button sugar cookies

cookies in the jar o'

Button Sugar cookies

Ingredients:
Makes 2 dozen
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
A few drops food colouring
Directions
Mix together flour, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl.

In a large bowl cream butter and sugar; add dry ingredients, and mix well

add egg, milk, and vanilla; mix well.

Separate the dough to incorporate different food colourings.

Transfer dough to a work surface. Shape into discs, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 180C (350 degrees F) Line baking sheets with greaseproof paper.

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough to 1/8-inch thickness.

To make buttons:

• you will need to cut out circles with a 1 3/4 inch round cutter

• lightly press with a 1 1/2 inch round cutter ( I used a glass and a round cookie cutter).

making button holes

• Make button holes with a skewer or other sharp implement (ahem I used the steaming thermometer that leave with the espresso machine)

Transfer to prepared baking sheets, leaving an inch in between.
Leftover dough can be rolled and cut once more. It will need to be put back in the fridge to set if it has become too warm.

Bake for 10 minutes.

Transfer to wire racks to cool.


cook's notes: I saw a picture of some beautiful button shaped cookies with a recipe, somewhere on flickr, but I lost the bookmark and I prefer to try things the my own way. yes I know I'm annoying like that... they were fun to make and as I have an assortment of star shaped cookie cutters I shall definitely make star buttons next time I bake cookies. OK I lie next time I bake cookies it will be chocolate chip ones but the time after that will be sugar cookies honest. I made the cookies in green, red/pink, and some that I left uncoloured. Unfortunately I have misplaced the picture files of the red and uncoloured cookies... *bangs head against wall*

Oaties

oaties biscuits

Ingredients:

3/4 cup self-raising flour
1/2 cup butter (softened)
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 egg (large)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup desiccated coconut
1 1/2 cups porridge oats

Pre-heat the oven to 375° F

In a small bowl mix the flour and the coconut, if you don’t have self -raising flour then use plain flour and add to it 1 tsp baking powder and half a teaspoon of salt.

In a large bowl beat the butter, vanilla extract, and brown sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Add the flour and coconut mix until well blended. By hand stir in the porridge oats (old fashioned oats are best) . Drop the dough by teaspoon onto un-greased cookie sheet. For larger cookies drop by the tablespoon. Bake for 10 minutes, until the centre is puffed up and the edges begin to brown. Remove from the oven, let them cool for a minute on the baking tray before placing on a wire rack to cool.


cooks notes: this recipe is for my dad, as Oaties are his favourite cookie/biscuit and every time we visit in Idaho I bring several packages back of an Scottish made oaties biscuits that we buy from Chatsworth Farm Shop. So for ages I have been experimenting with various different recipes for oatmeal cookies and attempting to create and oatie type cookie/biscuit and this recipe is the closest I have been able to get so far. H says the cookies were "Yum" so I guess that's not a bad review. They were also very simple to make I'm sure I will continue to adapt the recipe I have concocted but for now I'm just going to have to eat a cookie. or two.

Brown Sugar and Chocolate Cookies

Brown Sugar cookies with Chocolate chunks
Ingredients:

2 ½ cups self raising flour
1 cup butter
½ cup white sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 eggs
1 ½ bars of dark chocolate (milk chocolate if you prefer) roughly chopped
1 cup pecans or almonds. (optional)

Pre-heat the oven to 375° F
In a small bowl mix the four and cinnamon, if you don’t have self -raising flour then use plain flour and add to it 1 tsp baking powder and half a teaspoon of salt.

In a large bowl beat the butter, vanilla extract, and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Add the cinnamon and flour slowly until well blended.

By hand stir in the roughly chopped chocolate and nuts.

Drop the dough by teaspoon onto un-greased cookie sheet. For larger cookies drop by the tablespoon.

Bake for 10 minutes, until the centre is puffed up and the edges begin to brown.

Remove from the oven, let them cool for a minute on the baking tray before placing on a wire rack to cool.

Enjoy with a glass of milk!

cooks notes: these cookies were meant to be cinnamon oatmeal cookies, but M and H whined and whimpered that they wanted chocolate chip cookies. I said they weren't going to touch my Toll House Chocolate Chips as I lugged them all the way back from Idaho for Christmas not any other time. As M is a complete chocoholic and H is one in training there is never much chocolate in the house except for the bits of dark chocolate I hide away for myself and baking purposes. They don't really like it, or at least not the extremely high percentages I must resort to in order to have a little bit to myself. In a huff I riffled through the cupboards until I found a bar and a half of 72 percent dark chocolate and chopped it up and added it to the bowl of brown sugar and cinnamon cookie mix. The cookies turned out great, there is that lovely mix of the spicy cinnamon, the dark smooth bitterness of the dark chocolate and the heavy sweetness of the brown sugar that mingle and compliment each other. Gorgeous

p.s. I'm sure Santa would love these!

Peanut Butter Cookies

2 1/2 cups self raising flour

1 cup butter

1 cup granulated white sugar

1 cup light brown soft sugar

2 eggs

1 cup peanut butter

Cream the butter and sugars together in a large mixing bowl with electric beaters until fluffy. Beat the eggs in one at a time. Add the Peanut butter and beat at a low speed until blended then slowly mix in the self raising flour.

cover the bowl and place in the refrigerator for up to two hours.

preheat the oven to 375 F.

shape the dough into 1 inch balls spaced roughly 3 inches apart. With a floured fork flatten the cookies in a crisscross pattern. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until the edges just begin to brown.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool. If making more than one batch of cookies its best to put the dough into the fridge between batches or it becomes to sticky to work with.

enjoy with a glass of milk or nice cuppa

cooks notes: I haven't made peanut butter cookies in a very long time, the above recipe is my interpretation and I think it worked pretty well. I used Tesco's own brand of peanut butter which worked well but by far the best peanut butter is Jiff it has the best taste and texture over other cheaper brands. I used the tesco's peanut butter because that is all I had in the house, tomorrow is shopping day.

Odd Shaped Cookie

IF ever there was a way to describe me odd shaped cookie would probably fit quite well depending on what day it is. Today H and I made some chocolate chip cookies, the recipe? Toll House of course the only chocolate chip cookie recipe as far as I'm concerned. Real home comfort food, or it would be if my parents' oven didn't loath me for reasons known only to itsself, The turned out ok, though a little bit malformed as the cookie dough didn't spread out to form nice cookie shapes it just sorta stayed mostly rather lump shaped. They tasted good though so thats really all that mattered, H is happy and flying around the room on a chocolate and sugar induced high.

I have also been learning to knit cables, or one cable or something, i'm not hip to the knitting lingo, but I think I have gotten the hang of it so far, its only a small piece and will probably end up as a cup holder (what are those cardboard things called at Starbuck's?) for M. I hope to attempt something new and craft worthy soon, maybe even try the dreaded knitted pattern, and hopefully do better than the tangled mess I got into last time I attempted such a thing.

Next trip out of the house I hope to go to Boucle's.....yarn ( http://www.bouclesyarn.com/ ) I went there about six moths or so ago on our last trip here and it was lovely, lovely beautiful yarns, though I only got about ten minutes before M and H were getting fed up waiting in the car. five more sleeps and M will be here, so that will make H a very happy boy, and thats means many trips out for coffee and bookshops and music stores and cinnabuns oh mi.