Rolling Out the Holiday Cookies

The holidays are rolling around, so I thought this year I'd post a few cookie recipes. Although, if I’m honest, this idea has been rattling around in my brain for awhile now, and I just needed an excuse to make them. Back at Halloween, we got ‘booed’. If you’re not familiar with this, basically, an anonymous neighbor gives you a bag of treats, and then you pay it forward to two other people in the neighborhood who haven’t yet received one. Well, I decided to get my two people a loaf of Pumpkin bread from a local bakery. I placed the order for the two loaves at the drive thru, and the girl asked, “Would you like to try our new snickerdoodle bars?” Um, yes please. Well, when I got home, I discovered she had actually said snickerdoodle bread, and unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly as good as that sounds. It got me thinking, though. How could I do a new spin on snickerdoodles? Cinnamon Roll Cookies, of course!

Here’s what you’ll need for the dough: 

• 1 cup butter (2 sticks)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 5 ½ cups flour 

For the filling: 

• 2 Tablespoons melted butter
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• Pinch of salt 

For the icing: 

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 ½ - 3 teaspoons water 

I have to give credit for this cookie dough recipe to the lovely ladies over at Two Sisters Crafting. After searching for a cookie that had all the characteristics I wanted, easy to roll out, not a lot of spreading, soft texture, etc., theirs seemed to fit the bill.  I halved the recipe and followed it almost to the letter. The only change I made was to cut back the amount of flour a little, and you’ll see why.

For your ingredients, you want the egg to be room temperature, but the butter should be a little on the cool side. Depending on the temperature in your house, give it maybe an hour or two out of the fridge. You should be able to press a dent in it with your thumb fairly easily, but the rest of the stick should hold its shape.

Drop two of those into the bowl of your mixer.

When the butter is still a bit on the firm side, I like to give it a little smash, just to help the mixer out. (What? I know it’s a heavy duty Kitchen Aid mixer, and can surely handle a little butter without my help, but I tend to baby my equipment slightly. That thing has put in a lot of work over the past fifteen years, so it's the least I can do.)

Until the butter softens up a little bit more, it will tend to stick to the paddle. Just stop frequently and scrape it out with a silicone spatula.

Once it’s not quite so clingy, go ahead and add the sugar.

Mix just until they’re combined. I know, usually cookie recipes call for creaming the butter and sugar for at least a minute or two, but the Two Sisters said otherwise, so I did as I was told… skeptically… but I still did it.

Next, add the vanilla and egg.

Mix just until they’re incorporated. Add the flour and baking powder.

Once again, mix just until everything is combined. At this point, I realized this dough was going to be a little bit dry for my purposes. Not only do you need a dough that you can roll out, but then it needs to also be rolled up, and this dough was going to crack.

Using the 5 ½ cups I’ve called for, you probably won’t run into this problem, but if you do, this is where the sisters and I part company. They recommend adding more vanilla or a little milk to the mixture. The problem is, even a little bit of milk can change the texture and make the cookies a little more cakey. For regular sugar cookies, that’s not a big deal, but for this particular application, I opted to use 2 Tablespoons of half melted butter instead.

Once that was incorporated the dough was perfect.

Because the dough can’t really afford to add more flour, we’re going to roll it on parchment. Always start with a shape resembling what you want to end up with in the end. In this case, you want something square/rectangular.

Unfortunately, the parchment will slide around while you’re rolling and I don’t really have any cool tricks for preventing that. Please let me know if you do. The secret to keeping a square shape, however, is to always roll towards the corners. As long as you do that, it will stay rectangular. See? 

You want it to be about ¼ inch thick.

In a small container with a lid, combine ½ cup sugar, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, and a pinch of salt.

Put the lid on and shake until everything is combined.

Brush the dough with two tablespoons of melted butter.

Unlike bread cinnamon rolls, you want to cover the entire surface. Butter acts like glue for cookies, while it does the opposite for bread.

Sprinkle the cinnamon mixture over the top, leaving about an inch bare along the far edge. I only used like ⅔ of mine.

Now comes the trickiest part. Carefully fold the edge nearest you over the dough. It will crack a bit, but just fix it with your fingers.

Then, using the parchment, slowly roll the dough. I’ll admit, this is easier said than done, but just be patient.

When you get to this point, fold the last few inches over the top.

Then gently press the seam together with your fingers.

Roll the whole thing up in the parchment.

Then wrap it in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour, anything longer than that is fine, as well.

When you’re ready, preheat your oven to 350°. Remove the cookie roll from the fridge and unwrap it.

Slice the log into ½ slices and lay them on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Leave at least an inch between them. This picture is not actually of the pan I was cooking, but of the pan I was going to freeze, so I didn’t leave much room. That being said, if you don’t want to bake them all now, like most other cookies, you can place the ready to bake dough on a parchment lined pan and freeze them. When they’re frozen, just place them in a freezer bag and bake as many or as few as you want. Just add 2 minutes to the baking time.

Now, place the ones you are baking now into the 350° oven for 8 – 10 minutes. When they’re ready, they won’t be browned, but they’ll be slightly puffy, they’ll look dry on top, and they might have a few little cracks around the edges.

Allow them to cool on the pan for 5 minutes before moving them, parchment and all, to a cooling rack. When they’ve cooled completely, it’s time to make the icing. Sift 1 cup of powdered sugar into a bowl. Add 2 ½ teaspoons of water and stir until it’s incorporated. It will be fairly thick, but if it’s hard to stir, go ahead and add another ½ teaspoon of water.

