Project Cookie for Christmas 2011

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It is the day after Christmas and we've been happily "sampling" the seven different cookies we baked for the season. When we were baking them the days leading up to the 25th, we were scratching our heads at some moments. I mean, we've baked all of these cookies for Christmases past (with the exception of one), and we wanted to make sure they came out the same way they did previously.

So questions arose like "did we use shortening or butter?", "how long does this dough need to chill?", and "how many times the recipe did we use?"

To help ourselves when future cookie baking beckons, I am writing down here what we did this year with all the nitty-gritty details. Because all in all, I think each cookie turned out well and I would like to repeat our results.

1. Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe:  used the recipe on the back of the morsel package
How Many Times the Recipe:  used 1 recipe
Yield:  made little less than one tin
Shortening or Butter:  used room temp. butter
Was Dough Chilled:  no
How Were Cookies Formed:  dropped by spoonfuls
How They Turned Out:  cookies were somewhat thin (1/2" thick) and were soft and chewy
Side Notes:  none

2. Cherry Surprise Balls

Recipe:  old family recipe -- blogged about it here
How Many Times the Recipe:  2-1/2 times
Yield:   little less than one tin
Shortening or Butter:  used room temp. Crisco butter flavored baking sticks
Was Dough Chilled:  chilled in fridge for 1 hour
How Were Cookies Formed:  formed into balls by hand after dough was chilled
How They Turned Out:  came out perfectly round and with a shortbread-like texture. No flat bottom.
Side Notes:  best indicator when these light cookies are done is when their bottoms turn golden brown. Cookies will remain soft until completely cooled. Did raise oven temp. to 350F.

3. Snowball Cookies

Recipe:  old family recipe -- blogged about it here
How Many Times the Recipe:  1-1/2 times
Yield:  little less than one tin
Shortening or butter:  slightly soft butter
Was Dough Chilled:  no
How Were Cookies Formed:  formed into balls by hand; used flour to prevent stickage
How They Turned Out:  turned out round and with a shortbread-like texture. No flat bottom.
Side Notes:  cookies are done when edges are slightly brown. Kept dough in fridge when waiting for first batch.

4. Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Recipe:  Quaker Oats recipe
How Many Times the Recipe:  1 recipe
Yield:  one full tin
Shortening or butter: slightly soft butter
Was Dough Chilled:  no
How Were Cookies Formed:  dropped by spoonfuls.
How They Turned Out:  cookies did not spread much, remained tall. Crispy exterior and chewy interior.
Side Notes:

5. White Chocolate Cherry Chunkies

Recipe:  a Paula Deen recipe -- blogged about it here
How Many Times the Recipe:  1-1/2 times
Yield:  little over one tin
Shortening or butter:  room temp. butter
Was Dough Chilled:  no
How Were Cookies Formed:  used small ice cream scoop
How They Turned Out:  cookies spread moderately. Turned out chewy and slightly crunchy.
Side Notes:  used dried cherries instead of candied. Used 6 oz of dried for 1-1/2 times the recipe.

6. Peanut Butter Cookies

Recipe:  from a cookbook of mine, A Year of Cookies by Lorraine Bodger
How Many Times the Recipe:  2 times
Yield:  little over one tin
Shortening or butter:  room temp. butter
Was Dough Chilled:  no
How Were Cookies Formed:  used small ice cream scoop and pressed down each cookie with a fork
How They Turned Out:  cookies spread moderately. Turned out to be slightly crunchy.
Side Notes:

7. Drop Sugar Cookies

Recipe:  created by Tiffany from the Bake-off Flunkie blog.
How Many Times the Recipe: 1-1/2 times
Yield:  one full tin
Shortening or Butter:  cold butter cut into small pieces
Was Dough Chilled:  no, but dough was set aside at room temperature for 15 minutes before forming the cookies
How Were Cookies Formed:  used small ice cream scoop
How They Turned Out:  cookies spread moderately. Had a slight crisp exterior and a chewy interior.
Side Notes: