Peanut Butter Rudolph Cookies

So other than the traditional sugar cookies I make every year, I basically spent the past month trying to find other cute and unique Christmas cookies, and I came across these little guys - peanut butter cookies decorated with chocolate covered pretzels and M&Ms to look like Rudolph and his reindeer friends. :) As I've mentioned before, I prefer to do everything from scratch, since it seems like it just makes baking more fun and special when you're baking something as a gift. However, I made these during exams as a little study break, so I used a Betty Crocker peanut butter cookie mix as a shortcut. If you wanted to make these from scratch, you could just Google any peanut butter cookie recipe and it will work!

I used Rold Gold chocolate covered pretzels, and they were pretty large, even for my HUGE cookies (I only was able to shape 12 reindeer and the mix says it makes 36 cookies...). Maybe another brand of chocolate covered pretzel would work better, or you could always break the pretzel in half and then the antlers would look more realistic!

Ingredients:

• Betty Crocker Peanut Butter Cookie Mix (or peanut butter cookie recipe)
• Milk Chocolate M&Ms (you could even use peanut butter or something fun!)
• Milk Chocolate covered pretzels

Instructions:

1. Prepare peanut butter cookie mix or recipe as instructed. Chill dough for a little bit in the fridge so it's easier to mold.
2. Shape dough into triangle shapes with soft edges, large enough to fit a couple of chocolated covered pretzels and a reindeer face. (Keep in mind that the dough will probably expand a little.)
3. Bake cookies as instructed, and immediately after they're out of the oven, push in red M&Ms for the nose, any colors for the eyes and the two chocolate covered pretzels at the top.

Cinnabon Clones

My family's tradition every Christmas morning for as long as I can remember is waking up and opening stockings, and then eating Pillsbury cinnamon rolls before opening the rest of our presents. I recently saw a Food Network special with The Pioneer Woman and her homemade cinnamon rolls, which she makes every year and gives away as Christmas gifts to neighbors and friends. This gave me the idea to make homemade cinnamon rolls this year for our family - as a trial run of course before they could be send out to friends and family! They turned out sooo well, and were relatively simple to make. Although the recipe calls for a bread machina and baking them right away, I kneaded the dough by hand and put them in the fridge overnight and cooked them in the morning and everything turned out great! Don't be afraid to change up recipes when baking - most of the time the exact proportions of baking soda/powder or amounts of flour might need to be exact, but you can always experiment. I frequently change up white sugar with brown, adding more egg yolks for density, and other things, just to see what the results will be. For these cinnamon rolls, I added just a litttttle extra butter and sugar ;) Before making something, I always compare a few recipes and ALWAYS read the reviews to find out the best method of making a new sweet! Trust me, a recipe (like this 'Clone of a Cinnabon' one) with 4,000 ecstatic reviews is almost guaranteed to be a winner.

Ingredients:   

Dough

• 1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F)
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1/3 cup margarine, melted (I used butter)
• 4 cups bread flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 package active dry yeast

Filling (feel free to increase any of these proportions, it won't hurt!)

• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 1/2 tbsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 cup butter 

Frosting

• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
• 4 oz. cream cheese (I used 1/3 less fat Philadelphia - trying to save at least some calories here...)
• 3 cups powdered sugar (I ended up using about 4, but start with 2-3 and add to achieve desired consistency taste - mine ended up just like the frosting you get in the Pillsbury cinnamon roll packs! Also, if you're not used to cream cheese in your frostings, give it a try! It gives such great flavor.)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. salt 

Directions:

