Oatmeal Butterscotch Crispies

You may think that we eat a lot of cookies around my house. Truthfully, even though we are trying to eat healthier, I crave sweets. So I make desserts, we eat a small portion, and I send the remainder to my husband's office. Win-win!

These cookies satisfy on many counts - buttery, vanilla flavor with just a hint of coconut from the coconut oil, almost nutty from the oats, and delicately chewy and crispy. I adapted the recipe considerably from one I found on the internet attributed to Cook's Illustrated, but I think my version has to be better.

Oatmeal Butterscotch Crispies

1 cup unbleached flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 cup salted butter, slightly softened
3/8 cup coconut oil (I used Trader Joe's)
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup chopped butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and table salt together; set aside.

Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat until incorporated. Add flour mixture gradually and mix just until incorporated and smooth. Gradually add oats and butterscotch chips; mix well.

Take a heaping tablespoon of dough and roll into a ball. Place on baking sheet and press lightly with fingers to about 3/4-inch thickness.

Bake about 13 to 16 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through, till cookies are very lightly browned. Place baking sheet on wire rack to cool.

Pumpkin Cookies with Praline Icing

If you are like me and in the mood for fall flavors, this pumpkin cookie should be on your list of must-makes. This is simply one of the best cookies I have ever eaten - really.

Sarah at In Praise of Leftovers posts some of the best cookie recipes I have found in blogger-land. She generously shared this family recipe, which has now become one of my family's favorite recipes. I made these for my son and DIL and three grandchildren yesterday, and we all went wild for them. We normally send leftovers home with them, but we were fighting over the last 8 cookies and finally just divided them.

After sampling two from the first batch and deciding I must photograph and blog about them, I was so distracted by how good they were I forgot to take a picture of the interior, which is soft, just sweet enough, and just pumpkiny enough. Warm from the oven these remind me of pumpkin pie. Although they are delicious on their own, in my opinion the icing just sets it off.

I made some very tiny adjustments to Sarah's recipe, adding ginger, in place of pumpkin pie spice, and vanilla to the dough and maple flavor to the icing. Visit her site for the lovely story that accompanies the cookies. Her recipe - the cookies, the icing, and the instructions - is spot-on perfect.

Pumpkin Cookies
adapted from the blog In Praise of Leftovers

1 cup salted butter, softened to room temp
1 cup white sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg (regular ground nutmeg is fine)
1/4 teaspoon salt
chopped pecans for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

With mixer, combine butter, sugar, and pumpkin and mix until combined. Add egg and vanilla and mix well. Mixture will appear curdled.

Whisk together dry ingredients. With spatula, gradually fold flour mixture into batter and mix until just combined.

Drop by heaping tablespoon onto parchment-covered cookie sheet and bake until barely golden and baked in center, 10-12 minutes. (Mine were perfectly done in 12 minutes – I turned the cookies sheets midway through baking.)

Cool for two minutes, then frost or drizzle with icing while still warm. Makes 24-30 cookies

Icing
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons salted butter
4-5 teaspoons milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon maple flavoring
1 cup sifted powdered sugar

In small saucepan, combine brown sugar, butter, and milk over low heat just until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, add flavorings; whisk in powdered sugar until smooth.

Ice cookies while cookies and icing are warm. Sprinkle with nuts, if desired, while icing is still wet.

Teacher Appreciation Cookies

While Katy teachers are in their classrooms this week, preparing and organizing their rooms for next week's start of the 2012-13 school year, our church congregation has been busy baking and filling trays of homemade cookies for them.

Dozens of fresh cookies filled the tables in our church lobby today, and tomorrow they will be delivered to scores of schools in the Katy ISD, to show hungry teachers our appreciation of the great work they do.

Although I no longer have kids in school, I do have grandkids in school, and I think it's a lovely idea to provide the teachers with a treat. I decided to bake two different recipes I've been wanting to try - Orange Creamsicle Cookies from Life as a Lofthouse and Pumpkin Snickerdoodles from Fake Ginger.

