The Farm Chicks

Cookie Flags!

A few months back, I was inspired by Herriot Grace's Cookie Flags and knew I'd like to make my own variation for Valentine's Day.

I started by making a batch of my favorite cookie dough for these sorts of things. (It's important to use a recipe that won't rise and become puffy).

I rolled out the dough and cut out the flag shapes for the project. (Just freehand, with a small, sharp knife).

I transferred the dough to a parchment lined baking sheet and inserted little wooden toothpicks for the flags (about 3/4" of the toothpick).

I embellished some using some dough letter stamps and big heart sprinkles, just by pressing into the unbaked dough, and then baked them up.

 

 

Then I decided it'd be fun to sugar glaze some of them and add a few sprinkle dots, for good measure.

 

 

A soft pink sugar glaze is great too.

 

 

I kept some unglazed, because sometimes simple is just enough.

And then, well, it was really simple. I poked them into my little cakes.

But they're just as fun to package up as treats for the ones you love. Or better yet, just gobble them up. Because Cookie Flags bring happiness to all.

 

Cookie Flags Dough

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup confectioner's (powdered) sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cream the butter in a bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and vanilla, beating until well combined. Beat in the flour, just until combined. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour. Flour your work surface and roll out your refrigerated dough to about 1/4" thickness. Using a sharp knife, cut out the shapes of your little flags. (As shown above). Once you've cut out all your flags, transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet. (The best way to do this is with a spatula). Repeat with the remaining dough scraps, until all the dough is used up. Insert toothpicks into the flags as described above, and adorn, if desired, as described above.

Refrigerate the Cookie Flags, on the baking sheet, for 15 minutes. While the flags are being refrigerated, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Bake the Cookie Flags for 12-15 minutes. Cool on pan. Once completely cooled, the flags are ready to glaze or use as is.

Cookie Flags Glaze

• Confectioners (powdered) sugar
• Milk

Add milk, just a wee bit at a time, until the glaze reaches your desired consistency. Add a drop of food coloring, if you'd like. Mix together with a spoon, until thoroughly combined and then glaze to your little heart's content.

Sources:

Mini Bundt Cake Pan: Target

Letter Stamps: William Sonoma

Big Crunchy Heart Sprinkles: Wilton

Mixing Bowl: Fishs Eddy

Snowballs!

I'd like to introduce you to my family's favorite holiday cookies: Snowballs. They're rich, buttery, crispy and sweet and fun to eat.

(Snowballs shown on left).

Snowballs

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

2 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup chopped pecans (about 4 ounces)

3/4 cup powdered sugar

Grease two large baking sheets. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Beat the butter and honey in a medium-size bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until well combined and fluffy - 2 - 3 minutes. Lower the mixer speed to medium-low and beat in vanilla; then beat in flour and pecans until combined.

Roll the dough by tablespoonful between your palms, into balls. Place on prepared baking sheets, spacing 1" apart.

Bake the cookies just until they turn light golden brown - 12 - 14 minutes. Cool on the baking sheets 1 minute, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Put the powdered sugar into a large plastic food-storage bag. Add the cookies, 6 at a time, and gently shake the bag until they are coated with sugar.

Makes 24 one-inch cookies.

To serve, pile up on a tray.

Tip: Snowballs make great gifts! Wrap in cellophane bags for gift giving. For added cuteness and stability for gift giving, place cookie filled cellophane bags into vintage food containers (as shown above), jars, or colorful paper bags.

You can find this recipe and many more, as well as decorating ideas, projects, inspiration, and Christmas cheer in my book, The Farm Chicks Christmas.

Sources:

The containers shown are vintage.

Cellophane bags: Target

Ribbons: Michaels

Sweatshirt: Boden

Images by John Granen

Strawberry Creamwiches

I love a delicately buttery cookie, which these are, but they're made even better with the addition of fresh and flavorful strawberry cream filling.

Cookies:

1 cup butter

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups flour

Cream the butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth - 2-3 minutes. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla, beating until well combined. Lower the mixer speed to medium-low and gradually beat in the flour. Transfer the dough to a piece of plastic wrap and pat into a square disk. Wrap with the plastic and refrigerate for one hour.

