Cranberry Orange Oatmeal Cookies

Are you sick of all my cookie recipes yet?  I hope not, because I still have a few more for you!  Around the Holidays I tend to focus on making cookies, especially drop cookies since I bring cookie plates to parties and like to gift out cookie plates or bags of cookies to friends and family.

I was searching for a recipe for Cranberry White Chocolate Oatmeal cookies and I stumbled upon this recipe for Cranberry Orange Oatmeal Cookies.  I thought I would use this recipe, add some white chocolate chips, and hopefully have an amazing cookie.  Although I left out the white chocolate in the end, these cookies are still tasty and a refreshing change from the mint chocolate and peanut butter cookies I've been making.

I didn't have a zester when I made this recipe, so instead I use a mini cheese grater to get the zest off of citrus and it seems to work just fine.  I actually like that I get larger pieces of the zest since it gives the cookies a unique appearance.  

Dark Chocolate Mint Cookies

Yep, another cookie recipe!  This is another good one though, especially if you like mint and dark chocolate.

Since I live near Tacoma, I'm lucky enough to have access to the Brown and Haley Factory Outlet, which has discounted Almond Roca (all flavors!) and Factory Seconds.  Around the holidays I get really excited for the factory seconds because they cost a lot less than the regular Roca and it's just a cosmetic flaw that makes them sell for a reduced price.  Usually it's a wrapper mishap, but if I just take off all the wrappers then put them in a different bag or bowl then they're ready for consuming and I've saved a couple bucks!

I wasn't planning on going to the outlet this year since I was planning on doing tons of cookie baking to gift and didn't think that the extra candy was necessary, but my coworker went and brought back a pack of these:

These are Dark Chocolate Peppermint Chunks.  Chunks may not sound appealing, but my coworker let us try them and they are delicious!  I love mint and chocolate, so I had to go to the outlet during my lunch break and pick some up.  At 75 cents a pack, I had to pick up 3 packs and I'll probably stop by next week and get some more!

The first thing that came to mind for me was to use a Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe (this is the recipe I used, but any recipe will do) and use the peppermint chunks instead of chocolate chips.  I followed my usual Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe except added some green food coloring to the batch to clue everyone in that it's mint flavored instead of tricking them into eating mint (it's hard to believe, but some people actually don't like mint!).  In addition to the food coloring, I added some green sugar sprinkles to the batch to add flecks of dark green.  The green food coloring probably isn't necessary if you're only making one batch, but since I was putting these on a cookie plate I thought it was important so people know what to expect.

I had considered adding more peppermint or mint extract, but in the end I'm glad I didn't because these have just a sweet hint of mint instead of being overpowering.  I think it is the perfect balance as-is, but if you like super minty stuff you can add a little extract.

Peanut Butter Heath Bar Cookies

I love peanut butter and I love Heath bars, so when I saw this recipe on the bag of Heath Toffee Bits, I HAD to make it!

The recipe is from the back of the bag, and the only thing I changed was to use butter instead of shortening (I might love butter more than Paula Deen!) and to put the entire package of Heath bits inside of the cookies instead of sprinkling some on top (half were going in the freezer and I didn't want the toffee bits to fall off when frozen).  I also made a double batch and only used one bag of Heath Toffee Bits and I think it was the perfect amount, but you can't really go wrong with adding more Heath toffee bits!

Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

Okay, here it is, the recipe for my absolute hands-down favorite cookie of all time: Oatmeal Butterscotch.  Between my dad and me, I think we can polish off an entire batch of these in just a few days.  Heck, I could probably do it myself!  Since they have oatmeal, that makes them semi-healthy, right?  Let me just pretend for a little while...

3-Chip Cookies (Milk, White and Dark)

Although I am doing more than just baking the past couple weeks, my blog has turned into mostly recipes because the crafting I’m doing is mostly for Christmas gifts and I don’t want to ruin the surprise for the gift receiver!  Or they have been big fat craft fails… which I may or may not be brave enough to share.  After Christmas I should have a plethora of new craft posts, so just hold tight until then and try some new recipes!

Here’s another cookie recipe that I made and plopped into my freezer so it’s ready for baking right before Christmas! See my post about freezing drop cookies.

This is my first time making this recipe, and although they are good, it’s not a new favorite but with a few noted modifications I think it could be excellent.  See below for my twist on this Recipe. 

Mint Chocolate Cookies

These mint chocolate cookies are so easy and delicious!  I love them!

The original recipe comes from Mint Chocolate Delights from Nestle via Very Best Baking.  I followed the recipe except used only Green Mint Chips from Guittard (since they were less expensive than the Nestle brand and they have only the mint and no dark chocolate morsels) and used about 12 ounces instead of 10 ounces.  This recipe is one of my favorites and it freezes great so it can be made ahead of time then popped in the oven right before serving (see my tutorial on freezing cookie dough HERE)!  

Freezing Cookie Dough for Baking

I love baking for the Holidays.  Well, I love baking in general, but I love that the Holidays give me an excuse to do tons of baking.  What I don't love is the stressful marathon baking that seems to happen every year to get everything done on time.  Between the mixing, baking, sorting, and decorating I usually get burned out about halfway through my baking and just want to be done.

