oatmeal cranberry chocolate spice cookies

When we were in Dubai at Christmas, I made a point of buying a few things at the grocery store that I knew I would never find here in Uganda - one such thing was dried cranberries! I was waiting for the perfect opportunity to use them in something good. This was the lucky recipe. I switched it up a bit by replacing the chocolate chips with Toblerone chunks, thanks to a gift brought to us recently, and the result was perfect! They would also be good with semi-sweet chocolate chips or even without the chocolate at all. (But why anyone would deliberately omit chocolate, I do not know.) I thought it was kinda weird that the recipe calls for shortening and no butter, but it worked and they taste really good.

The recipe makes quite a lot of dough, so I baked half of it and put the other half in the freezer! Because I'm clever that way.

Oatmeal Cranberry Chocolate Spice Cookies

*adapted from i am baker

3/4 C. shortening

3/4 C. brown sugar

3/4 C. white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 C. oats

1 1/2 C. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. all-spice

1 1/2 C. dried cranberries

1 C. chocolate chips (or chunks!)

Cream shortening and sugars. Beat in eggs and vanilla.

In separate bowl, mix oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and all-spice. Beat into wet mixture.

Stir in cranberries and chocolate chips.

Drop by tablespoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

espresso shortbread

Christmas baking has officially begun in my house! Last week I made molasses cookie dough and put it in the freezer...today I made espresso shortbread dough which I also put in the freezer but just HAD to make one small batch to see how they taste. Verdict: they taste good. Really, really good. Especially if you like coffee.

I made a change to the original recipe. The original recipe (which calls these cookies 'Piped Coffee Kisses') says to pipe the dough into "Hershey's kiss" shaped drops on a cookie sheet - I tried this but found that the dough was too thick to pass through the icing tip. So instead, I rolled the dough into a log, chilled it, and then sliced it into rounds before baking. They probably don't look as pretty as the kiss shaped drops, but let's face it...my way is faster and easier! And most importantly, they still taste the same.

Espresso Shortbread

*adapted from Canadian Living

1 C. butter, softened

2/3 C. icing sugar

2 tsp. instant espresso powder

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 1/3 C. flour

1/4 tsp. salt

coffee beans for garnish

Cream butter and icing sugar.

In a small bowl, dissolve espresso powder with vanilla. Add to butter mixture and beat well.

Stir in flour and salt. Mix into a soft dough.

Shape dough into a log and refrigerate until slightly firm, 30-60 minutes.

Slice log into thin rounds and place on a greased cookie sheet. Top each cookie with one whole coffee bean. Bake at 350 until golden. Do not over bake!

Enjoy!

peanut butter cookies

Why stray from the theme of peanut butter once you're on a roll? These are flourless peanut butter cookies...meaning if you're like me and you ran out of flour and forgot to buy some when you were just at the grocery store, you can make these! In fact, they're worth making even if you do have flour in your kitchen.

Sometimes peanut butter cookies are rolled in sugar before they're baked. These aren't, so I like to tell myself they're healthy. Except I guess the addition of chocolate on top of the cookie cancels out the fact that they're not rolled in sugar.

But they taste good so that's all that counts! Plus, they only took literally 5 minutes to make and 10 minutes to bake. Can't go wrong there!

Peanut Butter Cookies

*adapted from Joy the Baker

1 C. natural peanut butter

1/2 C. sugar

1/2 C. brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. baking soda

chocolate chips or chunks for topping (optional)

Mix the peanut butter with the sugars until well blended. Add the egg and baking soda.

Form into small balls and press in criss-cross pattern with a fork on a greased cookie sheet. (I used to hate the criss-cross pattern. Now I am embracing it.) Add chocolate chips or chunks to the top of each cookie. (I put 3 chocolate chips on each and then realized, after taking them out of the oven, that it looks like eyes and a nose. Or a bowling ball.)

Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes or until lightly browned.

Then, eat.

rolled pumpkin cookies

Are you sick of pumpkin yet? My husband is. ("What are you making? Another pumpkin recipe?") Sorry. I couldn't resist. Plus I have lots of pumpkin in the freezer. These cookies are different than the last ones - you can roll them out and ice them! I used regular royal icing and sprinkled coarse sugar on top while the icing was still slightly wet.

I also couldn't resist trying out my new tiny icing tip!

Rolled Pumpkin Cookies

*adapted from Diana's Desserts

1/4 C. shortening

1/4 C. sugar

1/4 C. brown sugar

1/2 C. pumpkin puree

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 C. flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ground ginger

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

pinch of cardamom

Cream shortening and sugars. Beat in pumpkin and vanilla.

In separate bowl, sift remaining ingredients. Stir into pumpkin mixture.

Chill in the fridge for 30-60 minutes, until dough hardens slightly.

Roll out on floured surface. Cut into shapes. Bake on greased cookie sheet at 350 for 12-15 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Ice with royal icing, buttercream, or maple icing!

