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here are few things in life better than a warm chocolate chip cookie and a glass of milk…unless of course it is a warm pumpkin chocolate chip cookie with a glass of milk. Pumpkin added to any recipe instantly turns it into comfort food. Even the aroma of the accenting spices invites you in and reminds you of past holiday dishes. Bake these cookies, curl up on the couch with a good book and treat yourself to the nostalgic flavors of fall.
When my kids were little and accompanying me on grocery store errands, they would beg me for the Pillsbury slice and bake cookies every time we went down the refrigerated grocery isle. You know the kind, they have a printed picture down the center of a pre-packaged cookie dough log. Every holiday has a different design. Easter bunnies, snowmen, shamrocks, you name it…cookies for every season. Now, if you know anything about me, it is that I believe in butter…I joke that this is a religious belief, but I do in fact LOVE real butter. It makes everything taste better. If I am going to eat something that will go straight to my thighs, it will only be the best, highest quality ingredients, no hydrogenated oils for this girl. So these cute little logs of cookie dough don’t quite meet my standard for something I am willing to waste my calories on. I do, however, see the appeal. They are colorful, festive and fun to make. Not to mention the ease and convenience of having cookie dough ready in your fridge at any given time.
What did people do before the good old Pillsbury cookie dough log? I remember my grandmother making her own. She called them icebox cookies. Cookie dough shaped, put in the fridge, ready to slice and bake at a moment’s notice. Between the 1920s and 1930s the invention of the icebox made these convenient cookies popular and gave them their name. Now, we may have eliminated the need for Ice with the invention of the refrigerator, but that certainly did not eliminate the need for chilled, ready to bake cookies.
A couple of years ago, I had a neighbor leave the cutest little candy corn butter cookies at my door. When I saw the bright colors perfectly shaped, I was convinced that these would make the perfect icebox cookies. I love candy corn everything. From September through November I bake and decorate everything with these adorable little tri-colored candies in mind. Getting ready for a Halloween party this week I made a batch of spritz cookie dough to make festive holiday cookies. When I went to load the dough into the cookie press, I quickly learned that my trigger was broken and I would be unable to press and shape the cookies. I had already mixed a huge triple batch of almond paste spritz cookie dough and I was unwilling to let that goodness go to waste. Spritz cookie dough is the perfect dough for a slice and bake icebox cookie so I decided to seize this opportunity and attempt candy corn icebox cookies.
I divided my dough into thirds, colored one-third yellow, one-third orange and left the other third white. I then layered the colored cookie dough in a parchment-lined brownie pan. I covered the entire pan and refrigerated it until cold and hard. The beauty of real butter is it chills perfectly hard for these cookie slabs and slices without losing shape. Once cold I removed the cookie dough and cut into rows. I then cut the rows into triangles and placed the cookies on a parchment-lined cookie sheets. These little cookies cooked up to perfection! The best part is they taste as good as they look. These cookies would be the perfect addition to any thanksgiving buffet…if you can resist the urge to eat them straight out of the oven!!!
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am going to start a 12 step program for everyone who is as addicted to macarons as I am. Moderation just isn’t part of my vocabulary when it comes to these crunchy yet chewy bites of perfection. I am not going to lie macarons can be tricky…but only until you master a recipe. Once you find the right recipe and technique, the fun begins. Fun because now you can start playing with flavors and fillings. So when the girls and I finally found the secret to macarons…psst it’s Italian merengue, we knew it was time to get creative. The hard thing with macarons is balancing the science behind the cookie with changing the flavor. Changing the flavor means adding ingredients which can very easily change the integrity of the cookie. If every season has a flavor… fall is pumpkin! The chill in the air means fuzzy socks and pumpkin-flavored 
everything. When my girls suggested making pumpkin macarons, I knew they were on to something. The hard part would be to add pumpkin without ruining the structure of the airy cookie. There is no way to add the water content in pumpkin puree to the macaron without breaking down the integrity of the meringue. We decided to add pumpkin pie spice to the cookie portion and the pumpkin puree to the buttercream filling. The moisture of the macaron filling is what helps change the texture of the cookie and create the chewy, nougaty inside of the cookie. This is why it is best to let your cookies sit for 24 hours after baking and filling before serving. The pumpkin buttercream actually aides in this process and creates a perfectly chewy center. So what seemed like an unlikely pairing actually became a symbiotic cookie relationship. Who needs pumpkin pie, when Thanksgiving dinner can now be finished with a macaron!
We really get into Halloween at our house. While most people give out candy, we don’t stop there. We set up hot chocolate, soups, and of course plenty of baked goods in our driveway. Baking enough for the neighborhood is quite an undertaking, so I asked the girls to start baking and freezing early to ensure we wouldn’t run out Halloween night.
