Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies

Merry Christmas to all of you ..It is finally Christmas Day before I could post this recipe.

It is the Holiday Season!! It is that time of the year when there are festivities everywhere! It is a season of giving.. It is also the season of meeting deadlines before the Christmas break. That with all the events happening, not to mention regular work, it leaves very little time to go on a baking spree. You still want to make stuff.. That's why I made these crinkle cookies!! The good news: they were a huge hit at work and everywhere I brought them! 

The best news: they are super easy and a no-brainer to make. It takes very little time. The reason being that they are made from a red velvet cake mix by Duncan Hines. You can find the recipe on the box and online here.

Today I am sharing this recipe with you.

Servings: makes around 30 medium sized cookies.

Prep time: 15-20 mins Cook time: 16-18 minsTotal time: 30-40 mins

Ingredients: 

Red Velvet cake mix : 1 package 

Eggs: 2 large

Butter: 6tbsp, melted

Lemon zest: 1 tsp

Powdered sugar ( confectioner's sugar): 1/2cup

Cornstarch: 1/2 tsp 

Method:

Preheat the oven to 375 deg F. 

Line a baking sheet with parchment or grease it and keep ready.

In a bowl mix together cornstarch and powdered sugar and keep ready.

In a bowl mix together cake mix, eggs, butter and lemon zest until well mixed. 

Pinch a little of the dough and make a 1 to 1.5 inch ball. I used an ice cream scoop to do this. Do this with all available dough.

Now roll each of the balls in powdered sugar mixture and place it on the baking sheet 2 inches apart. 

Bake for 8-10 mins or until a toothpick when inserted comes out clean.

Cool on a cooling rack. 

Store in airtight container when cooled. Stays fresh up to 10 days!

Enjoy!

I am sharing these delicious cooking at my dear friend Angie's Fiesta Friday #203. If you haven't partied there yet, you should. It is super fun!

Cooking made easy: 

Keeping the cookie dough in the freezer for some time makes it easier to handle the dough. 

Tip for healthy living: 

Making snacks at home is much healthier and better for them than store bought ones. 

Food for thought: 

Christmas is the day that holds all time together. Alexander Smith

Please do share your thoughts. Your opinion matters!

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Holiday Sugar Cookies

It is the holiday season! There is Christmas music and decorations everywhere. Everybody is in the Holiday spirit. It doesn't matter whether you celebrate Christmas or not, it is hard to be oblivious to the festive cheer around you, especially if you have little children at home. I do not celebrate Christmas, but I do celebrate the Holiday spirit! My three-year old  told me the other day in his little voice: "mummy, it is soon going to be kissmass! It is going to shnow & Shanta Claus is going to come on the sled with presents for us! Did you know that??" How can I disillusion him?? One of the key elements for the holiday celebration are the holiday cookies: the classic sugar cookies with decoration. My kids love to potter around me in the kitchen. I therefore figured that making and decorating Holiday cookies would be a fun activity for them. I therefore set-out looking for an easy, fool-proof sugar-cookie recipe. Funnily, nothing caught my fancy! Finally, I found a very nice and easy recipe in a place we would least expect! I took it from the back of the Domino sugar package!! I was apprehensive about trying out a recipe that none of my friends/ blogger friends could vouch for! Then, I remembered that I had once made these lovely bars from a recipe from the back of a package and they came out great. With this in mind, I bravely tried out the recipe. I must say: the recipe kept it's promise: it was super-easy and super-simple with no need to freeze the dough before using. Also, the cookies didn't fall flat on baking. If held it's shape!! They looked beautiful when they came out of the oven and the kids had a great time decorating it. Even the neighbor's kids joined in the fun! The end result is far from perfect but the pride my kids demonstrated in the cookies they made is unexplainable! Do give this recipe a try: you will never go looking for another one!

Servings: makes around 23-25 cookies.

Ingredients:

Butter: 6 tbsp ( at room temperature)
Sugar: 3/4 cup
Egg: 1
Vanilla essence: 1 tsp
Flour: 2 cups, sifted
Baking powder: 1 tsp
Salt: 1/2 tsp

For Royal icing:

Confectioner's sugar ( powdered sugar): 3 & 3/4 cups
Egg whites:  from 2 eggs
Vinegar: 1 tbsp

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 deg F.