1.   Heat milk in a sauce pan with a candy thermometer until it reaches AT LEAST 110 degrees farenheit. Take off the burner and whisk in yeast to dissolve. I heat mine until about 120 and take it off the burner; yeast dies above 125, but the milk will start cooling immediately and the yeast will not work if the milk is too hot or not hot enough. I was skeptical about how well my yeast was doing, but as long as the milk is warm and the yeast dissolves, you're probably just fine. 
2. Beat in the room temperature eggs, sugar, butter and salt.
3. Add flour 1/2 cup at a time, using a wooden spoon (avoids getting the dough caught between wires of a whisk or a mixer). If it becomes difficult to add the last bits of flour in, take out the dough and knead in the rest of the flour yourself.
4. Cover the dough in a lightly oiled bowl in a warm place for at least an hour, or until the dough doubles in size. (We have a "bread proofing" setting in our oven, which keeps it at a nice 100 degrees F).
5. Next, take the dough and roll it out into a larger rectangle, about 16" x 20". Spread the 1/2 stick of butter (melted or room temperature) all over the dough. Then sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar mixture evenly over all of the dough.
6. Roll up the dough in a "typewriter" style, going from one end to the other, and then from that end back, making sure to roll as tightly as possible. Once rolled, cut in 1-3/4" thick slices and place in a 9 x 13" WELL greased baking dish - or line it with my favorite baking helper parchment paper. You should be able to get about 12 rolls, but it's okay if you get less or more! I got 14, with the last two being two tiny ones from the ends of the roll. If you have smaller rolls, put those in the middle, since the outside rolls will bake faster. 
7. At this point, you can either cover them with a warm cloth and let rise for another half hour and bake at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes, or store in a fridge overnight and let them rise and bake them in the morning!
8. For the frosting, start making this with about 5 minutes left to cook. Melt the butter and cream cheese, at the vanilla and salt and whisk in the powdered sugar until you get your desired consistency and taste.
9. Once the rolls come out of the oven, spread the frosting all over the top (I doubled the frosting recipe because my family loves it, but didn't end up using it all). Or, if you used parchment paper, your best option is to flip over the rolls onto a platter so that all the yummy brown sugar and butter runs down all over the rolls and then you frost the top. They'll be great either way!

Right after slicing and before rising/baking.

Before Frosting

After the yummy, goooooey frosting! (It's a little dark because of mixing with the brown sugar from the rolls)

Wish I could have gotten a picture of the swirly inside!

Enjoy, these are the BEST cinnamon rolls we have ever tasted, and I'm sure your family will love them as well! They seriously taste just like Cinnabon!

Also, I just had to include these pictures of the amazing sunset we had tonight on Lake Michigan - we may have not had a white christmas, but this may have just made up for it!

My Favorite Roll-Out Sugar Cookies

Wow, it's been awhile, but I promise it is worth the wait! I've had so much going on with school the past few weeks that although I've squeezed in some time to bake, I haven't squeezed in enough time to take pictures and post. :( I will definitely be making some of the recipes I've tried lately and actually posting them because "Christmas Crack" - a toffee made with, believe it or not, saltines (amazinggg), and my butterscotch bars with M&Ms and peanuts need to make it on here at some point! I figured if I manage to finally get a post out, it should definitely be Christmas appropriate, and what's more fitting than sugar cookies?!

I've always had a very specific taste for sugar cookies, and I've finally found a recipe that I LOVE. I've been making Wilton's Roll-Out Sugar Cookies for 2 years now, and they have the best flavor, and roll out perfectly every time. Inspired by my friend's mom, who makes gorgeous, professional looking sugar cookies, I decided to try and actually decorate my sugar cookies the same way she did this year with royal icing. Although you might lose the soft, buttery flavor of the common buttercream frosting, the royal icing hardens and allows you to pipe really pretty and intricate designs onto your cookies. It's a lot easier if you just stick to 2-3 colors of icing, unless you have lots of pastry bags and even more patience! 3 colors was enough for my first "professional-looking" cookie attempt. 

 Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cup flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. 
2. In large bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla extract. 
3. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl and add to butter mixture 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Do not chill dough, it will get too hard to roll! If you do need to make the dough ahead of time and chill it, let it come completely to room temperature before rolling it.
4. On floured surface, roll out half the dough about 1/8 in. thick. Dip cookie cutter in flour before each use. Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet (parchment paper is your best friend, nothing will EVER stick) 8-11 minutes - when the cookies start to brown on the edges, pull them out! I love my sugar cookies a little soft, and these cookies do not change color much when they bake, so a little browning means they will be crispy. My cookies were a little smaller, so they were ready right at 8 minutes.
5. After the cookies have cooled, frost with royal icing: 4 cups powdered sugar, 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar and 3 egg whites. Add more powdered sugar to achieve desired consistency; you want it to be spreadable, but not runny at all. I used Wilton/Ateco piping tips 2 and 3, as well as a special tip for leaves! :) If you are worried about the raw egg whites, Wilton also makes a meringue powder you can use instead.

 

I also made home-made cinnamon rolls for the first time tonight, so we'll see how those turn out tomorrow, and pictures and a recipe for my Cinnabon knockoffs will be up tomorrow!

Merry Christmas Eve!