Eat with a cup of tea and enjoy the goodness of all things pumpkin. :)

pumpkin pecan chocolate chip cookies

Another pumpkin recipe...this time in the form of cookies! Make these. For the love of pumpkin, make these!

Pumpkin Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies

*adapted from Bakerella

1/3 C. butter

1/2 C. brown sugar

1/2 C. sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 egg

1/2 C. pumpkin puree

1 1/4 C. self-raising flour

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 C. chopped pecans

3/4 C. chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugars. Beat in vanilla, egg, and pumpkin puree.

In separate bowl, sift flour, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add to pumpkin mixture.

Stir in pecans and chocolate chips.

Drop by tablespoons onto a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.

bridal shower cookies

No explanation needed.

butterfly cookies

There are two reasons I started this blog:

1. Because I love to bake!

2. Because I want to learn how to decorate cookies...and decorate them WELL. (Not the kind of decorate you do at Christmas when you're 5 years old with red sprinkles and candy canes.) Hence the name Dainty Glaze, which has been put on hold until I actually master the art of daintily glazing a cookie. In the meantime, I share with you all my latest dessert discoveries, and my cookie decorating learning process.

There are only about 5 million steps to decorating a cookie - finding a good cookie recipe, choosing a shape, rolling/cutting/baking, learning how to make royal icing (with the right consistency), choosing colours, choosing a pattern, and then the hardest part of all: actually decorating. And somehow I'm still surprised when they don't turn out the way I envisioned!

That being said, I have finally mastered 2 steps of the cookie making process: the cookie recipe, and the royal icing. Oh yes, and making relatively straight lines.

I'm not sure where I originally found the following recipes, but in my butterfly-cookie-making-endeavor today I adapted them and they worked PERFECTLY!

Sugar Cookies

2 C. flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 C. sugar

1 C. butter

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

Cream sugar and butter.

Add egg and vanilla. Mix.

Add dry ingredients. Mix until a soft dough forms.

Refrigerate for one hour before rolling, cutting and baking at 350.

*Hint: Use lots of flour when rolling the dough - put it all over your work surface and rolling pin.

Royal Icing

2 egg whites

2 tsp. lemon juice

3 C. icing sugar

Beat egg whites with lemon juice until soft peaks form.

Sift in icing sugar and beat until smooth.

Add 1 Tbsp. water at a time to thin icing if necessary.

*Hint: Use meringue powder instead of egg whites. A friend of mine sent me a can of powder and I think it works a lot better than egg whites. 1 tsp. powder + 1 Tbsp. water = 1 egg white.

*Hint #2: Don't believe anyone when they say you need electric beaters - I whipped up my icing by HAND baby.

So there it is, my most recent attempt. Now that the recipes are mastered, perhaps next time I will master more of the art of decorating. And eventually, you will be sitting at a wedding, all bored and hungry, and one of my cookies will be sitting in front of you looking all delicious and beautiful, and you'll eat it and remember me. :)

Well...we'll see.

mini springtime sugar cookies

Happy Spring (on Saturday) to those of you that live in a climate with 4 seasons! In Uganda we only have 2 seasons: wet and dry. And I'm not even sure what season we're in right now. But I can imagine that at home the flowers are blooming, people are mowing their lawns, and trees are blossoming. I love Spring! The best thing about these little cookies is that they are so small, it takes about 3 to equal one regular-sized cookie. But don't be deceived - tiny cookies don't take any less time to decorate than big ones! In fact, I think they took longer...although that may have been due to my decision to make 6 colours of icing.

st. patrick's day

Happy St. Patrick's Day (in honour of my Irish Grannie)!!!

appy night: chocolate truffles & twix cookies

Last night Paul and I had a few friends over for an appy night, which was a great excuse to make some treats! The appy's included bacon-wrapped pineapple, mini chicken skewers, cheese puffs, hummus, salsa, guacamole, etc. The desserts were the following:

Chocolate Truffles

*adapted from here

1 1/2 C. semisweet chocolate chips

7 oz. (1/2 tin) sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 C. cocoa powder

1/2 C. coarse sugar

In a small pot, melt chocolate and sweetened condensed milk. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla.

Transfer to a bowl and chill for a couple hours until firm.

Shape into small balls (I used a 1-Tbsp. measuring spoon), and roll in cocoa or sugar. I stored them in the fridge so that they wouldn't melt and they were delicious!

Twix Cookies

*adapted from here

1/2 C. butter

1/2 tsp. salt

1/3 C. sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 C. flour

1/4 C. dulce de leche

1 Tbsp. butter

1/2 Tbsp. cream

6 oz. semisweet chocolate

Cream 1/2 cup butter, salt, sugar, and vanilla.

Mix in flour.

Shape into 1-inch balls (do not flatten) and bake on greased cookie sheet at 350 (approximately 8 minutes, or until lightly browned on the bottom).

Allow cookies to cool.

Melt 1 Tbsp. butter, cream, and chocolate.

