Makes about four dozen bourbon balls.
Chocolate-Dipped Butterscotch Shortbread Cookies
This recipe was contributed by Andrea Wilder. These yummy, rich cookies are a perfect accompaniment to coffee or tea, and they make an excellent treat for the holidays.
Ingredients
1 cup butter
¾ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
¾ cup butterscotch chips
8 ounces dark chocolate
Directions
Soften the butter before beginning. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Beat the butter and brown sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and mix. Slowly add the flour and salt until just combined. Add the butterscotch chips and mix slowly until evenly distributed. Grease an eight-inch by eight-inch baking pan. Using a rubber spatula, press the dough evenly into the pan. Refrigerate the dough for twenty minutes. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and score it into sixteen squares. Pierce the dough all over with a fork. Bake about an hour until firm and golden brown around the edges. Remove from the oven and immediately cut through the scoring marks to separate the cookies. Move the pan to a wire rack and cool completely.
Chop the dark chocolate and place it in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave in twenty-second intervals, stirring each time, until the chocolate is melted. Remove cookies from the baking pan and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Dip each shortbread cookie into the chocolate mixture and return to the cookie sheet. Refrigerate the cookies for approximately thirty minutes, until the chocolate is set. Store the cookies in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to three weeks. Remove cookies from the refrigerator twenty to thirty minutes before serving.
Makes sixteen shortbread cookies.
Chocolate Stove-top Oatmeal Cookies
This recipe was contributed by Katherine Black. According to Kathy, it’s been around for a long time. She first made cookies from this recipe over sixty years ago. She suggests that you measure the oats and peanut butter before beginning and put the vanilla nearby because things will happen quickly once the mixture begins to boil.
Ingredients
2 cups sugar
½ cup cocoa
½ cup milk
½ cup butter
3 cups quick-cooking oats
½ cup creamy peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
Directions
Lay out parchment paper on the counter near the stove. Measure oats, peanut butter, and vanilla and have them standing by. Put the sugar, cocoa, and milk into a saucepan on a stove burner. Turn on the burner to medium. Add the butter and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Stop stirring when the mixture begins to boil and continue boiling for one minute.* Remove the mixture immediately and quickly add the oats, peanut butter, and vanilla. Stir to blend the ingredients. Drop and shape by the large spoonful onto the parchment paper. Let the cookies set until cool. Store the cookies in an air-tight container.
Makes about two dozen cookies.
*According to Kathy, the boiling time can be a bit tricky, so she uses a candy thermometer to test whether the mixture is ready. The candy thermometer should register the soft ball stage (235 to 240 degrees). Another method to determine whether the mixture is ready is to scoop some up in a spoon, tip it, and watch how it drops. If it is dropping very slowly, the mixture is ready.
Holiday Meringue Cookies
This recipe was contributed by Andrea Wilder. Crushed peppermint gives these delicate cookies a bit of a holiday vibe because red-and-white-striped peppermint candy canes are so closely associated with Christmas, but, according to Andrea, you can omit the peppermint in this recipe, if you prefer.
Ingredients
2 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
¾ cup fine sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3 tablespoons crushed peppermint candies
Directions
Make sure the egg whites are at room temperature before beginning. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until they are foamy. Add the salt and cream of tartar. Continue beating the mixture until soft peaks form. Add the sugar, one tablespoon at a time, and beat well after each addition. Continue beating until the mixture is stiff. With a spatula, fold in the vanilla, chocolate chips, and crushed peppermint by hand.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Drop the mixture by teaspoonfuls, one-half inch apart, on a greased baking sheet. Bake for forty minutes. Cool and store in an airtight container.
Makes about four dozen cookies.
Pinwheel Cookies
Pinwheel cookies owe their name to their spiral shape. Traditionally, they are made with one vanilla layer and one chocolate layer. For a holiday version, simply add a few drops of red food coloring in the vanilla layer and substitute green food coloring for chocolate in the second layer, and when you roll them up, they’ll look like red and green spirals.
