Blogmas Day 20 - Baking Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies

 Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. I decided to make peanut butter blossom cookies this year. I made them a couple of years ago to bring to work and share with my colleagues. They enjoyed them, and Liam and I both liked having some at home. I love peanut butter and love these cookies because of their peanut butter taste. I loved how when they first came out of the oven, the kisses were melted and so delicious blending in with the peanut butter flavour.

This year, I decorated the Hershey kisses like Christmas trees. This was one of the designs included in the recipe I used from Chocolate with Grace. She also includes a design to make them into reindeer that is so cute. I will have to try that out one year. 

I didn't have sprinkles on hand, so I improvised and used colored frosting instead. I made the frosting using the recipe from the Best Cut out Sugar Cookie recipe by Joy Food Sunshine. I divided the frosting into three bowls and added food coloring for blue, red, and yellow ornaments to decorate the chocolate trees.  In the future it would definitely be easier and look nice with sprinkles. To add the green frosting onto the kisses, I used a Ziploc bag and cut a small hole at the corner to make a piping bag. For the ornaments, I dipped tooth picks into the frosting then gently dabbed the different colors onto the dried green frosting.

Cookies details:

Recipe: Christmas Peanut Blossom Cookies from Chocolate with Grace

Frosting recipe: Frosting for the sugar cookies from Joy Food Sunshine

Notes: These are quick to make and the dough does not have to chill. They are quick 10 minutes in the oven. All together it probably was 20 minutes baking and then 20 mins to make the frosting and coloring them in the different bowls, then decorating about 15 minutes.

Thank you for stopping by for Blogmas Day 20! I can't believe it is now the week of Christmas already, I am so excited to celebrate. What is your favourite cookie to have at Christmas? I enjoyed baking the three different cookies this season. Please see those posts here. Next year I might try making some different types of cookies. There are so many types of cookies to make and enjoy! I hope that you enjoy your weekend and also have a good week ahead. I will be posting daily all the way up to Christmas day for Blogmas.

Have a good day!

Blogmas Day 13 - Baking Crinkle Cookies

 Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. I really enjoyed the sugar cookies from last weekend. I only made about eight of them, which was about half of what the recipe called for. It was enough for the two of us to enjoy. During Covid, I have had more time to try out new cookie recipes because we aren't going anywhere. I wanted to try out some new recipes and also make cookies from some loved recipes. I found another fun new-to-me Christmas cookie recipe for Crinkle cookies. I have never made these cookies before, and I was excited to make them. I used a recipe from Allrecipes.com called Chocolate Crinkles II.  

When I started looking online there were some negative reviews for some recipes, but the one I chose from All Recipes was nothing but positive so I gave it a try. They turned out so well just as in the picture. They taste like brownie cookies. I love the powdered sugar coating it adds a nice texture and it is so delicious. They were easy to make too, just mix the ingredients, chill for 4 hours, then scoop into little balls and roll into the powdered sugar and bake.

I enjoyed one this morning with my coffee. One of them is enough to satisfy your craving and it is filling. I will definitely be making these again. They are sweet, but not too sweet and nice and soft when you bite down.

Thank you for visiting my blog today for Blogmas day 13! I can't believe we are 12 days away from Christmas now it is really sneaking up on us this year. I still have a few gifts to buy for family and I am just ordering everything this year due to the pandemic. We are still in lockdown now and I think it will probably go past Christmas unfortunately. This affects Christmas plans, but we need to do what we can to keep ourselves and others safe for this year. I will see you again tomorrow for another Blogmas post.

Please click here to read my other posts from Blogmas 2020.

Have a great day!

Blogmas Day 6 - Baking Sugar Cookies

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. During Blogmas, I have decided that every Sunday leading up to Christmas, I will be sharing a recipe for cookies that I try. Every year I always think that I would like to try out more cookie recipes. There are so many out there for Christmas. I love baking and don't often find the time to do it except at Christmas. What better time than Christmas to bake cookies? This is the season to indulge in delicious treats and what do we need more in 2020? Well wine as well but we can have both!

I love eating sugar cookies at Christmas, they are so delicious and also decorating them is a big part of the fun. I decorated some last year in this post here. The cookies turned out a bit crumbly last year, but still tasty. This year I used a different recipe and followed the instructions more closely. The recipe I followed this year is the Best Cut Out Sugar Cookie recipe from Joy Food Sunshine. I will not be sharing her recipe on my blog today, but you can click on the link above for the full recipe! She includes amazing directions that are so easy to follow. I also love that she includes descriptions of the ingredients used and alternatives you can also use.

The dough was cold after chilling for more than 2 hours in the fridge and make it easier to cut out the shapes. I did roll it out a bit too much, so then the dough became warmer and then quite sticky, so I tried to hurry at the end to put them on the baking sheet so I didn't ruin the shapes. Laura suggests on the website not to roll the dough out too much because it warms up the dough. Of course, I read this after putting the cookies n the oven. I used the Christmas tree cutter pictured below to get my tree shapes. I bought this cutter a couple of years ago from Michaels.

I used the method that Laura suggests on her blog to decorate the cookies with the icing, to draw the outline and then fill in the rest of the icing. I love this method because it gives a nice shiny and flat appearance at the end. I enjoyed eating this cookie by the tree with some coffee this morning. It was so delicious! I highly recommend this recipe, it will be my go-to recipe for sugar cookies for years to come!

Thank you so much for joining me for Blogmas day 6! We are moving right along now and I can't believe it is already day 6. I am loving the holiday season so far and I am mostly watching Christmas movies, decorating, and making cookies so far. I am enjoying going to visit other people's blogs posting for Blogmas and celebrating the season. Have you made Christmas cookies this season yet and what recipes do you love? 

If you would like to see all my Blogmas posts so far from this year, please click here.

Have a great day!