Read these 9 Specialty Cookies Tips tips to make your life smarter, better, faster and wiser. Each tip is approved by our Editors and created by expert writers so great we call them Gurus. LifeTips is the place to go when you need to know about Cookies tips and hundreds of other topics.
A unique wedding favor that is becoming popular with many young bride and grooms is specialty wedding cookies -- individually wrapped cookies made-to-order for the wedding event.
There are many different online companies that specialize in hand baking and hand decorating cookies. These cookies come in a variety of shapes and designs -- bridal gown, monogrammed square and circles, hearts, wedding cakes and many other wedding themed cookie shapes and designs.
It is also possible to order photo-scanned cookies that can have a copy of the young couples engagement photo or childhood pictures of the bride and groom. These photo-scanned cookies are a unique wedding favor to send home with the wedding guests.
The cookies can be frosted to match the colors of the wedding ceremony, even down to the floral details. The possibilities are endless if a young bride is looking for a simple and elegant way to personalize her wedding ceremony.
If you are interested in ordering custom cookies for your wedding cookie favors, it is important to find an online company that best suits your needs. Many reputable businesses will allow you to enjoy a free sample of their work to insure that you are pleased with the product before purchasing.
As you begin to search for a gourmet cookie company that specializes in making custom cookies, take time to find the exact images that you want on your custom cookies get a written estimate for the cost of the cookies and the shipping and then have a great time sharing these delicious wedding favors with your wedding guest
This specialty chocolate gourmet cookie is a favorite on Christmas holiday platters everywhere. The recipe is very easy to make and requires very little in the way of ingredients. As you begin to plan your holiday cookie platter, including specialty cookies like the Chocolate Truffle Cookie is a great way to add variety and beauty to your overall holiday cookie preparations.
The ingredients for the Chocolate Truffle Cookie includes:
As you begin to make these chocolate cookies, it is important that you chop the unsweetened chocolate into small bits. Using a butter knife, cut the butter into small pieces and melt in the double boiler, add one cup of chocolate chips and stir. Once this mixture is thoroughly melted and well blended, allow it to cool. Set this aside.
The next step involved mixing the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt into a medium sized bowl.
In a large mixing bowl, mix the sugar and eggs with an electric mixer for approximately two minutes. Slowly add the vanilla, and then stir in the melted chocolate mixture. Slowly begin to add the flour mixture, small portions at a time, insuring that everything is well combined. When all the flour has been added and the mixture is fully blended, add the remaining cup of chocolate chips.
Cover and chill this dough until firm.
Prior to removing the dough from the refrigerator, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Shape the cookie dough into 1-inch balls and place onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake in a 350-degree oven until puffed, approximately ten minutes.
Mexican wedding cookies are a traditional dessert at most authentic Mexican weddings. This traditional cookie is very popular in the United States any time of the year.
This traditional recipe requires the following ingredients:
In a food processor, pulse 1 cup of pecan halves. Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt with the pecan halves in the food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
Cut the butter into small pieces and pulse into the mixture until the entire combination begins to resemble dough. Remove the dough from the food processor and shape into a small disc. wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 to 60 minutes. Make sure the dough is firm prior to removing from the refrigerator.
Just before you remove the dough from the refrigerator, preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
Using a small cookie scoop, roll each piece of dough into a small ball. Set cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet about 1-½ inches apart. Bake until cookies turn golden around the edges, about 20-25 minutes.
Allow the cookies to cool for five minutes while on the baking sheet. While cookies are cooling, place 1-cup confectioners sugar in a bowl. Remove the cookies to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. Once cooled, roll the cookies in the bowl of confectioner's sugar, two times, to insure that each cookie is completely coated with the sweetness. Tap off any excess sugar.
These holiday decorative gourmet cookies make wonderful place card holders for your holiday table and become a gourmet cookie treat for dessert. Prior to beginning the creative baking process gather the following supplies and ingredients:
Begin kneading the cookie and flour together, until it is smooth. Roll dough onto a lightly floured work surface until it is ¼ inch thick. Cut six tulip shapes out of the sugar cookie dough with the tulip shaped cookie cutter. Place each tulip shaped cookie onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
Place a craft stick under each cookie and press it into the cookie dough securely.
Bake sugar cookies for about 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer with a spatula onto a wire cookie cooling rack. Do not use the craft sticks to move the warm cookies.
As the cookies cool, divide the frosting into four different small bowls. Tint the different frostings to a soft pastel yellow, purple, blue and pink.
Using a frosting spreader, frost each of the cookies. And arrange the matching color M&M's across the frosted surface. Allow the cookies to dry for 30 minutes.
While the cookie frosting is hardening, fill the flowerpots with the foam squares and cover with the Easter grass. Gently wrap each craft stick with green cellophane so that it resembles a green floral stem. Secure cellophane with curling ribbon.
Glue decorator ribbon around the top of each flowerpot and tie with a decorative bow. Press the tulip cookies craft sticks into the foam square within the flowerpot, and spread pastel green M & M's around the base of each flower.
If you are planning a birthday party, team sports event or just having the neighborhood children over to pay, this easy dessert puts a very different spin on the concept, “ice cream cone”. Children love the silliness of the treat. They are exceptionally wonderful for events such as Halloween parties where you can sprinkle Halloween shaped candy sprinkles across the top and make the “Brownie in a Cone” a holiday cookie.
To make this recipe you will need a mixing two medium size microwave safe bowls, an electric mixer and a muffin tin. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
This recipe requires the following ingredients:
Place the ice cream cones into muffin cups. Put 3 tablespoons of batter into each cone.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, checking to make sure that a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and the top is dry. Be careful not to overbake.