Fill two separate icing bags with dulce de leche and chocolate. Drizzle each over the cookies (I started with dulce de leche and then did the chocolate).

I also stored these in the freezer so the chocolate wouldn't melt.

SO GOOD!

chewy coconut oatmeal cookies

My plan was to make these and put them in the freezer.

The freezer part is going to be tough.

Chewy Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

*adapted from 'The Best of The Best' cookbook

1 C. butter

1 C. white sugar

1/2 C. brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 C. rolled oats

1 1/2 C. flour

1 C. coconut

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

2 Tbsp. honey

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Cream together butter and sugars.

Add egg and vanilla.

Stir in remaining ingredients. Mix well.

Roll into small balls (I used a 1 Tbsp. measuring spoon) and place on greased cookie sheet. Do not press down. Bake at 350 for 10-12 min.

I halved this recipe and still got 30 cookies out of it. The original recipe calls for molasses not honey, and I also omitted allspice and nutmeg (1 tsp. of each) from the original.

So. Darn. Good.

I must go put these bad boys in the freezer and control my compulsion to eat all 30 cookies at once.

go Canada!

The olympics are going on in Vancouver right now, and our city is alive and bustling with all sorts of excitement. The only problem is, we're missing out. :( My mom sent me this maple leaf cookie cutter and I couldn't think of a better time to use it than now! GO CANADA!

I found the BEST cookie recipe here. They have ground coffee in them (yum) - I like them much better than sugar cookies.

I also used a different icing recipe:

1 C. sifted icing sugar

1 Tbsp. milk

1 Tbsp. honey

It's not quite as tidy and perfect as royal icing, but it tastes better and is easier. I LIKE it.

I'm proud of my little maple leafs! And I'm VERY proud to be Canadian.

GO CANADA!

chocolate heart sandwich cookies

This past Christmas I made a German chocolate cookie called "wolf schoten" - the dough I used for these Valentine's cookies was leftover from that. (Frozen, of course.) Rather than roll it into logs like you're supposed to with this dough, I rolled it flat, cut out hearts, and made it into cookie sandwiches with the buttercream in the middle.

And because I hadn't spent quite enough time in the kitchen yet, I went one step further and sifted icing sugar on top.

I will be sending these cookies over to our friends in Kibaale.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Wolf Schoten Cookies

1 C. butter

1 1/2 C. honey

2 C. sugar

3 eggs

1 heaping tsp. baking powder

3 Tbsp. milk

1 Tbsp. baking soda

1 C. cocoa

1 tsp. cinnamon

6 C. flour (or enough for a stiff dough)

Cream butter, honey, and sugar. Add eggs.

Mix in dry ingredients.

Chill 3 hours.

For traditional wolf schoten Christmas cookies, roll into logs and cut into fingers. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes. Ice with icing made from icing sugar, milk and vanilla.

Buttercream Frosting

1/3 C. butter

1/8 C. vegetable shortening

2 1/2 C. icing sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 Tbsp. milk

Beat butter and shortening. Add icing sugar half a cup at a time.

Beat in vanilla and milk.

Spoon into piping tube and decorate!

vanilla/cinnamon chocolate chip oatmeal cookies

What's a girl to do when she wants to make oatmeal cookies, but brown sugar can't be found? She makes these!!!

Vanilla/Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

*recipe invented by moi

1 C. butter

1/2 C. sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 C. flour

1 1/2 C. oats

dash salt

2 Tbsp. milk

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 C. chocolate chips

For Frosting:

1/2 C. icing sugar

2 tsp. milk

1/4 tsp. vanilla

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla.

Stir in remaining ingredients.

Refrigerate 1 hour.

Roll into balls, place on greased cookie sheet, and flatten with fingers/fork.

Bake at 350 for approximately 8 minutes, or until lightly browned on the bottom.

Cool on wire rack.

Mix frosting ingredients together with a fork.

Spoon into a piping tube or ziplock bag with the corner cut out.

Drizzle over cookies.

Yum!

Christmas in Uganda

This Christmas I had step up to the plate and be in charge of the baking. My husband and I are in Uganda, and I realized if I wanted to enjoy what my mom usually puts so much work into, I'd have to put in the work myself this year! My cookie creations included:

• gingerbread
• shortbread
• molasses
• wolf schoten
• mocha pretzel cookies

Thankfully we had a big group of guests to do all the eating!

My favorite of all these cookies are the molasses ones. Even though the dark, sticky molasses we get at home was nowhere to be found in Kampala, they still turned out pretty good (the stars, trees, and angels above)! Here's the recipe!

My Mom's Molasses Cookies

1 C. butter

1 C. + 2 Tbsp. brown sugar

1 tsp. salt

4 C. flour

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. vinegar

1 C. molasses

Cream butter and sugar.

Sift in dry ingredients and mix.

Add vinegar and molasses. Stir until well combined.

Chill dough at least 3 hours.

Preheat oven to 350. Then roll out the dough, cut into desired shapes, and bake 8-10 min.

Tastes like Christmas!