Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies

This year I had intended to make chai-spiced sugar cookies for my friends' annual holiday cookie swap. Then I changed my mind when I got to the grocery store and realized that the spices I needed were going to cost me $20. We've been trying to stick to a grocery budget since we bought our house, and somehow it didn't seem fair to purchase expensive spices when I won't let John buy his $4-per-can San Marzano tomatoes anymore (o, the sacrifices we've made). Luckily, I had just about everything I needed for these cookies already in my pantry.

Mexican hot chocolate has cinnamon in it, and often some chile pepper to add an extra kick. The chile powder is optional in this recipe, but if you do want to add some heat, make sure you're using chile (with an "e") and not chili (with an "i") powder. It's an important distinction. I omitted the chile powder, but I thought the cinnamon added nice warmth to these cookies without being overpowering. They're basically chocolate snickerdoodles.

Give these a try--they'll make a nice addition to your holiday cookie plate. If you're looking for other cookie recipes, check out last year's Christmas cookie posts:

Holiday Cookie Madness
Cookie Dough Truffles


Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies
from MarthaStewart.com

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon chile powder (optional)

   
Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees, with racks in upper and lower thirds. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down side of bowl. Add eggs and beat to combine. With mixer on low, gradually add flour mixture and beat until combined.

2. In a small bowl, combine remaining 1/4 cup sugar, cinnamon, and chile powder (if using). Using heaping tablespoons, form balls of dough and roll in cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place, about 3 inches apart, on two parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until cookies are set in center and begin to crack, about 10 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Let cookies cool on sheets on wire racks 5 minutes, then transfer cookies to racks to cool completely. (Store in an airtight container, up to 1 week.)

Makes 32 cookies

Download a printable recipe.
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Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last month, John and I spent a relaxing weekend in Lancaster County, PA (also known as "Amish Country"). In addition to horse-drawn buggies, bonnets, and towns with oddly suggestive names (Intercourse and Blue Ball.... haha), Lancaster County is also home to the Wilbur Chocolate Factory. It was at this wonderful place that I picked up two beautiful bags of chocolate chips. One bag of chips ended up in my Samoa Bars, and the other sat in the pantry, waiting for their higher calling. That calling came on Saturday when I clicked over to the Cook's Illustrated website, where these Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies were a featured recipe.

The cool thing about this recipe is that you melt the butter, so you don't have to wait around for your butter to come to room temperature like with most cookie recipes. You actually have to melt it and cook it until it's just brown... then you whisk it with sugar to form a delightful caramel-y base for your cookies. 

 While calling them "perfect" might be overstating things a bit (I still have yet to find the "perfect" chocolate chip cookie), I would say that these cookies are pretty fantastic. Thick, chewy, and a little crispy around the edges... how can you go wrong?

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

from Cook's Illustrated

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (8 3/4 ounces)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
14  tablespoons unsalted butter (1 3/4 sticks)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (3 1/2 ounces)
3/4 cups packed dark brown sugar (5 1/4 ounces)

1 teaspoon table salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips or chunks

3/4 cup chopped pecan or walnuts, toasted (optional)

Instructions 

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 large (18- by 12-inch) baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk flour and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.

2. Heat 10 tablespoons butter in 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat until melted, about 2 minutes. Continue cooking, swirling pan constantly until butter is dark golden brown and has nutty aroma, 1 to 3 minutes. Remove skillet from heat and, using heatproof spatula, transfer browned butter to large heatproof bowl. Stir remaining 4 tablespoons butter into hot butter until completely melted.
   

3. Add both sugars, salt, and vanilla to bowl with butter and whisk until fully incorporated. Add egg and yolk and whisk until mixture is smooth with no sugar lumps remaining, about 30 seconds. Let mixture stand 3 minutes, then whisk for 30 seconds. Repeat process of resting and whisking 2 more times until mixture is thick, smooth, and shiny. Using rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir in flour mixture until just combined, about 1 minute. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts (if using), giving dough final stir to ensure no flour pockets remain.
 
4. Divide dough into 16 portions, each about 3 tablespoons (or use #24 cookie scoop). Arrange 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets, 8 dough balls per sheet. (Smaller baking sheets can be used, but will require 3 batches.)

5. Bake cookies 1 tray at a time until cookies are golden brown and still puffy, and edges have begun to set but centers are still soft, 10 to 14 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking. Transfer baking sheet to wire rack; cool cookies completely before serving.

Makes 16 Cookies.

Download a printable recipe.

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Samoa Bars

 

Still waiting for your Girl Scout Cookie order to come in? I'm all for supporting the Girl Scouts (I used to be one!), but sometimes I need more immediate cookie gratification. I spied this recipe on another cooking blog, and was pretty excited to try making my own version of Samoas (sometimes they're also called Caramel DeLites). Samoas are little round cookies topped with toasted coconut and caramel, then drizzled with chocolate.