In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

Add one egg and vanilla essence am beat well.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt and keep aside.

Mix  the flour mixture to the egg mixture, little at a time until all the flour is used and a nice dough is formed. Do not over mix.

Using a waxed paper, roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness.

Using the cookie cutters, cut out the desired shapes. 

Line them on a cookies sheet. Do this until all the dough has been used up.

Place the cookie sheet on the center rack of the oven and bake at 350 deg for 8-10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cookie.Note: these cookies don't brown ( may be slightly at the bottom), they stay nicely white.

Cool it completely on the cooling rack before decorating it.

Royal icing:

Beat the egg whites for few seconds until frothy. Add the vinegar and beat for 10 more seconds. Now add the powdered sugar one cup at a time beating in between to mix well. Once all the sugar powder has been added, beat on medium for 7-10 minutes or until stiff peaks are seen.

Divide the royal icing in 3 bowls. Add red food coloring to one bowl and green to the other. The third one stays white. Ideally gel colors are preferred as they give deeper colors. I was out of it so I used regular food colors hence they are lighter and more pastel.

Add the frosting to the piping bags. I used Wilton tip# 3 & 5. Decorate the cookies as you wish. You can use edible decoration, candies, pretty much anything you want!!

Let it dry completely, preferably overnight before storing in airtight container.

These cookies may not be the prettiest or professional looking but they were decorated by my kids and when we were having a fun time as a family. To me, these cookies are the most precious ones in this world! Enjoy making these adorable cookies with your kids and sharing them with your loved ones! After all Holidays is about families and this is what makes for wonderful memories!

Happy Holidays Everyone!! 


I am bringing this to Throwback Thursday, Fiesta Friday #99 and Saucy Saturday! Caroline @ Caroline’s Cooking and Linda @ La Petite Paniere are co-hosting Angie's Fiesta Friday this week.

Cooking made easy:

If you don't have icing bags, just add it to a ziplock bag and cut a small edge and pipe away!

One trick to keep cookies soft is to store them with a slice of bread.

Tip for healthy living:

Whenever possible while making cookies and cakes, use butter instead of margarine or shortening as butter is much healthier than the others.

Food for thought:

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be. Socrates

Eggless Chocolate Cookies; Meatless Monday

Almost everyone from a toddler to adults love cookies! My mother is one of them. There is a problem however: she is vegetarian, which means that she does not even eat eggs or anything that has egg in it. Most cookies are made with eggs and therefore she won't eat them. For this reason, I was very happy when I came across these very pretty looking cookies on a Facebook group that I belong to. Facebook is such a wonderful platform that brings so many of us together and helps us learn from each other. I looked at her recipe and thought that with a few improvisations to the recipe, it should come out well. I have made eggless cookies before : crinkle cookies, tutti-frutti-cookies , but I think I like this one the best! They are super easy to make, melt-in-the-mouth type! The testimony for this fact is that they were gone within 15 mins of being left out to cool down!! Do try it, I bet you will like it. These are perfect for the sudden guests that come without much notice!

Servings: makes around 18-20 medium sized cookies.

Ingredients:

Flour: 3/4 cup ( I used unbleached all purpose flour)
Corn flour: 3 tbsp
Baking powder: 1/2 tsp
Chocolate powder: 2 tbsp
Salt: a pinch
Butter: 3/4 cup ( at room temperature)
Sugar: 2/3 cup
Vanilla essence: 3/4 tsp
Milk: 2 tbsp

Method:

Beat together butter, sugar and vanilla essence until creamy.

In a different bowl, sift together flour, cornflour, salt, baking powder, chocolate powder.

Add the flour mixture  little at a time to the sugar-butter mixture and mix well. Add the milk and mix well.

Put this mixture in a piping bag with a Wilton 2D tip. Place the bag in the freezer for atleast 20 mins.

Preheat the oven to 350 deg F.

Take the bag out and pipe out medium sized cookies on an ungreased parchment paper lined cookie-sheet. Keep them atleast 1 inch apart.

Place the cookie sheet on the center rack and bake for 10 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cookie.

Take the baking sheet out and let the cookies cool down on it before taking them out to cool down completely on a cooling rack.Decorate it with sugar pearls in the center.

Makes for a great accompaniment for tea/coffee.

Store in an airtight container. I am bringing this to Throwback Thursday, Fiesta Friday #99 and Saucy Saturday! Caroline @ Caroline’s Cooking and Linda @ La Petite Paniere are co-hosting Angie's Fiesta Friday this week.

Cooking made easy:

Using the parchment paper for lining the cookie sheet helps prevent the cookies from sticking to the sheet and also helps with easy clean-up.

If you don't have parchment paper, you could use the cookie sheet alone.

Tip for healthy living:

While making cookies at home is definitely much healthier than store-bought ones, you can make them even more healthier by reducing the amount of sugar than what is called-for in the recipe. Also, when possible, use unprocessed sugar as opposed to white sugar.

Food for thought:

Are right and wrong convertible terms, dependent upon popular opinion? William Lloyd Garrison

Eggless Tutti-Frutti cookies ( Short bread cookies with dried fruit pieces)

Wishing all my followers,readers, blogger friends a very Happy, peaceful and prosperous 2015!

Most Indians are vegetarian and then there are people like us who enjoy fish and chicken once in a while. Many, for religious reasons, observe certain days of the week when they don't consume anything that is not vegetarian. Vegetarian in India means that they do not consume any kind of meat or poultry including eggs or products that contain egg in them.Milk however is not considered non-vegetarian and is acceptable. One of the delightful snack/dessert that I came across was this tutti-frutti cookies. These are perfect for such days!These are like shortbread cookies with fruit pieces in them. These however would be a rare indulgence as they are rather high in calories owing to the fact that it is made with butter. But it is perfect for kids like mine, who are picky eaters and you are looking to feed them high-calorie snack. It is rather easy to make and does not take a whole lot of time. Problem arises when you try to skimp on butter like I did and the whole dough fails to come together and falls apart! It definitely does not shape into cookie pieces! So, word of caution: DO NOT try to cut down on the butter. Next time, I would however try to use coconut oil and try to make it.

Servings:

Ingredients:

Unsalted Butter: 2 cups
All purpose Flour/ Maida: 2 1/4 cups
Powdered sugar: 1 cup
Vanilla essence: 2 tsp
Tutti Frutti: 1 tbsp

Method:

Seive flour and keep aside.

Mix together butter and powdered sugar until smooth and creamy. Do not overbeat!

Add vanilla essence and the tutti frutti and mix well.

Slowly add the flour and mix until together until well-combined. Do not over mix.

Divide the mixture to make 2 big balls.Using your hands shape each ball into a log.

This is the tricky part and fails if there is not enough butter in the dough to hold it together.

Wrap the log in a cling film and keep it in the fridge overnight ( I am sure 2-3 hours may work as well, but overnight was how long I kept for convinience) or in the freezer for an hour.

Preheat the oven at 350 deg F or 180 deg C.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and keep ready.

Take the log out of the fridge. Using a serrated knife, slice the log into 1.5 to 2 cms thick slices.

Place the slices 2 cms apart on the baking sheet.

Place the baking sheet on the middle rack and bake for 18-20 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted. The cookie might be soft in the center which is ok as it will harden upon cooling.

Take the baking sheet out and let the cookies cool down completely on a baking sheet before eating /transferring them to a container.

This is my own makeshift cooling rack!;)

Store in an airtight container. Stays fresh for 8-10 days at room temperature.

Enjoy these melt-in-the-mouth cookies with a cup of tea/ coffee. I am bringing in these treats for my friends at Fiesta Friday.If you haven't been there yet, I would recommend that you do! It is a great place of learning and sharing and most importantly the people there are absolutely wonderful! This week's co-hosts are two of my favorite people Selma@selmastable, whose recipes I absolutely love and my namesake Sue@Burgerbird. What fun!

Cooking made easy:

These cookies tend to spread upon baking and therefore it is best that they are sliced thick.

If you have kept the dough in the freezer, it is best to thaw it a little before slicing so as to get smooth slices.

Tip for healthy living:

People often balk at the thought of consuming butter. Butter in it's true natural state is much better than the various butter substitutes and butter-like products available in the market. They might tout themselves to be low in calories but have many deleterious effects on one's health.

Food for thought:

Gossip is when you hear something you like about someone you don't. Earl Wilson