Do not – I repeat – DO NOT make these gluten-free double chocolate buckwheat brownies if you like cakey brownies! Made with cocoa, dark chocolate, and buckwheat flour, these are unbelievably rich fudgy brownies. They are made with whole grain flour, however, I won’t call them healthy as there is still plenty of butter and chocolate.
If you love lemon you will love these lemon bars with shortbread crust! The bottom is rich, crisp, and buttery, and the topping is creamy and tart. Together they are a match made in lemon heaven!
This post was first published on February 19, 2019 and was last updated November 18, 2019.
…Read MoreMy Orange Sugar Cookie Recipe baked on PC® Non-Stick Carbon Steel Textured Cookie Sheets.
I don’t know about you, but my friend Kathy Jollimore and I are already in full holiday mode! We co-hosted a holiday cookie recipe exchange party for friends, using products from the newly released PC® Insiders Collection™ for Holiday, and it was SO GOOD to simply be together (and eat cookies of course).
Jump to my Orange Sugar Cookies with Crunchy Chocolate Hazelnut Buttercream recipe.
Jump to Kathy’s Double Chocolate Coconut Chip Cookies recipe.
Kathy’s Double Chocolate Coconut Chip Cookie Recipe baked on PC® Non-Stick Carbon Steel Textured Cookie Sheets.
We came up with Two Holiday Cookie Recipes – my recipe for Orange Sugar Cookies with Chocolate Hazelnut Buttercream, cute little sandwich cookies featuring the to-die-for PC® Crunchy Chocolate Hazelnut Spread –
My Orange Sugar Cookie Recipe featuring PC® Crunchy Chocolate Hazelnut Spread.
and Kathy’s recipe for Double Chocolate Coconut Chip Cookies, with chunks of the new PC® Milk Chocolate Toasted Coconut Bar –
Kathy’s Double Chocolate Coconut Chip Cookie Recipe featuring PC® Milk Chocolate with Toasted Coconut.
I promise you these are two holiday cookie recipes you do not want to miss!
Jump to my Orange Sugar Cookies with Crunchy Chocolate Hazelnut Buttercream recipe.
Jump to Kathy’s Double Chocolate Coconut Chip Cookies recipe.
The gorgeous and festive table all set and ready to go at the holiday cookie exchange party Kathy and I co-hosted for friends.
Many of us have these grand ideas for decorating, baking, and entertaining around the holidays, yet we often find ourselves scrambling at the last minute to put together a solid plan.
This year the PC® Insiders Collection™ for Holiday is helping keep our to-do lists shorter with Must Try items like Bang Bang Shrimp, Squash, Kale, and Beet Flatbread, and adorable tiny Shortbread Stars with Cranberry Pieces.
PC® Bang Bang Shrimp
PC® Squash, Kale, and Beet Flatbread
(top tier) PC® Shortbread Stars with Cranberry Pieces (bottom tier) PC® Luxury Biscuit Assortment
Kathy made a charcuterie board for our holiday cookie recipe exchange party featuring the PC® Naturally Smoked Salami Trio.
Spending time with friends (eating cookies of course) is the best part of a holiday cookie recipe exchange party!
The beautifully set table at our holiday cookie recipe exchange party.
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Yield:
4 dozen
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Yield:
4 dozen
Disclosure : This post is sponsored by Loblaw and I received financial compensation and ingredients for the recipe I created. That being said, all views and opinions are my own, and I will never endorse any brand or product I don’t use or love.
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Ok, it’s official.
‘Butter Celebrates!’, the newest cookbook from Vancouver bakery guru Rosie Daykin, is the prettiest cookbook I own.
Rosie Daykin provides over 100 recipes for sweets that home bakers will return to year after year until they become family traditions. Whether you’re welcoming a new baby, a new neighbour, or the New Year; sharing Thanksgiving, Hannukah, or Christmas with friends and family; or simply enjoying summer, Rosie has the perfect recipe for every occasion.
I curled up one morning with a hot cup of coffee, a snuggly kitten and my brand new copy of Butter Celebrates! to choose the recipe I wanted to make for the #ButterBakedBloggers Blog Hop. The front cover of Butter Celebrates! is gorgeous – soft shades of baby pink, pastel peach and mint green. The inside cover left me with the warm and fuzzies as I feasted visually on a Nanny-style pattern of blue vintage flowers. In fact, the entire book is replete with luscious full-colour photos, heartfelt writing, delicious sounding recipes and the promise of ‘… a year of sweet recipes to share with family and friends‘.
