Cooking Classy

M&M cookies were always one my favorites as a child (and still are today). They are basically a chocolate chip cookie enhanced with color and that delicious crunchy candy coating that covers those tasty little M&M's. It's funny I'm actually not a big fan of the plain milk chocolate M&M's but I LOVE the minis version of them, I don't know what it is. Cheap chocolate but when it's made into tiny form how can it be resisted =)? I don't know what cookie Santa's going to request at your home but I'm pretty sure he's requested these from mine. If you are going to be a part of a cookie exchange this year, I would say these are definitely a great cookie choice to go with. It would be very hard to find someone who didn't love these cookies, young and old alike. They have a perfectly chewy and soft center along with a very light crunch around the cookies edge, just the way a cookie is meant to be. They are thick, full of sweet vanilla flavo...

Hello Christmas Cookie Season!! I'm obsessed with cookies so this gives me one more reason to love the holidays. I created this recipe to be a no refrigeration necessary recipe. A lot of chocolate crinkle cookie recipes require that the dough be refrigerated 2 - 4 hours before baking, I don't have time for that =). Mostly I just don't have the patience for that especially when I know what awaits me.  If you prefer you can omit the coarse sea salt from the recipe if you are not a fan of salted caramel. I personally am unequivocally in love with the addition. These taste like caramel brownies in cookie form. They are intensely delicious! If you are baking them for someone else you'll have a hard time wanting to gift them after all =). If you wanted to go all out with these cookies you could even toss in some semi-sweet chocolate chips and toasted nuts.  Enjoy! Salted Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Crinkle Cookies Yields 2 dozen cookies Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups all-purpo...

Once again I found myself needing to use some pumpkin I had sitting in the fridge so I decided to try a new recipe and found these over at Martha Stewart   (note that if you are ever using left over pumpkin puree that you are preserving in the fridge, be sure to thaw it at room temperature until adding it to your recipe - unless of course it calls for chilled pumpkin). These cookies had my name written all over them with their pumpkin and browned butter combo, it's what I live on lately. I made several of my own adjustments to the recipe such as slightly altering the spice amounts, replacing some of the brown sugar with granulated sugar, using salted butter and reducing the amount of salt added and omitting the vanilla from the icing (because really all you need is the browned butter flavor). Then the biggest change I made was replacing the evaporated milk with a smaller amount of sour cream in the cookie dough batter and replacing the evaporated milk in the icing with ha...

Looking for an exciting and indulgent upgrade on the plain old chocolate chip cookie? Well here you have it! I saw these over at Ambitious Kitchen , a blog I love as well as it's name, and I couldn't wait long to make them. So, I made them the next morning =). I'm telling you, they are one of the best cookies you'll ever eat! I'm unequivocally in love with these purely divine cookies. Have you ever seen a cookie loaded with so much goodness? Browned butter, two kinds of chocolate chips, Nutella, vanilla beans and sea salt! You could even add in some finely chopped, toasted hazelnuts for one more upgrade and an added crunch.  This cookie = love. You don't know food love until you've tried it =). I want to hoard them all away for myself.  I know the prep work is a bit more work and definitely a longer wait than your average chocolate chip cookie but it is so worth it.  Warning! Don't eat the cookie dough...but it is the BEST cookie dough in the world. Betw...

So maybe I'm a pumpkin addict. What a strange thing to be addicted to =). I love it! Hate it plain but love it in baked goods. Is there anyone out there that eats it plain by the spoonful? Ugh. Horrifying. That would be like eating canned beets! No no, not that bad. There's nothing worse than canned beets. I tasted a bit of plain pumpkin puree when I was making these and it tasted like a spoonful of mushy, far too healthy to be good for you, baby food. Maybe if you were to jazz it up with some sort of spices and lots of butter than maybe, just maybe. Add a little sugar in there and I'll eat it for sure. Not sure why I'm talking about that... so, onto the cookies! I love love LOVE Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. I don't know how you could not love the sweet, delicious little pillows of baked pumpkin-y goodness.  I found this recipe over at allrecipes.com. I created my own adaptation, because really how do I stick to a recipe? I love to put my own spin on things. I us...

