1 (6-ounce) can frozen limeade concentrate, thawed
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
¼ cup granulated sugar
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
For the crust:
In a food processor, combine the confectioners' sugar, flour, and butter, and process until the mixture forms a ball.
With your fingers, press the dough onto a pizza pan (or if you're making a tart, press into a 12-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, taking care to push the crust into the indentations in the sides).
Pat until the crust is even. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until very lightly browned. Set aside to cool.
For the filling and topping:
Beat the cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla together until smooth. Spread over the cooled crust.
Cut the strawberries into ¼-inch slices and arrange around the edge of the crust.
For the next circle, use mandarin slices.
Add another circle of kiwis, filling in any spaces with blueberries.
Cluster the remaining strawberries, mandarin, and blueberries in the center of the tart.
For the glaze:
Combine the limeade, cornstarch, lime juice, and sugar in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat until clear and thick, about 2 minutes. Let cool.
With a pastry brush, glaze the entire pizza (or tart). You will not use all of the glaze.
Keep the pizza in the refrigerator. Remove about 15 minutes before serving. Slice into wedges and serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream (optional).
Gingerbread cookies are so much fun to make — and eat! My daughter even says they “taste like Thanksgiving and Christmas.” 😉
These aren’t the kind of cookies that you bake and form into shapes suitable for ornaments or making gingerbread houses.
In fact, this dough cannot be rolled out like traditional gingerbread. Rather, the dough is soft and moist (and actually requires chilling in order to handle it better), and the cookies bake up super fluffy, soft, and chewy.
Funny story here…
I brought a couple dozen cookies to work and offered them to my coworkers. They all smiled politely when I said they were gingerbread cookies, but then politely declined to eat any. The SECOND I told them they were SOFT and CHEWY, not the hockey-puck-rock-hard-gingersnap cookies, they ate them like they hadn’t eaten in days! 😀
So, let’s get to it, shall we?
Start by placing the flour into a medium sized mixing bowl.
Now for the heart and soul of these incredible gingerbread cookies. You’ll need baking soda, cinnamon, ground cloves, nutmeg, salt and ginger. Even before the cookies bake, the aroma of these spices make you think of fall and Thanksgiving, and all that comes with holiday baking.
Mix the spices with the flour. I use a whisk to really mix it all together. You don’t want any of the seasonings to clump together when you mix it with the wet ingredients. Set this flour mixture aside for now.
Place the softened butter in a large mixing bowl. I use a stand mixer because this makes a lot of cookie dough, but you can use a hand mixer as well.
As mentioned above, this makes a large batch of cookie dough, but don’t worry. These cookies are so good, you’ll be glad you made a lot of them. 🙂
Beat the butter until creamy.
Add the brown sugar to the mixing bowl.
Mix until light and fluffy.
This is a great mixture to spread over hot dinner rolls, by the way. Just add a teaspoon of ground cinnamon and voila! Sweet Cinnamon Butter!
Now I want to make some dinner rolls, but I digress.
Anyhoo…back to the cookies.
Add the molasses, eggs and vanilla extract to the mixing bowl.
Mix on low speed for a minute or so, or until you get a nice creamy consistency like what’s pictured below. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if you need to then mix again.
Add the flour mixture, one cup at a time, mixing on low speed just until the flour mixture is incorporated into the wet batter.
Continue mixing in the dry ingredients, a cup at a time, until a dough forms. Stop mixing when you no longer see clumps of dry ingredients. Do not over mix the dough.
Because this is a really wet dough, you need to chill it for several hours before making dough balls. I usually prepare the dough while dinner is cooking, then I pop the mixing bowl into the freezer while we eat dinner. After dinner, I take the dough out of the freezer and bake the cookies.
Now that your dough chilled sufficiently enough to handle, scoop out small amounts (about 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons) and form into balls. I use a small cookie scoop to do this — I have a bit of OCD; I like all of my cookies to be the same size. 😉
Roll the balls of dough in a bowl of granulated sugar. Ensure the entire ball is well-coated with sugar.
Place each ball of dough onto a baking pan. If you have regular baking pans, make sure to line the pan with parchment paper first. I use stoneware pans; there is no need to line them with parchment paper.
