Sorta Salted Caramel Chocolate Chips 'cause Santa is a Foodie

I’m quite sure that Santa is a foodie.  I truly believe that “between season” he spends lots of time sipping on ice wine while cooking and baking with Mrs. Claus.  I don’t want to spread rumors but I’ve heard he is into trendy venison burgers and cool maple bacon snowcones.  And I know for a fact that he would never turn down anything that incorporates the latest salted caramel craze.

You know I love that salty sweet thang – ala the Sweet & Salty Chocolate Pretzel Shortbread – and so does Santa.

So I made him these sorta salted caramel chocolate chip cookies and here is how I made them.

Ingredients: 

2 ½ cups flour

½ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp kosher salt (heaping)

1 cup butter, room temperature is best

½ cup sugar

1 ½ tsp vanilla

1 large egg

2 cups chocolate chips – milk or dark chocolate whatever you love

½ cup Hershey’s Skor Toffee Bits

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350⁰.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt, chocolate chips & skor bits in a bowl.  Set aside.

Cream butter, brown sugar, egg & vanilla until fluffy.

Add flour, chocolate chips and skor bits on a low speed until flour mixes in.

Use a small ice cream scoop to make cookie balls about ¼ cup.

Place on parchment lined (always!) cookie sheets.  NOTE: The cookies spread quite a lot. I have large (16”x21.5”) sheets and I put 15 on each sheet (the recipe makes 30 large cookies) – so judge accordingly.

Bake for 12-15 minutes.

Remove from oven, let cool and place on plate for the big guy.  I used a “fancy” glass for his milk but these would also go very nicely with a glass of scotch (which Santa may really enjoy as he works so hard one day a year;)

My only fear with these cookies is that Santa may not leave to make it around the world delivering gifts, but make them anyways because they are so good.

Ho Ho Ho!

Let It Snow!

I love snowmen.  They say winter in that fresh, fluffy snow way – not the cold, mushy, slippery way.  So these cookies just make me smile, want to pull out my skates, grab a hot chocolate and embrace the winter.

Last year I made gingerbread boys, girls and snowmen inspired by Bakerella, one of my favorite bloggers.  Last week I was making cookies for a baby naming similar to ones made by Bridgette from Bake at 350.  And then I thought I think I can combine the two styles to come up with my new favorite cookie ever – and it’s very Flour Child.

You can be as simple snowmen or fancy pants as you want with these cookies and here is how I did it.

Materials Needed for Decorating:

- large square cookie cutter (I used the large square scalloped one from Copper Gifts) – it is such a great cookie cutter that can be used in a kazillion different ways)

- gel past to colour some of the royal icing (I used royal blue)

- royal icing – as always, I really like the Ateco meringue powder

- piping bags

- sprinkles, coloured Tic Tacs and food writing pens

Instructions and Tips:

To make the snowmen heads. Draw circles on a piece of parchment paper.  I used a Sharpie and drew circles around 1¾” or 3½ cm.  Flip the paper over and trace with royal icing. Let them dry overnight.

Use a food writer to draw on the eyes and mouth.

Add sprinkles to embellish cheeks and facinators.  Tic Tacs are the perfect ear muffs.  I used white royal icing to add the sprinkles

Orange royal icing is the perfect carrot nose.

Use your favorite sugar cookie recipe and cut out the squares.

Outline each cookie with white royal icing

Fill or flood the cookies.  I like using the squeeze bottles because it is so much cleaner then a piping bag when flooding cookies.

Use a toothpick or bamboo skewer to pull the icing to fill the cookie.  If you just use the squeeze bottle there is a chance that you will overflood the cookie – it is always a fine line between the perfectly flooded cookie and a cookie that is over flowing with icing.  The toothpick “pull” really helps ensure an evenly flooded cookie.

Want another trick?  I use a Silpat when decorating cookies so they don’t slip around.

Place the snowman head in the centre of the flooded cookie.  I also used a few little snowflake sprinkles that I found at the local bulk food store.

Let the cookies dry overnight.

PME 1.5 is my favorite writing tip so I used it to write "Let It Snow" on each cookie.

I love the way these cookies turned out.

Now I'm just waiting for it to snow (sorta).

Oh Christmas Tree

I am always torn between the simple beauty of white lights and festive fun or multi-colour lights on a Christmas Tree.  The great thing about these cookies is that it is pretty simple to change it up and the light bulbs never go out.

What colour lights do you put on your Christmas Tree?

Lights!

I do love Christmas lights – they way they sparkle and twinkle and light up the streets in the winter.  I used disco dust on the white highlights of these cookies so they actually sparkle.

It’s December 1^st so I think it is totally acceptable to pull out the Christmas lights.  That will give you plenty of time if you need to untangle strings and replace burned out bulbs and get set for the holidays.

Also if you start decorating now, it will give you plenty of time to enjoy the magic of the season before you need to take it all down.

When do you start decorating for Christmas?  When do you take it down?

Keep Calm

The “festive holiday season” can be stressful.  All the cooking, baking, shopping, anticipation … can make it difficult to sit back and remember that the holidays are about family and friends.

I do some things to try and “keep calm” which include preparing stuff in advance (like my husband’s snowball cookies), shopping in October (yes I’m done) and using ingredients like William-Sonoma’s Handmade Peppermint Snow because the snow is so much easier than crushing your own candy canes and for whatever reason, don’t ask me why, hand crushed candy canes are simply not as perfect as this product.

I love the way these cookies came out.  They are keeping me calm.

What do you do to stay calm during the holidays?

The Little Black Dress

Do you have to go to a corporate holiday party? Do ya wanna go?  Are you wearing black or red?  Are you wearing anything as tasteful as these cookies?

I originally got this cookie cutter to make a classic LBD for a 1962 party -- but realized it would be perfect for holiday party dresses.  

Now I'm thinking of a job in fashion design -- now I'm thinking I wish I could sew.

Let the festive holiday season begin!

Just SAY IT in Cookie

When anyone says “Just SAY IT!” it is usually followed by something you don’t really want to hear.

In this case though, it is followed in cookie – so it is just want you want to hear – something sweet (even if it says something not so nice;). I have made these Thought Bubble cookies before but I could not resist sharing these because I just loved the way they turned out. I can't help notice the difference in the quality of the cookies -- not sure if it because I'm getting a little better at decorating OR if it is my favorite PME 1.5 tip that makes lettering WAY easier.

These cookies were for my sister-in-law’s 50^th 35^th birthday.  We really did want to wish her all the best so came up with all kinds of fun birthday greetings like:

•  Happy Birthday!
• ·      You Look Marvelous
• ·      Skip Around The Room
• ·      WOW!
• ·      This is What 35 Looks Like
• ·      HB2U HB2U HB DU HB2U
• ·      & on & on

I keep thinking of more and more ideas for this CopperGifts.com thought bubble cookie cutter.  I’m thinking they would be great saying Thank You, Love You, Will You Marry Me?, etc.  I would love to make these cookies as placecards for a fun party – “You’re At Table #1” or “Shelly, Sit Here!”. 

What would you like to “say in cookie”?