Rosie is a wonderful writer and even though really, you’re only reading tiny black letters strung together on a page, she has a way of inviting you in and making you feel welcome. Her tone is warm and friendly and as I was reading, I could picture myself hanging out with her, eating cake.
‘I like to remind everyone who works at Butter as often as I can that we aren’t just making a cake, we are making someone’s birthday cake or wedding cake or bar mitzvah cake. This is so much more than cake. This is someone’s life and we’ve been included.’ – Butter Celebrates!, page 2
For the #ButterBakedBloggers Blog Hop, I was tasked with choosing one recipe to make from Butter Celebrates! (just one?!) and, as soon as I saw the Peppermint Nanaimo Bars, I knew that was the recipe for me. Nanaimo Bars have been on my ‘must make’ list for a while now, and, it may sound kind of dumb to say, but, until I read Rosie’s recipe, I thought all Nanimo Bars were made with Bird’s powdered custard. Turns out, REAL Nanaimo Bars are made with butter, icing sugar and whipping cream – three of my favourite things! The directions were easy to follow and the bars were a cinch to make. Once they had set in the fridge, I cut them into bars and packed them up in a Pyrex container to take to a family birthday party. As soon as the lid was lifted to reveal the layer of crushed candy cane sprinkled on silky chocolate, the gloves were off and the birthday party-goers were battling it out, jostling for position to get to the bars.
Family verdict? ‘Please make them for every family function we have from now on’.
I guess that’s a good sign?
Long story short, Butter Celebrates! is a gorgeous book with sweet treat for every occasion. Heck there’s even a bonus section at the end with tips and ideas on packaging and wrapping your treats as gifts! It would make a great addition to your cookbook collection, or that of someone you know that loves to bake.
Please take a moment to check out the rest of my #ButterBakedBlogger friends that are participating in the Butter Celebrates! Blog Hop! –
Jenny from The Brunette Baker is making Guinness Cake with Pretzels
Heather from The Tasty Gardener is making a Cookie Feast with FOUR different kinds of cookies!
Christina from Strawberries for Supper is making ‘Hostess’ Cupcakes
Robyn from Planet Byn is making Orange Gingerbread Cake
Gwen from Devour and Conquer is making Christmas Panettone
Meg from Sweet Twist of Blogging is making Lemon Loaf
Libby from Libby Roach is making Gingerbread Guys
Jan from Family Bites is making Animal Cookies
Tessa from Style Sweet CA is making Chocolate Gingerbread Cake
Mardi from eat.live.travel.write is making Champagne Cupcakes
Jacquee from I Sugar Coat It is making Eggnog-less Bars
Amanda from Once Upon A Recipe is making Banana Pecan Caramel Cake
And hey! While you’re at it, why not enter to win this awesome prize pack of a personally signed copy of Butter Celebrates! and a box of goodies from Rosie’s bakery in Vancouver! To enter, follow the Rafflecopter prompt below.
This giveaway is open to all legal residents of Canada who have reached the age of majority at the time of the contest in the province or territory in which they reside. Void in Quebec. Winner must answer a skill-testing question. No purchase necessary to enter. Giveaway will run from Wednesday, November 25, 2015 at 12:01am to Wednesday, December 2, 2015 at 11:59pm. Winner will be contacted via email and name will be displayed on Rafflecopter widget. Email address will never be given out to any third party or anyone for that matter. Prize value approximately $125.
***Sorry – if you want the Nanimo Bar recipe, you’ll have to buy the book!***
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Ok, I need to be perfectly honest and upfront about two things.
1. Earl Grey Buttercream sounds good in theory, to me anyway, but I found it difficult to get the Twining’s Earl Grey flavour, which I adore, to shine through without adding too much liquid to my buttercream. I used the Sweetapolita Whipped Vanilla Frosting recipe that I made last week for my Orange Cardamom Olive Oil Cupcakes and added 3 Tbsp of milk that I heated then steeped with two teabags worth of loose Earl Grey for 30 minutes. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.
2. The cookies in my photos are the SECOND batch that I made using Kristin Rosenau’s recipe for Lavender Lemon Shortbreads which can be found on her lovely blog Pastry Affair. The thing is, I preferred the taste and texture of the FIRST batch I made in which I modified Kristin’s recipe slightly. And so, THAT is the recipe I’m going to post. I should also note, that I made both batches without lemon.
I used this gorgeous culinary-grade lavender from Seafoam Lavender that I bought at the Seaport Market last weekend with Kris (@AJCrowley).
