Turtle Shortbread Cookie Recipe

The turtle shortbread cookie recipe is a kicked-up version of an old holiday favorite! Throw in little chocolate, caramel, and some pecans and you have a cookie that looks as good as it tastes!

Ingredients

3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) salted butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon almond extract

4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

Topping:

24 caramel candies, unwrapped

1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

2 teaspoons shortening

1 cup chopped pecans

72 pecan halves

Hardware

Large bowl

Small microwave safe bowl

1-quart saucepan

Cookie sheets

Waxed paper

Mixer

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Step 2: In a large bowl, with an electric mixer set on medium high speed cream together the butter and almond extract.

Step 3: Stir in flour and salt. If dough is crumbly mix in an additional 1-2 tablespoons of softened butter.

Step 4: Place dough in refrigerator for 15 minutes.

Step 5: Divide dough into 12 equal parts. Roll each part into a 1/4-inch-thick circle. Cut each circle into 6 wedges. Place wedges 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

Step 6: Bake for 8-10 minutes or until set. Immediately transfer cookies to a cooling surface for 30 minutes.

Topping:

Step 1: In a 1-quart saucepan, heat caramels over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently until melted. Keep caramels warm on low heat.

Step 2: In a small microwave safe bowl, microwave the chocolate chips and shortening uncovered on high 1-3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until melted and thin enough to drizzle.

Step 3: Dip 2 straight edges of each cookie into melted caramel, then into chopped pecans. Place cookies on waxed paper.

Step 4: On top of each cookie place a dot of chocolate in the center; place a pecan half on top of chocolate. Using the tines of a fork, drizzle the remaining chocolate over the top of each cookie.

The turtle shortbread cookie recipe makes 72 wedges.

For more information on baking procedures and hardware used in this recipe see our Baking Tips section.

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Lemon Tuiles Cookie Recipe

The lemon Tuiles cookie recipe is another exquisite French creation. This delicate cookie is lemon flavored and resembles a thin curved potato chip in shape! These cookies are great for tea parties or a brunch!

Ingredients

3 egg whites

1/4 cup salted butter, melted

2 teaspoons finely shredded lemon peel

1/4 teaspoon lemon extract

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

Hardware

Medium bowl

Small microwave safe bowl

Cookie sheet

Parchment paper

Rolling pin

Mixer

Step 1: In a medium bowl, let egg whites stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Step 2: In a small microwave safe bowl, melt butter on medium setting in microwave oven.

Step 3: Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper; set aside.

Step 4: Add lemon peel and lemon extract to melted butter and combine; set aside.

Step 5: After egg whites have set for 30 minutes, beat them with an electric mixer set at medium speed until soft peaks form.

Step 6: Gradually add the sugar, beating on high until stiff peaks form.

Step 7: Fold in about half of the flour.

Step 8: Gently fold in the butter mixture.

Step 9: Fold in remaining flour until combined.

Step 10: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Step 11: For each cookie, drop a level tablespoon of batter onto the prepared cookie sheet (bake only 3-4 cookies at a time). Spread batter into 3 inch circles.

Step 12: When cookies are baking drape a piece of parchment paper over the top of a rolling pin.

Step 13: Bake for 5-7 minutes or until cookies are golden brown around edges. Using a wide spatula, immediately remove cookies and drape over the prepared rolling pin (place cookies with the side that was against the cookie sheet against the rolling pin). Cool cookies on rolling pin until cookies hold shape; carefully slide off rolling pin to a cooling surface.

The lemon Tuiles cookie recipe makes 24 wafers.

For more information on baking procedures and hardware used in this recipe see our Baking Tips section.

Important: Feel free to republish this article on your website. However, you are not allowed to modify any part of its content and all links should be kept active.

Easy Christmas Cookie Recipes - One Recipe with Many Variations

There are so many Christmas cookie recipes around but often so little time to bake during the busy holiday season.

The solution? A great tasting basic cookie recipe that quickly and easily turns into such a variety of easy to make Christmas treats, friends and family will think you poured over all your favorite Christmas cookie recipes.

Let's start with the basics.

Basic Cookie Dough Recipe

1/2 cup (or 1 stick) butter (or margarine) at room temperature

1/2 cup brown sugar, lightly packed

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients except the flour. Beat with an electric mixer, scraping the sides of the bowl several times, until the mixture is light and fluffy. With mixer at a low speed, add the flour gradually, beating just until everything is well blended.

