If the preview above is not working for you, click here to download this free printable.

Ole was quick to declare this his favorite, which is unsurprising if you know his cookie-eating preferences. Crisp on the outside, just the very center of these cookies gives the most amazing chew. It’s also the best way to use up the dough scraps after you’ve just had enough rolling and cutting, and the kids are happily decorating the cookies.

Push a little further and your dough could become a spiced cookie bowl, ideal for a late night snack.

The addition of ginger buttercream turns these tiny cookies into delectable sandwiches. I shared them earlier this week over on Life…Your Way’s 101 Days of Christmas.

These are probably my favorite, tiny little cookies dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled (or not) with a few holly sprinkles. They’re perfectly adorable without being futsy or requiring I break out the pastry bags. Again, white chocolate, creamy confection. Win.

It turns out gingerbread is a most versatile dough, melding its way into different shapes, sizes and purposes, and giving you a wide assortment of cookies, just perfect for creating a story about the gingerbread boy.

Starting your holiday baking? Check out the Holiday Baking 101 Checklist with tips for freezing and more on getting your kids involved.

Amanda’s Virtual Baby Shower Tour

Drinks

Add a Pinch – i am baby Shower Punch
TidyMom – Ducky Bath Blue Punch

Savory Bites

Dine and Dish – Stuffed Mushrooms
GoodLife Eats – Cucumber Sandwich Recipe
My Baking Addiction – Crab Rangoons
Simple Bites – Spring Crudité, Buttermilk-Black Pepper Dip

Desserts

A Farmgirl’s Dabbles – {i am baby} cakes
Bake at 350 – Baby on Board Cookies
Bakers Royale – Baby Shower Cupcakes
Bluebonnets and Brownies – Mini Fruit Pizzas
Confessions of a Cookbook Queen – