Black and White Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup butter

6 Tablespoons sugar

6 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup semi-sweet Ghirardelli chocolate chips
3/4 Ghirardelli white chocolate chips
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Makes about 3.5 dozen cookies
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Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350*

Cream butter and sugars.
Add egg, extracts, baking soda, and salt. Mix well.
Add flour, allowing mixture to blend well.
Add both varieties of chocolate chips, mixing slowly, but well.

Drop by rounded teaspoon onto cookie sheet, preferably lined with parchment. Bake for 10 minutes. Allow cookies to cool on the sheet before removing.

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You all know how to mix cookie dough. Here's the dough, ready to go. This dough does not need to be chilled. 

I have found that putting cookies onto parchment is a life saver. They NEVER stick, the cookie sheets never get old enough to throw away. No worries! And believe it or not, parchment is reusable. I use it till it burns or gets ripped up. Just shake off the crumbs and store between your cookie sheets to protect it from wear and tear.

Another tip, using a scoop to get evenly sized cookies. This is the smallest, about 1.25 inches. 

Cooling racks are key for fast production. There are 4 separate racks standing here.

Here they are in use. I put two trays of cookie dough, ready to bake, one on the counter top, one immediately above that. One rack stays empty as an air break. The hot cookies right out of the oven go onto the top two racks to cool. I only have 4 cookie sheets, so once the baked cookies have cooled for a few minutes, I pull the parchment off onto the stove or a free counter to finish cooking, then I load those cookie sheets with another parchment sheet and raw dough. It's a very efficient way to crank out tons of cookies in no time at all. I mixed the dough while making dinner, almost no effort. I then baked 8.5 dozen cookies in 30 minutes.

After the cookies cool completely on the counter, I stack them in a travel box for Jonathan to take to school in the morning.

Done... Don't they look delicious? P.S. I doubled the recipe to make this many cookies. I had all of these plus a bowl with 20 cookies for us, at home. 

All finished with the cooling racks. They collapse and get put back into the cupboard. All four racks, about 1 inch high.

Cinnamon Drops

This is the first in my series of Christmas Cookies. I will cover basic cookie making procedures here. I will not bore you with repeating all the basic stuff for every cookie. So, check here for methodology.

1 cup butter, room temperature

2/3 cup sugar

1/3 brown sugar

1 egg yolk

2 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

cinnamon red hots candies

Makes 4 dozen cookies

Directions:

Cream butter and sugars.

Add egg yolk and blend well.

Add salt and cinnamon.

Add flour.

Place completed dough into the fridge until well chilled and firm. I regularly make my dough one day and bake the next.

Heat oven to 300*F.

Drop chilled dough by rounded teaspoon onto parchment lined cookie trays. 

I use my trusty small scoop. 

Very reliably even sized cookies. Sorry, it's a compulsion. LOL!

Decorate each cookie with a cinnamon candy, if you'd like. It's simple, but festive. Plus, if you are making many different cookies you'll need to decorate them in a recognizable way so that you can easily tell all your drop cookies apart. 

Bake for 20-25 minutes. In my oven, I bake for 22 minutes. Every oven is different, so adjust accordingly. 

After removing from the oven, I allow the cookies to cook on the rack for a few minutes.

Then pull the parchment paper off onto the counter to continue cooling. Then you can reuse the tray quicker. 

For storage, I use a plastic wrap lined foil tray, with a lid. I can see the plastic wrap to keep them fresh and the lid allows me to stack a few boxes. I keep the boxes in the garage as it is much cooler there and it saves room in the fridge.  

Don't box up the cookies until they are completely cooled. 

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Basic Baking Procedures and pictures

We start with room temperature butter. Whip it up well. Light and fluffy is the name of the game. It isn't written into the recipe, but air is a big part in any baking good recipe. You want airy and light baked goods. Whipping air in is important.

    

           Adding sugars. Whip... This is after sugars have both been added and whipped up. See how the mixer has pushed some up the sides? Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides and whip a bit more. Get everything incorporated well. Also, do not try to push the stuff down the sides with the mixer running. You could ruin your mixer, your spoon and your face if it through the spoon up into your eyes. It's not worth it. Just turn it off.

All whipped and beautiful! Now add dry ingredients (except flour), mix well. I like to mix dry and wet separately so that everything is well incorporated. No one wants a clump of salt or spice in their dough. 

 

We often need egg yolks. There are fancy gadgets out there to separate egg whites from yolks, but honestly, the egg shell is the best tool. Back and forth between the shell halves and the white falls into a bowl. Yes, I save the whites. I have other recipes that call for whites. Royal Icing also is made from whites. Egg white can even be frozen for use later. Add the yolk to the mixer and blend well.

After the wet ingredients, all that's left is the flour. Add flour slowly so it doesn't fling out of the mixer. Here's the finished dough.

After it's done, I put it into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and into the fridge to chill. :) The chilling is a necessary step. If you dipped out spoonfuls now, the cookies would spread farther and maybe burn, but surely have less loft and would not hold their shape. There are only a few cookies that need to be used with room temperature dough. They are clearly stated as such. Basic chocolate chip cookies can be done immediately. I'll show the difference in my white chocolate chip cookies in a later installment. 

Apple-Cranberry Crisp

Not only great on Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but any day and over ice cream for no special reason at all! 

Fruit Filling:
2 cups cranberries
3 cups Granny Smith apples, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup sugar
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Topping:
1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup nuts (I like pecans)
1 cup coconut
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup melted butter
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Mix sliced apples and cranberries with the 1/2 cup sugar. Spread into 9X13 baking dish. 

Mix dry Topping ingredients, then add melted butter and mix well until butter has coated everything. Spread over the top of the fruit. 

Bake at 350*F for one hour, or adjust to whatever temperature your other meal items are baking at. Just change your cooking time to match. Lower temp, longer cook time, etc. 

Here's a cool gadget. My apple peeler...

Pretty cool... It peels and then slices.

See the blade cutting into slices?

Pull it off and it's all neat and tidy.

I slice it twice and it makes neat crescents, all even so they cook nicely.

It's a fun way to just serve slices to kids too. My kids like the peels too, one big long string.

I add it all to the baking dish. Here, I'm making just 1/2 batch.

I dump it all into a bowl to mix in the sugar.

The dry topping ingredients. Mix well.

Once it's mixed, add the butter.

I patted it on top of the fruit. It's heaped up, but the apples will collapse as they cook.

Baked and delicious!! Great as a side dish, or over ice cream!!

Mmmm. Can you almost smell it! Sweet and tart.