Christmas Cookies!

[pepperhead212]

I haven't baked any more again, but after making 4 more logs of cookies yesterday, for the freezer, today I made some dough for cream cheese snickerdoodles and CC oatmeal snickerdoodles, that are on my back porch (refrigerator temperature, for now). And tonight I'll make some more logs, and the next two disgusting weather days I'll bake them all!

I gave my neighbor some of those CC coconut macaroons today, since they are leaving for her daughter's house tomorrow. I told them I would have more of the others when they get back, and her daughter told me I could just give her more of those, she loves them so much. I offered her the recipe, and she gave me one of those funny looks, like Yeah, right!!. That gave her Mom and me a laugh.

[pepperhead212]

Today I baked one recipe each of CC oatmeal snickerdoodles and cream cheese snickerdoodles, then 2 recipes of sesame icebox and one recipe of oatmeal icebox cookies. I still have 5 more logs of cookies to slice and bake, so I figured I'll do those tomorrow; maybe tonight I'll make a couple more logs. I also remembered those star anise snickerdoodles I made last season - maybe I can turn that into an icebox recipe, using a basic recipe, adding the star anise and a little cinnamon.
CC oatmeal snickerdoodles and cream cheese snickerdoodles, just out of the oven. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

CC oatmeal snickerdoodles, and cream cheese snickerdoodles by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Oatmeal and sesame icebox cookies by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Update - I made 3 more logs of dough tonight, that went in the freezer for tomorrow - Tennessee icebox cookies, w/o nuts, the wienerstube recipe, without the nuts or spices, but with orange peel. And I made up the star anise icebox recipe - we'll see how it turns out. Everyone liked the star anise in the snickerdoodles, but there was nobody that doesn't like anise flavor. So there will be those 3, 2 wienerstube, 1 chocolate sable, and 2 habanero gingersnaps, then I'm done!

[Sue_CT]

I would love the recipe for the cc macaroons!

[pepperhead212]

@Sue_CT Here's a link showing the original recipe I got, from Maida Heatter's book. I made the original recipe, with the melted 1 tb butter, and only switched to melting a tb of ghee because I didn't frequently have regular butter just sitting in the fridge, and didn't want to thaw a stick of butter just for this (not that it wouldn't be worth it!). Later, I would have some virgin coconut oil on hand, so that is my favorite fat to use now, though the butter is still good.

I also found out that the size of the macaroons to drop on the sheets is approximately 22 g, to give you 36 of them. And ideally, use that nonstick foil, with the silicone coating. The original recipe says to just drop them on foil, but it doesn't come off that too easily - parchment also doesn't work well. The first 4 or 5 will scrape off of those ok, but as they cool, it sticks terribly. Silicone sheets do well, too, but don't brown the bottoms well, like the NS foil. The foil can be used twice, but the third time it's starting to stick some, but that would be several recipes!

As for coating the bottoms, the best chocolate I have found is Mercken's dark dipping chocolate. Regular semi-sweet and other dark chocolate tends to melt on your hands on contact. The Amish market has that, where I am, and maybe you have a source for dipping chocolate.
https://madaboutmaida.blogspot.com/2012 ... roons.html

[MissS]

You sure have done a lot of work and it is most definitely a labor of love. Your house must be smelling divine with your oven baking away all of the time. Now it is time to deliver your packages made with such care and then you can sit back and have time to read or write with your new found spare time.

I know how hard you have been working. I used to bake cookies starting the day after Thanksgiving and going right up until Christmas. It was fun and a lot of work but I did enjoy it. I'm so happy to see you doing this too! Merry Christmas.

[GoDawgs]

With two kinds of biscotti finished, the last of the Christmas baking is done.

Cappuccino Hazelnut with chocolate chips and a hint of cloves. I'm not real fond of cloves so I use half the amount in the recipe and it's just enough to come through in the background and play well with others without shouting.



Cranberry Pistachio with a hint of orange from the grated orange zest. I love these. It's a good thing most have already gone out the door!



Considering the weather, baking bread today will be a nice activity.

[pepperhead212]

I remember one Christmas time, many years ago (it was sometime in the 90s), almost all the cookies I made were biscotti! It was because the recipes almost all had no butter, and the butter price had skyrocketed, to about what it did this year, but back then 99¢/lb was the usual sale price, and I refused to pay 4 or 5 dollars a pound! Good thing was, not long before this, Maida Heatter had put out her second cookie book, which had a bunch of biscotti recipes, and these were high in eggs, not butter - only one was high in butter, but that makes them more like shortbread. That was the only year this happened, and back then I used to go through over 20 lbs of butter, for cookies.

lidl had a deal this week for butter, @ $2/lb, so I got 6 more lbs...might get more Monday, and vacuum seal them for the freezer.

