Mexican Chocolate Snickerdoodles

Last week, I was craving Snickerdoodles. Not just any snickerdoodles either, but homemade, vegan snickerdoodles. 

Naturally, I spent all day trying to find a recipe that I could go home and make without going to the grocery store. 

I ended up buying Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar after finding a recipe for Mexican Chocolate Snickerdoodles on Post Punk Kitchen. Just thinking about these cookies made my mouth water.

If you're unfamiliar with "mexican chocolate", then you need to get in the know, STAT. It's chocolate spiced with cayenne and cinnamon and it's the most delicious way to have your chocolate. 

The possibilities are endless: 

• mexican chocolate hot chocolate
• mexican chocolate chocolate bars
• mexican chocolate cookies
• mexican chocolate brownies
• mexican chocolate birthday cake

....I have to stop writing this list, it's making me crave mexican chocolate. 

Mexican Chocolate Snickerdoodles

by Peace, Love & Bagels

Keywords: bake dessert vegan cookie

6017204

Ingredients

For the topping:

• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the cookies:

• 1/2 cup earth balance
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
• 3 tablespoons water
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 2/3 cups flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare 2 large baking sheets.

In a medium mixing bowl, use a fork to vigorously mix together earth balance, sugar, syrup, and water. Mix in vanilla extract.

Stir in remaining ingredients. Once all ingredients are added mix until you’ve got a pliable dough...you may need to get your hands in there.

Roll dough into tablespoon sized balls, refrigerate for half an hour.

Mix sugar and cinnamon on a flat plate, place each ball individually into the sugar topping and flatten with a fork on each side, so the sugar sticks into the dough.

Transfer to baking sheet, at least 2 inches apart. Bake for 8 to 9 minutes, they should be a bit spread and crackly on top. Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

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Guest Post: Simple Flourless Cookies

Alooooha! Here is my first ever guest post from a fellow Cleveland blogger: Katie over at Healthy Heddleston. She is a registered dietician and has lots and lots of GF recipes to share. Enjoy!

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Simple Flourless Cookies

Hi Everyone! I’m Katie from Healthy Heddleston! While Becca is off enjoying the Maui sunshine (so jealous), I’m here to provide you with a quick and simple cookie recipe!

Ingredients

·      1 cup creamy peanut butter

·      1.5 cups quick oats

·      1 cup brown sugar

·      1 teaspoon baking soda

·      1 teaspoon vanilla

·      1 whole egg

·      1 egg white

·      1 cup chocolate chips – can be semi-sweet or milk chocolate

Directions

1.     Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2.     Combine all ingredients except chocolate chips.

3.     Stir in chocolate chips.

4.     Bake for 10-12 minutes.

That’s it! Told you they were quick and simple! Recipe makes 24 cookies.

So while we are enjoying our yummy cookies, I hope you are having fun seeing your family, splashing in the water, and soaking up the sun! Thanks for having me Becca!

Orange Chocolate Chip and Almond Anise Biscotti

Ladies and Gentlemen (drumroll, please), this is the third installment of Becca's Chrismukkah Cookie Fiesta! This one is a must have for holiday cookie giving: biscotti! Every year right around Thanksgiving is when I start urging my dad and step-mom to get to work and send me some of their biscotti. Ingrid makes an obscene amount each year to send to a few lucky recipients...but I always seem to have to remind them to make sure I'm on the "good" list. "No lumps of coal for me, just lots of biscotti, please!" My biscotti can't hold a candle to Ingrid's (hey! it's my first go at it!) but I tell ya, they're pretty freakin' delicious!

Don't worry, Dad and Ingrid...you've been good kids this year. Biscotti for all!!

I made one recipe into two: Orange Chocolate Chip and Almond Anise Biscotti. Anise is probably my favorite biscotti flavor of all time...in fact, I've been known to have eaten my bodyweight in anise biscotti when I go home for the holidays. Thankfully, I didn't actually manage to make enough cookies to equal my body weight, so that won't be happening this year. 

Mucho Delicious-o Biscotti
adapted from The Ivory Hut
Text highlighted in purple (except for cookie names) are steps that I accidentally forgot. They still turned out great!

ingredients:

Orange Chocolate Biscotti
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
zest of 1 whole orange (about 2 tablespoons)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup (scant) sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips
Anise Almond Biscotti
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon anise extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup (scant) sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tsp aniseseeds
1 cup almonds, pecans, walnuts, toasted pistachios, mac nuts (or a combination of nuts)

directions:
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Spread nuts in a single layer on baking sheet and toast until fragrant.
In a small bowl, mix the eggs, vanilla and orange zest (and in another, mix the eggs and anise for your other batch). In a larger bowl, mix the remaining ingredients except the choco chips/nuts. Stir the wet mixture into the dry, using a spoon first and then using your hands. The dough will be very sticky and tacky. Stir in the nuts/chips.
Flouring your hands and working surface, roll half of the dough into a 12-inch log. Place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat. Repeat with the remaining dough. Brush beaten egg over surface of dough, sprinkle with turbinado sugar or more crushed nuts.
Bake in the center position of the oven for about 50 minutes, until golden brown. Take the logs off the sheet and onto a cooling rack, let cool for about 5 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 275 degrees and line another baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.
Use a serrated knife to slice the logs into 1/2-inch thick slices. Return the slices to the baking sheets and bake for another 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown and almost crisp. Transfer to cooling racks and let cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

p.s. A special thank-you to Mama Minnaugh for sending Anthony back from Pittsburgh with the biggest Rubbermaid tupperware I've ever seen!

