Iced Oatmeal Applesauce Cookies

I have laid off the blogging for a few weeks, but I have still been making cookies. I left out a few entries - for Gingersnap Palmiers (not my fave) and Buttery Pecan Rounds (tasted like Butter Pecan ice cream) - and maybe I'll make those cookies another time, and blog about them then.

For Memorial Day, we joined good friends for a wonderful barbeque and I made some Iced Oatmeal Applesauce Cookies (page 77) to bring along. As usual for our kitchen, I omitted the golden raisins called for in the recipe. The recipe also calls for chunky-style applesauce, which I didn't have. I just threw in one single serve no-sugar-added applesauce container that my son usually has for lunch.

The icing was very easy, and the maple syrup gave the whole cookie a delicious maple flavor. The kids and adults liked the cookies, and afterwards, our host took them to his poker game, where they were devoured.

Kosher for Passover Chocolate Chip Cookies and Chocolate Chunk Coconut Macaroons

It's Passover time! Which means lots of dietary restrictions. If you are interested in what the actual rules are, click here for information about general laws regarding eating kosher, and here for specific restrictions for Passover. Basically, because the Jews had to flee Egypt quickly, they had no time for their bread to rise and had to eat matzah, an unleavened bread similar to a cracker. So, when making baked goods, matzah meal has to be substituted for flour to keep the items kosher for Passover.

Martha has one specifically marked "Kosher for Passover" recipe in her cookies cookbook, Kosher for Passover Chocolate Chip Cookies.

These cookies call for matzah meal as well as matzah farfel instead of flour. Because kashrut requires that dairy and meat not be eaten together at the same meal, and meat is typically served at most seders, this recipe is also dairy-free, using vegetable oil instead of butter and dairy-free chocolate chips. Matzah meal is by no means a perfect substitute for flour, and kosher for passover desserts have a deservedly bad reputation. Unfortunately, although these cookies are edible and not horrendous, they certainly not amazing either. They are crisp and crunchy, and the walnuts give them a nice flavor ... but I will definitely not be making these during the rest of the year.

The cookie most people associate with Passover are macaroons, typically the ones prepared by Manischewitz. Martha has a coconut macaroon recipe in her cookbook, so I decided to try it out, since nothing in the recipe is trafe for passover.
The recipe I chose has several variations, for simple plain coconut macaroons, chocolate chunk or chocolate macaroons. They were incredibly simple to make with very few ingredients, just coconut, a little sugar, egg whites, vanilla and a dash of salt. On the website, it appears that this recipe has been removed, and replaced by this one, which also calls for condensed milk. In any case, these were very simple and very good, kind of like a Mounds Bar.

Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

This is my first "do-over" recipe. I tried making these cookies for my husband to take on his poker weekend, but I accidentally used bittersweet instead of semi-sweet chocolate. Let me just say, it was not a happy accident. Huge waste of time and ingredients.

In any case, I was excited to give Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies (page 67) a second chance. By the way, these are cookies pictured on the cover of Martha's cookie cookbook so somebody must like them!

They are an unexpected mix of flavors - bitter and sweet. They have a nice crunchy outside and a chewy, gooey, chocolately inside. My husband went crazy for them. They are a little bitter for me. The online comments on the web recipe are somewhat divided. This seems to be one of those recipes you either love or hate.

I followed the recipe pretty much to the letter and the cookies are beautiful and tasty.

Chocolate Crackles

Finally, I cookie that was simple to prepare! I feel like I have been tackling all kinds of crazy cookie recipes lately, and this one was refreshingly easy. I flipped through the cookbook quickly, looking for something I could make with one stick of butter, since that was all I had. I discovered Chocolate Crackles (page 68) in the "soft and chewy" section.

I am in love with these cookies. They are beautiful, and SO DELICIOUS. These are the dangerous kind of cookie that I could devour a whole in batch in about 90 seconds. They are very rich and chocolately, but because they use bittersweet chocolate and not much sugar, they aren't very sweet.

Instead of using a full eight ounces of bittersweet chocolate, I combined six ounces of bittersweet with two ounces of semi-sweet chocolate, and achieved the perfect level of sweetness.

Coconut-Cream Cheese Pinwheels

My husband asked me to slow down with the cookie-making because we have had way too many sweets in the house, so it has been a few days since my last batch of cookies. I thought it was time to break out the baking gear, though and picked a doozie for today!

Martha's recipe for Coconut-Cream Cheese Pinwheels (page 61) is extremely labor-intensive, but as you can see from the picture, produces beautiful, impressive-looking cookies. While the recipe is certainly time-consuming, none of the tasks are difficult. This is a wonderful cookie for a party or a baby shower.

In her cookbook, Martha recommends using a fluted cookie cutter and pastry wheel, but since I don't own those tools, I simply used a square cookie cutter and a sharp knife and I still thought the cookies looked gorgeous.

Coconut is only used in the filling and is not an overpowering flavor in these cookies. In fact, if you don't like coconut, you could easily omit it and still have a delicious cookie. The amount of filling is well more than enough for the recipe - in fact, you could halve the amount and still have enough.

I used a baby spoon for doling out the filling and the jams and that worked beautifully. I used both strawberry and raspberry jams, but found that the raspberry was a better choice because it had more substance while the strawberry jam ran a little (but still tasted yummy!).

Snickerdoodles

Today I am celebrating a friend's 38th birthday. What better way to celebrate than cookies? If you can't indulge on your birthday, then when can you? So I chose the Snickerdoodle recipe (page 82) to take over to her house for our little get-together.

I have linked to the Snickerdoodle recipe on Martha Stewart's website, but that is slightly different than the recipe in the cookbook. The cookbook recipe is simpler, with no cream of tartar or vegetable shortening. It's just a simple sugar cookie recipe, and then the balls of dough are rolled in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar before being put on the cookie sheet and into the oven.

The result is a lovely, soft cookie with a nice cinnamon flavor. My daughter helped me make the cookies, and she even got to sneak a bite!

Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

So, this is my third batch of cookies for the boys' poker weekend. The other batch of cookies (about which we will not blog) was a disaster, due to a horrendous error on my part. Let's just say it's a good thing I'm not a surgeon, because I'd probably be the one who accidentally amputated the wrong limb. My bad.

Anyway, so the fallback is the "undisputed champ of the cookie world" (so says Martha): the chocolate chip cookie (page 58). Not such a bad alternate, but not what I wanted to send with him either.

It was a cinch to pull together - all your typical cookie ingredients. The only deviation I made was to substitute mini chocolate chips for regular ones, since I didn't have any regular-sized chocolate chips in the pantry. The result is a more chocolatey cookie. Very tasty.

Almond Macaroons

So because the best cookie is one you share with a friend ... I decided to send the next two batches of cookies with my husband to his boys' poker weekend in Hocking Hills. I chose two recipes in Martha's "Soft & Chewy" section. These were the Almond Macaroons, from page 91.

The recipe is fairly simple and calls for only six ingredients, most of which you probably have in your pantry already (except for maybe the almond paste). I did have some almond paste in my pantry, actually, and I chose this recipe as a chance to use it. In fact, I doubled the recipe so that I could the entire can.

It was a good thing that I did double the recipe, because it doesn't make very many cookies. Martha claims that her recipe yields a dozen, but I only got a dozen and a half out of the double recipe (of course I think my cookies were a little bigger than hers).

The cookies were soft and chewy. The first batch stuck to the parchment paper a little, so I cooked the second batch 2 minutes less, and they came off the parchment with ease. When my husband and brother-in-law got home and saw them cooling on the rack, they were DYING to eat one, but I am making them wait until their trip tomorrow. I know, so mean.