Italian Ricotta Cookies

It's day 5 of my 25 Days of Cookies series, what do you all think so far?!

Today's cookie is one I tried at work.  My cube-mate Stephanie of Just Us Gals blog brought these in to share with the office.  She broke them out nice and early, and I hoarded them at our desk until I could take a couple pictures (and a couple cookies for myself, hah!)

These are great; ingredients are simple and you likely have almost everything you need at home, and they aren't overly sweet so you can have them for breakfast like I did, or dessert.  The cookies come together quickly, and the following recipe makes about 6 dozen.  If you can't see yourself eating that many cookies, bring the extras to work.  Your coworkers will love you, trust me!

Italian Ricotta Cookies
Baked by Stephanie's roommate, Hayley

Recipe by Hayley's friend Liz' grandmother who is from Italy

Thank you to both Hayley and Liz for sharing your cookies and your recipe!!

Blend 2 sticks of margarine, 2 cups of sugar and 15oz of ricotta cheese.  Add 2 beaten eggs, 2 tsp. of vanilla, 4 cups of four, 1 tsp of baking soda, and 1 tsp of salt.  Drop by teaspoon on a cookie sheet.  Bake at 350F for about 15 minutes or until the bottoms are brown. 

The original recipe calls for an icing glaze made by mixing powdered sugar and slowly mixing in nonfat milk until the powdered sugar turns into a thick liquid.  Drizzle the glaze on top of the cookies once they have cooled, then sprinkle with coconut shavings.  If you don't like coconut, powdered sugar on top (like the ones pictured) tastes great too!

Double Chocolate Mint Chip Chewies

Happy Hump Day, Sweets!

If you like Girl Scout Thin Mints, tonight's cookie is for you.  It's a fudgy, rich chocolate cookie studded with seasonal Mint M&M's.  Same flavor as Thin Mints, but less crunch and more chew.  De-lish.

 

In my latest trip to the food store, I just couldn't resist the sassy minty M&M on the baking endcap.  I mean, look at her! I had initially thought I'd do a plain sugar cookie and put the M&M's in those, similar to the Keebler kind my mom gave me growing up.  But then I thought about the sugar cookies we had last night and how I love chocolate and it dawned on me that it's a good idea to mix chocolate and mint.

I really love this chocolate cookie, and the red, green and white M&M's make them look so festive.  This is definitely another recipe on the favorites list for 2012 Christmas cookies.  If you make your own batch, let me know how they come out!

Side-note - the cookie dough for these is excellent too!  But don't eat too much; raw eggs are no good. 

Need:

1 1/4 c. unsalted butter

2 c. flour

1 c. brown sugar

3/4 c. white sugar

3/4 c. dutch process cocoa

2 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. salt

2 large eggs 

1 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 cups Mint M&Ms

Do:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a small bowl, whisk cocoa, salt and baking soda to combine.  Put to the side.
3. In a mixing bowl fitted with the beater attachment, cream the butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well mixed. 
4. Add one egg, mix well, then add the other egg and continue to mix well.
5. Add in vanilla, continue to mix.
6. Pause the mixer, and add the cocoa/salt/baking soda mixture.  Start mixer on slow to combine, then beat well.
7. Again, pause the mixer and add in the flour.  Start mixer on slow to combine, then beat well.
8. Mix in M&M's by hand
9. Using a 1-tbsp cookie scoop, portion out the cookies onto a sheet lined with parchment paper.
10. Bake for 9 minutes
11. It would probably be a good idea to cool these on a cooling rack, but since I don't have one, I just put them immediately on a plate.  Enjoy!

Caramel-filled Sugar Cookies

Caramel and sugar- the perfect addition to a regular ol' Tuesday.  Tonight my husband shares with you another treat that he baked!  Two batches in one week?  I really found the right man.

