Cookie Riffs....

A few years ago I found a cookie recipe in Real Simple (I think...) that had one dough for 8 different cookies! It was amazing! With variations on one dough - most made after the dough was completely made - I was able to create a number of vastly different cookies. That recipe made a shortbread style cookie - it was delicious, but I wanted to try the same thing with a chewy style cookie.

With that in mind, I made some substitutions to the ginger molasses cookie in the post below. The result is a soft chewy sugar cookie - a bit like a crisp cherry chew, but a bit more fluffy. I'm not a crisp cherry chew fan, but the dough was just the base.
Here are the modifications:
- Omit spices, except salt
- Add 2 tsp Vanilla
- Use Corn Syrup instead of Molasses (& perhaps a bit less)
- Do not roll dough in sugar

Here's what I've made so far...
After making the dough, I divided it in half and added 1/2 c cocoa powder to half the dough. This worked b/c I think I didn't use quite enough flour (I used a scale rather than scoop and level). If you use the scoop and level, you may want to use slightly less cocoa powder or use less flour. You want the dough to be fairly stiff and able to pull together a bit in the mixer when being mixed.

Peppermint Puffs
- I made these with both the chocolate and vanilla dough. Crush candy canes and roll balls of dough in candy cane, bake on parchment or foil per directions. Allow to cool completely before moving, but may slide parchment of pan after cooling 2 minutes.

Chocolate Cherry Surprise
- Shape each ball of dough around a maraschino cherry (use maraschino, not candied). Roll balls in powdered sugar and bake as usual. These were a BIG hit with me and Isla - very pretty and very tasty, if you like maraschino cherries.

Guess Who's Back!?!

Hi Familia,
I've been bit with the recipe blogging bug again...and based on that exchange of e-mails that I've yet to read, some of you are too!

Here are some fun substitutions I've been using on my soy/dairy & nut free diet.

- Coconut yogurt - a little sweeter than regular, but an excellent substituation
- Palm Oil Shortening - in my opinion better than Crisco, b/c there is no weird flavor
- Oatmeal in Place of Nuts - you can toast, grind, and basically use oatmeal to replace nuts in all sorts of recipes - especially baked goods.

Here's my favorite holiday cookie recipe:
Chewy Ginger Cookies
(based on BHG Giant Ginger Cookies, but there recipe makes 25 cookies, this version makes 50)
- 4 1/2 C AP Flour (use the scoop & level method, not a scale - the dough will not be dry enough if you use precisely weighed flour)
- 4 tsp ground ginger
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp cloves
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 C shortening
- 2 C sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 C molasses
- 3/4 C coarse sugar or granulated sugar

- Set oven at 350 degrees
- Whisk dry ingredients
- Cream sugar and shortening, add in eggs and molasses
- Stir / beat in dry ingredients
- Roll cookies into 1 1/2 inch balls and roll in sugar - different sizes of sugar create different crunchiness and aesthetic.
- Place balls on parchment paper
- Bake 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes until cookies are puffed. Cookies will seem under done, but do not over cook or cookies will not be chewy.
- Cool 2 minutes on the sheet and then transfer to rack
(You can play with the spices & make these molasses cookies with less ginger, or add candied ginger for even more awesome ginger-ness.)

Here's another -
Stained Glass Cookies
(Inspired from BHG, but I use the sugar cookie recipe from KAF but omitted the spices.)
Cutout cookies using linzer tort with center of cookie removed. Place cookies on tinfoil on baking sheet.
Crush hard candies and place crushed candy in center of cookie cut out. Bake as usual and allow to cool on tinfoil until candy is hard in the center and gently remove from tinfoil.
Candy will be rock hard at first, but after being boxed for a day it will soften slightly.
Sugar Cookies aren't my thing, but this was still pretty tasty.