This year I'm going to start early to help alleviate some of the stress.  I'm not a fan of freezing baked cookies because something about it just doesn't seem right to me.  Cookies are meant to be freshly baked (and preferably still warm from the oven)!  Instead of baking then freezing cookies, I'll be mixing up the dough then freezing the dough so it is ready to be placed on the cookie sheet then popped in the oven.

I've tried freezing the dough once before with excellent results.  The best part is you can keep some frozen for yourself then cook up half a dozen at a time to avoid being tempted to eat the entire batch in one sitting (not that I've ever done that...).

For this tutorial (if you can even call it that), I'm using this recipe for Mint Chocolate Cookies, but any drop cookie recipe should work.

Easy Lemon Poppy Seed Cake

This is my first ever attempt at making a Bundt cake.  Most normal people wouldn’t make their first food-related blog post on a first attempt at making a baked good, but I’m going to be an honest blogger and share both the good and the bad (and the sometimes ugly).  I found this Recipe from McCormick while searching for a way to use my homemade lemon extract so I could include a recipe with the lemon extract gift.  When I saw that it was easy, which means using a boxed cake mix, I thought it would be perfect as a Christmas gift for the busy moms I know that love to bake but may not be able to find time in this busy season. 

Making Lemon Extract

In addition to Homemade Vanilla Extract, I made some Homemade Lemon Extract to give as gifts this year. I used the same cute 2 oz amber bottles from specialtybottle.com and designed the labels myself.

Homemade Vanilla Extract

About six months ago I saw a recipe for homemade vanilla extract on Pinterest and I thought I HAD to make this for Christmas this year!  Not only do I love baking, but I love giving gifts that are useful and I have a lot of friends and family members that enjoy baking almost as much as I do.  Shortly after I found the recipe, I bought Premium Bourbon-Madagascar Vanilla Beans on amazon.com (1/4 pound, or approximately 27 beans), bought a huge bottle (I believe it was a half-gallon) of the cheapest 80-proof vodka I could find, and started following the recipe.

I have no photos of the initial stages, but I used about 20 vanilla beans for the entire half gallon of vodka.  I cut the beans in half, then followed the recipe to slice the bean down the middle leaving the end intact.  I used three mason jars and put an equal amount of vanilla beans in each jar, covered with vodka, gave them a good shake then put them in our pantry (so they are out of the sunlight) and then waited...

I gave them a good shake again after a couple weeks and then waited some more.

I shook them up again after another couple weeks and then waited some more.

I continued to shake the jars every couple weeks for about five or six months, or until the vodka has been infused with the vanilla and is a nice dark brown and looks something like this:

Vanilla Bean & Vodka mixture after sitting for about five months

If you don't want to wait five months to gift your vanilla extract, you can place some of the vanilla beans in your small bottles so the extract will continue to steep after you give the gift.  Just be sure to note on the label when the extract will be ready to use!  For me, I didn't want to include the vanilla beans in the small bottles because I could see it as an annoyance when you're trying to use the extract and the bean comes out of the bottle and dumps into whatever you're making.

With my vanilla finally done steeping (yay!) I found 2 oz and 4 oz amber colored boston round bottles on specialtybottle.com and decided those would be perfect for my gifts!  They have many options for sizes and colors, but I thought amber would work great and help protect the extract from sun penetration if it's left on the counter.  I removed the vanilla beans from the extract before pouring the extract into the smaller bottles, but I didn't strain the mixture so there are some of the small seeds in each bottle.

Everything is cuter with a baker's twine bow!

I decided to gift a mixture of both 2 oz bottles and 4 oz bottles depending on how frequently the gift recipient bakes.  I designed my own labels to note what it is (Homemade Pure Vanilla Extract), the date (Christmas 2012) and ingredients (vanilla beans, vodka and a pinch of love) and printed on shimmery tan paper.  I used spray adhesive to mount the labels to the bottles and tied each bottle with a baker's twine bow.

I can't say how many bottles my half gallon of vodka made since I started using it straight out of the mason jar for some of my baking for a Bridal Shower, but I can say that this made a TON of vanilla and is definitely cost effective if you bake a lot and want to make it for yourself.

For gifts to some of my closer friends and family, I'm combining a bottle of my homemade vanilla extract with  a bag of store-bought cookie mix and placing in a cute bag.  I considered making my own cookie mix in a Mason jar, but I think the store-bought mix in a bag will last longer and be great for a few months AFTER Christmas when everyone is done consuming the massive amounts of cookies they made themselves.

Vanilla extract and cookie mix gift

For my coworkers (and would be great as a neighbor's gift or teacher's gift as well!) I just tied a simple tag with their name on it.

Great coworker gift or neighbor gift

I was really glad that I decided to give this a shot as it turned out better than expected and I love giving gifts that are useful!  I don't think I'll be buying vanilla extract again; I'm going to continue making it myself from now on!

If you like my labels and bottles, I'm selling them in my Etsy shop (DigitalCake) so you can save time by not having to design and adhere the labels to the bottles yourself!  Custom orders are welcome (for quantity and to change the design and paper color).