Cinnamon Twist..

..cookies!

Tea time!

So  have I mentioned that my kids LOVE cinnamon?  Well they do :)

I bought the puff pastry with the intention of making some Palmiers, but I decided to change it up and do Cinnamon Twists instead.  Here is my very own recipe, which isn't much of one, for your enjoyment. :)

Cinnamon Twists

1 box Pepperidge Farms puff pastry
3 T butter, melted
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 T cinnamon

1. Thaw puff pastry sheets in the frig
2. Heat oven to 400 degrees
3. Line cookies sheets with parchment paper
4. Combine cinnamon and sugar, mix well
5. Unfold the pastry sheets and cut in half, then cut each half into 1 inch strips.  Be careful to keep the strips close together
6. Brush on melted butter and sprinkle cinnamon/sugar mixture over the top
7. Twist the cookies once, being careful not to knock off all the cinnamon/sugar
8. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown

Defrosted puff pastry ready for action

First things first, yes you do need to plan ahead when making these cookies.  It is impossible to unfold frozen pastry.  Ask me how I know this?  Well, I've tried it and the sheets just break into pieces.

Butter it up baby!

My butter is melted and my cinnamon/sugar is mixed up and ready to go.  Remember not to use all your butter and cinnamon/sugar on your first puff pastry sheet, only use half.

This looks kind of gross, but it will taste great :)

Once the butter is on, sprinkle on the cinnamon/sugar.  Be sure to cover all the way to the edges, nobody wants a partially cinnamon/sugared cookie.

Cinnamon and sugar

The trickiest part of this recipe is twisting the dough strips.  I did it very carefully and sprinkled on any sugar/cinnamon that fell off back onto the cookies.

Twisted and ready for baking

Out of the oven!  I got about 2 dozen cookies from the one box of puff pastry

Cooling off

and they were gone the next day.

I had lot's of hands in my cookie jar :)

Enjoy!

Snickerdoodle..

..playdate.

Actually I should call it a "hang out" as Son 1 and Son 2 get insulted when I call having friends over a play date.

Yesterday I had 3 kids over for a hangout, one for each Kurani kid.

For a special treat I made Snickerdoodles for snack.

I have a bit of a reputation to uphold with the local kids and treats, so I had to represent :)

Snickerdoodles are one of our favorite cookies and are super easy to make.  No chilling required.

My go to Snickerdoodle recipe is this one from Betty Crocker.

My cookbook says this should make 6 dozen cookies, but I used my 1 oz scoop and made 40 bigger cookies.  I baked the cookies for 9 minutes so the center stayed soft.

This recipe has a very basic preparation - cream together the butter, shortening, eggs and sugar.  I used my electric mixer, but you could use a wooden spoon if you wanted an arm work out.

Wet ingredients ready for mixing

Wet ingredients ready for the flour mixture

Once the sugar mixture is together, add the dry ingredients.  Be careful not to add the extra cinnamon and 1/4 cup of sugar into the cookie dough.  The ingredient section in the recipe is not very clearly marked, so double check.  Back when I taught Home Ec I could always tell which students actually read the recipe completely by who had cinnamon in their cookies versus on the outside.

Cookie dough ready for action!

Once the dough is all mixed together you are ready to make some cookies.  If yesterday hadn't been a playdate hang out I would have frozen half the dough for later.  But since I had so many kids over I went ahead and baked off all the cookies.

1 oz raw cookies rolled in cinnamon/sugar

Ready for the oven

Snack time!

Snack time!  The kids were waiting at the table for their cookies and probably ate about 4 each.  That counts as a hit in my book.

Plus I got to send them home all sugared up :)

Enjoy!

It's Valentines Day...

and that means cookies for the Mother/Daughter group I am in with Daughter called Adventure Maidens.  AM is the updated version of Indian Maidens for those of you who are familiar with YMCA youth groups.

yum!

Anyway this year I happen to be Princess of our Expedition and that means making little treats for all the girls whose Mothers volunteer their time to serve on the board.  This month Daughter and I decided to make cookies.

3 dozen cookies cooling off

I used this Alton Brown recipe for the dough.  I really like it and I've tried quite a few.  The dough is very tender though, so if you are going to make cut-outs I recommend rolling the dough out to 3/8 inch instead of 1/4 inch.  The thicker cookies will hold up to decorating.

the dough was really cold and hard to roll out

heart cut outs

Since we are doing a Valentine's theme pink frosting was in order.  I used the standard frosting recipe that I've noted already on the Feathery Fudge cake post.  Red sprinkles can't hurt and then I added each girl's first initial with some white icing.

Happy Valentine's Day!