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coffee cake cookies

December 6, 2017 by Butter Loves Company

If you enjoy coffee cake then you will LOVE this recipe for coffee cake cookies. These cinnamon streusel topped cakey cookies are a perfect dessert-y breakfast treat in portable form.

Greg has been bugging me to make coffee cake over the past couple weeks and, since I have been on a serious cookie kick—particularly with the holiday season upon us,—I figured why not combine the two for a breakfast ready coffee cake cookie?

Coffee cake is known for its warm cinnamon spiced flavor and, if you ask me, the best coffee cakes also include an ample amount of streusel, either tucked within the dough’s layers or generously crumbled on the cake’s top. Bakery-style coffee cake can often be associated with having a moist and dense crumb and a savory subtly identifiable tang. This is thanks to the addition of something like buttermilk or sour cream. To replicate the creamy tang these ingredients bring to traditional coffee cake recipes, without adding too much moisture, I turn to one of my favorite things in all the kitchen: cream cheese. Add a bit of cheese and a dash of cream of tartar and you’ll bring the signature tang and cakey texture of the morning bread to your cookie scoops.

If you are expecting holiday guests, these are a nice option to set out with the morning coffee. They are just as good on the regular, when you need a grab and go bite to accompany your coffee or tea.

One tip to this recipe is to prepare the streusel first and store it in the refrigerator or freezer while you prepare the cookie dough. In order to get the streusel to stay on top of the cookie it is important to scoop the dough and then flatten slightly to create a surface for the streusel to stick to when the cookies expand in the oven. Feel free to adjust the streusel to your preference. This one includes oats and pecans, but those could simply be omitted if you prefer. One small note: if you have big clumps of butter in your streusel they will spread as the cookie bakes, so try to keep the butter bits to about a pea-sized to smaller so that it really clumps up with the flour and sugar.

I also can’t stop thinking about how good an ice cream sandwich would be with these cookies wrapped around coffee ice cream. Doesn’t that sound great? Please someone make that and let me know how it is so that I can live vicariously through you! Or if you stick around it’s more than likely that you’ll see that recipe coming soon since I really am craving it now.

dolce de leche cookies

September 4, 2017 by Butter Loves Company

This recipe for cinnamon spiced Dolce de Leche Cookies from the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook, The Perfect Cookie, yields the perfectly sweet, decadent, warming, party-worthy sandwich cookie.

Being from Boston, I have always been a fan of the Beantown based America’s Test Kitchen. Their recipes are tested and tested again, so you can feel confident diving into mixing and stirring, knowing your meal will be perfectly seasoned or your pastry will rise just as you imagined. When ATK reached out to me about their latest cookbook, The Perfect Cookie, I knew it was destined to be a new staple on my cookbook shelf.

With dozens of recipes for classics like Snickerdoodles, Gingersnaps, Sables, and Palmiers, to new stunners like Peppermint Surprise Brownie Bites, Chocolate Peanut Butter Candies, and Cornmeal Olive Oil Cookies, each page of The Perfect Cookie is deliciously bookmark-able. There is even an entire section dedicated to Christmas cookies, which makes me pumped up for my annual holiday cookie baking marathon. In true America’s Test Kitchen fashion, in this cookbook you can expect detailed tips and tricks for achieving the best baking results. Each recipe also has a photograph so you can visualize the cookies you will soon be eating.

These Dolce de Leche cookies are comprised of two cinnamon sugar coated tender sugar cookies, wrapped around a rich, creamy, and caramel-like dolce de leche filling. Dolce de leche is a sweet spread made by boiling sugar with milk. You can certainly make your own or purchase it pre-made. This recipe calls for the latter. These cookies are definitely on the indulgent side—but in the absolutely best way possible!

There is a little ground anise both in the cookie dough and the filling, which lends a warm licorice flavor to the cookies. If you are so inclined, you could skip the anise for a different, yet still totally delicious, flavor profile. That said, like all the cookies I have tried so far in the book, the America’s Test Kitchen team definitely worked some magic on the recipe details to ensure ultra-tasty results, so I’ve listed the ingredients here exactly as they do.

Dolce de Leche and Cinnamon Sandwich Cookies from America's Test Kitchen's [The Perfect Cookie | https://shop.americastestkitchen.com/the-perfect-cookie.html]

spiced pumpkin muffins

September 8, 2014 by Butter Loves Company

If someone asked you what your favorite season was, what would you say? I would most definitely shout FALL!!! Here’s the short list of reasons why:

A Break from Humidity: Anyone who knows me knows how much I hate humidity. Autumn brings a welcome reprieve from summer’s oppressive and unattractive face dew (aka sweat). Holding a cell phone to your ear while walking casually should not leave you sweaty. It just shouldn’t. Am I right?

Boots: Love, love, love ’em. Comfortable, cute, practical—as soon as Labor Day passes, I am so like, ‘Bring on the Booties!’ Boots > Flip Flops, any day.

