Over the next month, I will be celebrating the upcoming holiday festivities (and escaping the chaos) by baking cookies. A lot of cookies. For me, the best part about the month of December is baking and making sweets… so many sweets, in fact, that there is hardly room to store them all. During this time of year, my mom would dedicate the entire “formal” dining room as a cookie and fudge haven. All month long she would bake her butt off— right up until Christmas morning. The huge stack of dessert boxes would rival the enormous pile of gift packages… and disappear quickly. She never gave any away. Her children were just gluttons for sweets.
So, prepare to be drowned by a sea of cookie recipes all throughout the next month. If I happen to sneak in a recipe or two that is savory… it will most likely come in the form of a cookie. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving… and now on to the cookies!
Chocolate Snowflake Cookies
makes 12 two inch cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup melted Earth Balance margarine
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 2 1/2 tbsp vinegar
- 2 tbsp non-dairy milk
- confectioners sugar, to roll the cookie dough in
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix together sugar, margarine, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, and baking powder. Gradually stir in flour, vinegar and non-dairy milk. Mix well. The consistency should look like this:
Chill in refrigerator for an hour or two, or freeze for about 15-20 minutes. Form into walnut sized balls (this will yield about 2 inch diameter cookies… feel free to make them smaller) and then roll each ball into confectioners sugar.
Bake in preheated oven for about 15 minutes. The cookies will not look totally “done”. Have faith, they are… they just need some time to cool. Let them cool on a cookie sheet about 10-15 minutes before transferring to wire rack.
THEY LOOK SO GOOD. i am so tempted to make some this week..!!!
A sea of cookies is always a good thing–those look great!
Just wondering, Allyson, about these and other cookies… How do they freeze? Would it be better to freeze the pre-baked dough or can they be freezed post-bake? (Or not at all?) I’m eyeing these, the banana bread cookies and the snickerdoodle-ish ones.
Thanks for the food porn. Love your site!
Hey Laura!
I think they all freeze pretty good postbake. I am actually collecting many in my deep freezer now for the holidays. Just make sure they are extra super well wrapped up. I think the snickerdoodle and chocolate ones would freeze better pre-bake than the banana cookies… just based on the fact that the dough can be made into little balls and then frozen… with both, don’t roll the balls into sugar until they are thawed and ready to bake.
With the banana cookies, I don’t think that would work very well… but they should freeze just fine if you bake them first. I am not an expert at freezing baked goods, because we usually eat them rather than save them… but I know when we baked our wedding cakes and froze them, (for about 2 weeks) they tasted just like they did when they were first baked. They were wrapped up very very well. And I have had pretty good success with the baked items I have frozen in the past.
And, thanks so much for the nice words!!! I hope my response helps out some. Happy Holidays!
Thanks, Allyson. I’m with you — I usually eat them right away… and that’s the problem! My waistline! I so very rarely freeze things but realize I probably should. I ‘m going to try the snickerdoodles and chocolate snowflakes this weekend, and would like to freeze half of each for later enjoyment. I’ll experiment with a couple of different ways. Thanks for your tips. I’ll keep you posted.
Hey Allyson!
ummm so wondering…… i just made the cookies but for some reason they dont look anything like yours. Did you flatten the cookies after the powder sugar rolling?? When my cookies came out of the oven they still were in the shape of a ball. Not sure if its the placement of the wire racks in the oven or if it needs to cook longer??? I put it in for 15 min though. Just wondering how to make them more like a cookie shape. Thanks!!!
Hi Bobby…
I’m so sorry to hear that!
Okay, I didn’t flatten mine out with a fork… they should start to spread out after about 5 minutes (or less) baking. A couple of issues could have possibly caused the problem: If your margarine wasn’t fully melted, it could cause the cookies to retain their shape. Or, if your baking powder is over 6 months old… this can also make the baking powder inactive, which can prevent spreading: the cookie being crispier (rather than ball-shaped). I also baked them on the center rack of the oven and they came out after exactly 15 minutes… did yours spread out at all? Also, the dough shoud feel relatively sticky-ish when it’s done… the 2 tbsp of liquid may need to be adjusted if the original cookie dough is a bit too dry. This may also be a cause?? Sometimes a little flour or liquid needs to be added to adjust the look/feel of the dough. In this case… it should be too sticky to roll into a ball if not chilled.
Let me know if you have any more questions concerns.. or, if you followed all of this to a “t” and they still didn’t spread right. :)
Allyson
what kind of vinegar? apple cider?
Hi Lindsey,
Sure that would work; it’s my fave to use, but any vinegar should work well in these.
thank you! so excited to try these !