Mexican Wedding Cookies

Part two of the Chrismukkah Cookie Fiesta posts...here are my Mexican Wedding Cookies - also known as Moon Cookies! The recipe was adapted from Manifest Vegan, although my version was highly not vegan, as I used butter instead of Earth Balance (which, while the ingredients are all natural, the ingredients are numerous, corn- and soy-derived and they're not anything I would find in my own pantry). 

The reason they're also sometimes referred to as Moon Cookies is because they're generally shaped like little crescent moons. I was too lazy to make moon shapes out of my cookies, and I actually ended up with a few totally smushed, flat messes after baking:

But thankfully I was able to recoup most of them and they ended up shaped as 3/4 spheres. If that makes sense. Here is my recipe, un-veganized:

Mexican Wedding (a.k.a. Moon) Cookies

ingredients:

• 1 cup all purpose
• 1 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 cup butter, cold
• 1 cup confectioner’s sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup finely chopped almonds, roasted or raw

directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together sugar, vanilla and margarine.  Add chopped almonds to the sugar and margarine mixture, then gradually mix in flour.  Your dough will be crumbly - almost flourlike - but easily formed into a ball when worked slightly with hands.

Form into walnut sized balls (this is the point where you can choose to shape them into moons, or not).  Watch out, because they'll spread while baking. I have no idea how to prevent this, I guess just make sure that the butter is very well mixed into the dough.

Bake on un-greased cookie sheet (I put parchment paper down)  in preheated oven for about 12 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool on cookie sheet about 15 minutes.  Roll generously in confectioner’s sugar until very well coated.  Let cool an additional 20 minutes on wire rack.

My cookies probably could have used more powdered sugar to make them a little more decadent, but I was kind of concerned about keeping them in one piece while I rolled them in sugar. Maybe I'll have a second go at it before I put them in pretty holiday gift bags? I can always endorse an argument for MORE SUGAR!

What is your go-to holiday cookie or dessert? Let me know if I'm missing out on any great holiday recipes that I can turn into wonderful gifts!

You Can't Catch Me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!

My mom is Jewish and my dad is Catholic, so I was techincally raised Jewish, but I've always celebrated both Christmas and Hanukkah...or, as Seth Cohen from The O.C. fondly calls it, Chrismukkah ("the greatest super holiday known to mankind, drawing on the best that Christianity and Judaism have to offer, eight days of presents followed by one day of many presents"). This year has been no different, even though it's in a new home with new people to share the miracle of Chrismukkah with.

So yesterday was the first annual Chrismukkah Cookie Baking Fiesta at the Kocher/DiLiberto/Minnaugh household. This year, that entailed baking three types of cookies (well four if you count two flavors of biscotti), partially decorating our tree, and brewing 2.5 gallons of tea for our next round of homemade kombucha.

I'll post all of the recipes for this year's Chrismukkah cookies, but my far-and-away favorite were the Gingerbread Men (and gingerbread snowmen, and gingerbread Christmas trees). I am really happy with how they turned out, especially because I used my garam masala instead of the recommended ground cloves (whoops, didn't have any!) Also, the inclusions of ground white pepper is a nice touch! I used blackstrap molasses, which made for some very very dark cookies...but they are just as delicious as ever.

Old Fashioned Gingerbread Cookies
adapted from Eat, Live, Run
makes about 4 dozen large man-shaped cookies

ingredients:

3 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 T ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground garam masala
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2/3 cup blackstrap molasses
2/3 cup demara sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 egg, slightly beaten

directions:Preheat the oven to 325.

Combine the brown sugar, molasses, ground cloves, white pepper, cinnamon and ginger in a large heavy-bottomed pot. Bring to a boil on the stove for about three minutes, stirring occasionally.
Take pot off the stove and add the baking soda (this is the exciting part!!!). Stir well.
Add the butter, adding only a few chunks at a time and stirring well so each addition melts before the next. Add the egg and stir.
Finally, add the flour and salt. The dough will be very soft and still warm, but roll out on a floured covered surface. Cut with cookie cutters or use a large glass to make regular shaped cookies.

Bake for twelve minutes.

Happy Chrismukkah!