While these aren't difficult to make, they do take a lot of time due to all of the steps involved (luckily there have been a lot of snowy days spent indoors lately). You have to make each layer of these bars separately, so most of the prep time is spent waiting for things to set, cool, etc. These bars replicate the flavors of the Samoas really well. The one change I would make next time is to use a little less of the cookie crust. I felt that these needed a higher caramel to cookie crust ratio in order to be perfect. I'm posting the original recipe, but play around with the amounts as you like. Also, the recipe calls for "good" caramels... the only ones I could find were made by Kraft. They melted nicely and tasted awesome, so I'm going to say that they easily qualify as "good". Don't knock yourself out looking for anything fancy.

Samoa Bars

spotted on Joelen's Culinary Adventures, originally from Baking Bites

Cookie Base:

1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

First, make the crust.

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 9×13-inch baking pan, or line with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter, until fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla extract. Working at a low speed, gradually beat in flour and salt until mixture is crumbly, like wet sand. The dough does not need to come together. Pour crumbly dough into prepapred pan and press into an even layer.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until base is set and edges are lightly browned. Cool completely on a wire rack before topping.

Topping:
3 cups shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)
12-oz good-quality chewy caramels
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp milk
10 oz. dark or semisweet chocolate (chocolate chips are ok)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 300. Spread coconut evenly on a parchment-lined baking sheet (preferably one with sides) and toast 20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes, until coconut is golden. Cool on baking sheet, stirring occasionally. Set aside.

Unwrap the caramels and place in a large microwave-safe bowl with milk and salt. Cook on high for 3-4 minutes, stopping to stir a few times to help the caramel melt. When smooth, fold in toasted coconut with a spatula.

Put dollops of the topping all over the shortbread base. Using the spatula, spread topping into an even layer. Let topping set until cooled.

When cooled, cut into 30 bars with a large knife or a pizza cutter (it’s easy to get it through the topping).
Once bars are cut, melt chocolate in a small bowl. Heat on high in the microwave in 45 second intervals, stirring thoroughly to prevent scorching. Dip the base of each bar into the chocolate and place on a clean piece of parchment or wax paper. Transfer all remaining chocolate (or melt a bit of additional chocolate, if necessary) into a piping bag or a ziploc bag with the corner snipped off and drizzle bars with chocolate to finish.

Let chocolate set completely before storing in an airtight container.

Makes about 30 bar cookies.


Download a printable recipe.
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Cookie Dough Truffles

Who even needs to bake cookies when you can just take chocolate chip cookie dough and dip it in chocolate?  And there are no eggs in the dough, so you can eat as much as you want without worry (I say this as if the presence of raw eggs has ever stopped me from stuffing my face with gobs of cookie dough). I made these for my friends' holiday cookie swap later today, so I think they'll be a nice variation from the peanut butter blossoms that I usually make.

These are easy to do, if a little time-consuming. I refrigerated my dough overnight, which made it much easier to work with the next day (it was too sticky right after making it). I used my fondue pot to melt the chocolate, which worked out nicely since I don't own the double-boiler that the recipe calls for. Trader Joe's was out of their mega-bars of milk chocolate, so I coated these in dark chocolate. I also toasted my pecans to give them a little bit of extra flavor.

Cookie Dough Truffles
Recipe adapted from foodnetwork.com 

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup semi-sweet mini chocolate chips
1 cup finely chopped pecans
1 1/2 lbs. chocolate, melted

Directions:
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed until creamy. Add vanilla. Gradually beat in flour and add milk. Add chocolate morsels and pecans, mixing well. Chill dough at least 2 hours.

Shape chilled dough into 1-inch balls, placing them on waxed paper or a silicone baking mat. If the dough is sticky, dip your fingers in a little bit of flour.

Melt chocolate in a double boiler (or fondue pot!). Using 2 forks, dip the cookie balls into the chocolate to cover. Place on waxed paper and chill to set, at least one hour.

This makes about 5 dozen truffles, so make sure you clear out some room in your fridge!

Download printable recipe.

Christmas Cookie Madness

You can't even fathom the amount of cookies my mom and I baked yesterday. I was visiting my parents for the weekend, and mom enlisted my help in making cookies to give away as Christmas gifts. I think my mom just wanted to practice being an amazing cookie-baking grandma for my niece, Laura, who was born the morning after our baking fiesta. :)

Just how many cookies did we make? Well, mom has a double oven, which really increased our cookie-producing power. After about 7 hours and 15 sticks of butter (top that, Paula Deen!), we'd created eight different kinds of cookies.

For your Christmas cookie-making enjoyment, six of those recipes are included in this post:

    * Peanut Butter Blossoms
    * Cream Cheese Cookies
    * Chocolate Mint Cookies
    * Bethal Bars
    * Holiday Thumbprint Cookies
    * Caramel-Filled Chocolate Cookies

First up, Peanut Butter Blossoms (from hersheys.com). These are my favorite cookies of all time. It's very simple: they are peanut butter cookies. With a Hershey's kiss in them. No holiday cookie plate is complete without them. What else do you need to know?

Ingredients:
48 Hershey's Kisses
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Granulated sugar

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 375°F. Remove wrappers from chocolates.

2. Beat shortening and peanut butter in large bowl until well blended. Add 1/3 cup granulated sugar and brown sugar; beat until fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture.