Place the dough between two sheets of wax paper and roll out to 1/4" thickness. Cut out the cookies using a cookie cutter of your choice. Place the cookies about 1" apart on ungreased baking sheets and refrigerate for 15 minutes. While the dough chills, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake until firm, but not brown - approximately 12-15 minutes. While the cookies bake, prepare the filling.

Strawberry Filling:

1/2 cup butter

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup strawberries, finely chopped

Beat butter until softened. Add powdered sugar and strawberries and beat until well combined. Set filling aside.

Remove cookies from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

Once cooled, spread filling on a cookie and top with another, creating a cookie sandwich.

Note:

I used these wonderful cookie cutters from William Sonoma, but any cookie cutters will do.

P.S. Did you know it's Strawberry Week here at The Farm Chicks? Would you like to share your favorite strawberry recipe with The Farm Chicks reader community? If you're on twitter, you can tweet your recipe link to #strawberryweek for all to see! If you're not on twitter, you can share your recipe in the comments here or blog about it and then share your link.

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Bars

I'd like for you to meet my old friends, Peanut Butter and Chocolate. They sure go well together. This recipe, given to me by a good friend, is a favorite after school treat for the boys.

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Bars

1 cup butter (2 cubes), at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1 cup chunky peanut butter

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups flour

1 cup oats

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add butter, sugars, and peanut butter into a large mixing bowl and beat until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until fluffy. Add in flour, oats, baking soda, and salt and beat until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips. Spread dough evenly into a large rimmed baking sheet (also known as a jelly roll pan). Bake for 20-25 minutes or until lightly brown and puffed all over. Remove from oven and cool until warm.

Slice into bars and serve warm or at room temperature, with an ice-cold glass of milk.

Tip: For a delicious dessert treat, top warm bars with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and drizzle with warm chocolate sauce.

Sources:

Napkins: Target

Straw: Bake it Pretty

Milk Bottle: Value Village Thrift Store (Spokane)

Gingerbread Eggnog Ice-Cream Sandwiches

Looking for an impromptu treat when friends drop in?  My Gingerbread Eggnog Ice-Cream sandwiches are just the ticket!

Start with some thin store-bought gingerbread cookies

and some slightly softened eggnog ice-cream.

Dollop ice-cream onto bottom cookie and spread around, to cover.

Press down top cookie atop ice-cream.  Smooth around edges and place in the freezer to harden.

Serve when hardened or wrap individually, with plastic wrap and serve as needed.  The cookies will soften just like a traditional ice-cream sandwich if stored in the freezer overnight.

The combination of gingerbread and eggnog is delicious, but any flavor of your choosing would work wonderfully.  It's your treat, so you decide!

Images by the super wonderful, Samantha Cabrera.

Egg on a Plate Cookies

I love making things that make my family smile.  Today I made these cookies and then asked the boys if they wanted some eggs.  Of course they did, and came flying upstairs, expecting fried eggs.  Instead, this is what they found.  And they loved it.

Butter Cut-Out Cookies:  

1 cup unsalted butter*, softened

1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

Make the dough:  Add the butter to a large-size mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on medium-low speed until smooth, about 2-3 minutes.  Beat in sugar and vanilla on medium speed, until well combined.  Sift together flour and salt.  Gradually beat into butter mixture on low speed.

*If you don't have unsalted butter, don't worry.  Substitute salted butter and skip adding the 1/4 teaspoon salt.

Shape the dough:  Transfer dough onto a piece of plastic wrap and pat into an 8” disc.  Wrap with the plastic and chill for one hour.  (If you're in a hurry, just pop it into the freezer until firm).  On a lightly floured surface or parchment paper, roll out dough to 1/4" thick and cut into 2.5" - 3" rounds, using a circular cookie cutter.  Use a small glass, dipped in flour, to press the center of the "plate", as shown above.  Reroll until all dough is used.  Place the cookies about 1" apart on ungreased baking sheets (I like to line my pans with parchment paper), and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Bake the cookies:  Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Bake 12-15 minutes until firm, but not brown.  Cool on a wire rack.

Decorate the cookies:  Flood with frosting as shown with the cookies in my Christmas Wreath project, using the same icing recipe.  Outline and flood the rim of the cookie plate with icing and then flood the center.  Allow to set and top with a gummy fried egg and cracked candy egg.  (See sources below).