Place the mixture on a baking sheet using a tablespoon measure and press down with a spoon to flatten a bit. Or roll our and cut into shapes with a cookie cutter. Bake at 350ºF for about 12 to 15 minutes, until golden.

This basic cookie mixture is also the base for the following cookie recipes (all baked in a preheated oven at 350ºF).

Orange Cookies

(Makes about 32)

Add 1 tablespoon of grated orange zest to the recipe. Shape into a log that is about 1 1/2" in diameter and refrigerate for 4 hours.

Slice dough into 1/4" thick slices. Place on cookie sheet. Cookies can be decorated with candies, rolled in colored sugar, or cut into pretty holiday shapes before baking. Bake in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes, until lightly browned.

Cherry Coconut Chocolate Squares

(Makes about 54 squares)

In addition to the basic dough you will need:

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3 cups flaked coconut

1/2 cup maraschino cherries, well drained and coarsely chopped

Line a 13"x9" baking pan with foil.

Stir cocoa powder into basic dough mixture. Press evenly into the prepared pan. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until the crust looks dry.

In a medium bowl whisk together eggs, sugar, almond extract and baking powder until well blended. Stir in coconut and cherries. Pour over the baked crust.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until top just begins to brown and a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack. Lift it out on to a cutting board using the foil ends and cut into 1 1/2" squares. Squares can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks.

Coconut Pineapple Cookies

(Makes about 36)

In addition to the basic dough you will need:

1 1/2 cups sweetened flaked coconut

1/3 cup pineapple preserves (use raspberry or apricot if you prefer)

Add 1 cup of the flaked coconut to the basic dough mixture and mix well. Shape the dough into 1 1/2" balls and roll in the remaining coconut to coat them. Place the balls 1" apart on lightly greased cookie sheets. Make a deep indentation in the center of each cookie with your fingertip.

Bake for 12-15 minutes until the cookie is firm and the coconut is lightly toasted. When cooled, fill each hole in the center of the cookies with the preserves.

You can vary this basic dough to make a wide variety of Christmas cookie recipes. Add other flavorings like maple, ginger or cinnamon. Add chopped dried fruits like apricots or dates. Or bake them plain in holiday shapes and decorate with colored icing.

Christmas is such a wonderful time of year. Here's hoping these quick and easy Christmas cookie recipes help keep the pressure off the cook.

Favorite Easy Christmas Cookie Recipes

We all have memories of our favorite Christmas cookie recipes.

Whether chocolate covered, fruit filled or icing topped, holiday baking recipes have to include a few fantastic cookie recipes to satisfy the sweet tooth in all of us.

I love easy cookie recipes. Most of us don't have enough time to accomplish all we hope to, so quick and easy recipes, especially at this busy time of year, make it a bit easier on the cook. That's always a good thing.

This is a selection of delicious but very easy Christmas cookie recipes that are a perfect fit for the festive season.

Any of these treats would be a wonderful contribution to a Christmas cookie exchange too, where a group of friends each makes a bulk amount of one or two cookie recipes, then trades, so all have a variety of cookies to serve throughout the holiday season.

Create holiday memories for your family with this batch of sweet and delicious easy Christmas cookie recipes.

Christmas Surprise Cookies

3/4 cup of shortening
3/4 cup of light brown sugar
1 egg
1 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup shredded coconut
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
Any flavor jam or jelly

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.

Cream the shortening and the sugar together. Add the egg and mix it all together well. Sift the dry ingredients together and add them to the wet mix. Add vanilla and mix. Drop the dough by teaspoons-full onto an ungreased cookie sheet. With your finger or a spoon, make an indentation in the center of the cookie ball and fill with jam or jelly. Sprinkle coconut over all and bake at for 10-12 minutes.

Fruited Shortbread Cookies

2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
1 - 9 ounce jar mincemeat
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup butter, softened
1 egg

Preheat oven to 375ºF.

Combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the egg. Stir in the vanilla and the mincemeat. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mix. Mix together well. (The batter will be stiff.) Roll into 1 1/4" balls. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and flatten slightly. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly brown.

Tip:
You can ice these cookies with a glaze mixture if you would like. Mix confectioner's sugar with a few drops of milk and vanilla until it reaches a runny but thick consistency. Drizzle over the Christmas cookies while they are still warm.