Pour/scrape the icing into a plastic bag (zip top, sandwich, piping, any of them will work)

Cut off the very tip and squeeze the icing over the cookies in a zigzag, drizzle like pattern.

And there you have it. Cinnamon Roll Cookies. Aren’t they just the cutest things? These cookies are actually even better the next day, so once the icing is set, and you’ve had a chance to enjoy one, move the rest to an airtight container.

So it turns out the sisters were right. The texture of these cookies was exactly what I was hoping for. So thank you, Two Sisters Crafting! 

What is your favorite holiday cookie?

Zucchini Bread with a Twist (of Lime)

Zucchini season is definitely in full swing, here in Utah. When visiting my mom recently, she sent me home with four of them from her garden. One of them was a little larger than I generally like to eat, but was perfect for grating and baking. During that same visit, Mom fed me a piece of zucchini bread she had made. It was flavored with orange and had raisins, nuts, and chocolate chips in it. Needless to say, it was delicious. I had her email me the recipe with every intention of making it, but as the story usually goes, I had to make a few changes. I had just returned from San Diego with a bunch of seriously amazing limes (it’s legal to bring fruit out of California, right?) so of course I had to use those in place of the orange. And since I was using lime, I had to use coconut oil. And remembering our lime, coconut, and white chocolate bread pudding, I had to substitute white chocolate chips. And then there were the raisins… I don’t like to keep them in the house because I don’t trust my scattered brain to not leave them somewhere Otto might possibly find them, (if you’ve ever owned a beagle you’ll understand the lengths they’ll go to for food) and raisins/grapes are extremely toxic for dogs. So in place of those, I used dried cranberries. Other than that, it was exactly the same. Except for the tangy lime glaze I added. Ok, so it was nothing like Mom’s. It was, however, just as delicious.

Here’s what you’ll need: 

• ½ cup coconut oil
• ½ cup canola or vegetable oil
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 ¾ cups grated zucchini (1 medium-ish zucchini)
• 2 Tablespoons fresh squeezed lime juice
• 2 Tablespoons lime zest
• ½ cup dried cranberries
• ¼ cup hot water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup pecans
• 1 cup white chocolate chips 

Make sure all of your ingredients are room temperature before you begin, including the zucchini and limes. Place the cranberries in a small bowl and pour over ¼ cup hot water. Microwave them for 30 seconds, and then just leave them in there until you’re ready for them later.

Now for the limes. You’ll probably need two medium sized ones for this recipe. You should get about a Tablespoon of zest and 2 Tablespoons of juice from each one.

Be sure to only remove the green bit, the white stuff is bitter.

Grate your zucchini. I usually just use a box grater (I actually really love this one) because it’s just too much of a pain to clean the food processor.

You want the coconut oil to be room temperature but still in its solid state when you measure it.

Then it goes into the bowl of your mixer along with the canola oil.

And the sugar.

Mix those on medium speed for about 2 minutes. There should be no more lumps of coconut oil and should be a nice, creamy white color.

Add the eggs one at a time.

Be sure each one is incorporated before adding the next. Don’t panic if it looks a little bit curdled like this.

Add the vanilla and mix it in.

Followed by the lime zest.

This is the part where I had planned to tell you to remove the liquid from the cranberries and add 2 Tablespoons of it to the lime juice, but it turns out that’s about how much you’ll end up with, so don’t bother. Just dump it in with the cranberries.

Add the zucchini and the lime juice. (you can see mine is pink from the cranberry water)

Stir that in and add the cranberries. The zucchini will try to attach itself to the beater, so just scrape it down.

Now for the dry ingredients. Combine the flour, soda, powder, and salt in a bowl. This is probably a good time to preheat your oven to 350°.

Then add them to the bowl, mixing just until everything is combined.

You’ll want to chop your pecans just slightly. You don’t want them to get lost in the bread. I like big nuts and I cannot lie… What? Tell me you weren't thinking it too.

Put your nuts into the bowl along with the white chocolate chips. I used mini ones, but they disappeared completely during the baking process, so in the future, I will use regular sized ones, or even chunks. Whatever you use, fold them in gently.

Divide the batter between two greased and floured loaf pans. Mine are fairly big 9x5 pans, which made for loaves that were somewhat vertically challenged, (this is where Hubby would insert a short joke about how I should feel in good company or something) but they are still perfectly delicious. If you use smaller pans, you may need to bake them for a few extra minutes, but it should be pretty close.

Into your preheated 350° oven for about 45 minutes. When they’re done, a toothpick inserted into the center will come out clean, and the loaves will be a nice golden brown color.

Allow them to cool in the pans for 10 minutes, and during that time, prepare the glaze. Into 2 Tablespoons of lime juice, sift ½ cup powdered sugar. Stir until it comes together into a nice, smooth glaze. It’s fine if there are a few little bits of lime pulp in it.

Apply your glaze to the warm loaves… um, you'll just have to trust me, it’s going to look a lot more appetizing when you’re done.

Brush it over the entire top surface of both loaves. Although the goal is to keep most of the glaze on top, some of it is bound to run down the sides, so you might want to place the cooling rack on a sheet pan before you start. Did I forget to mention that part?

Allow them to cool completely before slicing. You’re going to love the tang of the lime glaze and the cranberries, with the sweetness of the white chocolate and the nutty crunch of the pecans. The coconut flavor definitely plays second fiddle in this recipe, so if you want to bring it out a bit, feel free to stir in some shredded coconut when you add the pecans and chips.

What’s your favorite way to use of those zucchinis from the garden?