I was definitely in the Christmas mood this year and I have to admit I went a little crazy. I spent several days (and more than several dollars) shopping for decorations and decking every inch of my home for Christmas, I spent hours perusing Pinterest for the perfect holiday menu, and I spent the entire day yesterday making batch after batch of scrumptious Christmas cookies in every variety imaginable. Here's the result!
My favorite cookies ended up being the two different kinds of pudding cookies I made, so I wanted to share this versatile cookie recipe with you right away so you can make your own batch of yummy treats! The basic recipe is always the same, but you can choose your own flavor of pudding and pick any combination of add-ins to design your own unique creation!
Customizable Pudding Cookies
Prep time: 15 min Bake time: 10 min
Serves 36
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 (3.4 oz) pkg white chocolate instant pudding mix
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups flour (11.25 oz - weigh for best results)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups chopped Winter Oreos (the kind with red cream)
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips
Preheat oven to 350 F. For best results, use an oven thermometer to verify the accuracy of your oven temperature. It may be off by as much as 50 degrees and that will significantly affect your results!
In as medium bowl, whisk together baking soda, salt and flour. This thoroughly incorporates the leavening agent so your cookies bake evenly. Set aside.
With an electric mixer, cream together butter and sugars, 1-3 minutes.
Beat in dry instant pudding mix. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until well-mixed.
Add flour mixture and beat just until incorporated. Do not overbeat! You should still see a little bit of visible flour here and there. Overbeating will ruin the texture your cookies.
Gently stir in Oreos, white chocolate chips, and Andes Peppermint Crunch baking chips just until incorporated. (What that picture-perfect look you see in all those blog pics? Save a few of the mix-ins and press them into the top after rolling the dough into balls.)
Refrigerate dough for at least 15 minutes. This keeps the dough from spreading too much in the oven.
Roll into 1" balls and place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet that is either greased or lined with parchment paper or a Silpat. (Can we take a minute to talk about Silpats? If you don't have one, go buy one right now! They are so incredibly useful. They function as a washable, reusable, nonstick pan liner and can be used just about any time you would use grease, foil, or parchment paper. I bought some brand-name ones for about $25 each, then I bought some generic ones for $5 at Aldi and they both work exactly the same.)
Bake at 350 F for 8-10 minutes. Cookies should come out of the oven when the edges are slightly golden, the top is puffy but no longer shiny, and the cookie looks a little underdone.
Let cookies cool on the pan for 2 minutes (this finishes the cooking process,) then transfer to a cooling rack.
Chocolate Cherry Variation
For these, I followed the recipe above, but I used chocolate pudding mix instead of white chocolate. I omitted the Oreos and the peppermint chips and used a 9 oz bag of Nestle's DelightFulls Cherry Filled morsels along with 1 cup of holiday striped white chocolate morsels. They were awesome! Feel free to try any combination of baking chips you like. The have several varieties of these filled chips and I fully intend to try all of them!
My favorite cookies ended up being the two different kinds of pudding cookies I made, so I wanted to share this versatile cookie recipe with you right away so you can make your own batch of yummy treats! The basic recipe is always the same, but you can choose your own flavor of pudding and pick any combination of add-ins to design your own unique creation!
Customizable Pudding Cookies
Prep time: 15 min Bake time: 10 min
Serves 36
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 (3.4 oz) pkg white chocolate instant pudding mix
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups flour (11.25 oz - weigh for best results)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups chopped Winter Oreos (the kind with red cream)
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips
Preheat oven to 350 F. For best results, use an oven thermometer to verify the accuracy of your oven temperature. It may be off by as much as 50 degrees and that will significantly affect your results!
In as medium bowl, whisk together baking soda, salt and flour. This thoroughly incorporates the leavening agent so your cookies bake evenly. Set aside.
With an electric mixer, cream together butter and sugars, 1-3 minutes.
Beat in dry instant pudding mix. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until well-mixed.
Add flour mixture and beat just until incorporated. Do not overbeat! You should still see a little bit of visible flour here and there. Overbeating will ruin the texture your cookies.
Gently stir in Oreos, white chocolate chips, and Andes Peppermint Crunch baking chips just until incorporated. (What that picture-perfect look you see in all those blog pics? Save a few of the mix-ins and press them into the top after rolling the dough into balls.)
Refrigerate dough for at least 15 minutes. This keeps the dough from spreading too much in the oven.
Roll into 1" balls and place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet that is either greased or lined with parchment paper or a Silpat. (Can we take a minute to talk about Silpats? If you don't have one, go buy one right now! They are so incredibly useful. They function as a washable, reusable, nonstick pan liner and can be used just about any time you would use grease, foil, or parchment paper. I bought some brand-name ones for about $25 each, then I bought some generic ones for $5 at Aldi and they both work exactly the same.)
Bake at 350 F for 8-10 minutes. Cookies should come out of the oven when the edges are slightly golden, the top is puffy but no longer shiny, and the cookie looks a little underdone.
Let cookies cool on the pan for 2 minutes (this finishes the cooking process,) then transfer to a cooling rack.
Chocolate Cherry Variation
No comments:
Post a Comment