Butter Cut-Out Cookies... First, HAPPY SAINT PATRICK’S DAY!  Second, I need to apologize to you all. I realized this week, while making 15 dozen of these cookies that I have never shared the recipe with you.  I am a bad blog friend, but I plan to make amends today!  As with many of my recipes, this is a modification of an old family favorite.  The original recipe was clipped from a Land O’ Lakes holiday cookie book many, many...

Brown Butter Sour Cream Cookies... So, I am not very good when it comes to grocery lists. I often forget that I already have something and end up buying it a second time.  This happened a few days ago.  While at the store, buying the ingredients I needed for some lovely Chicken Enchiladas with Chipotle Sour Cream Sauce (recipe coming up on Wednesday next week), I forgot I already had a pint of sour cream at home and bought a second.  When I got home...

Orange Almond Chocolate Cookies... This cookie is not what I set out to make.    This was supposed to be a simple almond cookie.  I was craving almond cookies last week and decided to come up with a recipe that incorporated ground almonds into the cookie for some texture.  Things went astray when I saw a lonely orange sitting on my counter.   It only went further off track when I remembered I had a bag of chocolate disks from New York in my pantry.   These...

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies... I love old family recipes.  I also love cookies. My mom makes some pretty fantastic oatmeal cookies.  They are my grandmother’s recipe, handed down on a butter stained note card, and they are lovely.  Crisp throughout with a hint of cinnamon and a lovely nubby texture makes them instantly craveable.  They are mom’s go-to cookie and the most frequent dessert offering at her house.  In fact, there is...

Pecan Tassies (aka Pecan Pie Cookies)... I have a love affair with little pie shaped cookies. This time it is cookies that are in fact tiny pecan pies!  I adore them, with their little nubbly tops and their gooey centers.  These are lovely for dessert with a cup of coffee, make a lovely gift wrapped in a pretty bag, or are perfect for a dressed up gathering drizzled in a little dark chocolate.  They also freeze very well making them a great make-ahead cookie. I...

Spiced Chocolate Crinkles... There is something magic about a soft, chewy chocolate cookie. Crinkle cookies are an attractive addition to any platter of cookies.  I have a recipe that was given to me by a friend long ago which is lovely on its own, but you know me and my propensity to tinker.  Inspired by my Chocolate Spice Cake I decided to add some warm spices to the cookies, and I also punched up the chocolate flavor by using more cocoa powder...

Double Peanut Butter Chip Cookies... I love to tweak recipes. Sometimes they are big tweaks, other times it is a small change with a HUGE impact. This is one of those recipes. In The Joy of Cooking there is a recipe for perfectly lovely Peanut Butter Cookies. They are traditional, with the crosshatch design on the top, in a way that screams, ‘homemade’. They are soft, peanut buttery, and really very good. In our house Christmas is not Christmas...

Coconut Oatmeal Cookies... On a recent trip to visit my Great Aunt Ruby I had the opportunity to copy down a few more family recipes. One of the recipes was for an oatmeal raisin cookie made with coconut and cocoa powder.  It sounded unique and I jotted it down to play with later.  Well,  later came sooner than I imagined because I could not get the recipe out of my head.  I modified the original recipe by adding a different blend of white...

Bourbon Caramel Apple Pie Cookies... Here in North Texas we have had something of a cold snap.  By cold I mean temps that range from upper 40’s to mid-60’s.  I know there are those who snicker at my definition of cold snap, but here in my neck of the woods this is December weather. All this cool weather has put me in in the mood for all my cold weather food favorites.  In particular, apple pie.  One of the best apple pies I have ever had...

Orange Cheesecake Cookies... There is something of a joke in my family about cream cheese.   You see, my father loves the stuff.  I’ve seen him eat it on crackers, with salsa, on chips, or even plain.  Whenever he tries a new recipe, inevitably, his first comment is that it does not have enough cream cheese.  (Most of the time he is joking … we think.)  He was the reason, last holiday season, I tried to find a cookie that featured...

Chocolate Chip Coconut Brown Butter Cookies...  I’m on something of a brown butter kick at the moment.  It is a really tasty kick, if I don’t mind saying.    After the Chocolate Spice Cake with Brown Butter Frosting I was looking for another way to use brown butter in sweets.  I decided on cookies, since they are my favorite thing to eat, and I decided to use some coconut because I had some in the pantry.  Really, these cookies were created simply...

Bacon Cheddar Cookies... Yes, Cheddar Bacon Cookies.  Now, before you ask, no this is not a sweet cookie.  It is a savoury cookie perfect for appetizers for serving with a salad or soup.  They are so good! These cookies are addictive.  They are the perfect base for savoury spreads and toppings, but are just as delightful all on their own.  What makes them so lovely is the tangy cheese combined with the salty nuggets of smoked bacon all...

Strawberry Jam Tarts...  Last October I had the opportunity to go to England and Ireland and the trip changed my life. Overall, I must admit, the food was pretty bleak.  I was so busy preparing for my friend’s wedding (in which I was not only the Matron of Honor but I was the cake designer) that I ate a lot of quick meals and pub food.  However, one lovely afternoon I had a traditional tea, and with that tea came some buttery, slightly...

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies...  It is a wonderful thing to have a good, trusty cookie recipe. It’s good because a trusty recipe can be changed, added to, and amended to create all kinds of different cookies.  I have a lot of recipes that are what I consider ‘base’ recipes.  They are fine on their own, but add a little of this and a little of that and you have a whole new dish that you can add to your rotation.    The ‘base’...

Chocolate Chip Overload Cookies... You came for these cookies, and you shall get them, but first … If you love baking as much as I do, and you have limited counter space like I do, stackable cooling racks are the perfect solution.  I love my stackable, non-stick cooling racks so much I decided to buy an extra set and give them away!  That’s right, I’m having my first ever giveaway!  All you have to do is comment on this post,...

Almond and Chocolate Filled Butter Cookies... If given the choice of any dessert I want, I almost always pick the cookie.  I adore them.  During the Holidays I tend to eat and bake so many cookies that I get a little tired of them and I can’t stand to make them until Spring is fully underway.  These cookies have a delicious secret hidden in them.  A mixture of ground almonds, mini-chocolate chips, vanilla sugar, and cinnamon.   I love little suprises...