3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in granulated sugar; place on ungreased cookie sheet.

4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Immediately press a chocolate into center of each cookie; cookie will crack around edges. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Download printable recipe.

My mom had a great recipe for these Cream Cheese Cookies. They're basically a sugar cookie, but the cream cheese gives them a hint of tanginess. They are light, flaky little cookies that make a great canvas for decorating any way you see fit... our batch was topped with a buttercream frosting and sprinkles.

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
3 oz cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour


Directions:
1.Cream butter and gradually add sugar and cream cheese. Beat in the egg yolk, vanilla. Gradually beat in the flour.

2. Make cookies with cookie press, or chill dough and roll out to use with cookie cutters.

3. Bake for 8-9 minutes at 375°F.

Makes 3-4 dozen cookies

Download printable recipe.

I tend to prefer cookies that have chocolate in them in some shape or form. I already made cookies with my favorite chocolate companion: peanut butter. So, I thought I'd go for my second favorite flavor combination with these Chocolate Mint Cookies (from Allrecipes.com). These rich, fudgy cookies are topped with an Andes mint immediately after coming out of the oven. Once the candy melts, you spread it around to make a minty frosting. Festive sprinkles encouraged.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons water
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
36 chocolate mint wafer candies (Andes)

Directions:
1. In a large pan over low heat, cook butter, sugar and water until butter is melted. Add chocolate chips and stir until partially melted. Remove from heat and continue to stir until chocolate is completely melted. Pour into a large bowl and let stand 10 minutes to cool off slightly. 

2. At high speed, beat in eggs, one at a time into chocolate mixture. Reduce speed to low and add dry ingredients, beating until blended. Chill dough about 1 hour.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

4. Roll dough into balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake 8-10 minutes. While cookies are baking unwrap mints and divide each in half. When cookies are brought out of the oven, put 1/2 mint on top of each cookie. Let the mint sit for up to 5 minutes until melted, then spread the mint on top of the cookie. Eat and enjoy!

Makes a lot of frickin' cookies. At least 5 dozen... I stopped after 4 dozen and froze the rest of the dough.

Download printable recipe.

Bethal Bars are the next creation. I have no idea where the name comes from, but I can tell you that they are pretty much just like a Magic Cookie Bar, but with the addition of butterscotch chips. Yum. The coolest thing about these is that you don't even need a mixing bowl.... you assemble the whole thing in a baking pan (which is handy when you're making seven other kinds of cookies and have already used up every bowl in your kitchen).

Ingredients:
1/4 lb. of butter
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 cup shredded coconut
6 oz. chocolate chips
6 oz. butterscotch chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup chopped nuts (we used walnuts)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter in a 13x9 inch pan (you can do this in the oven, since it's on anyways). Add the graham cracker crumbs and distribute evenly across bottom of pan. Sprinkle on the coconut, chocolate chips, and butterscotch chips. Drizzle the sweetened condensed milk over the top, then sprinkle on the nuts. Bake for 30 minutes; cool before cutting.

Makes about 25 bars.

Download printable recipe.

These Holiday Thumbprints were an elegant addition to the cookie spread.  The dough is coated in crushed pecans, and then the thumbprint hollows are filled with jam. We used raspberry jam for the filling, but use your favorite flavor (ok, maybe not grape..).

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs, separated
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. water
1 1/2 cups finely chopped pecans
3 Tbs. jam of your choosing

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 300 degrees.

2. Combine butter, sugar, and egg yolks until light and fluffy. Add flour and beat at low speed until a soft dough forms.

3. In a small bowl, beat the egg whites and water until foamy.

4. Form dough into 1-inch balls and dip into egg whites, then roll in pecans. Place each ball 2 inches apart on cookie sheet. Indent the top of each with your thumb.

5. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Let cool for a minute, then indent again (with the back of a spoon this time-they're hot!). Spoon 1/4 tsp. of jam into each cookie, and cool on wire racks. Do not stack these cookies!


Makes about 3 dozen.

Download printable recipe.

The masterpieces of our cookie adventure were these Caramel-filled Chocolate Cookies (from Allrecipes.com). That name seemed much too simple and plain for these little treasures, and I now refer to them as "Million Dollar Cookies." There is just layer after layer of amazing-ness here. You have a decadent chocolate cookie with caramel filling. Topped with crushed pecans! Drizzled with white chocolate! Bliss.

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
17 tablespoons sugar, divided
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup baking cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups chopped pecans, divided
1 (13 ounce) package Rolo candies
4 (1 ounce) squares white chocolate, melted


Directions:
1. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, 1 cup sugar and brown sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa and baking soda; gradually add to the creamed mixture, beating just until combined. Stir in 1/2 cup pecans.

2. Shape a tablespoonful of dough around each candy, forming a ball. In a small bowl, combine the remaining sugar and pecans; dip each cookie halfway. Place nut side up 2 in. apart on greased baking sheets.

3. Bake at 375 degrees F for 7-10 minutes or until tops are slightly cracked. Cool for 3 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely. Drizzle with melted white chocolate.

Makes about 3 dozen.

Download printable recipe. 
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