Gingerbread Cookies with Buttercream Icing

I'm a big fan of gingerbread and ginger cookies. When C wanted to make gingerbread cookies (does George make some in the Christmas movie?) I obliged.

Gingerbread Cookies with Buttercream Icing

Ingredients

2/3 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon each ground cinnamon, cloves and ginger
ICING:
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon lemon extract
1/4 teaspoon butter flavoring
3 to 4 tablespoons milk

Directions
In a large bowl, cream shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and molasses. Combine flour, baking soda, salt and spices; gradually add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.
On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to 1/4-in. thickness. Cut with a floured 3-1/2-in. cookie cutter into desired shapes. Place 2 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 8-10 minutes or until edges begin to brown. Remove from pans to cool on wire racks.
For icing, beat confectioners' sugar, butter, extracts and flavoring in a bowl. Gradually stir in enough milk to achieve desired consistency. Frost cookies. Yield: 1-1/2 dozen.

These were so good right out of the oven. They weren't quite as good cooled, possibly because I overfloured. They were workable without being chilled, so the instant gratification was worth the slight floury taste. And if I had made the icing, it would probably would have helped that anyway. I'll admit that we ate all but one cookie the same day I made them. I probably wouldn't use the icing recipe anyway because I don't have butter flavoring or lemon extract.

Pies!

If you need some pies for Christmas, here is one to try and one to skip unless you have a real jell-o lover in the family.

Chocolate Bar Pie

Ingredients

• 1 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crust
• 6 (1.45 ounce) bars milk chocolate with almonds, coarsely chopped
• 2 cups miniature marshmallows

• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream

Directions

1. Place chopped chocolate bars, marshmallows, milk, and salt in the top of a double boiler. Heat and stir until mixture is melted and smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool, stirring occasionally.
2. In a medium bowl, beat cream until soft peaks form. Fold cream into cooled chocolate mixture. Pour mixture into graham cracker crust. Chill before serving. This pie is also delicious frozen.

I made this one for our own Thanksgiving meal. It got rave reviews, but is pretty rich when topped with whipped cream as well.

Jell-o Easy Patriotic Pie

1 1/2 cups boiling water

1 pkg. (3 oz) jell-o berry blue flavor gelatin

1 cup ice cubes

1  honey maid graham pie crust (6 oz)

1 pkg. (3 oz) jell-o strawberry flavor gelatin, or any red flavor

1 cup thawed cool whip

Add 3/4 cup boiling water to blue gelatin mix; stir 2 minutes until completely dissolved. Add 12 cup ice cubes, stir until melted. Pour into crust; refrigerate 5 to 10 minutes or until set but not firm.

Meanwhile, repeat to dissolve red gelatin mix in separate bowl; stir in remaining ice cubes. Cool 5 minutes or until slightly thickened.

Spread cool whip over blue gelatin layer; cover with red gelatin. Refrigerate 2 hours or until set.

This one turned into a huge disaster! When I went to pour the red layer on, it was too forceful and pour right through the cool whip creating one solid layer of jello. But, some kids in our ward loved it when I took it to the pre-thanksgiving pie party. I will never make it again, though.

I also made a cherry pie for our Thanksgiving. Plus, the apple, pumpkin, and blueberry pie Dad brought over brought our pie total up to 6. 

I don't know what is wrong with my eye.

Northland Cranberry Frosted Cookies

In an effort to use up all the cranberries my friend gave me when her family moved, I made these to enjoy.

Ingredients:
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3 cups flour
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
2 1/1 cups Northland Fresh Cranberries cut in half*

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In medium bowl sift together dry ingredients. In another bowl, cream together butter sugars, egg, and milk. Incorporate dry ingredients. Stir in fresh Northland cranberries just until mixed. Bake on cookie sheet that has been sprayed with food release spray. Check in 7-10 minutes. Cookies should be slightly brown on edges. Do not overbake. Cool and add frosting.

Northland Fresh Cranberries may be stored in your freezer for up to one year for year round enjoyment!