Both recipes were winners. I made minor adjustments in each recipe, as noted below. One was to melt the butter to mix with the sugars instead of creaming it until fluffy. I also used self-rising flour in the Pumpkin Snickerdoodles, and I have included the details of that in the recipe.

Melting the butter is a method that works for me and seems to prevent my cookies from spreading so much.

As I was taste-testing the cookies this morning I was reminded of my dear Mom. She lived with us the last eight years of her life, and she was my eager and willing taste-tester. She got to sample one of the first batch of anything I made - cookies, muffins, cupcakes, breads - fresh from the oven and presented to her on a tray with a glass of cold milk. That glass is the very one pictured - one of her old Wexford glasses - and it was the glass she preferred for milk or orange juice. She said everything tasted better in it, and it was the perfect amount for her.

She loved those treats and was effusive in her praise to me. I miss those moments and have such happy memories of her saying to me, "that is the best (cookie, muffin, cupcake, etc) I have ever eaten."

Orange Creamsicle Cookies
adapted from the blog of Life as a Lofthouse

2-1/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup salted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons orange zest (I used 1/2 teaspoon orange extract)
1-1/2 cups white chocolate chips (I only used 1 cup)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In medium bowl, whisk togther flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

In saucepan, melt butter over low heat until bubbling. Remove from heat and add both sugars, whisking until completely mixed. Pour into mixing bowl and beat in egg, vanilla, and orange zest or orange extract until well mixed. Gradually add in flour mixture until combined. Stir in white chocolate chips.

Drop by heaping tablespoonful onto large cookie sheet. Bake 10-11 minutes. Makes about 30 cookies.

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles
adapted from the blog of Fake Ginger

1 cup salted butter
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3-3/4 cups all-purpose flour (see NOTE)
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Cinnamon sugar:
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

NOTE: I used 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour and 3-1/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached Self-Rising Flour, which I love! I eliminated the baking powder and salt in the recipe, since they are already contained in self-rising flour. So easy!

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.

Melt butter in saucepan over low heat until bubbling. Remove from heat and whisk in both sugars until completely incorporated. Pour into mixing bowl and beat in egg. Add pumpkin puree and vanilla and mix thoroughly. Fold in flour mixture. Cover dough and chill at least an hour, or until dough becomes slightly firm. I chilled mine overnight.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare baking sheets with parchment paper or baking spray. Mix cinnamon sugar ingredients in small bowl.

Take a heaping tablespoon dough and roll into ball. Roll ball in cinnamon sugar mixture, completely covering it, and place on cookie sheet; flatten slightly.

Bake 10 to 14 minutes, or until slightly firm to touch. Let cool on baking sheets at least 5 minutes; remove to wire rack to cool completely.

I am linking with

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunkers

Peanut butter cookies are one of my husband's favorites. He prefers them plain, but I love to add chocolate chips for what I consider to be the perfect combination.

This is my recipe, based on several recipes and years of trial and error.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunkers

2-1/2 cups unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 dash cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1-1/4 cups smooth or crunchy peanut butter
3/4 cup salted butter, slightly softened
1/4 cup shortening
1-1/2 cups light brown sugar
2/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon Lyle’s golden syrup or milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1-1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chunks or chips (for these I used Trader Joe's Semi-Sweet)
Extra sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare cookie sheet for baking.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Cream peanut butter, butter, shortening, and sugars until well blended and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs, syrup or milk, and extracts; beat until well blended. Add flour mixture and stir until incorporated. Stir in chunks or chips.

This is how I shape my cookies: take a heaping tablespoon of dough, lightly shape into ball, roll in sugar, and place on prepared baking sheet. Press ball very gently and sprinkle lightly with additional sugar.

Reduce oven to 350 degrees. Bake 8-12 minutes, depending on size, or until light golden brown. To keep them chewy, don’t allow too much browning. Let cool on pan 10 minutes, then remove to wire rack.