I love when I can combine art and food because I've always been so passionate about each of them. These cookies are the perfect combination of both. And when food is prettier doesn't it just taste better =)? I've seen different versions of these cookies roaming around Pinterest and I'm so excited I finally got around to trying them. I noticed some recipes called for vegetable oil and others called for butter. I'm all about the butter version because butter makes everything better doesn't it? I made a few slight alterations to the original recipe, from Cafe Chocolada , such as adding a few extra tablespoons of sugar in the cookie dough mixture. I used half brown sugar (rather than all granulated) and added vanilla extract to add another slight layer of flavor. I think salt is almost always a must for cookie dough so I added a tad and used salted butter. Then I opted to paint the cookie rather than dip it in colored milk. I dipped the first one and it was too sogg...

Have you ever tried banana bread in cookie form with a thick fluffy layer of frosting sandwiched between two of them? With these cookies now is your chance. They taste just like banana bread with an added bonus, a luscious layer of vanilla bean frosting. Lightly said, these cookies are amazing! I saw the Banana Whoopie Pies over at Martha Stewart and new I just had to try them. Lucky for me I keep a stock of overripe bananas in the freezer for emergencies such as this, where I need an overripe banana in it's prime but don't want to wait 7 more days for it to hit its peak ripeness. I used to question whether or not freezing bananas was a good idea until I tried if for myself a few months ago. It actually works great. You simply just leave them unpeeled and pop them into the freezer when they are nice and spotty. Then when you are ready to use them, thaw the frozen banana out (to room temperature, sometimes I cheat and even thaw them in the microwave) then peel and prepare them ...

Who doesn't love a Girl Scout Samoa Cookie? They are by far my favorite Girl Scout Cookie. This past spring I purchased eight cartons of the Dreyers Girl Scout Samoa Cookie Limited Edition Ice Cream and hoarded them away in my freezer. I thought they'd last much longer then they did. I can only wish I could buy the Samoas year round, but since I can't I've had to improvise. That is why I've come up with my own version of the Samoa Girl Scout Cookies. These things are amazing! Tender shortbread, sweet chewy caramel, perfectly toasted coconut and a nice chocolate coating to finish things off. YUM! I won't lie to you, these cookies are quite a bit of work...but, they are well worth the effort. These cookies don't use real butter or fancy caramel, it's the cheap stuff just like what I'm quite certain they put in the real thing (i t helps to read the ingredients list on the package when you are making up a copycat recipe =)  . It's not often I use sho...

Some may save red velvet for a special occasion, I say any day is a great day for red velvet! No special occasion needed. I made some Red Velvet Cupcakes last week for a friend who was hosting a birthday party and it inspired me to create another red velvet dessert. These cookies are a combination of two of my all time favorite desserts, those Red Velvet Cupcakes and Chocolate Chip Cookies.  These lightly chocolaty, deliciously chewy, gorgeously red cookies are simply fantastic!  In my opinion red velvet isn't chocolate, if I wanted a chocolate dessert I'd make a chocolate dessert. Red velvet to me is a combination of vanilla and chocolate, one shouldn't really overpower the other. That's why when I make red velvet recipes they are somewhat mild on the cocoa. Plus when you use too much cocoa it depletes that beautiful red color, it turns it more of a brownish auburn shade rather than a velvety red. I also tried making these cookies with half brown sugar and...

I think it's safe to say I have a slight sugar cookie obsession. If you've been following my blog you've likely noticed by now. But really, who doesn't love frosted sugar cookies? I mean how can you not love them? The only people that don't are liars, I'm just kidding everyone is entitled to their own personal opinion. But those of you that don't like them, well lets just say we probably don't have much in common =). I know I've already posted a sugar cookie recipe, well that's old news. Those are good, but these are better. These are so soft, so fluffy, so tender. Basically they melt in your mouth dreamy.  So, you may be asking, what is that makes these special? To answer that, it's a combination of things. The texture is amazing thanks to the cake flour and cornstarch. Don't substitute all-purpose flour for the cake flour or your cookie will end up heavy and dense (compared to what you get with the cake flour, besides you'd have to ...