Place the balls about 1 1/2 to 2 inches apart. These cookies will spread, but they won’t spread too much.
Bake the cookies for 10 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the pan for a couple of minutes then remove them to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.
See how nicely they puff up? As the cookies cool, they will settle just a little bit, but they will still be a bit puffy, and they will most definitely be soft and chewy.
Place any uneaten cookies in an airtight container. They will stay soft and chewy for several days (if they last that long). 🙂
Here’s my complete recipe. I think you’ll really like this one. ENJOY!
SOFT & CHEWY gingerbread cookies that make you think of Thanksgiving and the holidays, all year round. These are NOT at all like the typical rock-hard gingersnap cookies.
Author: Annie @ Annie's Chamorro Kitchen
Recipe type: Cookies
Cuisine: American
Ingredients
6 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
1½ tablespoons ground ginger
1½ cups (or 3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1½ cups dark brown sugar
⅔ cup dark molasses
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
¾ cup white, granulated sugar (for coating the cookie dough balls)
Instructions
In a medium sized bowl, place the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, salt, and ginger. Whisk to combine all the dry ingredients then set aside.
Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Using a stand or handheld mixer, beat the butter until creamy.
Add the brown sugar to the creamed butter. Mix until fluffy.
Add the molasses, eggs and vanilla extract to the butter-sugar mixture. Mix until well incorporated. Scrape down the sides if required and mix again.
Mix the dry ingredients, one cup at a time, with the butter mixture. Stop mixing once the last bit of the dry ingredients are mixed into the dough (do not over mix).
Cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough for 2-3 hours. (I placed my bowl in the freezer for 30 minutes to speed things up.)
Scoop out some chilled dough and roll into a ball. I use a small cookie scoop that holds 1½ tablespoons.
Roll each ball of dough in the granulated sugar, coating the entire ball. Place the coated balls onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet (if you use a stoneware pan you don't need to line it), about 1½ inches apart. These cookies will spread only a little, so you don't need to space them too far apart.
Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the pan for a couple of minutes then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.
These cookies are soft and chewy, and will stay soft for several days (if they last that long!) when stored in an airtight container. This recipe makes about 6 dozen small cookies.
Who doesn’t love a good chocolate cookie? Not only are these scrumptious cookies made with good quality cocoa powder, it’s doubly delicious with the addition of chunks of good quality bittersweet chocolate. You can use semi-sweet chocolate chunks instead of bittersweet, but bittersweet chocolate gives you a very intense chocolate flavor that can’t be beat.
These delicious cookies are crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.
Enjoy them with a tall glass of cold milk. My kids sure did! 🙂
Make ice cream sandwiches IF you have any leftovers!
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate pieces (may substitute with semi-sweet chocolate)
Instructions
Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper. Place ½ cup sugar in a shallow dish.
In a mixing bowl, cream together the remaining ⅓ cup granulated sugar, brown sugar, and butter.
Mix together the egg white, corn syrup, and vanilla extract. Add to the butter-sugar mixture.
In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder. Add to the butter-sugar mixture.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl then slowly mix in the chocolate pieces.
Using a small cookie scoop (one that holds about 1 tablespoon of dough), drop scoops into the dish containing the ½ cup sugar to be used for coating. Roll the cookie dough in the sugar until it's entirely coated in sugar. Place balls of sugar-coated dough 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheet.
Bake for 10-11 minutes (do not bake any longer!). Remove from oven and allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes then remove them to a wire rack to cool to room temperature.
My entire family loves, loves, loves cookies! Soft, chewy, crispy, crumbly, chocolate, butter, coconut, sugar, stuffed, double-stuffed, you name it, we’ll probably love it.
One of our favorites are a crispy cookie from Guam called Chamorro Chip Cookies. They are crispy bite-sized cookies that are perfectly sweet and chocolaty. I still remember requesting bags of cookies be sent to me in care packages. I was absolutely over the moon one trip home when the airline served small packages of the delicious morsels in lieu of peanuts! 🙂
Well, gone are the days of free snacks on the airlines, but you don’t have to wait until you get to Guam or for someone to send you a care package to enjoy these delicious, sweet and crispy cookies. It takes just a few ingredients to mix up a batch, ingredients you’re likely to have on hand already.
