Shortbread Snickerdoodles?

This is sort of a cheatin' post.

Back in early November, I was shopping in Whole Foods, and I saw these on the shelf.

I snatched them up right away, because I love shortbread and I love snickerdoodles.

They were SO delicious. But, alas, they sold out quickly.

As I was eating them, I had an idea. The shortbread reminded me very much of another cookie

One of our favorite Christmas cookies to bake when my children were growing up was Russian Tea Cakes.  I have had this cookbook since 1986 as you can tell by the condition.

The Shortbread cookies tasted very similar, and I figured that adding some cinnamon to the powdered sugar would mimic the snickerdoodle taste. Melt in your mouth delicious.

Unfortunately, I can't give you a verdict because my oven is on the fritz. But what do you think? Will this work?

The Great Christmas Tree Hunt of 2016, and Orange-Molasses Snickerdoodles

It's that time again!

Our midday view to the south in December.

Long nights, short days, and Christmas trees!!!

Every year, on the first Sunday afternoon in December, folks from our church make a mad dash up into the Hills. We spend a couple hours tromping through the woods, looking for the perfect Christmas tree, then head back to the church for a chili supper.

After many years (this is the sixth year for our family!), we've developed a method that has proven successful every time.

The first ones to arrive at base camp build a fire.

Then we gather, spending many minutes chatting and visiting. Thatcher made a new friend this year. :)

He wasn't too sure about Titus until a snack was shared between boy and dog. Now they're best buds.

But finally, all have arrived and it's time to head into the forest with our saws and high hopes of finding the perfect tree.

Thatcher has an unusual hunting technique. He runs as fast as he can until he thinks we're too far behind. Then he races back, tags one of us, and he's off again. By the end of the hunt, he was one tired Corgi!

And then - look! - can it be? The perfect tree?

It takes experience to pick the perfect tree from 1.2 million acres of forest! The one to the left looks good, until you notice the big hole on the lower right. The one in back? WAY too big! That one in the front center?

Yes, I see the hole on the right side of this one, too. Shhh! It will look beautiful once it's decorated!

The next step is to cut our perfect tree and carry it back to the car.

Before you wonder if our adventure is beneficial and legal...yes, and yes. Cutting the trees this way helps thin out the smaller trees, which can grow in thick groves, stunting the growth of all of them. The trees are much healthier if there is space between them and plenty of room to grow. Thinning the trees helps cut down on Pine Beetle damage and forest fires.

Legal? Yes, we bought our permit!

Then, finally, once everyone has chosen successfully bagged their trees, we all pose for a group picture.

With all those hungry, cold people who have spent the afternoon hiking and hauling trees, you'd think the chili supper would be a hit. And you would be right!

I took a crock pot full of my favorite chili (you can find that recipe here), and we also had venison chili, Cincinnati-style chili, two kinds of white chili, a half-dozen pots of chili of various degrees of heat, some beef stew, and Dan's chili. Dan's chili is more than spicy. It's in a class by itself!

But this year, I thought I'd share the dessert that my daughter, Carrie, brought.

Orange-Molasses Snickerdoodles

The original recipe for these cookies came from the Food Network magazine (a great magazine for people who love to cook!), but Carrie substituted candied orange peel for the orange zest. Delicious!

ingredients:

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup plus 3 Tablespoons sugar

1 large egg

2 Tablespoons molasses

1/2 teaspoon finely grated orange zest

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 400°.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

Beat the butter and 3/4 cup sugar in a large bowl with a mixer on medium-high speed until fluffy, about three minutes. Beat in the egg, then the molasses and orange zest.

Reduce the mixer speed to low. Then beat in the flour mixture until just combined.

Combine the cinnamon and the remaining 3 Tablespoons sugar in a small bowl. Roll heaping Tablespoonfuls of dough into balls, then roll in the cinnamon sugar to coat.

Arrange 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets. 

Bake until the cookies are just set around the edges but the centers are still soft, 11-13 minutes. Let cool 3 minutes on the baking sheets, then transfer to racks to cool completely.

Carrie added a squiggle of Royal Icing and some sprinkles to dress the cookies up for Christmas.

And how are the newlyweds doing? Getting ready to spend their first married Christmas together!

In other exciting news, "Hannah's Choice" is available in e-book for only 99 cents!!!

Go Here to get a copy for your Nook from Barnes and Noble,

or go Here to get a copy from Amazon for your Kindle.

Jan Drexler loves her family, her home, cooking and just about anything made by hand. But she loves her Lord most of all.

Stop by Jan's website to learn more about her books: www.JanDrexler.com

All those leftovers

You've probably seen recipes galore for Thanksgiving leftovers...

But what if what's left over isn't a turkey, but a veggie roast?