Lavender Shortbread Cookies (adapted from Pastry Affair)
45g sugar (regular white sugar, NOT icing/powdered sugar)*
1 tsp dried lavender buds
125g flour
1 tsp vanilla powder**
pinch salt
113g butter, room temperature
crush sugar and lavender buds together with a mortar and pestle until lavender is well ground
combine everything in food processor and pulse until dough ball forms
remove dough from processor and do THIS*** then put dough in fridge at least 1 hour and up to overnight
preheat oven to 350 – slice cookies 1/4 inch thick – bake 10 minutes or until edges just begin to turn golden – cool on sheet
*I loved the version I made with regular white sugar. I found them to be a little more coarse and a little more sandy in texture, plus, I thought the taste of lavender and butter was more pronounced.
**I buy Nielsen-Massey Vanilla Powder at The Paderno Store in Bayer’s Lake for $15. It’s great because you use it measure for measure like liquid vanilla without adding extra liquid to your baked goods.
***The CHOW Tip is perfect for someone like me who sucks at making cutout cookies. I found it very helpful because the roundness of the paper-towel tube prevents your dough from forming a flat edge while chilling in the fridge.
Lavender Shortbread. Pretty + Easy = Win.
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Have you heard of these?
Dangerously easy – shockingly good – only 3 ingredients.
1. One box RITZ CRACKERS
2. One bag of SKOR BITS
3. One can of SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK
I don’t love chocolate. There. I said it. BUT – my friend Padde makes THE BEST chocolate chip cookies so I asked for his recipe (I’ll be honest – I wasn’t sure he would actually give it to me). You see, I believe, whether you love chocolate or not, you still need a wicked chocolate chip cookie recipe in your repertoire!! It turns out he uses the Magna Carta of chocolate chip cookie recipes – the almighty Nestle Tollhouse. He even stocks up on Tollhouse chocolate chips when he’s in the States because you can’t buy them here (that, my friends, is dedication). Now, if you’re new to my blog then you probably don’t know this about me but I LOVE a challenge, expecially when it involves taking a classic and much-loved recipe and messing with it to make something new.
Brown Butter and Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies
1.5 C all-purpose flour
3/4 C cake flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt
1 C butter
0.5 C minus 2 Tbsp white sugar
1 C dark brown sugar, packed tight
3 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 package (225 g) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 C nuts or Skor bits (optional)
Sea salt for sprinkling
Place the butter in a pan – melt on LOW until browned – will take about 10-15 minutes
I recommend using a silver coloured pan so you can see when the butter has turned brown. The butter will melt slowly – then it will get foamy, bubbly and loud – it will even spit at you – but it’s not quite ready yet!! Be patient because it will quiet down again. Soon after this it will start to develop golden patches of foam – swirl it around so you can see the golden brown transformation underneath – stick your nose over the pan and breathe in – is it a deep caramel brown colour? does it smell like toasted nutty goodness? If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then you’re good to go. Take the butter off the heat and cool 20 minutes.
While the butter is cooling –
Whisk all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking soda, baking powder and kosher salt in a large bowl to mix – set aside
Measure white sugar, dark brown sugar (pack as much as you can into your measuring cup!!), and vanilla into the bowl of your stand mixer – add cooled brown butter and beat on speed 6 for 2 minutes
add an egg – beat one minute – add the other egg – beat one minute
turn mixer to low speed or even speed 2 – add flour mixture gradually until mixed well – when all flour mixture is in, scrape down sides of bowl and beat on speed 4 or 6 for one minute
add your chips (I used 75% Tanzanian chocolate that I was given as a gift – I just weighed out 225g on my kitchen scale) and mix them inby hand
put your mixing bowl in the fridge for 45 minutes to an hour to firm up the dough
roll the dough into balls a little smaller than a golf ball – you should get about 36 balls (depends on how much dough you eat) – put the balls back in the fridge to chill for 2-4 hours
When the balls are chilled, preheat the oven to 375 – line a cookie sheet with parchment – when the oven is ready, take 12 chilled balls out of the fridge and space them out on the cookie sheet – sprinkle them liberally with sea salt and bake for 11-12 minutes – cool them on the sheet 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack (If you’re using the same cookie sheet to bake the second batch, make sure it is COOL before you put the new balls on)
eat one – eat another – then another – try to stop yourself – consider sharing (this may be impossible)
Chai-Spiced Rice Krispie Squares are a jazzed up version of a classic treat. A touch of homemade chai spice added to the melted marshmallows conjures images of falling leaves and cozy sweaters.
This post was first published on September 27, 2011 and was last updated August 30, 2019.
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