Brown butter frosting:

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp. vanilla
3 tbsp. Northland 100% Juice Traditional Cranberry Blend
2 cups powdered sugar

heat butter in skillet on medium high heat and allow to turn a golden brown (do not overbrown). Mix together with frosting ingredients and spread onto cooled cookies.

Makes 36 cookies.

Well, these were good, but if you use frozen cranberries cook them a little bit longer that 10 minutes! They were really soft and gooey when I only cooked them for 10 minutes. Other than that, YYYUUUMMM!!!!!!!! Little Chubb kept trying to sneak them.

I didn't have cranberry juice, so I added some dried chopped cranberries to the frosting.

Nice 'n' Soft Sugar Cookies

I feel like sugar cookies are a Christmas staple. I usually prefer other kinds of cookies though, so I only make sugar cookies to fulfill Camille's desire to "help" and put on sprinkles.

Nice 'n' Soft Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1-1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 egg
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups self-rising flour
FROSTING:
2-1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup water
4 teaspoons meringue powder
1/4 cup light corn syrup
Green, red and yellow food coloring

Directions
In a large bowl, cream butter and confectioners' sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually add flour. Divide dough in half. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or until easy to handle.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out one portion of dough to 3/16-in. thickness. Cut with floured cookie cutters. Place 2 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets.
Bake at 375° for 5-7 minutes or until set. Cool for 2 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.
For frosting, in a small bowl, beat the confectioners' sugar, water and meringue powder on low speed just until combined. Beat on high for 4 minutes or until soft peaks form. Add corn syrup; beat 1 minute longer.
Tint with food coloring of your choice. Cover frosting with damp paper towels or plastic wrap between uses. Spread and/or pipe frosting on cookies. Let stand until set. Yield: 3-1/2 dozen.

Editor’s Note: As a substitute for each cup of self-rising flour, place 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a measuring cup. Add all-purpose flour to measure 1 cup. As a substitute for each 1/2 cup of self-rising flour, place 3/4 teaspoon baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a 1/2-cup measuring cup. Add all-purpose flour to measure 1/2 cup. Meringue powder is available from Wilton Industries. Call 1-800/794-5866 or visit wilton.com.

I thought they were okay. Brian and the kids thought they were very good. I should stop trying new recipes for things that I know I have a good recipe for. They were very soft, almost too soft, and I feel like I could taste
baking powder in them. I only got like 18 cookies. I didn't try the frosting recipe since I wasn't looking to order meringue powder to frost the cookies.

Cinnamon Bubble Loaf

I love breakfast! And, sweet breakfasts are almost always better than savory. I have been wanting to make this for a while, but I am never willing to get up two rises before breakfast to make it, until I realized that I can just have it rise overnight in the fridge.

Loaf:
1/2 cup warm water
1 pkg. active dry yeast
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. soft butter or margarine
1 egg
2 1/2 cups sifted all purpose flour

Topping:
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup seedless raisins
1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans

1. Make loaf: If possible, check temperature of warm water with thermometer. Sprinkle yeast over water in large bowl; stir until dissolved.
2. Add sugar, salt, butter, egg, and 1 1/2 cups flour; beat, with wooden spoon, until smooth--about two minutes.
3. Gradually add remaining flour; mix in last of it with hand until dough leaves side of bowl.
4. Turn out dough  onto lightly floured board. Cover with bowl; let rest 5 minutes. Knead until smooth--about 5 minutes.
5. Place in lightly greased large bowl; turn to bring up greased side. Cover with towel; let rise in warm place (85F), free from drafts, until double in bulk--about 1 hour.
6. Punch down dough. Turn out onto lightly floured pastry cloth. SHape into roll 12 inches long. Cut into 20 pieces. SHape each into a smooth ball. Place 10 balls in bottom of well greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.
7 or the topping: Brush balls in pan with 2 tablespoons butter; sprinkle with 2 tablespoons sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 tablespoons raisins, and 2 tablespoons nuts. Arrange remaining 10 balls on top. Brush with rest of butter; sprinkle with rest of sugar, cinnamon, raisins, and nuts.
8. Cover with towel; let rise in warm place (85F) free from drafts, until double in bulk-1 to 1 1/4 hours. Or over night in the fridge works great, too! Just make sure to get it out of the fridge a little before you want to bake it so it can warm back up to roomish temperature. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375F.
9. Bake loaf 30 to 40 minutes. With spatula loosen sides of loaf. Invert on serving plate let stand 1 minute before removing pan. Serve slightly warm. Break rolls apart with 2 forks.