I was off at Tuesday Night Dinner with my college sorority sisters tonight, and came home to these chewy cookies, nice and warm out of the oven.  J looked at what we had in the cabinet and found a recipe to try on his own.  His creation is a delicious, perfectly- but not overly-sweet sugar cookie, with a caramel center. I had bought the caramels a few weeks back with the intent of making a caramel apple pie.  That never happened, so I'm glad he used them for some cookies tonight!

When I asked J if he made any tweaks to the recipe or if he followed it exactly, the answer was:

"Ummm......

.............. I probably put a little more butter... a little more sugar...."  (cue puppy dog eyes)

Those ingredients never killed anyone!  Besides those two liberties, I think he followed the recipe pretty closely, so you can check that out here on Barbara Bakes to try these out.

PS - for my faithful readers who remember my old Tuesday Night Dinner posts; here's an update on tonight!  Shannon was on dessert duty and brought some chocolate chip cookies and vanilla fro-yo.  Lindsay served them on the cutest owl plates ever, sent up to Boston from her mom who knew they were a must-have for our TND tradition.  This dessert tastes really, REALLY good with some Alamos Malbec from Argentina, in case you were wondering.  (I was on wine duty!)

TND Dessert - I even got a Kappa Green owl plate - thank you Barb! xoxo

Mocha Chip Meringue Cookies

25 Days of Cookies, Day 2.

After a very long day at work, and with the thought of the very busy week ahead I knew tonight's cookies had to be easy.  And delicious.  Because a long day calls for a delicious cookie...or five.  Yup...five.

I googled "easiest cookies ever" and found my favorite, Martha Stewart.  Of course the queen of domesticity has a list of the easiest cookie recipes on her website (great list, btw!).  I decided to go with mocha-chip meringues because I had all of the ingredients, I love mocha flavor, and I've never made meringue cookies before.

The quality of cookie you get for the amount of work you need to put in is in-SANE.  Right out of the oven, these are like mini molten cookies- super delicate crispy shell and warm, gooey, chocolately inside.  I cannot wait to see what they taste like tomorrow when they've cooled.

I know I have a lot more cookies to go this month, but these are a must try.  Really.

I followed Martha's recipe almost exactly, you can find it here.  I didn't have espresso powder, so I used a teaspoon and a half of coffee out of a K-cup I had on hand.

Are you a meringue fan?  Tell me your favorite meringue cookie in the comments below.  I've seen coconut, mint chocolate, and this mocha version.  Now I know the mocha is so good, I think I can't wait to try more flavors.

25 Days of Cookies!

Hello Sweets!  It's been way too long, I'm sorry for going off the grid for the past few months!  My husband and I moved into the city and while that has been beyond amazing, the tragedy of the move was leaving almost all of my baking pans in the old apartment!  The only things that came with me were a bread pan, 2 round cake pans and 1 very small cookie sheet.  It has been a nice break from baking and I think I've lost a little weight because of it (woohoo!) but with Christmas approaching, the bug is back.

I decided to bring BostonSweetie back to life with a promise to do a post a day from now through December 26.  Each of these posts will be about one of my favorite treats- cookies!

The first cookie I have to share with you is a classic chocolate chip recipe that I've been baking with my mom since as far back as I can remember.  This was our cookie that we made for Santa, gave to the neighbors, and ate with milk while watching Rudolph and Frosty.  I've always loved them straight out of the oven, nice and hot, but these are sooo good the next day, too!  These whip up fast and bake fast too- so they are an excellent choice for a quick turnaround.

The special thing about this exact batch that I'm showing you, is that my husband made them!  It took him about 10 minutes to get the dough mixed up and then 10 more minutes to bake.  He is the best!

I don't know what cookbook it comes from- it's a really old photocopy that my mom has had forever, so if someone recognizes it from the photo, please let me know and I'll attribute the recipe accordingly.

If you try this recipe, let me know how you liked it in the comments below.  And if you have suggestions for a cookie recipe I should try this month, please share that below, too!

Mum's handwriting on the recipe - too bad I left all my cooling racks at the apartment too!  If anyone is in the same boat, a plate works just fine :)