And there were some notable disasters involved as I attempted to convert two long-standing recipes to gluten free. I was short of Bob's Red Mill 1:1 gluten free flour mix and the closest grocery store only had Pillsbury gluten free mix so I thought, Pillsbury knows what it's doing. Um. No. That batch went into the garbage followed by the bag of Pillsbury GF flour.
Also some unrealistic decorating happened (I blame the Great British Bake Off show), where I was supposed to "drizzle" the melted chocolate over said cookies and said melted chocolate wanted no part of drizzling. Argh!
This is why I generally don't bake.
The Cookie Line-up:
Salted Toffee Chocolate bars (new)
Almond bark dipped pretzels (with sprinkles!)
Peanut Butter Cookies (new)
Almond Crescents (GF)
Chocolate Chip Tea Cakes (GF)
Salted Toffee Chocolate Bars (co-op flyer)
A similar recipe to the standard homemade toffee bars (so good! Sooo addictive!) but with the addition of a graham cracker base and some salt sprinkled over the top.
I was short three graham crackers (I thought I had a full package, but realized too late I didn't).
My chocolate didn't want to drizzle, so it was spread out over the nuts and salt kinda ruining the effect.
The co-workers and Husband seemed to like these, I was...underwhelmed (in part due to the chocolate fiasco). They certainly were easy to make, so I'm a bit "maybe" if I want to make these again.
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| photo from recipe site - mine didn't look as nice |
1/2 pound butter
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup chopped pecans
1/2 tsp coarse salt
3/4 cup chocolate chips
Heat the oven to 350°F. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Place the crackers on the foil-lined sheet, with their edges touching. In a small saucepan, melt the butter over low heat, then stir in the brown sugar.
Turn the heat to medium high, bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer, stirring occasionally, and cook for 10 minutes until the sugar has melted. Pour the sugar mixture over the graham crackers, and spread with a spatula to cover evenly.
Sprinkle with pecans and bake for 10 minutes, until bubbly. Place pan on a cooling rack and use the tip of a spatula to nudge the crackers apart. Sprinkle with coarse salt. When the pan has cooled, melt the chocolate and drizzle it over the crackers. Let cool until firm; remove from the pan, and break into pieces. Store, tightly covered, at room temperature for up to a week.
Peanut Butter Cookies (Food Fun Family Blog via Pinterest)
It's been years since I've made peanut butter cookies with chocolate kisses. I don't eat peanut butter and we, until the pup came along, didn't have peanut butter in the house. But I had two meetings last week, decided I would do a cookie plate, and thought these would be an easy addition.
Yes, they were easy. And would have been easier if the PB I bought on Friday hadn't expired Feb 2018 and had to send the Husband to the store at 7p at night to get a new jar. Not. Kidding. I'm sure it would have been fine, but I'm baking for co-workers so...yeah. New jar it was.
Once we had fresh PB in hand, these came together in no time at all. I used a 1" scoop so I got 28 cookies. Husband thought they could have been a bit smaller (cookies/chocolate ratio), but said they were still good.
There was no particular reason why I picked this recipe - it was there on Pinterest among a bazillion other options.
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| photo from Food Fun Family blog |
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup butter (not margarine)
½ cup creamy peanut butter
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
48 Hershey's Kisses
1.Heat oven to 375°F.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt.
3. In a separate bowl, combine both sugars, butter, peanut butter, milk, vanilla, and egg. Using hand beaters, mix wet ingredients til they're creamy. Add ingredients of the wet bowl into the bowl with the dry ingredients and stir until they're thoroughly mixed.
4. Spoon small rounded spoonfuls of dough onto cookie sheet (no need to flatten the cookie dough balls). Bake at 375°F for 9-11 minutes, or until slightly browned. Immediately after you take the cookies out of the oven, place an unwrapped Hershey's Kiss in the middle of each cookies and gently press down.
5. Let cookies cool on the cookie sheet for a couple of minutes and then remove them to a cooling rack.
Almond Bark Pretzels (referenced James and Everett blog for posting)
I've been making these for decades, so I don't follow a recipe. But in the interest of my cookie list, I found a "recipe" online to link to. I will say, I think dipping by hand and leaving one little corner un-coated would be easier than my dunk and fish-out of the bark method. I might have to try that next year.
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| photo from James and Everett - see the un-dipped corner? Brilliant! |
1 package of pretzels
sprinkles
Melt almond bark according to directions on package (I use a double boiler).
Prepare a jelly roll pan with wax paper.
Working in batches, gently dip pretzels into melted bark and distribute evenly on wax paper, being careful not to touch adjoining pretzels.
Sprinkle with sprinkles before bark cools and hardens. Repeat.
Chocolate Chip Tea Cakes (Nestle - The Very Best Baking)
This is another recipe I've had for decades, and a holiday or special occasion favorite. Super easy to assemble, nicely sweet, and tastes just a tich decadent. I'm not certain if my recipe was from Nestle, or if I found it somewhere else.
This was the batch I made first with Pillsbury Gluten Free flour. This was the batch that I threw away and the remainder of the Pillsbury flour followed. Absolute disaster. The cookies exploded into little piles of sand-like mounds with nuts and chocolate chips. I had the husband test-taste one and the bits he managed to get to his mouth, he didn't like. Nope. Would not do.
Second batch I made with Bob's Red Mill 1:1 Gluten Free flour and those were much better.&Not like using traditional flour but still good.
Then I had problems with the chocolate not wanting to drizzle, so the tops of the cookies were dipped, which I think I preferred.
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| Photo from Nestle |
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup finely chopped nuts
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels, divided
Preheat oven to 350° F.
Beat butter and powdered sugar in large mixer bowl until creamy. Beat in vanilla extract. Gradually beat in flour and nuts. Stir in 1 1/2 cups morsels. Roll dough into 1-inch balls; place on ungreased baking sheets.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until set and light golden brown on bottom. Cool for 2 minutes on baking sheets; remove to wire racks to cool completely.
Microwave remaining morsels in heavy-duty plastic bag on HIGH (100%) power for 30 to 45 seconds; knead. Microwave at additional 10- to 20-second intervals, kneading until smooth. Cut tiny corner from bag; squeeze to drizzle over cookies. Refrigerate cookies for about 5 minutes or until chocolate is set. Store at room temperature in airtight containers.
Almond Crescent Cookies (AllRecipes.com)
Another cookie recipe that I found decades ago and didn't jot down the source. The AllRecipes is the closest I could find to mine, the only differences being the almond extract and ratio's (mine made more).
This was the other recipe I attempted to convert to gluten free using Pillsbury GF flour mix. While this worked better than the tea cookies above, they weren't the best tasting texture wise. Think...sand. Which was unfortunate because these really are decadent little shortcakes. Some online discussion I've had has pointed me to Bob's Red Mill 1:1 or King Arthur GF flour. I know I can get Bob's Red Mill, not so sure about KA. Though that might be worth an online purchase.
1/2 cup salted butter, at room temperature
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| photo from AllRecipes.com |
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract (not listed on my recipe)
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, sifted
1/2 cup almonds, finely chopped
Preheat oven to 325*.
Beat butter and confectioners' sugar in a bowl using an electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Add vanilla extract, almond extract, and salt; mix briefly to incorporate.
Gradually stir 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour into the creamed butter, add almonds, and mix until dough is just combined.
Shape dough into tiny crescents; place on an ungreased baking sheet about 2 inches apart.
Bake cookies in preheated oven until edges are golden, about 15 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Roll cookies in sifted confectioners' sugar when cooled. My version has you rolling the cookies while still warm, so either way is good.
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