@MissS I used to bake a lot more cookies, too. Wasn't so much the baking that took time, but making the dough! I had some friends back then that helped me do the baking, and it usually only took us 2 days to bake around 4,000, plus or minus a couple hundred. I had a rack I would put together that held 12 of those 2x3 foot cooling trays, and we would get them filled up, then we would take time out to empty them into the tins, and that was when we'd take time for dinner, sometimes a soup I'd have in a slow cooker. The lady used to make a batch of 6 recipes of a CC cookie every year, and bring that huge bowl over, and we would start one day rolling the balls for those, then the snickerdoodles, then the oatmeal snickerdoodles I would have ready, then I would start slicing all those logs of dough. I would sometimes get a blister, but it was worth it!

[pepperhead212]

I'm finished! Besides the last of the cookies, I made a batch of WW/rye bread sticks, to snack on, plus eat with soups and curries, plus they are quick to roll out, and gives me more time to cut out more cookies. As always, I saved the habanero gingersnaps for last, and you can see the darker ones - the original recipe calls for light molasses, and I ran out, and all blackstrap is way too strong, so I just used 1 tb BS, and 3 tb honey, and it's still darker, but not overly strong. I buy BS by the gallon, for all the bread I use it in, so I always have that.
TN icebox cookies, chocolate orange, and chocolate sables. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

A double recipe of Wienerstube, and most of the new star anise icebox recipe I made. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

A batch of WW/rye bread sticks I threw together to snack on, and eat with soups and curries I'll be making, now that I'm done with cookies! by pepperhead212, on Flickr

First batch of habanero gingersnaps - just over a half a load, so I had to bake 2 batches of them. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Two recipes of habanero gingersnaps, the dark one I used a tb of black strap and 3 tb honey, in place of light molasses. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[bower]

Beautiful as always!

[worth1]

Too many cookies.

[pepperhead212]

It's that time again!

I'm not baking yet, but I did get started making the dough! I made the hot gingersnaps first, then put everything in the DW, and after all that dries, I'll get started on things that won't "flavor" things I make in the FP after, like the vanilla sables, and TN icebox, and finish with the sesame cookies, then do a half load in the DW, while I eat my leftovers for dinner. Then later do any chocolate cookies I'm making. The snickerdoodles (I have at least 3 kinds of those!) I'll have to make the night before baking - I'll have find out when my helper(s) will be over.
The dry ingredients for 4 batches of hot gingersnaps, one in the FP, ready to add the butter and molasses to. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

The dry ingredients ground up with the butter, and the molasses added, in the FP, then mixed with nuts, by hand. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

The first log of hot gingersnap dough, ready to even out in the waxed paper. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

4 batches of hot gingersnap dough, ready to freeze. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[pepperhead212]

And here are 6 more recipes, I just put in the freezer. I put the dishes in a half load in the DW, and had some dinner, but I might wait until tomorrow to start the chocolate cookies.
6 more logs of cookie dough, to go into the freezer - 2 each of vanilla sables, Tennessee icebox, and sesame icebox cookies. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[pepperhead212]

Today was the day to make some chocolate cookie dough, using Dutch cocoa in all these, since they are made in the food processor. I figured out that I used 4¼ c in the 7 recipes, which is just over a pound. I had to refill my cocoa container after the first 4, so I got a bag of the Saco cocoa I had in my pantry - a brand I tested with 4 others several years ago, by just making a simple brownie recipe, and plain hot cocoa, and even though it was a little lighter than a couple others, it was the best tasting of the 5, in both the brownies and hot cocoa. I took the bag and cocoa container out on my deck, to refill it, because of the cloud of cocoa dust I knew I'd get! I hate seeing all that cocoa going to waste, but I really didn't want it to be settling in my house! I get enough from the dry ingredients when making the dough.
Cookie compost! lol by pepperhead212, on Flickr

These chocolate orange cookies I made with the same basic recipe from the Wienerstube, without the spices, but with orange zest. And this time, I tried something new, though I don't know if I will notice it - a tb of Grand Marnier, as a flavoring. I'll let you know how it turns out.
The dry ingredients for the chocolate orange cookies, with the zest from 2 mandarins added. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

7 chocolate cookies - Wiennerstube, chocolate orange, chocolate coconut nut, and chocolate sables. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[pepperhead212]