Allow cookies to cook completely.
In a microwave safe bowl, melt the chocolate chips and shortening, at one-minute intervals, stirring at the end of each minute. When mixture is smooth, dip the cooled brownies into the melted chocolate and then decorate with sprinkles.
This recipe should make 17 Brownies In A Cone.
Chocolate chip cookies are as American as apple pie. So it is, as with most things, the pursuit of the perfect, most delectable gourmet chocolate chip is often a lifelong journey for the avid gourmet chocolate chip cookie fan. However, this recipe has promise to be one of the best, having the gourmet quality to keep up with the competitors, if not pass them up.
The ingredients are:
In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs and vanilla and continue to mix with an electric mixer. When the ingredients are well blended, set aside.
Using another large bowl, combine the flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Mix well. Add the dry ingredients to the liquid mixture. Stir until well blended. Add chips, nuts and grated chocolate to the mixture, stirring to get ingredients well blended.
Using a medium cookie scoop, drop golf ball sized cookies onto parchment lined baking sheet.
Bake for 8-10 minutes in a 375-degree oven.
Now, after they have cooled enough that you won't burn your mouth, go ahead and try one of the best gourmet chocolate chip cookie recipes that you are ever going to find.
Learning how to make homemade fortune cookies is a bit of a challenge. The recipe is easy to follow but the actual formation of the cookies themselves can be quite tricky. It is important that prior to beginning the baking process the recipe be read in its entirety. It is also a good idea to review the suggestions about successfully forming the cookie itself once it comes out of the oven. When making homemade fortune cookies, a little preparation will greatly reduce your overall frustration.
The ingredients for homemade fortune cookies include:
In a medium bowl, lightly beat the egg white, vanilla extract, almond extract and vegetable oil until frothy but not stiff.
Sifting the flour, cornstarch, salt and sugar into a large bowl, mix all the ingredients together. Slowly stir water into the flour mixture. Add the egg mixture as well, stirring until the batter is smooth. While the batter should not be runny, it should drop easily off of a wooden spoon.
Spoon level tablespoons of batter onto the cookie sheet, spacing cookies approximately 3 inches apart; tilting the cookie sheet to make each of the cookies form a circular shape. Rather than using the spoon to form the circular cookie, tilting the cookie sheet will work much easier.
Bake the cookies until the very edges turn a golden brown and the cookies are easy to life off of the baking sheet. Immediately work to put the cookie in the palm of your hand, place the fortune in the middle and fold the cookie. Bend the cookie downward over the rim of a drinking glass or around the handle of a wooden spoon. You must work quickly as the cookie only has about twenty seconds before it becomes too firm to mold. When you have folded to cookie, place inside a muffin tin to help maintain the cookies shape, continue making more cookies.
If your family enjoys playing practical jokes or sending little love notes to one another, why not seal them inside a few homemade fortune cookies.
It is important that the fortunes be written up prior to the baking session. Making the fortunes ahead of time will allow for creative thinking and a more personalized note in each cookie. If you are going to put comedy style fortunes in the cookies, allow yourself plenty of creative time to get them done. The fortunes should be written on paper that is 3 to 3-1/2 inches long and no more than ½ inch wide.
There are quite a few tricks to making homemade fortune cookies but once you get the hang of it, the process picks up speed. It is important to use cold baking sheets, make sure that it is greased or lined with parchment paper. If necessary, use more than one baking sheet, alternating so that one is always cooled down enough to use.
There are only about 20 seconds to work with the cookie when it comes out of the oven before it becomes too stiff to shape. It is best to wear cotton gloves when shaping the cookies because they must be worked with while they are still extremely hot and will most likely burn your fingers.
Folding the cookie takes practice; you will want to lay it in the palm of your hand, placing the fortune in the middle of the cookie. It is at this point that you will want to quickly fold the cookie in half. While still holding the cookie between your two hands, with your thumb and your index finger, fold the cookie over the rim of a glass or the handle of a wooden spoon. The cookie will be hardening while you are working.
It is important with any culture to teach the younger generations the value and importance of their family heritage. In the Jewish culture, recognizing the value and important of Hanukkah is monumental in building a strong religious foundation.
One way to help children establish a concrete understanding of concepts is to explain meaning through the physical exploration of their surroundings. In this particular teaching opportunity, a child can learn to make Hanukkah cookies while the child's parent explains the religious meaning and value Hanukkah has in their family lives. Extend the learning by purchasing Hanukkah shaped cookie cutters, a menorah, oil lamp, Judah Maccabee and any others that you wish to include in your collection. As you make the cookies, teach your child the values and characteristics that you want them to remember for their lifetime.
This recipe requires the following ingredients:
1-cup butter or pareve margarine at room temperature
1-cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons orange juice
1-tablespoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
Using a large mixing bowl, combine the margarine and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs, juice and vanilla to the bowl and continue to mix.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder. Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients, continue to stir until just blended.
Wrap the dough in wax paper and then re-wrap in plastic wrap. Allow to chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees before you remove the dough from the refrigerator.
Line the cookie sheets with parchment paper; this non-stick paper is ideal for baking cookies.
Flour the workspace and rolling pin; remove the cookie dough from the plastic wrap and wax paper. Roll the dough until it is ½ to ¼ inch think. Use the Hanukkah cookie cutters to cut the cookie dough, carefully place the cookies on the parchment lined baking sheets.
Bake at 425 degrees for 6-8 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned.
Guru Spotlight |
George Sayour |