Last week I shared the nut loaf my daughter and I made last year. It was heavenly. This year she wanted to try something different. It was called a nut loaf, but it was much lighter on the nuts and heavier on the vegetables.

I took pictures as we went.

First we assembled the lentil and brown rice mixture.


In a separate pan, we sauteed shredded carrots, celery, mushrooms, red onion, and shredded kale.

Then everything got blended together.

That got molded into a loaf (with the overflow in a pie tin because we wanted to compare textures).

I'll be honest, I liked last year's nut loaf better, but this made for a lovely veggie loaf.

After eating leftovers for 3 days, I wanted something different.

So, I had some really (REALLY) tart cranberry sauce that my daughter made. I added a bit of coconut palm sugar and some frozen pineapple and it made a delicious sweetly tart sauce to douse the loaf with. Yum.

I also melted American cheese on some leftover loaf for lunch. Clearly it made a lot!



Then there was leftover dessert.

This really had nothing to do with Thanksgiving. I was in a big fancy store )that shall remain nameless) and they were selling containers of snickerdoodles. After many days of pie, the cookies appealed to me.

Blah.

They had no flavor. It really tasted like someone had put plain sugar cookies in the snickerdoodle box.

So, I took some of the pecans left over from the yams and I mixed them with the coconut palm sugar and placed the lovely mix on my cookies and baked for a few minutes. Much better.

Plain cookies

sugar and pecans

All better!

Snickerdoodle Cookies in a Pinch

Missy, here. And I'm sorry to be posting late! I was watching Grey's Anatomy that I had on DVR and was BAWLING MY EYES OUT. And totally forgot to put up a post.

When I realized it was after midnight and was Friday, I went flying to my phone to look at photos I'd made recently of food. And came up with…

Snickerdoodle cookies. :) Made with a mix, of course.

I had to make these late one Saturday night when I remembered I needed to take food to church the next morning. Went digging in my pantry and found this.

All I needed to add was a stick of butter, an egg, and some water. (I'm sorry for the sideways photo! No time to go edit it.)

The mix is simple.  Set aside the cinnamon sugar packet. Just melt the butter. Mix all the ingredients.

Then take a small amount of dough and form into balls. Roll each one in the cinnamon sugar mix. Then place on the baking sheet.

Then bake according to directions. They turned out really good! I wanted a lot of cookies so I made them really small. Everyone enjoyed them!

If you haven't watched the newest Grey's episode yet, I won't give any spoilers. Just know YOU NEED KLEENEX!

www.missytippens.com

Oh! My newest book from Love Inspired, The Doctor's Second Chance, is on shelves this week!! I'm very excited!

Celebrity Chef In the House!

Today we are thrilled to have the winner of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Very Merry Cookie Challenge, my friend (yes, Ruthy, I have more than one), Andrea Hicks.

<Cheers and applause>

Andrea is one fantabulous cook. It's been proven that Sunday School attendance is higher when she brings the refreshments. I'm just sayin'.

This year, Andrea delved into the world of contest by entering the annual Fort Worth Star-Telegram contest. Not only did she take the grand prize, the panel of eight professional bakers unanimously voted her Chai Snickerdoodles the winner!

Andrea, we’re so excited to have you in the café today. Scoot yourself on up to counter and tell us how you came up with your winning recipe?

           

Hey Mindy! My mom had a Christmas cookie exchange every year, and the snickerdoodle recipe was one of my favorites. It was the first cookie I learned to bake by myself. It got tweaked a bit when I ran out of white sugar and ended up with half white and half brown. I made them for my friends every year in high school as a Christmas gift. When I decided to enter the contest, I looked for a way to make the recipe stand out. My usual go-to recipes include chocolate in some form (or many forms), but the contest details said they got a lot of chocolate entries. Snickerdoodles are my daughter’s favorite, and it’s a good base dough to play with. Then my son brought home a bag of cinnamon chips from work (he works at Kroger), and they were sitting in the pantry, so I thought I'd try adding those to the mix. I tried a couple of different things to roll them in. I really wanted to make Starbucks Via mixes work somehow, but that one is still in the development stage. I like chai tea, and tried it on a few, and it really tasted good. Family members make good guinea pigs. 

What went through your mind when you found out all eight judges had unanimously voted your cookie number one?

I was crazy excited!!! I think I drove my husband and kids crazy bouncing around the house saying, "Guess what? I won!!" about every half-hour.

What did they have to say when they found out you’d won?

My husband just kept (keeps) saying how proud he is of me. The kids were both excited as well. My son bragged about the cookies at work, and asked me to bake them for his Christmas party. I have a good family!

So where do you go from here? Are there any more contests on the horizon?