My complete recipe is at the bottom of this post. Give my recipe a try. I’m sure you’ll like it. 🙂
Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies
~ My version of the beloved “Chamorro Chip Cookie”
These are all of the ingredients you need. You probably have all of these on hand already. As I mentioned above, my family loves cookies and baked goods, so I make sure I always have flour, sugar, butter, eggs, baking soda (and powder), salt, vanilla extract and chocolate chips in my pantry.
I made a double batch of cookies, which is why you see two bags of chocolate chips. Otherwise, one batch uses only one bag of mini chocolate chip morsels.
Mix the flour, salt and baking soda together.
Place the butter and suar in a medium sized mixing bowl.
Use a hand-held mixer to cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the eggs and vanilla extract to the mixing bowl.
Mix until creamy.
Add one third of the flour mixture to the bowl. Mix for a minute or until the dry ingredients are well-incorporated with the butter mixture.
Add another third of the flour mixture; mix another minute then add the remaining flour mixture. Mix until all of the flour is well-incorporated and a thick, creamy cookie dough forms.
Add the entire bag of mini chocolate chips to the bowl.
Use a spatula to fold the chocolate chips into the cookie dough.
Place 1 tablespoon of cookie dough about 2 inches apart on a baking sheet. I use a small cookie scoop to get nicely rounded scoops of dough. These cookies will spread while baking so make sure you don’t place them too close together.
I used a Pampered Chef large round stoneware pan in the photo below. I fit about 18 balls of dough on this pan — don’t try to fit much more than that on this size pan or your cookies will spread and touch during baking (my daughter calls those “butt cookies” when they spread and touch during baking).
I also used the rectangular stoneware pan (also Pampered Chef), fitting 20 balls of dough on it.
Bake the cookies in a pre-heated 400-degree oven for 12 minutes. The cookies will be slightly brown around the edges.
Leave the cookies on the baking sheet for 5 minutes then place on a cooling rack to finish cooling.
These have got to be the best cookies…EVER. Soft, chewy, and full of chocolaty goodness, it’s like Heaven in your mouth when you bite into this cookie.
This recipe is actually something I’ve seen circulating the internet for years. You may have heard of it — it’s called the Nieman Marcus $250 Cookie Recipe.
According to urban legend, someone bought a cookie at a Nieman Marcus store. He (or it could have been a “she”) liked the cookie so much that he asked the cafe clerk for the recipe. The clerk replied that the customer could have the recipe, but he had to purchase it. The customer agreed to pay for the recipe, only he did not look too closely at his receipt when he paid for it. Later, the customer realized that he paid $250 for the recipe. From that day on, the customer vowed to share the recipe with everyone so that his $250 purchase would be worth it.
I don’t know how true that story is, but whomever the real author of this cookie recipe is, I want to say a huge THANK YOU for creating and sharing a treasure!
Here’s the recipe. It’s a bit of a process, but it’s well worth it, I guarantee. You can easily halve this recipe. I make it as-is and give some to friends and neighbors. We make rather large cookies, and we’re still able to get about 5 dozen cookies out of this recipe.
Give it a try. I know you’ll love it as much as my family and I do. 🙂
The $250 Cookie Recipe
Ingredients:
5 cups oatmeal
1 (8-oz.) Hershey bar
4 sticks (or 2 cups) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups packed brown sugar
2 cups white sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups chopped nuts (I like walnuts)
24 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
Directions:
1. Measure out the oatmeal then place in a blender or food processor. Grind the oatmeal until you get a fine flour-like consistency. Set it aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar.
3. Mix in the eggs and vanilla to the butter-sugar mixture.
4. Add half of the gound oatmeal, half of the flour, the baking soda, baking powder, and salt to the egg-butter mixture. Mix on low speed just until combined. Add the rest of the oatmeal and flour; mix to combine.
5. Mix in the nuts and chocolate chips. You can omit the nuts if you don’t like nuts in your cookies.
6. Form balls of dough (about two tablespoons of cookie dough per ball); place the balls of dough roughly 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet.
7. Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Let the cookies sit on the cookie sheet for about 5 minutes after you take them out of the oven, then remove the cookies to a wire rack to cool.
