charm shoppe

card suit shaped pecan shortbread cookies, dipped in chocolate. #yum!

those would be potato chip cookies. thank you, martha stewart.

thumbprint cookies filled with nutella. a totally different taste than making them with icing or jelly!

the perfect sunny sunday snack :)

we had some leftover pumpkin puree from thanksgiving, and pumpkin cookies happen to be one of mom’s favorite treats. so, that’s how i came to make this recipe. it was easy and delicious, and i substituted a quick cream cheese icing instead of the glaze. perf!

(p.s. these cookies were a much bigger hit than the roasted banana ice cream that i also made on sunday. that was definitely a dessert fail. lol!)

mom hit the post-halloween candy jackpot at the grocery store, scoring bags of m&m’s for 50 cents!! so, from the surplus came these pretzel m&m cookies. basically, it’s a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, with bag of pretzel m&m’s and one cup of chocolate chips mixed in. they’re salty and sweet — one of my fave combos!

ok. last cookie post, promise!!

i just had to share these toasted coconut cookies because the little bro, our family’s resident food critic, went so far as to call them “amazing.” what an honor!

and now, for the recipe, from epicurious:

ingredients:

1 1/2 cups sweetened flaked coconut

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 sticks (1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.

2. In a shallow baking pan spread coconut evenly and lightly toast in middle of oven, stirring once, until pale golden, 4 to 5 minutes. Cool coconut.

3. Into a small bowl sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. In a large bowl with an electric mixer beat together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla and stir in flour mixture and coconut until combined well.

4. Arrange teaspoons of dough about 1‚ inches apart on ungreased baking sheets and bake in batches in middle of oven until golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool cookies on sheets 1 minute and with a metal spatula transfer to racks to cool. Cookies keep in an airtight container at room temperature 1 week.

here are the thumbprints! mom and i prefer them with icing, but strawberry jam is a delicious topping to the salty, buttery, crumbly cookie. they are also very easy, albeit messy, to make. gram always helps out with the egg white/ walnut rolling step :)

here is the betty crocker recipe. it’s one of our all-time favorites, and we always end up tripling (or in this case, quadrupling) the ingredients.

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup shortening (we use Crisco!)

1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg, separated

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup finely chopped nuts (we recommend walnuts)

1. Heat oven to 350ºF.

 2. Mix brown sugar, shortening, butter, vanilla and egg yolk in medium bowl. Stir in flour and salt until dough holds together.

3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Beat egg white slightly. Dip each ball into egg white. Roll in nuts. Place about 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Press thumb deeply in center of each.

4. Bake about 10 minutes or until light brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely, about 30 minutes. Fill thumbprints with jelly or icing.

what a weekend! mom and i spent the majority of our saturday baking cookie table treats for two upcoming weddings. (i love a cookie table, btw.) we made peanut butter blossoms, russian tea cakes, lemon crinkle cookies, neiman marcus cookies, and thumbprints. yum!!!