And here's something I did this evening, to make some dough with tomorrow . I made some browned butter - 24 oz of it. When making ghee, I let it get to about the same temp - 280-285° - but with the ghee I let it stick to the bottom of the saucepan (and filter the rest out), while with this I start stirring around 255° with the silicone spatula, and keep it from sticking on the bottom, so those particles remain suspended, and stay in the browned butter. The flavor is incredible in these things.
Browned butter, poured into a metal bowl, to cool, before adding milk back to it. by pepperhead212, on Flickr



browned butter, with the 4 oz of milk added to bring it back to 24 oz. by pepperhead212, on Flickr



The browned butter, down to about 84 degrees, when it thickens and emulsifies, which is when I measure it out. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[pepperhead212]

I made 6 more logs of dough today with that browned butter. Those Tennessee icebox cookes, with the light brown sugar are good with it, and the oatmeal icebox, with half white and half dark brown sugar, are also really good with the browned butter, like a really strong butterscotch flavor, and I made two of each of those, and two with the barley flakes, in place of the oats. This brought the total to 23 batches - the most I've made since before the pandemic started. And I haven't even gotten to the snickerdoodles yet.

Here's that browned butter, showing how I cut it up just like regular sticks of butter, and the moisture has been put back into it.
Chilled browned butter, unmolded and ready to cut up for the cookie dough. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Browned butter chopped up into the dry ingredients of the oat cookies, ready to chop into it. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

6 more logs of cookie dough, all these with browned butter. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[pepperhead212]

OMG those cookies smell good!!!

I baked just the buttery cookies tonight - the TN icebox, and the TN icebox, with brown butter, the vanilla sables, the sesame icebox, the oatmeal icebox, with brown butter, and the barley flake icebox, with brown butter. 12 recipes total, with 13 more to go, including 4 batches of snickerdoodles I made a couple of nights ago, and 5 chocolate icebox, and the 4 habanero gingersnaps - the first 4 I made! It was cold enough for one night, to keep them on my back porch, but I had to make room in the fridge for those bowls, as it got up in the 50s today!

It only took a little over 2 hours to bake all this, and if I had had a helper, it would have been faster - I had to only bake 2 sheets several times. Still pretty fast!
The TN icebox cookies, with brown butter. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

The rest of the regular TN icebox cookies. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Most of the vanilla sables, after the TN icebox. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Last few of the sables, and all of the sesame cookies. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Oatmeal icebox cookies, with brown butter. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

All of the barley flake icebox cookies with brown butter - almost like English toffee. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[pepperhead212]

Today I baked those 5 recipes of chocolate cookies, and about a third of the cream cheese snickerdoodles, but that was so sticky, I stopped, even though it was in the fridge for 2 nights, and put it in the freezer, and baked the oatmeal and barley snickerdoodles, which was hard, as always, so I left them out, while putting all those previously baked cookies away. Baked all the oatmeal and barley snickerdoodles, then took a break. I'll probably wait until tomorrow to bake the rest of those cream cheese snickerdoodles, then the habanero gingersnaps.
All of the chocolate coconut nut icebox cookies, and about 3/4 of the chocolate orange cookies. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

The last quarter of the chocolate orange, and 3/4 of the wiennerstube - chocolate pepper cookies by pepperhead212, on Flickr

All of the barley snickerdoodles, a third of the cream cheese snicks, and about 2/3 of the oatmeal snicks. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[GoDawgs]

@pepperhead212, you've probably answered this question waaaay back but I have to ask it again because if I once read it, I don't remember the answer. What DO you do with all these cookies? Give them all away? Sell them? You must have a separate big freezer to hold them all if you keep them!

[pepperhead212]

@GoDawgs, Most of the cookies are gifts. And I only bake about half of what I used to - not as many around that I used to give them to. Most of those cookies are those crunchy, slice and bake, and keep very well - only have to go in the freezer before baking.

[pepperhead212]

Today I finished the cookies - only took 3 batches, and a little more than half an hour total bake time, but those cream cheese snickerdoodles took a while, since I froze the dough solid, since they were so sticky (I might add 2 more tb flour next time, though I don't remember that happening last year). Though the dough was very slightly pliable, even at that temp, it was still hard to break up, at first, so what I used was an antifreeze ice cream spade, which cut right through it! By the time I got to the bottom of the bowl, it started getting sticky again, but I got them all formed, before it stuck on me too bad. And they all fit on 3 sheets, for one batch. The 4 habanero gingersnaps fit on 6 sheets, for 2 batches - crammed 54/sheet, with only a few empty spots.
The remaining 2/3 of the cream cheese snickerdoodles, finished in one batch. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

A little more than 2/3 of the habanero gingersnaps. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

About 1/3 of the habanero gingersnaps. by pepperhead212, on Flickr