few ingredients. Since I now have a mixer, I knew it was time for me to buy basic ingredients — like flour, sugar, etc. So off to the store I went.

When I got home from Trader Joe’s I put all of the ingredients I would need on the counter. They include: unsalted butter, brown sugar, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, flour, baking soda, baking soda, salt, malted milk powder, and milk chocolate chips. (And just like Ree, I figured I would take a photo for you.)

While the oven preheated to 375 degrees, I added the room temperature unsalted butter to the mixer, gave it a bit of a stir and combined it with 3/4 cups brown sugar and 3/4 cups sugar. Once the three ingredients were mixed together and became fluffy in consistency I added the 2 eggs and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract to the mixture. With the mixer still on, I added 1/2 cup malted milk powder. While the ingredients were mixing, I sifted together the following: 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1 1/4 teaspoon salt. With the KitchenAid mixer on low, I added the ingredients to the bowl. Once all of the ingredients were combined, the chocolate chips were gently stirred in. By this time the oven was preheated and ready to go!

I placed small scoops of the cookie dough onto the cookie sheet. Plenty of space between the cookies was needed since the cookies become flat when they bake and they end up taking double the space on the sheet compared to the stereotypical chocolate chip cookie. I baked for 12 minutes for my crispy cookies and 10 minutes for my chewy cookies.

I couldn’t get over how easy it was to make cookies from scratch! Well, it was easy after I lugged home all of the heavy ingredients from the grocery store.

For the rest of the weekend I couldn’t stop indulging in the cookies I had made. I loved that my crispy cookies were crispy on the outside but still had a soft chewy texture on the inside.

There’s nothing like baking home made chocolate chip cookies and making your entire apartment building hallway smell like cookie dough. I’m sure I made my neighbors very jealous!

Trader Joe’s “Dunkers” Cookies

Have you ever heard how big chain stores will put products you don’t really need on a shelf at the end of the aisle?? They do that because they know they will sell more items. That’s where customers are sucked into buying things that they probably don’t need. Well, I have to thank Trader Joe’s for doing this because if they hadn’t applied this method in their store then I probably would have never discovered the most delicious cookies! While making my weekly run to the store I eyed down cookies called “Dunkers.” They are “oatmeal cranberry cookies with a white fudge drizzle.” How delicious does that sound? I grabbed a tub of the cookies along with other groceries and headed to the checkout line. As soon as I got home, I opened the container of cookies and dug in! I wanted to taste them before I offered them to my friend Ken during our ‘Modern Family dinner night.’ I took one bite and spooked Hudson when I yelped “YUMMMMM!” I am close to finishing the tub of cookies and it has only been a few days. I hope everyone who has a Trader Joe’s finds these cookies and gives them a shot. I promise you, you’ll be surprised and will fall in love with these treats!