Almond Christmas Balls

1 cup of soft butter
1/4 cup of confectioner's sugar
2 cups of sifted flour
1 cup of ground almonds
1 teaspoon of almond extract
Candied or maraschino cherries
Granulated sugar (for rolling cookies after baking)

Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the flour, ground almonds and almond extract and mix until it forms a dough. Roll a teaspoon of the dough into a ball, press down in the middle and place a cherry in the center. Cover the cherry completely with the dough. Bake the cookie balls on a greased cookie sheet for 30 minutes at 325ºF. Roll in granulated sugar before cooling.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Each of these holiday recipes can be stored in an airtight container for at least a week.

Easy Sugar Cookie Recipes: From Delicious Drop Cookies To Fun, Tasty Cut-Outs

If you're in the mood for something sweet, there are a lot of easy sugar cookie recipes to choose from. But sugar cookies come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. They can be as simple as drop cookies, a spoonful of dough dropped onto a cookie sheet, or as elaborate as carefully cut-out cookies decorated with pretty, colorful icing.

So which one of those easy sugar cookie recipes should you pick? Which one will give you the best results for the type of sugar cookie you're trying to make?

The truth is, most easy sugar cookie recipes use the same basic list of ingredients, with maybe an added spice here or there. What it really comes down to are the quantities of each ingredients, and how you treat the dough.

Each ingredient in a sugar cookie has a specific role, and tweaking its quantity will give you a slightly different cookie. So what goes in a sugar cookie?

• Flour. Flour gives the cookie its structure. When you mix flour in liquids, it forms tough strands of gluten. The more you mix it, and the more flour you add, the tougher a cookie you get.
• Butter. Butter doesn't just add flavor. It also helps the cookie stay more tender by preventing too much gluten from forming. It also lets the cookie spread out more.
• Sugar. Sugar helps the cookies be more fluffy by trapping air inside the butter when you cream it. Also, if you don't cream it enough, the undissolved sugar will make the cookie spread out more.
• Eggs. The yolks help make a more tender cookie, and the whites help give it structure. They also add some moisture.
• Baking powder. Baking powder helps the cookie rise.
• Baking soda. Baking soda makes the cookies brown faster, and makes the cookie more tender.
• Vanilla. Vanilla is just there for flavor, but it really does make all the difference.
• Salt. Like vanilla, the salt is just there for flavor, although it can toughen the cookie, too.

But it's not just the ingredients that matter in easy sugar cookie recipes. How you handle the dough will affect what kind of cookie you get.

• The longer you cream the butter and sugar, the fluffier a cookie you'll get. It also won't spread as much, perfect to help cut out cookies keep their shape.
• The longer you mix the flour with the wet ingredients, the tougher a cookie you'll get. If you're looking for something fluffy, avoid over-mixing.
• If you want to roll out the dough, you'll need to refrigerate it until it's firm enough to work with.
• You can also refrigerate the raw cookies once they're shaped. It helps them keep their shape in the oven.

When you're baking, it's always a good idea to start with a recipe. But once you have a decent recipe, you can tweak it to suit your tastes and purposes, and make your own easy sugar cookie recipes.

Basic Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe - How Each Ingredient Works

You will often hear, "My chocolate chip cookies did not turn out." Inevitably it is then quickly blamed on the recipe used, and then the quest for a new recipe ensues. The odds are that the recipe used was just fine, but how the cookie ingredients were measured and mixed probably had more to do with the poor outcome.

There are so many recipes to choose from, it can be confusing. Each recipe will produce a similar tasting product, but depending on how the ingredients were used, each recipe will produce a cookie with its own set of textural characteristics and traits.