Apple Picking: Did you know people come to New England to look at the leaves fall off the trees? Leaf peeping is a real thing! As a Boston native, I think I sometimes under-appreciate the beauty of nature’s red and orange hues. One thing I always appreciate though is apple picking. I turn into a total kid when it comes to plucking these sweet little beauties from the orchard trees. I especially love climbing up the trees to find that perfect apple (boots on, obviously). As a couple of added bonuses, apple picking usually means cider donuts and always means apple desserts made fresh with your bounty.

Football: My family and boyfriend are probably rolling their eyes right now, but I would say my love of the start of football season is actually a love of game day foods. A day of cooking and eating with friends in cozy clothes sounds amazing to me. Don’t ask me the score. I’m too busy stuffing my face with nachos.

All Things Pumpkin (except the latte—don’t throw tomatoes at me fellow Fall lovers): I love fall baking because of the aforementioned fresh apples, but I also love it for the pumpkin! Warm spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves take center stage with recipes featuring this orange squash. Baking with pumpkin always guarantees delicious, moist results. Let me prove it with these moist, fluffy yet chewy, pumpkin-rich muffins . . .

Two years ago, during the fall and early winter, there was a shortage of canned pumpkin. I think I only made four batches of pumpkin muffins that season! Literally devastating. Too dramatic? No way. Ever since, I’ve hoarded canned pumpkin like it was gold. You all will get to reap the benefits of this because I’ll share a number of my fall favorites over the next few weeks beginning with these simple to make spiced pumpkin muffins. No complex ingredients here. Just good ol’ pumpkin lovin’ deliciousness. I was also a little heavy handed with the warm spices, but I can’t say I regret it.

spiced pumpkin muffins
adapted from bon appetit, november 1995 via epicurious

prep time: 10 minutes
cook time: 34-38 minutes
total time: about 45-50 minutes
makes 12 jumbo muffins or 18 regular sized

Ingredients:

3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 16-ounce can solid pack pumpkin
(plain, not spiced)
3 cups all–purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray two jumbo holed muffin pans
(six muffins per pan) with non-stick baking spray (or alternatively, butter and flour the pans)*. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat sugar and oil on medium speed to blend. Add eggs, mixing after each addition, and then add pumpkin. Mix until combined and smooth.
In a separate medium bowl, whisk together flour, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and baking powder. With the stand mixer on low speed, mix the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture in two additions, until just combined.
Divide batter equally between prepared muffin pans. Bake until toothpick inserted into the center of one of the center muffins comes out clean, about 34–38 minutes. Allow the muffins to cool in the pans for 5 minutes. Transfer muffins to wire racks to cool completely or for as long as you can resist.

*If using standard muffin pans, you’ll want to follow the recipe exactly and once the muffins are in the oven begin testing them after 18–20 minutes.

blueberry buttermilk scones with cinnamon sugar butter

July 10, 2014 by Butter Loves Company

When spending your vacation at a house on the water, you’d better not forget to pack your bathing suit, sunscreen, aloe vera for when you inevitably get burned regardless of the sunscreen, boogie board, frisbee, Stephen King or Emily Griffin novel (pick your poison), kitchen tongs and measuring cups/spoons. You’re probably thinking those last two don’t scream ‘sand between the toes,’ but if you have access to a kitchen, these tools will make life much easier and breakfast much more delicious.

I learned from my mom that you should always travel with tongs.* The reason being, she told me, you never know what the kitchen supply situation will be. With this in mind, I decided that because of my baking obsession I should also always travel with measuring tools. You see, some vacation rentals are equipped for a chef, while others are equipped for a stack of take-out pizzas (no knock there, love me some take-out pizza). Luckily, even if you’re staying in the latter, you can make delicious homemade treats because, with just your hands, you can be quite the little bakeshop.

You’ll already be all sandy after the beach; why not also get a little flour on your hands while making some blueberry buttermilk scones with cinnamon sugar butter? The butter—oh the butter—may be my new little obsession. It is SO easy to make, and with just just three ingredients, you can have this addictive sweet spiced spread at your disposal in no time. I’m going to start making it by the pound.

Your cohorts will thank you when they’re slicing through the sweet, juicy blueberries in the light, buttery scone and smearing it with the cinnamon sugar butter. They may actually volunteer to make you a piña colada for your hard work. (Our little secret will be how easy the ‘work’ was, but go on, accept that island drink reward ;-))

* For clarification: this applies when you have a kitchen to work with. I did not, for example, bring tongs to Las Vegas for a girl’s weekend. That would be strange. Probably not all that surprising, but definitely strange.

blueberry buttermilk scones with cinnamon sugar butter
Adapted from M.S. Milliken & S. Feniger, 2007

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 16–18 minutes
Total Time: 30–35 minutes
Makes 8 large or 16 medium-sized scones

