Spanish Peanut Cookies

Found the recipe here. I was looking to bake a Spanish peanut cookie similar to what Scott's Bakery in Middleton offers. This isn't it, but the results are still very good.


The ingredients. All ready to go. (Oh, and the drizzle icing. Fuggeddaboudit! Add 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips to cookie recipe. )


Butter. Brown sugar. Blending.


1 egg added. Beating well.


I never crowd the cookie pans.

I picked up the parchment paper idea from JoAnna. She always knows what she's doing in the kitchen.

Cookies. Cooling.

Cookies. And Milk. A treat awaits.


Ahhhh, all's well in the world. A full cookie jar.

Cookie Dough'nt

I recently tried this recipe from our daily cookie calendar.

Perhaps the 3 sticks of butter was the first sign that this recipe was not for me.

And then there was the manual chopping of figs.

And mixing.

And more mixing.

The dough that didn't.

From the calendar picture, they look like slightly oversized pecan dainties (or Russian tea cakes, in Nelson family lingo), but in real life they ended up looking like little pancakes.

Still, my disappointment with the visual result was more than compensated for by the taste.

I’m beginning to think, though, that the people responsible for this cookie calendar didn’t bother to test any of the recipes. As soon as I felt the too-moist texture of the dough, I figured I wasn’t going to replicate the results as shown in the artfully taken photograph. As a result, I decided to refrigerate the dough for an hour, a step not specified in the recipe, before rolling it into little balls.

In addition, the 12-15 minute cooking time didn’t appear to be enough. The first batch came out looking underdone. Then it became a guessing game. Another minute? Another 2? And even after letting them cool on the pan, the cookies looked precariously crumbly. In fact, one fell off the spatula and immediately disintegrated when it hit the rack.

I think I’ll go back to Googling cookie recipes when I’m in to the mood to try something new.

From the Cookie Daily Calendar

From the January 5 page

Scottish Shortbread

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. rice flour
3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup superfine sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp granulated sugar + more for sprinkling

Directions:
Preheat oven to 300F. Line a 7 x 11 pan with foil. Sift the flour into a large bowl and add the rice flour.

Beat the butter and superfine sugar until smooth. Add the vanilla extract and stir in the granulated sugar. Work the dough until it starts to clump together, then press it into the pan.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes. The shortbread will look cooked before it actually is, so ensure that it bakes for the full 45 minutes. (I followed directions, sir, and left it in the oven for 45 minutes. Next time I'll cut the baking time to 40 minutes. I thought the texture was a wee bit too crunchy.)

Remove from the oven, sprinkle lightly with granulated sugar, and cut into fingers. Cool for 20 minutes and remove from the pan.

Andy and Eddie, not big fans of shortbread, gave the recipe a thumbs up.

You'll Love This Cookie

Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

INGREDIENTS

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 2/3 cups butterscotch chips

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl beat the butter or margarine, white sugar and brown sugar together. Add the eggs and vanilla, beating well.
3. Stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until blended. Stir in the oats and the butterscotch chips. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
   
4. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until the edges begin to brown.