Sugar frenzy: Holiday Cookie Swap

When you find a good cookie recipe, life is good.

It gets better when you start playing around with the ingredients. You can vary the flavours but most importantly this recipe doesn't lose its crisp sugary exterior and soft chewy core.

You may remember I recently altered Donna Hay's Double Choc Cookies into my own variation of Coffee Hazelnut Cookies with Dark Chocolate Chunks.

For the latest combined Holiday Cookie Swap theme for Is My Blog Burning #21 and Sugar High Friday #14, I again returned to my Donna favourite. Both are straight-forward ingredient swaps. Try to keep your wet:dry ratio the same, and adjust your flour if things are looking a little too wet or dry.

Malted Milk Cookies with
Chunks of Dark Chocolate and Malteser Smashings
Based on Donna Hay's double choc cookies from Modern Classics Book 2

250g butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 1/4 cups plain flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup malted milk powder
200g dark chocolate, broken into chunks
100g Maltesers, smashed in the bag

Cream butter and sugar.
Add the eggs gradually and beat well.
Add flour, baking powder, malted milk powder, chocolate and Maltesers and mix well.
Place large tablespoonfuls of mixture onto baking trays lined with baking paper or greaseproof paper.
Ensure there is plenty of room between mounds to allow for spreading (I did about five per tray).
Bake at 150C for 20-25 minutes (depending on how soft/crispy you like your cookie). I like mine a little crispier and left them in for about 30 minutes.

Makes about 25.

Chocolate Cookies with
Dark Chocolate Peppermint Chunks
Based on Donna Hay's double choc cookies from Modern Classics Book 2

250g butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 1/4 cups plain flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup cocoa powder
250g dark chocolate with peppermint broken into chunks

Cream butter and sugar.
Add the eggs gradually and beat well.
Add flour, baking powder, cocoa and chocolate and mix well.
Place large tablespoonfuls of mixture onto baking trays lined with baking paper or greaseproof paper. Ensure there is plenty of room between mounds to allow for spreading (I did about five per tray).
Bake at 150C for 20-25 minutes (depending on how soft/crispy you like your cookie). I like mine a little crispier and left them in for about 30 minutes.

Makes about 25.

You can check out everyone's holiday cookie recipes at The Domestic Goddess and Il Forno. They'll be presenting a combined wrap-up of all the IMBB-SHF entries next week, and in keeping with the festive season, Jennifer is kindly offering prizes too!

Readers are invited to vote for their favourite cookie entry with twelve lucky cookie bakers winning a copy of The Cookie Sutra. Now that's gotta be worth a bit of kitchen gymnastics!

14 Comments:

At 11/27/2005 11:26 pm, Anonymous said…

AG, those photos look too yummy, my tummy is rumbling...how am i ever going to go to bed now...? :) Hey, isn't your NY trip coming up soon? How exciting!! Better detox your palate before you get there (LOL).
At 11/28/2005 5:13 am, Mona said…

Wow Helen, those look fabulous. I've never heard of those before. MMMMM I could go for those and a nice hot chocolate right about now:)
At 11/28/2005 9:28 am, Ed said…

Hey, Hey, you're a Donna Hay fan as well. We're just going through the process of making a Hey Hey Xmas cake. Well, Jackie is making it...
At 11/28/2005 10:14 am, Rose said…

Hi Helen,

Nice site. I like the look and design of it (mine is about to go under renovation). Those cookies look gorgeous too.

As a lifelong NY'er I guess I could give you a few NYC food suggestions:

1. One of my favorite places to get Mexican food is a tiny tiny place called "Tehuitzingo" and it's between 47th and 48th street on 10th avenue. It's not far from the Air and Space Museum (the big war ship perm. docked on the Hudson River). It's quite the experience because you'll be munching down delicious, yet cheap mexican food with locals watching spanish television.