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 egg lightly whipped with 1 tablespoon water (for brushing)
A dash more granulated sugar for sprinkling
Cinnamon sugar butter (recipe follows)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and lightly grease a cookie sheet or line with parchment paper. Combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda and ground cinnamon in a large bowl. Add butter and mix with your fingertips or with a pastry blender until it reaches a coarse meal and the butter is in pea-sized pieces or just smaller. Add buttermilk and mix until almost combined. Mix in blueberries until everything is just combined.
Transfer dough to a floured board (divide into two parts if you’d like smaller scones). Roll into 1-inch thick rounds for larger scones or into 3/4-inch thick rounds if you divided the dough and are making smaller scones. Cut each round into 8 wedges and place slightly separated onto the prepared baking sheet. Brush the tops of the scones with the egg mixture, sprinkle each lightly with sugar and bake for 16–18 minutes, or until lightly browned. Serve warm, split in half with a smear cinnamon sugar butter.

cinnamon sugar butter

makes 1/4 cup

Ingredients:

1/4 cup butter, softened at room temperature (I use salted, but if you use unsalted, add a dash of salt)
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Instructions:

In a small bowl, stir together butter, light brown sugar and ground cinnamon until completely combined and fluffy. Chill and serve.

chewy oatmeal raisin cookies

February 4, 2014 by Butter Loves Company

Do you ever find yourself in a bakery staring at the picturesque cookies and asking yourself “how on earth do they get these darn cookies to look so darn good?”

No? Oh.

Well … I do. (Another thing to add to the nerd list.)

A year or so ago, I discovered a few secrets to making those thick, chewy, bakery-worthy cookies I had spent so many years drooling over (not literally, thank goodness). I’m excited to say that one of those secrets is incredibly easy. Incredibly easy if you have enough patience to chill the cookie dough before baking it. That’s it! Chill the dough! This helps prevent the cookies from spreading because the butter, which was softened for the mixing process, will re-solidify. Many argue chilling also enhances the flavor of the cookie for a number of super scientific reasons I have yet to completely understand. Regardless, I agree.

If you are a fan of thick, chewy, bakery style cookies, you will love this Oatmeal Raisin Cookie. They are just begging to be eaten; every little bit of cinnamon spice, old-fashioned oats, pecans, and two kinds of raisins just scream, “EAT ME!”

If you don’t like raisins, you can absolutely substitute them for chocolate chips.

Promise me you’ll chill the dough? At least half of it?

chewy oatmeal raisin cookies

Recipe Type: Dessert

Author: Butter Loves Company

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 15 mins

Total time: 30 mins

Serves: 12-16 cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 1/2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup raisins (1/2 cup each golden and dark raisins or a full cup of one type)
1/3 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped (optional)

Instructions

In a large bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth.
In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together.
Stir this into the butter mixture and mix on low until just combined. Stir in the oats, raisins and nuts, if using.
Form the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic. Chill for at least 2 hours, or overnight if you are patient.
Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Scoop 1 to 1 ½ inch balls of chilled cookie dough and arrange on the cookie sheet leaving two inches between each ball (If the dough is really cold, you can flatten the dough balls ever so slightly so they come out less thick).
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the edges are golden. The center may look slightly undercooked. Let cookies cool for 5 minutes on the warm baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack.

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cinnamon pinwheel cookies

December 30, 2013 by Butter Loves Company

Each December, my mom and I embark on what I have coined a Christmas cookie marathon (instead of 26 miles, think 26 types of cookies). Our non-stop baking day results in a lengthy list of cookies, which includes some of our winter classics — snickerdoodles, whoopie pies, and molasses – along with a handful or two new experiments. When the stand mixer has reached its limit and our hands are aching from scooping dough, we assemble the cookies, bars, and toffees on platters for our neighbors, family, and friends to enjoy throughout the holidays. We include a cookie guide with each platter so a ginger hater doesn’t mistakenly reach for the rosemary ginger squares.

As a kid, one of the first cookies I was trusted with was the Cinnamon Pinwheel Cookie. It is a sugar cookie base swirled with cinnamon and brown sugar, a simple and elegant combination. While we make them at Christmas, these are fitting for any time of year and I am pretty sure they are breakfast appropriate. Try to be patient enough to chill the dough until it is very firm before you cut it. This will ensure you get circular cookies.

Cinnamon Pinwheel Cookies

Recipe Type: Cookies

Cuisine: Dessert

Prep time: 2 hours 35 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 2 hours 55 mins

Serves: About 50

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon (or more if you are extra fond of cinnamon)

Instructions

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and 3/4 cup granulated sugar until smooth. Add the egg and beat until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the vanilla.
With the mixer on low, gradually add the flour mixture, mixing until just incorporated (the dough will be stiff).
On a floured surface, separate the dough into two piles and roll each into 8 x 12 inch rectangles. Use a knife to even the edges so they are clean when you roll the dough in step 6.
In a small bowl, mix together the 1/2 cup granulate sugar, 1/2 cup light brown sugar and the cinnamon for the cinnamon sugar filling. Sprinkle generously on each rectangle of dough.
Starting from a short side, roll each rectangle into a log. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, 1-2 hours.
When the dough is firm, preheat the oven to 350° F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Slice the dough logs ¼ inch thick and bake on sheets until just beginning to brown, 15 to 18 minutes. Cool slightly on baking sheets, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.