2011 Recap and a Happy New Year!

As I did last year, I'm recapping my favorite desserts from each month in 2011 (which is probably not going to help your new year's resolution). Enjoy!

January: Cinnamon Roll Cake. Tons of butter = ultimate satisfaction.

February: Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies. Cookies inside of cookies. 

March: Nutella Cheesecake Gooey Cake Bars . Hearty bars. My kind of dessert.

April: Buttermilk Biscuits. A lot of work, but the result is fluffy piece of buttery goodness!

May: Star Wars Brownie Roll Out Cookies. Hmmmm. I need to use these again.

June: Pumpkin Doughnut Muffins with a Cheerios Streusel. Cheerios party!

July: From Scratch Funfetti Cupcakes. No words needed.

August: Cake Batter Bars. I would say this is my favorite recipe of all of 2011. That's quite a statement, so if you haven't tried them yet, get on the cake batter bandwagon!

September: White Chocolate S'mores Gooey Cake Bars. Condensed milk MAKES this dessert.

Also from September: Nutella Puppy Chow. So I cheated and chose two from September. Since this doesn't require an oven, it didn't count.

October: S'mores Brownies. Tired of seeing s'mores yet?

November: Peanut Butter Blondies with Chocolate Sunflower Seeds. The ultimate soft bar.

December: Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies. One of my favorite cookies.. and I don't even care for peanut butter!

Actually, December was filled with great cookies, so check the archives out!

This year has been an enormous year of growth for my blog and me, and I look forward to seeing you all in 2012! Thanks for you continued support throughout the years. Wishing you all a safe and happy new year!

Day 12: Chocolate Oreo Cookies

Day 12 of my 12 days of cookies: Hurray! We made it to the end. Thanks for following along this month with my never ending cookie posts. Since my Chocolate Chip Oreo Cookies were such a hit, I had to end the 12 days of cookies with another recipe that ended up being one of my favorites.. the chocolate version!

I saw these Oreos while walking through the cookie aisle in Target and had to get them because 1. they were on sale and 2. they were decorated with winter designs. I'm such a sucker for themed food.

You know that the last cookie of the 12 days has to be a good one. This one lives up to all my expectations and then some. I loved seeing a bit of the red cream peeking out of the cookies; it's so festive! This is yet another chewy cookie that has a bit of a crunch from the Oreos. Recipe slightly adapted from Brown Eyed Baker, so you know it's good.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season celebrating it with the people that you love. Merry Christmas!

Ingredients

• 2½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup dutch processed cocoa
• 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped Oreo cookies

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Cream together the butter and sugars. Add in the eggs and vanilla extract.
3. Gradually stir in the flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder until just blended.
4. Fold in the chocolate chips and oreo pieces.
5. Drop cookie dough by 2 tablespoons (or larger if you want bigger cookies) and bake for 8-10 minutes.
6. When out of the oven, let sit on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to cool on a wire rack.

Day 11: Peanut Butter & Nutella Swirl Cookies

Day 11 of my 12 days of cookies: I admit, there's a whole lot of peanut butter going on in this year's 12 days of cookies. Why? Perhaps those two giant sized family pack of Skippy at Costco was a bit too much for two people. Whoops.

I made these a while ago when I went wine tasting and everyone loved them. Maybe one day peanut butter and Nutella cookies will replace the cheese and crackers in wine tasting. If that were the case, I'd definitely go wine tasting a lot more. These cookies were sturdy, thick, and soft. They also had a bit of a crumb texture, but it's just the right amount. Try not to swirl the Nutella in completely.. you want ribbons of it going through the dough. Recipe from Delightful Bitefuls.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg 
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda 
• 1/4 teaspoon salt 
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 
• Approx. 1/4 cup Nutella 

 Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. 
2. Cream together butter, peanut butter, sugars, egg, and vanilla. Gradually add the flour, baking soda and salt. Drizzle Nutella on top of the dough then swirl it through the dough with a butter knife.
3. Refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes. Roll the dough into tablespoon sized balls and use a fork to gently flatten the balls and create a criss-cross pattern. P
4. Bake for 7-10 minutes. 

Day 10: Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm spending all day today putting together my annual holiday basket. I found the cutest boxes and wrapping from Crate and Barrel to put everything in. I'm going to have to lug everything with me back home since I'm only going to be home for such a short period of time that I don't have time to bake there. Let's hope I baked some sturdy cookies!

Day 10 of my 12 days of cookies: Chocolate on top of chocolate on top of chocolate... sometimes that's all a girl needs in life. I was asked to bake cookies for a friend's birthday and the only request was... you guessed it, chocolate. Since all my favorite cookies are made with a mixture of melting regular chocolate with dark cocoa powder, I figured this one fit the bill perfectly. The cookies had a flaky outside layer and a chewy inner layer. The amont of chocolate was enough to satisfy any chocolate craving. Recipe slightly adapted from Sweet and Savory Tooth.