Makes about 18 cookies plates, depending on size.

Sources:

I found these darling little gummy fried egg candies at Cost Plus World Market, but did a search to make sure they're widely available, and they are. I found many stores online where they're sold like here, here, and here.

The eggshells are candy malt eggs that are widely available at most markets during the Easter season, and online throughout the year.  To crack the eggs, I held each egg firmly with one hand and carefully jabbed a sharp knife into the center of the egg with my other hand, and tapped the egg against the counter, while applying pressure with the knife.  It takes a little practice to not completely shatter the egg.  But after a few times, you'll get the hang of it and you can eat all of the crumbs from your practice eggs!

The Butter Cut-Outs recipe is from my next book, The Farm Chicks Christmas.  It's such a wonderful recipe because it can be adapted for so many different holidays or eaten just as the perfectly soft, buttery cookie I sometimes crave.  I adapted it from a recipe given to me by my friend, HaneLore and I share a few different ways to prepare it in the book.

Idea:

While Bongo was munching away on his plate, he suggested making little cast iron fry pans, iced and flooded with black icing, complete with a handle. I think that would be soooo cute!  A little fried egg, right in the pan.  I'll have to try it, for sure!

Now get crackin'!  hee hee

 

Christmas Star Cookie Wreath/Centerpiece

I love any decorations that involve cookies or give me an excuse to bake.  I've been dreaming of making a cookie wreath and was so happy to create such a fun project.

I decided to make the wreath and cookies out of gingerbread cookie dough so that it would smell especially Christmasey.  I used this recipe (minus the black pepper) for the dough.  And this recipe for the icing.  Here's how I made my wreath:

I cut out the shape of a wreath using a mixing bowl for the outer circle and a cereal bowl for the inner circle, using the rims as an easy guide for my knife.  I baked the wreath (as indicated in the recipe) until it was really hard, but not burned.  After it was completely cooled, I covered the wreath in green icing, and sprinkled it with Wilton light green sugar sprinkles.  At this point, the wreath needs to sit for several hours until the icing is completely hardened.

In the meantime, I baked my cookies (I chose two different sizes of stars) and prepared the icing.  I added a few Tablespoons of cold water to the icing to make it almost drizzley (just not runny to where it can't keep it's shape.  See images of icing below).  I divided the icing and colored each batch the colors I'd be using for this project.  I spooned the different icing colors into Wilton squeeze bottles, and a tiny squeeze bottle I found at Daiso.  (The tiny squeeze bottle wasn't necessary, but I love teeny things, so why not?)

To ice the cookies, I used a technique called "flooding" where you outline the area and then "flood" it with the icing.  It's such a fun technique that makes cookies look really impressive.

Step 1)  Outline cookie:

Step 2)  Flood the cookie, using the same icing.  You can use the tip of the squeeze bottle to help spread it around if necessary:

 

Step 3) Add dots by squeezing contrasting dots of icing onto the icing already on the cookie.  (The icing dots will sink in together and all be flush after a few minutes):

Step 4)  Allow cookies to dry completely (This will take several hours, but time really depends on how much icing is used).

Step 5)  Attach cookies to wreath using the icing as glue.  Let sit for 24 hours or until really hard.

I hung my wreath directly onto a nail, however, this will only work if the wreath is really hard.  The wreath can also be hung by attaching a colorful ribbon and hanging it from the ribbon, or simply display it on a shelf, ledge, or window sill. Better yet, if you're looking for a cheery holiday centerpiece, this is just the ticket!

 

 

Soft Ginger Molasses Chews

Perfectly crisped on the outside, and soft and chewy on the inside.  A real family treat!

1 banana, mashed
1/4 cup molasses
2 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup canola oil
2 eggs
4 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
2 tablespoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine banana, molasses, brown sugar, oil, and eggs in a large mixing bowl.  Beat until well combined.  Add dry ingredients, beating again until well combined.
Drop by heaping tablespoonful onto a large, ungreased baking sheet.  Bake for approximately 10 minutes, until the tops of the cookies are well crackled and just slightly browned.
Remove from oven and let cool.  Makes about 34 cookies.