A couple nights ago I came home late from work. I opened my front door and instantly the most amazing smell came out. This is a smell I knew well…this was the smell of french macarons baking in my kitchen. For those of you who know me, you know my favorite treat of all time is french macarons. I go to Disneyland, not for the rides, but to do a tour of the parks french macaron locations.
I entered the kitchen where Maddie and Kennedy were busy at work. Maddie was weighing ingredients and Kennedy was piping the perfect little cookies. I went to grab an apron and asked Kennedy if she wanted me to pipe the circles. She instantly responded, “nope mom, I’ve got it”. My first instinct was to be offended that they didn’t want my help. This is the cookie I introduced them to…these little gems are my thing! Then as quickly as the thought came, I was overwhelmed with pride. My 17-year-old is making Italian meringue and using an infrared thermometer to check she has accurately reached soft ball stage, and my 15-year-old is piping perfect circles. I was no longer offended…I was as proud as I could possibly be. The cookie that most adults fear and shy away from, my girls make like rock stars!!!
The thought then came to me. I would give them no help at all, but rather wait, see what they create and blog about it. What better way to calm people’s fears about making macarons, than to see that the recipe we have been working on the last couple of years is so foolproof that my girls can make it flawlessly without help.
The finished product was so adorable that I actually hated to eat a few…I did of course…but I felt bad digesting such perfection. So, I am sharing this recipe and some photos I took to brag a little as a proud momma, but mostly to let everyone who has ever wanted to make french macaron see that they should not be intimidated. These are just as fun and amazing to bake as they are to eat. And once you learn to bake them yourself you can afford to eat them by the dozen. Because let’s be honest these little cookies are seriously overpriced at the bakery!!!
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love to bake, so I tend to fall into the category of people who think everything should be made from scratch. That being said, I have to admit…there are times I like to doctor a mix. Brownies are NOT one of those times. For those of you who have only ever eaten box mix brownies, Please, Please, try these brownies. In the competition of box versus scratch….there is simply no comparison. You haven’t tasted a brownie until you have made one from scratch. Boxed brownies tend to become too oily or grainy and simply don’t have the depth of flavor created in the homemade version. I understand why many people have turned to the box mix. We are busy people, living way too busy lives. Many brownie recipes require melting chocolate assimilating it into the wet ingredients and then incorporating your wet and dry ingredients together. Other recipes require scalding milk and cooking the wet ingredients before incorporating the dry ingredients. All of these steps can be time-consuming and tedious. This recipe originated with melting chocolate. When I had only one child that recipe seemed to work out just fine. But I soon found myself with four children, a job and a messy house, none of which was going to wait while I melted chocolate. I simplified my brownie recipe into a one-bowl wonder. So, the next time you go to grab that convenient box…remember these brownies are just as quick with a flavor that will leave you wondering why you ever settled for a mix in the first place. These brownies are very versatile and hold up well when cut into squares. To frost, or not to frost…that is the question. While this is a very worthy debate, I am going to include the frosting recipe we created just for these brownies. This Nutella frosting is not overly sweet and has salty accents that perfectly compliment the rich chocolate flavor. Be sure to have a tall glass of cold milk on hand when these are finished!!!
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s soon as there is a chill in the air our kitchen is filled with the earthy aroma of pumpkin. From breads, muffins, cupcakes, pies, and cookies pumpkin makes everything feel and taste like fall is here. One thanksgiving I wondered…could I swap the sour cream from my sugar cookie recipe with pumpkin puree? The result was amazing. The pumpkin kept the cookies soft and moist, while the pumpkin paired with spices gave the cookie a depth of flavor not found in a regular sugar cookie. We paired this cookie with cream cheese frosting rather than a traditional buttercream, as we find the tangy flavor of the cream cheese perfectly pairs with the spice notes found in the cookie. In our family this cookie has become as much a Thanksgiving tradition as pumpkin pie.
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y cousin once told me that my grandmother never gave out her actual recipes. She would alter them just a bit or leave something out, to ensure that she still made the very best of whatever the recipe was. I am not going to lie, I found this hilarious. Hilarious, until I was accused of the same thing. I have been asked for this sugar cookie recipe so many times I have truly lost count, but what I do remember is the number of people who have told me their sugar cookies did not taste like mine, so I must have given them the wrong recipe. This, my friends, is simply not the case. Although I have inherited almost every other trait from my grandmother, I do not give out false recipes. The truth is, there are many recipes that the technique is as important as the ingredients…and this is one of those recipes. So, indulge me and read the detailed instructions on this recipe, so that your cookies turn out amazing and perfect every time.
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