Three Fall Cookie Recipes That Are Sure to Please
Have you seen the Cookie Monster’s parody of the wildly popular Carly Rae Jepsen hit entitled “Share it Maybe?” Yes, I am talking about that Cookie Monster—the big, hairy blue guy. If you haven’t, you can check out the YouTube sensation here. It is hilarious, especially because my husband often refers to me as his little cookie monster. And for good reason, I’ve never met a cookie I didn’t like.
At about 39 weeks pregnant with our now one month baby girl (Savannah Leigh), while waiting not so patiently to go into labor, I developed a real hankering for homemade cookies. Let’s just say my sweet tooth raged out of control the entire time I was expecting. One particularly desperate evening around 10:30, I decided to try my luck at a new (to me) recipe from Pinterest: Peanut Butter Nutella Cookies. It was my first attempt at homemade cookies from scratch, and happily these babies did not disappoint.
Ingredients
1/2 cup of butter, softened
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup Nutella
Yields about 24 cookies.
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Combine butter, peanut butter, sugars, the egg, and the vanilla in a large bowl. Mix until well blended.
Next add flour and salt. Mix well. Using a butter knife, add the Nutella to the mixture, swirling throughout.
Chill the dough for 15 minutes in the refrigerator.
Roll the dough into balls by hand. Place the balls onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. Using a fork, press down lightly on each cookie ball (alternatively) to flatten out the dough balls a bit.
Bake in the oven until the edges of the cookies are light brown (anywhere from seven to thirteen minutes). Allow the cookies to cool for at least two minutes before transferring to a serving platter (or your belly, whichever comes first).
Enjoy! I sure did.
Next Up: Two More Cookie Recipes To Try
Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies
Ingredients
1 cup softened butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 box (7.4 oz) Alpine Spiced Apple Cider Instant Original Drink mix (not sugar free), all 10 packets
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 bag Kraft Caramels (14 oz)
Yields about 4 dozen cookies.
Directions
Preheat oven to 350° F. Line cookie sheets with parchment.
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon.
With your mixer cream together butter, sugar, salt and all 10 packages of apple cider drink mix powder, until light and fluffy.
Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla and mix well. Gradually add flour mixture to butter/egg mixture.
Refrigerate for about an hour. (If you're really impatient you don't have to do this, but it makes it so much easier to work with.)
When you are ready to bake, unwrap your caramels.
Scoop out cookie dough ball about the size of a walnut.
Flatten the ball of dough slightly in the palm of your hand. Press the unwrapped caramel into the center of your dough and seal the dough around it, covering it completely. Place on parchment covered cookie sheets 2 inches apart.
Bake 12-14 minutes, or until very lightly browned around the edges. Once the cookies are done, slide the parchment off of the baking sheet right out onto the counter. Allow cookies to partially cool on the parchment. When cookies are cool enough to be firm but still slightly warm, carefully twist off of parchment and allow to finish cooling upside down (either on the parchment or on a rack.) If you forget about them and they cool too much and stick to your parchment, put them into the freezer for a few minutes and they'll pop right off.
I’m thinking these are going to be an excellent addition to my Halloween Open House Menu!
Chai Pumpkin Spice Thumbprints
Ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup chai concentrate
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon chai spice mix
22-24 Pumpkin spice Hershey’s Kisses (found at Target in the early fall)
Yields about 2 dozen cookies.
Directions
Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer and cream at medium speed until fluffy, or with a hand mixer, for about 2-3 minutes. Add the egg, chai concentrate, and the vanilla, mix until combined. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt, scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl as necessary. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
Using your hands, roll the dough into 22 to 24 1 inch round balls. Place the dough balls on parchment paper lined baking sheets and sprinkle chai spice mix lightly over cookies.
Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes. Meanwhile, unwrap kisses.
Remove the cookies from the oven and immediately place pumpkin kisses in the center of each cookie. Don’t touch, or the kisses will turn into puddles! Cool completely.
Hopefully they taste as delicious as they look!