Daring Bakers’ November Challenge

Holiday season is the time for sharing and Peta of Peta Eats is sharing a dozen cookies, some classics and some of her own, from all over the world with us.

While Peta shared a dozen cookie recipes with us, our challenge for the month was to choose one of the recipes to make!

I chose to make Chocolate Coconut Cookies! This recipe came via Baking Glory and is a delicious chocolate cookie with a coconut macaroon filling. I did have a little issue with the dough, so I had to change the way I formed the cookie. The cookie dough is supposed to be formed like a purse to hold the filling. While I formed my cookies this way, they didn’t hold their shape well during baking. You will see in my pictures below how I formed the cookies and what they looked like after being baked, but I have to say that I gave up! I took pictures after baking a dozen cookies, then with the rest of the dough, I just made thumbprint cookies! That was easier and they still tasted the same- no matter how they looked 🙂

Chocolate Coconut Cookies
Recipe lightly adapted from Baking Glory

Coconut Filling:
6 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
2 1/4 cups sweetened shredded coconut

Cookie dough:
1 3/4 cups flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg

To make the coconut filling:
In a medium-sized bowl, cream together (either by hand or with a hand-held mixer) the cream cheese and sugar. Add in the egg yolk and vanilla bean paste. Stir in the shredded coconut. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

To make the cookie dough:
In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. In a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar. Mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add in the egg and mix until well combined. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add in the flour mixture (the cookie dough will be stiff).

To make the thumbprint cookies:
Use a small-sized ice cream scoop (or a tablespoon), scoop the dough and roll it into a ball. Place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, and using your thumb, create a well in the middle of the dough. Place a teaspoon-sized amount of the coconut filling into the well of the cookie.
Bake in a preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until the cookies are set. Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, move the cookies onto cooling racks and let cool completely. Enjoy!

How the cookies looked when I formed the dough around the filling…

how the cookies looked when I made them as thumbprint cookies!

Made with love, not calories!

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National Food Day: Chocolate Chip Day

May 15th is National Chocolate Chip Day!

I can’t find information on how National Chocolate Chip Day came to be, but here is a blurb on chocolate chips!
“Chocolate chips are a required ingredient in chocolate chip cookies, which were invented in 1937 when Ruth Graves Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in the town of Whitman, Massachusetts added cut-up chunks of a semi-sweet Nestlé chocolate bar to a cookie recipe. The cookies were a huge success, and Wakefield reached an agreement in 1939 with Nestlé to add her recipe to the chocolate bar’s packaging in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate. Initially, Nestlé included a small chopping tool with the chocolate bars. In 1941 Nestlé and one or more of its competitors started selling the chocolate in chip (or “morsel”) form.^[1] The Nestlé brand Toll House cookies is named for the inn.” (Source)

I have been wanting to make rugelach cookies for a while now, and I have seen recipes that call for chocolate chips in the filling. So you know I’m going to go with that recipe! It is National Chocolate Chip Day!

The rugelach dough combines cream cheese and butter, so the dough needs to be refrigerated, but it is an easy dough to work with (and tasty too!). The filling of sugar, brown sugar, cocoa powder, and mini chocolate chips, comes together quickly and provides a nice chocolate taste without losing the taste of the pastry dough. If you’re not a big fan of chocolate (I still like you!), you can easily substitute some cinnamon for the cocoa powder and add chopped nuts in place of the chocolate chips!

Chocolate Chip Rugelach
Recipe from Serious Eats
Makes 48 cookies

Note: I only made one small change from the original recipe- I used mini chocolate chips instead of bittersweet chocolate. That said, click on the link above for the complete recipe and detailed directions!

Made with love, not calories!

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Chocolate Red-Hot Cookies

Cinnamon Red-Hots! My grandmother loved these! I remember her putting these out on her coffee table, in a beautiful white Fenton bowl. And while they were too hot for me as a child (so I had wimpy taste buds!), I like eating them now (plus they turn my tongue red)!

I picked up a box of Red-Hots the other day, knowing I would make something with them. I came up with a few ideas, but as I only picked up one box, I chose one idea (and wrote the rest down so I can play create another time!).

Cookies! If you have been following for a while, me making cookies should be no surprise!

I also have this weird desire to use other ingredients in place of sugar (like here and here). This recipe is no different. While I didn’t remove all the sugar, I did use less. Instead, I used my food processor to grind the red-hots to a fine consistency (wow, was that noisy!), and I used that in place of some of the sugar. This allows the Red-Hot goodness to be throughout the cookie, without being over-powering (and without large pieces of Red-Hots to bite into).

Oh, and these would make a great treat for Valentine’s Day!

Chocolate Red-Hot Cookies
Makes: 3 dozen cookies
Prep time: 15 minutes      Bake time: 9 minutes

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup Red-Hots, divided (I used a 6oz. box)
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a food processor, place 1/2 cup of the Red-Hots. Note: I suggest ear-plugs…this is going to get LOUD! Turn on your food processor and let run until the Red-Hots are smaller than mini chocolate chips (you will have some Red-Hot dust, but you don’t want it all to be dust).

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and 1/2 cup Red-Hots (from your food processor). Add in the eggs and combine well. Stir in the salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder. Add in the flour and mix until just combined.

Using a medium-sized ice cream scoop, scoop dough onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, leaving at least an inch between cookies. Top each cookie with one Red-Hot (from the remaining 1/4 cup). Bake for 9 minutes or until cookies are set. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, move cookies onto a cooling rack and let cool completely. Enjoy!

Made with love, not calories!

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