Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cookies

Do you love Chocolate and Peppermint together as much as I do?  I feel like it's one of those things that just tastes like Christmas...  Anyway these are a pretty standard Chocolate Chip Cookie with a little less sugar since we have more sugary add-ins than normal.  And they are just enough pepperminty to be Christmasy but not over the top at all! :)  (So, I guess what I'm saying is that you could get away with them year round! :)

Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cookies:
1 c. Shortening
1-1/3 c. Sugar (I used all white but I suppose you could still do half white and half brown here)
1/2 t. Salt
1 t. Vanilla
1 t. Baking Soda
2 Eggs
3 c. Flour (all-purpose)
1 c. Chocolate Chips (I prefer semi-sweet in my cookies, but you could use your preference!)
1/2 c. Peppermint Candy Canes, crushed (or peppermint candies)

Instructions:
Cream shortening and sugar until well blended.  Mix in salt, vanilla, baking soda and eggs until combined.  Add flour 1 cup at a time until just combined.  Then stir in chocolate chips and crushed peppermint candy canes.  Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Then using a cookie scoop (or whatever you like to use) place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet about 3" apart.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until golden.

Makes 4+ dozen cookies.

My Favorite Sugar Cookies

I've never been too big of a fan of sugar cookies to be completely honest.  I've always been a HUGE fan of sugar cookie dough, but just not the baked version.  My Mom makes the best of, well, everything!  So of course I would eat some of hers whenever I had the chance.  But I've never been too big of a fan of any sugar cookies I've made.  I'm not sure if I didn't read the instructions carefully enough, or if I ended up either not baking them enough or over baking them...but they just never have tasted that good to me when I make them.  Until now.  So I will share my findings with you and you can check out my summery, and themed cookies I made today!  :)

I'm still not quite sure what convinced me to bake today though...  Maybe it's partially the fact that I could have just gone outside and cooked anything, probably ever cookies, on the sidewalk.  I don't know about you, but it's been super duper hot here this week!  We've had heat advisories (and I know much of the country has too!) and today alone it had a heat index of 105!  So, yeah...don't really know why I wanted to bake, but we do have AC so I guess that's part of the reason.  I can't really tell the heat unless I'm out in it...so I bake.  :)  And apparently ramble on...  :)  On to the cookies...


Sugar Cookie  (Originally Better Homes and Gardens, tweeked by A Delicious Melody:)
ingredients

• 2/3
  cup butter, softened
• 3/4
  cup sugar
• 1
  teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4
  teaspoon salt
• 2
  egg whites 
• 1
  tablespoon milk
• 1-1/2
  teaspoons lemon extract
• 2
  cups all-purpose flour
  
  
  
  
  1.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2.  Beat butter and sugar until well combined.
  3.  Beat in baking powder, salt, egg whites, milk and lemon extract until smooth.
  4.  Carefully add about 1/2 c. of flour at a time mixing in each one, until all the flour has been added.
  5.  Refrigerate to cut out later, or scoop and flatten right away and bake for about 7 minutes each batch.
  Yields about 36 cookies.
  
  
  Cool completely before frosting.
  
  
  Here are the designs I came up with today when frosting them.  :)  I used Royal Icing (actually from a mix...I know that's lazy...but it was convenient...)  and made it regular royal icing for the white parts and then diluted it a tad to be able to mix the colors into as well as just smoothly cover the cookies.  I really like (for the most part) the way they turned out too!!!  :)

  

  What says summer more than little smiling cookie suns?  :)

  
  

  

  I think these would be super cute for a baby shower.
  (And no, that's not a hint here.)

  
  

  

  I can't wait for football season, so even when I iced them pink and lavender they still looked like footballs to me!  :)

  
  

  

  Duke!!!

  
  

  

  UNC Chapel Hill  (Their logo is really hard to do....)

  
  

  

  The faceoff...  Who.  Will.  Win?  ;)

  Hope this gives you some inspiration!  And I really hope you enjoy these cookies as much as we do!  :)

Sugar Cookies

These are a staple on the cookie table come Christmas time!  There are plenty of recipes out there, so today I thought I would try a new recipe (for me) and it's also from the Joy of Cooking by Rombauer.  :)  I was pretty impressed with how the turned out too...although I think my favorite sugar cookies will still be the ones my Mom makes.  :)  I also had some fun with frosting/icing them this afternoon.  

Do as I say and not as I do.  Put something like a plastic cutting board underneath when frosting/icing your cookies. :)

This recipe is called "Roll Cookies" and can be found on pg. 711 of the Joy of Cooking cookbook.  I will also post it below...

Cream:

1/2 c. sugar and 1/2 c. butter

Beat in:

1 t. vanilla

2 eggs

2.5 c. flour (all purpose)

2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

Chill dough for 3-4 hours. (Although I only did about 30 minutes...)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Roll and cut cookies.  Place on greased cookie sheet.  Bake 7-12 minutes.  (I only had to bake mine about 6-7minutes)

Roll it.  Mark it.  Cut it with a star cutter.  Stick 'em in the oven for you and me! ;)

 Then once all my cookies were baked and cooled (on cooling racks) I started my frosting and icing.  :)

It was just a simple recipe that is Powdered Sugar and water until you get it to this consistency for the icing.  And then add more powdered sugar for the frosting.  :)  Make it what you want it to be.  Add flavors or colors if desired!  :)

 Like I said....color 'em if you'd like.  :)

 You can pipe frosting around the edge, let dry and fill with colored icing.  Or dip cookies into icing...or...

Do whatever makes your heart happy and sing!  :)

Happy Baking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)