• Butter: This is the fat that makes a cookie rich and palatable. Unsalted butter is the best to use as you can better control the salt amount in your recipe.
• White and brown sugar: These sugars sweeten the cookie while also adding textural qualities. More brown sugar will make a soft chewy cookie while large amounts of white sugar will make a drier crispy cookie.
• Eggs: Eggs are emulsifiers. This means that they help keep fats evenly distributed throughout the cookie making it thick and stable.
• Extracts: Flavoring that give pastries a subtle underlying flavor. The most common extracts for a chocolate chip cookie are vanilla and almond.
• All-Purpose flour: This is the most common flour found in the household kitchen, and the most recommended for baking cookies. The more flour used, the more dense the cookie. Self rising flour is not recommended.
• Leavening agents: Baking powder and baking soda are the two most common gas producing agents that are used to make the cookie rise in the oven. Soda will produce a cookie that spreads more, as a double acting baking powder will make a fluffier cookie.
• Salt: Salt actually enhances the sweetness and all the other flavors in the cookie. Sea salt is the best because it is a pure fine salt without additives.
• Chocolate Chips: Semi-sweet chocolate chunks were in the first ever chocolate chip cookie, however, any flavor can be put into this classic cookie recipe.
• Nuts: Nuts are optional in any cookie recipe, but add a crunchy texture and added layer of flavor. Walnuts and pecans are the most classic choice.

No matter which way you like your chocolate chip cookie, this is the most common set of ingredients that go into a basic recipe. Since the first cookie was made in 1933 there have been many alterations to the original recipe, but few recipes stray far from the tried and true classic list of ingredients.

Cookie Recipes Do Delight the Family

No one would refuse cookies, especially when they are home baked. Cookies are an all time favorite and an all season dish. Cookie recipes flood the internet leaving you so totally confused that you want to try as many as possible. Yes you can have your heart's desire, trying out various types of cookies like the famous Chocolate Chip recipe, No bake cookies, brownie recipes, Halloween cookies with exciting shapes, sugar cookies and much more.

If you have kids at home then you can keep them bustling with joy with the number of cookie recipes for kids. In fact kids love different shapes to their cookies; this gives them much satisfaction while eating a different shape each time. Halloween cookies and chocolate brownies and cookies will simply vanish into thin air once you place them on the table. Not only your kids but the entire family will start hitting at the plate of cookies as fast as it is placed on the table.

You will find methods of how to make cookies very interesting because they provide you with step-by-step methods of making recipes from scratch. It is easy to make the basic recipe, but if you are interested in trying out new recipes like the Choco-chip recipe, ginger bread cookie recipes etc. you surely will have to consult an expert or check up the online sites for guidance.

The aroma of freshly baked cookies is so strong that it would draw the entire family near the bake. The basic ingredients that one would require to make a simple cookie recipe are flour, butter, eggs, sugar, baking flour, salt, essence and other add-ons like chocolate chips, ginger, pepper, icing sugar, peanut butter, cream, nuts, royal icing etc. They would be required depending on the type of cookies you plan to make.

This Christmas surprise your family with the very best Christmas special cookies that are listed out in most websites. Give them a great treat with shapes like the Christmas tree and Santa. It will not be only your kids but your entire family would love you for this great treat that you have turned out from your recipe websites. There could be no better way to celebrate Christmas than having fun with the family, so try out some of your best cookie recipes for kids this festive season and enjoy the glee you see in their eyes, it's interesting truly.

Cookie Recipes

Looking for some cookie recipes? The Internet is the ultimate place to search for exquisite cookie recipes. You will find various sites offering some great cookie recipes. Some recipes are quite simple. You can surprise your family and friends by preparing cookies with these recipes. Thanks to those websites, all the latest cookie recipes will at your fingertips. Whether it is chocolate brownie cookies, blarney stone cookies or peanut-butter cookies, online cookie recipes will help you make them perfectly. Not only that, you will also find sugar-free cookie recipes for those who have diabetes. Sugar is also strictly prohibited for those who want to lose weight. For those cookie lovers, it's quite painful to resist the temptation.

Sugar-free cookie recipes will give people an opportunity to enjoy cookies without worrying about calories and carbohydrates. These types of cookie recipes use artificial sweeteners. The use of artificial sweeteners is the real problem area, as artificial sweeteners can leave a nasty flavor in your mouth. Nevertheless, cookies will remain popular. If you want to give someone a gift, you can do that with cookies. It's really impossible for anyone to dislike cookies. That's why cookie recipes are quite popular worldwide. During the holiday season, the demand for cookie recipes will be sky high.

If you want to know more about cookie recipes, all you need to do is check out various websites offering innovative cookie recipes. Learning traditional Christmas cookie recipes has now become quite simple. Just log on to those sites specializing in these cookie recipes. You can also learn how to make other popular cookies, such as refrigerator cookies, shortbread cookies and more. You will definitely feel temped to try the cookie recipes at home. Explore the world of cookie recipes on the Internet.