I also watched Star Wars for the first time. Gasp, I know. We watched the fifth and sixth episodes, which are apparently the second and third movies because it feels like being super confusing like that. Let's just say it is not all that it's worked up to be... sorry Vader fans.
Tis' the most wonderful time of year again, the holiday season! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I spent my day baking pies, eating, watching the parade, eating, playing with my dog, and more eating. We had a nice breakfast, then pretty much no lunch (slash I had pie crust for lunch, whoops), then appetizers (which include pigs in a blanket!), then the Thanksgiving feast, and then dessert. It's a lot of food, but it's so awesome.
I also watched Star Wars for the first time. Gasp, I know. We watched the fifth and sixth episodes, which are apparently the second and third movies because it feels like being super confusing like that. Let's just say it is not all that it's worked up to be... sorry Vader fans.
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Happy Thanksgiving! I am happily spending time with my family in New Jersey. This is one of my favorite times of year because I get to spend it with some of the people who are most important to me and I am so grateful for that. Not to get all cheesy, but to get cheesy on you, I am definitely most thankful for my loving and supporting family. Not everyone has that and I cherish it every day.
For Thanksgiving every year, we wake up, the adults all drink Bloody Mary's, we watch the Thanksgiving Day parade, then we watch the dog show, then they put on the football game and next thing you know it's time to eat! My cousin and I are always on charge of dessert and my aunt does most of the cooking for dinner. We also have some great appetizers, like pigs in a blanket and shrimp cocktail! I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving, too! It's around that time of year again. Time to break out the mixer and make cookies, and lots of them. Christmas cookies are by far my favorite cookies. I love decorating sugar cookies for Santa Claus and making cookies for our Christmas dinner. My favorite Christmas cookie are these snowballs, which are shortbread balls with ground up pecans rolled in powdered sugar. Soooo good.
More pumpkin spice, I know. But these are really good. And don't run away from this when you see the word pumpkin. Trust me, I don't want pumpkin in my snickerdoodles either. These have no pumpkin in them, they simply have pumpkin spice. There is a major difference there. These of course use cream of tartar to make them snickerdoodles, plus they have pumpkin pie spice in the batter and are rolled in a mixture of brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice. They are really quite delicious!
I had a really difficult time coming up with a name for these. I first wanted to call them pumpkin spice snickerdoodles, but that might give the impression that they have pumpkin in them, when in truth they just have pumpkin pie spice, but no pumpkin. Then I thought "Spiced Snickerdoodles", but to be honest all snickerdoodles are spiced snickerdoodles, so that doesn't work either. Then I landed on "Fall Spice Snickerdoodles," but decided it sounded better with Autumn instead of fall. Alas, there is my title and it's exact origin. These are a great recipe for Thanksgiving, or any time in fall, really. Enjoy! Do you like how I positioned the cookies in the above picture so that they are alternating between light and dark, chocolate chip cookie and brownie? Yeah, I tried.
I saw these cookies on Pinterest, and right away they went on my list of things to bake. They are really easy, and best of all, you probably already have all the ingredients on hand. Because, let's be real, the worst is reading a recipe that is perfect for your current mood and easy to make, but you get to the last ingredients and it says "white chocolate chips" or "heath crunch" or "heavy cream". Great. That's just the worst. BUT, that shouldn't happen with this recipe, yay! I am home from college for a couple days for Hamilton's fall break. Although, some people even just refer to it as long weekend because it is so short (4 days, but traveling home on one). Nevertheless, I am grateful that I live close enough to get to go home for even just a brief time and enjoy spending time with my family. My mom was so excited to see me, and of course I was really excited to see her and my dad and brother too. But also I was so excited to finally see my dog!
I decided to spend the first day home mostly baking. My parents are both at work and my brother is at school so I have the house to myself. That also means I have access to a DSLR camera again! I don't know if I ever realized the immense difference it makes to have such a nice DSLR camera to take photos. I would say it is vital for blog post photos. Not recommended, but necessary. Tis' the season! For pumpkin, that is. It's a little too early for Christmas cookies. Just to be clear, however, these cookies do not actually contain pumpkin. Instead, they contain the world's best spice, called "pumpkin pie spice", which can be found in your normal grocery store's spice aisle. It is most commonly made by McCormick. It's usually used in pumpkin pie, obviously, but it is actually great for many other uses as well. It's not anything really special, it is just a combination of many different fall spices together to make one spice. It contains cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves.
The combination of fall spice with the sweetness of natural honey makes for a really great cookie bursting with flavor. Make sure you chill your dough for these cookies. The dough is very soft and sticky, so you have to refrigerate it and then roll it into balls and bake. I might even refrigerate before putting them in the oven. That is, refrigerate, roll into balls, then refrigerate again before baking. Enjoy! I've always wanted to try using honey roasted peanuts in a cookie recipe. It sounds so good. I mean, honey roasted peanuts are delicious by themselves, so of course they would be good in a cookie recipe. If you're wondering where to buy them, they should have them at pretty much every supermarket in the nut aisle with the peanuts. Planters makes them. I however used a Trader Joe's version, which I find are equally as good as Planters. These cookies are pretty simple. They're chocolate chip cookies with a little bit of honey in the batter and honey roasted peanuts mixed in. They create this delicious chocolate and peanut butter cookie with the sweet taste of honey. You can even sprinkle sea salt on top if you'd like, I bet that would taste good as a sweet and salty combination.
I've never achieved such a perfect texture to a cookie. These cookies are perfectly crisp on the outside, and nice and chewy on the inside. I feel like people say that all the time about their recipes, and then I don't really find it to be true. They are either completely chewy or completely crips, in my opinion. But not these. That means that both my mom and I can like them. She only likes crisp cookies and I only like soft and chewy cookies. Not only that but the flavor of these cookies is just to die for. Milky chocolate chips with toasted macadamia nuts. And if you;re second-guessing the recipe when you scoop them out and feel like they're going to spread like pancakes in the oven, because yes they call for MELTED butter, believe me I thought that too and they don't. They spread perfectly. I don't know how it happens, really I don't. In fact science-wise I want to know but am left confused. Nevertheless, all science put aside, these cookies are magical and you should bake them right now.
Another day off, another day of baking. I find it kind of ironic that I use my days off from work, which is where I go to bake all day and get paid, to just bake at home instead and not get paid. I guess that's when you know you love it? Or maybe it's an unhealthy obsession? Who knows, but my family doesn't have a problem with it. They say they do, like stop making so many sweets, but I know they love my cookies :).
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AuthorMy name is Katherine and I love, love, love to bake! You can find all my baking adventures on this blog, plus you can follow me on Social Media by clicking below! Archives
January 2016
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