Category: Cookies

Recipe #10: Shortbread Cookies with Toblerone

In keeping with the holiday spirit, I am baking sweets traditionally associated with this time of the year. Shortbread is an iconic biscuit (as they say in the UK for cookie) commonly associated with Christmastime.

The cookie was “invented” in Scotland all the way back in the 12th century. It was often twice baked until it hardened into a rusk, then dusted with sugar and spices. But the biscuit became more popular during the reign of Mary Queen of Scots during the 16th century, when it was often baked for family celebrations and holidays like Christmas.

The term shortbread comes from the fat or shortening used in the recipe–in this instance butter (and lots of it!) and the short crumb or crumbly consistency on the biscuit.

That’s a pound of butter

Most traditional recipes call for the dough to be pressed into the pan, pricked with fork tines and cut into wedges or rectangular biscuits after baking. I follow a recipe that is more like a drop cookie. And I like to change it up a bit and add some additional richness to the already rich dough.

Shortbread is a 1-2-3 cookie; one part sugar (this can be a combination of granulated sugar and icing sugar), two parts butter and three parts flour. My recipe also calls for cornstarch, which is supposed to soften the proteins in the flour. As such, the texture of my shortbread cookies is so crumbly, the cookie practically melts in your mouth.

I use granulated sugar, icing sugar and cornstarch

Shortbread diehards would probably object to the use of cornstarch in the recipe, but I have had great success with this recipe so I’m not going to mess with it.

I like to add chocolate to my recipe so I take a Toblerone bar, which has delicious milk chocolate and nougat in it, and chop it up into small chunks before adding it into the dough.

Mmm! Toblerone

I use a small 1/2 inch cookie scoop to form balls and bake them for approximately 15 minutes.

Half-inch cookies are just the right size

There should be NO browning on the cookie. If it browns, it’s been in the oven too long.

Shortbreads are subtly sweet and deeply rich. They are a perfect companion to a cup of tea or a hot toddy. And they most certainly make a great addition to your dessert table–or even a great gift at the holidays.

These cookies are very crumbly, and very rich

Shortbread Cookies with Toblerone Chunks

  • 1 pound unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 Cup Icing Sugar
  • 3 Cups All Purpose Flour
  • 1/2 Cup Cornstarch
  • 1 Tsp Vanilla extract
  • 1 Toblerone chocolate bar, chopped into small chunks

Directions:

Beat the butter, icing sugar, flour and cornstarch until fluffy. add splash of vanilla and combine. Sprinkle chocolate chunks into batter and mix until just combined. Spoon onto a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees–make sure the cookies do not brown! The cookies will still be soft when you remove them from the oven. Place them on a rack to cook.

Recipe #9: Ginger Molasses Cookies

It’s holiday season and you know what that means: BAKING!!!

My oven is still misbehaving (don’t ask), but I have managed to whip up some cookies without too much difficulty, although a properly heated oven would mean more predictable bakes.

Nevertheless, my desire to bake has outweighed my patience for the oven to be repaired.

I dug through my recipe box and found this lovely recipe, brought to you by Bonnie Stern. It appeared in the Weekend Post back in 2006 and I’ve held on to it since then. My girlfriend, Katie, was the one who shared it with me. She was trying to find ways to get more iron into her son’s diet. This recipe calls for molasses, which is quite high in iron. It also calls for whole wheat flour or nutri flour, which is a blend of unbleached flour with the bran added back in, so it bakes like an all purpose flour. I didn’t have either of these so I just used all purpose flour, but that means these cookies aren’t quite as nutritious as the recipe says they could be. I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

A mixture of melted butter, sugar, eggs and black strap molasses

You may be in a rush to make the dough and immediately bake the cookies, but the instructions call for chilling the dough for at least an hour. Don’t skip this step. It gives the melted butter the chance to solidify into the dough. It then becomes much easier to form the dough into balls so that when the cookies bake, they come out perfectly shaped with a nice crackle.

Chill the cookie dough: don’t skip this step!

I roll the dough in turbinado sugar, which gives the cookies a nice finish.

Roll the cookie dough balls in turbinado sugar

Enjoy these with a glass of egg nog, milk or a hot toddy….they have a nice flavour of molasses, cinnamon and ginger, perfect for chilly winter nights!

Ginger molasses crackle cookies fresh out of the oven

Ginger Molasses Crackle Cookies

  • 2/3 Cup of melted butter or vegetable oil (I use butter)
  • 1 Cup granulated sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 Cup molasses
  • 2 Cups flour (preferably whole wheat or nutri blend)
  • 2 Tsp ground ginger
  • 1 Tsp cinnamon
  • 1 Tsp baking powder
  • 1 Tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 Tsp salt
  • 1/2 Cup of coarse sugar for dipping (eg. turbinado sugar)

In large bowl, combine butter with sugar. Beat in egg and molasses.

Mix or sift flour with remaining dry ingredients.

Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Shape dough into 1 Tbsp balls and roll in coarse sugar. Place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper and press down lightly. Leave enough space for other cookies.

Bake in a 350F preheated oven for approximately 10 minutes until crackle-looking but still soft in the centre. Let cool before transferring to a wire rack.

Recipe #6: Kelly’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Time for a break from making finnicky desserts and time for some down-to-earth comfort cookies. I fished out a recipe for these cookies that I got from my long time neighbour, Kelly. I remember she brought a freshly baked batch over to our house and they were gone in no time flat.

I can’t remember the last time I made these, probably because the kids can’t take these in their school lunches (or rather, I won’t let them–there are no laws here in California that prevent kids from bringing peanut and nut products to school, unlike in Ontario where Sabrina’s Law exists).

Some would argue these cookies bake best with processed peanut butter like Kraft or Skippy, but I only buy natural peanut butter. Just peanuts!

The butter mixed with the peanut butter was so creamy when I blended it together with the hand mixer.

Creamy peanut butter and unsalted butter

Then I added the requisite sugar, eggs and flour and voila! beautiful cookie batter.

Yes, sugar

I found a couple of Dairy Milk bars in the cupboard and decided to crush them up and throw them in the batter instead of using chipits and I’m glad I did.

Chocolate + peanut butter= sheer perfection

Just before baking, I used the back of a fork to press the requisite hash marks into each cookie. Because, peanut butter cookies. Right?

The resulting cookies were so creamy and delicious, and once again, they disappeared within a few days. I think the milk chocolate chunks also made a big difference.

These were quick and easy to make and didn’t require much, if any, skill or precision. So go make some!!!

Fork tine marks are required in peanut butter cookies
Let the cookies completely on a wire rack–if you can resist!

Kelly’s Peanut Butter Cookies

  • 1 Cup peanut butter (I like to use all natural smooth PB)
  • 1 Cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 Cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 Cup brown sugar
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 2 1/2 Cups, all purpose flour (or you can do half whole wheat flour for a slightly denser cookie)
  • 2 bars of your favourite chocolate bar (I used Dairy Milk), crushed up into chunks

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  • Blend peanut butter and butter together in a standing mixer or with a hand mixer until completely incorporated
  • Add eggs and blend followed by sugars
  • Add baking powder and flour(s) and blend until ingredients are incorporated.
  • Mix in chocolate chunks until evenly distributed
  • Scoop 1″ balls of dough onto parchment-lined cookie sheet
  • Take the back of a fork and press firmly down until fork tine marks appear in flattened cookie (but not too hard!)
  • Bake for ~10 minutes until cookies are lightly browned
  • Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely (if you can wait that long!)