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Vanilla Chai Snickerdoodles

December 21, 2016

My love affair with chai tea started in high school. I wasn’t a big coffee drinker until after college. So instead of feeling left out when all my friends would get their Starbucks Mocha Frappuccinos (which, at 16, was the most coffee they could handle), I decided to make the Chai Creme Frap my drink of choice.

As I’ve gotten older, I have maintained my love for chai. I just swap my overly sweetened, calorie dense Frappuccino for a warm cup of honey-sweetened tea. My favorite is Rooibos Chai, which is naturally a bit sweet and has a warm vanilla flavor. The rooibos chai is also not quite so spicy as some chais tend to be. Cinnamon isthe dominant flavor, but its balanced nicely by the citrusy cardamom and spicy ginger.

Which is why I have always maintained that chai can be a wonderful baking spice! And it perfectly translates to the snickerdoodle cookie! Sure, a plain old cinnamon-sugar snickerdoodles are great. But I think adding in a couple more spices could only make it better.

The spice mixture I use is a combination of cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, all spice, and vanilla bean. Because I ended up making these cookies for my cookie swap, I toned down the cardamom (which is pretty prominant in chai tea) just in case not everyone had the same appreciation for chai tea as I do. But if you like chai tea, then follow the exact recipe below. If not, you can adjust the spices as necessary.

To make the cookies, I portioned out about tablespoon size portion of cookie dough using my favorite cookie scooper. Then I rolled them into balls and into the sugar-spice mixture so that they were thoroughly covered.

These cookies do spread out and puff up, so I placed the cookies on the baking sheet about 1-2 inches apart. If you like your snickerdoodles a little flatter and not so puffy, you could use a fork to press them down (like I did in the original recipe). But I kinda like them to be nice and puffy.

I did some experimenting on the perfect baking temperature. The first batch was baked at 350 degrees and while the spread out a lot, then didn’t really get that signature snickerdoodle crack. I tried 400 degrees next (which is the temperature most snickerdoodle recipes call for), and the cookies cracked, but didn’t really spread out. They also seemed to be a bit crunchier.

The last batch was baked at 375 degrees, which seemed to offer the best of both temperatures. They cookies spread out a bit, but they also cracked and weren’t overly dried out.

While these cookies (like most cookies) are best straight out of the oven, they actually keep for quite a while. I had a couple cookies left over even a week after the cookie swap, and while they weren’t as soft, they were still delicious!

And of course these cookies are the perfect pair for a nice warm cup of chai tea! The flavor is relatively subtle, which makes these cookies great for anyone. But they will be especially well received by my fellow tea-drinkers.

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Mint Cookies ‘N Cream Ice Cream

June 30, 2014

My husband and I live in a house divided. He loves cookies and cream ice cream, while I would much prefer a bowl of mint chip. Maybe it’s for that reason that we barely buy ice cream.

But it is summer after all, so our lives would be incomplete without a nice cold bowl of ice cream as an after dinner treat (well, not really…by go with it). That’s where our handy dandy ice cream maker comes in. By making our own ice cream, we can combine any flavors we want and make everyone in the house happy.

For this recipe, I just started with a basic vanilla ice cream recipe then added in a little green food dye to slightly tint it a “mint” color along with some peppermint extract. I ended up using about 3 drops of food coloring and 1 tbsp of peppermint. After that was whisked together, I poured it into the chilled bowl of the ice cream maker. I let the ice cream churn for about 20 minutes and once the ice cream actually started to resemble ice cream and not a melted milk shake, I tossed in some crumbled Oreo cookies and let it mix for a couple more minutes.

At this point, the ice cream is still too soft to serve, so I transferred it into a container (adding in some more crushed Oreos every few spoon fulls) to chill in the freezer over night. I always perfer to let it chill overnight, but really, it just needs a couple hours to set. If you are making ice cream for a specific event or meal, give yourself maybe 4 hours prior to make the ice cream and let it set.

I just happened to find these really fun bowls at the grocery store. I really wanted to serve them in waffle cones (my husband loves waffle cones), but this was the next best thing! It was the perfect vessel to serve our creamy and slightly minty ice cream loaded with lots and lots of Oreos. I have to say, my husband was especially pleased with this flavor because it ended up tasting a lot like his favorite Girl Scout cookie (Thin Mints)!

What ice cream hybrid would you make this summer?

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Milk and Cookie Shots

May 28, 2014

Last year, Dominque Ansel turned pastry making on its head when he came out with the cronut. Now, it seems like he is making it his full time job to come up with crazy, delicious, hybrids of some of our favorite treats. A few months ago, I saw a couple things pop up on Pinterest about one of his latest creations – cookie shots. Now, I had actually attempted to make a cronut but completely and utterly failed. The cookie shot, on the other hand, seemed like something I could do!

A few other sites have tried their own version of the cookie shot, too. While I am sure they are wonderful and delicious, what I didn’t really like about those is that they used some weird metal form to get the shot glass shape that I doubt anyone just keeps on hand in their kitchen. At least I sure don’t. So I turned to my trusty popover tin! The beauty of it is that its deeper and a bit narrower than a muffin tin. And while it might be bigger than a shot glass, who really cares when that shot glass is a cookie?

I did, however, use an actual shot glass (this one is from the good ol’ college days and has my sorority crest on it – classy!) to help me form the cookie shot. The dough itself is very crumbly – I basically just altered a standard shortbread recipe – so it can be a bit challenging to form. I first packed in about 1 tbsp of dough on the bottom, set the shot glass in place, and filled the space around it with more dough. Then I wiggled the glass around to help me press the dough against the walls of the tin. I went back in with my fingers to make sure the dough was nice and packed. Once all 6 tins were done, I popped them in the oven to bake for about 10 minutes.

After allowing the cups to cool completely and removing the baked cups from the tin, I poured in some melted chocolate working it around the cup until it covered all sides. Once it was coated how I liked, I flipped the cup upside down on a wire rack over a baking sheet covered in parchment. This not only helps to get the chocolate evenly disbursed, but any extra chocolate will just drip right on to the sheet. Once they were all lined with chocolate, I placed the whole sheet into the freezer for about 15 minutes until the chocolate was hard.

From here, you could just leave them in the freezer until ready to use, or immediately fill them up with milk. I chose to add in a bit of Baileys to make it more of an adult treat. Needless to say, if making these for kids, forgo the Baileys. But you could add some coffee creamers to the milk to make different flavors. Or if you are really feeling indulgent, what about espresso or ice cream?

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