Well, it was underwhelming. I was hoping for something more along the lines of mom's cinnamon biscuits/monkey bread. In my opinion there was very little butter/sugar mixture on the rolls.

Nevertheless, I am going to try it again and actually dunk the balls in butter and then roll them in cinnamon sugar before putting them in the pan.

Jewish Apple Cake

Our Relief Society Christmas dinner is going to have a sort of Middle Eastern theme. The presidency is going to bring the desserts, and I luckily found this Cupboard Project recipe that wasn't too bizarre and fit the theme perfectly.

I made this test cake to make sure it would be okay enough to take to a church event. 

Jewish Apple Cake

6-7 medium apples

2 t cinnamon

5 T sugar

1 c butter

2 c sugar

3 c flour

1/2 c orange juice

4 eggs

3 t baking powder (may use 1 T, but results may vary)

2 1/2 t vanilla

Peel, quarter and cut apples in slices. Mix with cinnamon and 5 T sugar. Set aside. Cream together butter and 2 c sugar. Add 1/2 of flour, 1/2 of juice, 2 eggs, baking powder and vanilla. Mix well. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Fold in apples. Spoon into greased 9x13-inch baking pan. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool and serve. Makes 2-24 servings.

I'm not sure what 2- 24 servings means. Between 2-24 servings or 2 x 24 servings? 

We thought it was good. It was very moist (I subbed a little applesauce in for oil) and had a nice cinnamon apple/cinnamon flavor. It was a good thing I made a test batch. Now I know not to use the bundt pan if I'm going to serve it to others.

Margaret's Southern Chocolate Pie

Nope, not our Margaret. It's from allrecipes.

Margaret's Southern Chocolate Pie

1 1/3 c white sugar
3 egg yolks
1/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 c all-purpose flour
3 T butter
1 (12 oz) can evaporated milk
3 egg whites
6 T white sugar
1/2 t cream of tartar
1 (9 inch) pie shell, bakes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Sift together the cocoa powder and the flour and pour them into a saucepan. Whisk the egg yolks and 1 1/3 cups sugar. Gradually add the evaporated milk, whisking constantly; slowly pour the milk mixture into the saucepan, whisking until combined.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a flat-bottomed wooden spoon or spatula, until the mixture begins to thicken and coats the back of the spoon, about 15 minutes. Remove the custard from the heat and stir in the butter until melted. Pour the filling into the baked pie crust.

To make the meringue topping: Combine the egg whites and cream of tartar in a clean glass or metal bowl; beat with an electric mixer until foamy. Gradually add sugar, a tablespoon at a time, continuing to beat until stiff peaks form. Lift your beater or whisk straight up: the egg whites will form sharp peaks. Spread the meringue over the chocolate filling.

Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, or until the tips of the meringue peaks are golden brown.

It was good, but not great, possibly because of user error. It was very sweet. The two pieces I ate were almost too rich for me to finish, which does not happen very often. There was a layer of liquid between the meringue and the chocolate that got into the thick pudding and the crust. We cut and served it hot, but it needs to cool to set completely (see picture), and that might also help the liquid layer problem. I think it would be better with Cool Whip instead of meringue, but I did the meringue since I had 3 egg whites to use up.

The crust recipe I used was weird. I think it had too much fat, and it ended up tough. Back to my Betty Crocker classic recipe for future pies.