Ingredients
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
3 cups flour
2 ounces (squares) unsweetened baking chocolate
Directions
Soften the butter and melt the chocolate before beginning. Cream the softened butter with the sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat. Mix the baking powder, salt, and flour in a separate bowl and slowly add to the first mixture. Divide the dough in half, and put one half on a sheet of parchment paper and shape it into a rectangle. In the mixing bowl, add the melted chocolate to the other half of the dough and mix well. Turn out onto a sheet of parchment paper and shape it into a rectangle the same size as the vanilla dough. Cover each rectangle with parchment paper, and put them into the refrigerator to chill for at least half an hour.
Remove dough from the refrigerator and roll each half of the dough, maintaining a rectangle shape, into a layer about 12 inches by 16 inches (trim dough to even the edges) and about 1/8 inch thick. Carefully, place the chocolate layer on top of the vanilla layer. Cover the dough with parchment paper and refrigerate it for at least half an hour. From the sixteen-inch side, roll the dough into a log, keeping it tight. Wrap the dough log in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least three hours or overnight.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice the dough into ¼-inch-thick slices and place each cookie on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake about 8 to 10 minutes. When the vanilla layer is slightly golden and the cookies are “set,” remove the cookies, and cool them on a wire rack.
Makes about four dozen cookies.
Sugar Cookies
This recipe was contributed by Katherine Black, who originally received it from Alton Brown. Kathy says that Alton is “as ever, the best chef.” For the holidays, use cookie cutters with shapes such as a Christmas tree, snowman, or candy cane. Note that you will be using confectioners powdered sugar when you roll out the cookies. According to Kathy, it works very well and actually sweetens the cookies, too.
Ingredients for Cookies
3 cups flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
confectioners powdered sugar for rolling out the dough
Ingredients for Icing
½ cup butter
1 one-pound package confectioners powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk
food coloring (select colors based on which shapes you’re making)
Directions
Soften the butter and beat the egg before beginning. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together and set aside. Place the butter and sugar in a la
rge bowl of an electric stand mixer and beat until light in color. Add beaten egg and milk and beat to combine. Set the mixer on low speed and gradually add the flour mixture. Beat until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Divide the dough in half, wrap it in parchment paper, and refrigerate it for two hours. Put a cookie sheet in the freezer to chill.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Using a sifter, sprinkle one tablespoon of confectioners powdered sugar on the rolling surface. Remove dough from the refrigerator, one package at a time. Sprinkle a rolling pin with confectioners powdered sugar. Roll out the dough to an even thickness of ¼ inch. If the dough becomes too warm, place the chilled cookie sheet in the freezer on top of the dough for ten minutes. Cut the rolled dough into shapes with cookie cutters and place the cookies at least one inch apart on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper.
Bake eight to twelve minutes, rotating the cookie sheet once after about four or five minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven when they are just beginning to turn brown on the edges. Let the cookies cool for two minutes on the cookie sheet before moving them to a wire rack to finish cooling them. The cookies should be completely cool before they are iced.
To make the icing, combine one package of confectioners powdered sugar with ½ cup butter. Slowly add the milk and mix in until the icing is the desired consistency. Separate the icing into small bowls, one each for each color you will be using. Add food coloring to each bowl, one drop at a time, until the icing is the desired color. Ice the cookies, and add sprinkles, if desired. Store the cookies in an airtight container.
Makes about three dozen cookies.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning author Paula Darnell is a former college instructor who has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Iowa and a Master of Arts degree in English with a Writing Emphasis from the University of Nevada, Reno. Hemlock for the Holidays is the third book in her Fine Art Mystery series. She's also the author of the DIY Diva Mystery series and The Six-Week Solution, a historical mystery set in Nevada. She resides in Las Vegas with her husband Gary.
VISIT HER WEBSITE
pauladarnellauthor.com
Have you read all the books in the Fine Art Mystery series? If so, you will also enjoy Paula Darnell’s cozy mystery DIY Diva series.
Hemlock for the Holidays Page 20