2. Try the street food (but NOT near Times Square). There's the crepe guy on 52nd/53rd street between 5th and 6th. check out the vendy award finalists too: http://streetvendor.netfirms.com/public_html/staticpages/index.php?page=20051021224336800

3. Jackson Heights and Astoria, Queens are two really good areas for food, lots of variety and the price is so much cheaper than manhattan. With so many restaurants, I'd recommend going to gayot.com or citysearch.com to narrow down what type of food you'd be interested in. One of my favorite places in Astoria is the Bohemian Hall and Park (http://newyork.citysearch.com/profile/11349776/astoria_ny/bohemian_hall_and_park.html). They have great perogis and sausage with kraut.

4. On the more expensive end, Compass Restaurant (http://www.compassrestaurant.com/) is supposed to be quite good again (it had a bit of a rough period). I really enjoyed Aquavit (http://www.aquavit.org/flash.html) last year for my birthday. It was a long long meal though, like almost 4 hours.

5. If you're into jewish food here are the places I know and like: Katz's Deli (http://www.katzdeli.com/) of "when harry met sally" fame; Barney Greengrass (http://www.barneygreengrass.com/), the service can be abomindable, but it DEFINES NYC; 2nd Avenue Deli (http://www.2ndavedeli.com/home.html)--my ex liked the matzo ball soup there; if you love bialys then there's Kossar's Bialys (http://www.kossarsbialys.com/); some really interesting jewishy food finds at Russ and Daughters (http://www.russanddaughters.com/)

If you're looking for anything else in particular, just drop me a note on my blog or email me.

Enjoy NYC! It's a fabulous town!
At 11/28/2005 5:54 pm, Babe_KL said…

Hi AG, those Malted Milk Cookies looked so yummy. Hopefully I get to make them soon... thanks for the recipe!
At 11/29/2005 8:44 am, Joycelyn said…

hi ag, everything looks so fabulous! but if i had to choose one, i'd go for the malteds - sheer brilliance!
At 12/01/2005 3:41 pm, Ange said…

Not normally a cookie baker but after seeing the malted milk combo think i will have to give them a go - they look delicious
At 12/03/2005 2:20 am, Swamy VKN said…

Hi Helen:

My 4-yr-old taste-tester son says he wants to taste it "NOW". Fabulous.

My Dhaba's rock cookies are yet to be released. Can't wait anymore.
At 12/03/2005 5:36 am, Robyn said…

Oh my! too many good things! I am going to be on a sugar forever with these! They're great!
At 12/03/2005 7:57 am, Nic said…

Both cookies sound so delicious, AG. And I just love malteasers, as well.
At 12/03/2005 11:42 am, Anonymous said…

Malt is ALWAYS a good thing!
At 12/06/2005 3:20 pm, Lady Amalthea said…

Oh, those Malted Milk ones look amazing. I think I'd undercook them a little so they'd be all nice and soft. Mm. And warm with the chocolate melting.
One question though: What are Maltesers? I feel so out of the loop!
At 12/20/2007 2:49 am, Karen said…

Hey I was cruzing the net for delish cookie reciepies when I came ascross this. The Malted cookies, wow I need to try this, however, I really stink at conversation. That whole gram thing is a little scary.I went on line to convert, but there is wet and dry conversations. I know baking is excat.However I will give it a whirl.
Great site, I will post my favorite cookie reciepe. Its a butter/black pepper cookie, WOW you'll love this one
At 12/20/2007 11:51 pm, Helen (Grab Your Fork) said…

Hi Lady Amalthea - Whoops, somehow managed to miss responding to this comment, but in case you ever check... Maltesers are crunchy malt balls covered in chocolate. More details here.

Hi Karen - Now you know how we feel when I try to convert sticks of butter into grams. lol. Otherwise just use your favourite cookie recipe and add some malted milk powder to it. I make up stuff all the time. If I add extra dry, I use a little less flour. And butter black pepper cookies sound delicious!