•  2 2/3 cups (16 oz) semisweet chocolate chips 
•  1 cup all-purpose flour 
•  1/4 cup cocoa powder (I used Hershey's dark)
•  1 teaspoon baking soda 
•  1/2 teaspoon salt 
•  1/2 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened
•  1/2 cup packed brown sugar 
•  1/4 cup granulated sugar 
•  1 cold egg 
•  2 teaspoon vanilla 

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. 
2. Melt 2/3 cup of the chocolate chips in the microwave by heating in increments of 30 seconds and stirring in between. Set aside.
3. Cream together the butter and both sugars. Stir in the melted chocolate chips. Add in the egg and vanilla. 
4. Add the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt) to the chocolate mixture until just incorporated.
5. Fold in the remaining 2 cups chocolate chips. 
6. Scoop tablespoon sized dough onto baking sheets. 
7. Bake for about 11 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Day 9: Peanut Butter White Chocolate Chip Cookies

 Day 9 of my 12 days of cookies: I truly think that any cookie made with peanut butter is impossible to screw up. The peanut butter gives the cookie such a wonderful texture that it's hard for anyone to decline. I mean, just look at that last picture. How moist and chewy can a cookie get? The original recipe called for peanut butter and chocolate chips, but I substituted white chocolate chips instead.   I was getting a little tired of the semisweet chocolate and peanut butter combo and wanted to change things up a bit. Adapted from Sugar Cooking.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup peanut butter at room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar 
• 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup white chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat together the butter, peanut butter, and sugars. Stir in the egg, vanilla, and milk. 
3. Gradually mix in the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt) into the wet mixture. 
4. Stir in the white chocolate chips.
5. Drop by tablespoons onto baking sheet and flatten slightly. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. 

Day 8: Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

Day 8 of my 12 days of cookies: To me, pumpkin isn't just for Thanksgiving. It's a year round kind of thing. I wish there were pumpkin lattes and pumpkin bread at coffee shops all the time, but since there isn't, I'll just have to keep the pumpkin flowing all year long by myself. Naturally, I love snickerdoodles and I love pumpkin, so combining the two made sense in my head. That leaves you with a gorgeous, fluffy cookie with an ever so slight hint of pumpkin. Adding the pecan on top just completes the holiday touch. Make sure to flatten the cookies slightly because they don't spread much.

Can you believe we're only a week from Christmas? It's coming up fast! I still need to get into the Christmas spirit.. *working on finding it*.  Recipe From Amy Bites.

For the cookies:

• 3¾ cups all-purpose flour 
• 1½ tsp. baking powder 
• ½ tsp. salt 
• ½ tsp. ground cinnamon 
• ¼ tsp. ground nutmeg 
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature 
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• ½ cup light brown sugar
• ¾ cup pumpkin puree 
• 1 large egg 
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract 

For the coating:

•  ½ cup granulated sugar 
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon 
• ½ tsp. ground ginger 
• Dash of allspice

Topping (optional): 

• Approximately 48 pecans (one for each cookie)

Directions: 

1. Cream butter and sugars together. Blend in the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla.
2. Add the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg) to the wet mixture. Mix until just incorporated.
3. Cover and chill for at least an hour.
4. Preheat the oven to 350.
5. Mix the coating ingredients together and set aside. 
6. Scoop the dough into 2 tablespoons sized balls and roll in the coating mixture. Place a pecan on top of the ball dough. Use the bottom of a flat, heavy glass to gently flatten the dough. Repeat for all the cookies.
7. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes. Let cool on the baking sheets for about 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Day 7: Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Whoo hoo! We have officially crossed the half way mark with ten days left to spare. That means there will be five posts in the next ten days. Are you ready for it? Have you started your holiday baking? I'll be doing all my holiday baking up north since I'll be working over the holidays, but I'll be flying everything home next week. Just because I'm not home for Christmas doesn't mean I can't deliver my annual holiday sweets!

Day 7 of my 12 days of cookies: Here's another simple recipe that's been fancied up a bit. The extra 5 minutes that you take to brown the butter really alters the taste of a normal chocolate chip cookie. The dough really held its shape during baking and didn't flatten out much, so use a cookie scooper to make your cookies uniform. The taste was great, but the texture itself was a bit harder than I'd like my cookies to be. Recipe from In the Little Red House.

Ingredients

• 2 sticks of butter (1 cup)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3 c all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 lb chocolate chips/chunks
• 1 cup chopped pecans 

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Brown the butter by heating in a pan over medium heat and stir continuously. The butter will foam up. After foam subsides, small brown flecks will start to appear in bottom of pan. Continue stirring, until butter has reached a nice brown color. Turn the heat all the way down. Pour into a bowl and and refrigerate until solid again. 
3. Cream the brown butter after it has solidified and the sugars. Mix in the eggs and vanilla.
4. Stir in the dry ingredients: flour, soda and salt into the wet mixture. Fold in the chocolate and pecans. 
5. Scoop dough into tablespoon sized balls and bake for 11-13 minutes. 

Day 6: Chewy Nutella Cookies

Day 6 of my 12 days of cookies: Yes, I am still working on my two Costco sized jars of Nutella. No complaints here! I'm "rationing" it more than I am "working" on it. Nutella is a gift from the Gods... the hazelnut Gods. They bake so well into desserts that I couldn't have a 12 days of cookies without having something Nutella on the list.

These cookies stayed chewy for days after being baked. They didn't thin out too much and remained sturdy, despite the fact that they were so soft. They crackled on the top and baked uniformly, having the same consistency from the middle to the edge. Recipe from Erin's Food Files.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• ½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• ½ cup Nutella
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 ½ cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Cream butter with both sugars until light and fluffy. Stir in the egg, vanilla, and Nutella.
3. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt into the wet mixture until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips. 
4. Drop the dough by tablespoons onto baking sheet and bake for 6-7 minutes.