I was actually searching online for a contest this weekend, might enter it in the Taste of Home cookie contest. I haven't entered a lot of contests in the past, just one in Indiana where I got a second place prize in a chocolate cookie contest. Beyond that, who knows? 

Ah yes, I can see it now…. Soon you’ll be competing on the Food Network.

 

Well, Andrea, let's whip up a batch up your winning cookies so everyone can have a taste.

 

Here's what you're going to need:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup shortening (the butter/shortening combination makes for a softer cookie. If you prefer your cookies crispy, use all butter)
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar (Mindy note: I used dark brown because it's what I had on hand)
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup Hershey's cinnamon chips
• 4 tablespoons Oregon Chai Tea Latte Mix (or equivalent)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix butter and sugars until creamy; mix in eggs.

 

Combine flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt, and stir into creamed mixture. Stir in cinnamon chips. These are new from Hershey and they are, indeed, tasty little morsels.

 

Scoop dough into 1-inch balls and roll in chai mix to coat. Place on cookie sheets about two inches apart. Bake 7-9 minutes. Cool slightly on pan until firm before transferring to cooling rack.

 

 

Oh my, do these babies make the house smell yummy while they're baking. One bite and you'll know why they're winners.

 



 

Andrea, I'm so glad you dropped by to share these with us. They're definitely going into my baking/holiday repertoire. Now the whole world can enjoy chai snickerdoodles.

 

Merry Christmas, y'all!

 

 

OOOPS! Let's Do Snickerdoodle Saturday!

You know, I thought of this yesterday, that I didn't have anything locked and loaded.

And then forgot!  Oh my stars, it's 10:30 and the Cafe was DARK....

No coffee. No pastries.

Sigh.....

Beth's making coffee for us right now. I've got the makings of Banana Cream pie for tonight... Umm... you can't eat it yet but feel free to think about eating it. The delicate blend of delicious sweet and fruity flavors balanced by flaky crust.

:)

Coffee's ready. Feel free to jump in and make me feel less stupid.

If that's possible.

Oh, sigh.

So, to make up for my ineptness or ineptitude (your choice/word choice) I'm going to show you a Ruthy-trick.

THIS IS NOT A TRICK I SHARE, SO:  SHHHHH..........................

From one basic batch of Snickerdoodle dough, I make three distinct cookies. So you start with my variation of a simple Snickerdoodle dough which produces a GREAT cookie. No lie.

3 Cups sugar
1 cup stick butter, (softened)
1 cup Crisco
4 large eggs
5 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg

(Betty's recipe calls for cream of tartar. Cream of tartar makes your cookies crisp. We like chewy cookies, so I leave it out. If you want crisp cookies, add in 4 teaspoons cream of tartar. I do not for the life of me know why you would choose to do this, but hey:  it's a free world, right?)

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix sugar, butter, shortening and eggs in large bowl on medium speed. Add in flour, baking soda and salt. Cookies should bake only until the edges are slightly golden... 7-9 minutes depending on your oven. Darker cookies will be crisper and not as people-friendly.

Easy, right?  And it stays easy.

Using about 1/3 of the dough:

Shape dough into balls. For traditional snickerdoodles, roll balls in a mix of cinnamon and sugar. (If you don't keep a bowl of cinnamon and sugar in the cupboard for toast and bagels and little children, this is a good time to start. Or, just add teaspoons of cinnamon to a 1/4 cup of sugar and mix. Roll balls in this and place on baking sheet about 2 inches apart.)

Traditional Snickerdoodles

Grab another 1/3 of the dough:

Do the exact same thing only no cinnamon. When cookies come out of oven, poke 6 or 7 M&M's into the soft surface of the cookies. Baked M&M's aren't as pretty as freshly poked M&M's. Really. Trust me on this. You M&M's stay perky if you poke them into the really warm cookie.

These are M&M version. The kids wanted these "glazed" too, but it isn't necessary. Really. But it didn't hurt anything, either.  I'm just sayin'...

Grab the last 1/3 of your dough:

Repeat, using no cinnamon. Roll the cookies into balls and bake. THEN:

Using a pastry brush, glaze still warm cookies with a thin glaze. Glaze is made with 1 cup powdered sugar (also known as confectioner's sugar and 10X sugar) and enough milk to make a thin frosting, the consistency of paint. Swab the cookies with a quick sweep of frosting, then sprinkle them with jimmies or sprinkles or non-pareils or something festive.

These little babies are a favorite around here. The hint of nutmeg in the cookie is a great balance to the thin frosting and sprinkles. And this frosting dries firm so you can pack and ship these, but only if you REALLY, REALLY like the person. Like A LOT.

So, okay, I messed up, but you guys are kinda getting used to that, right?  I love hangin' with forgivin' folk.  ;)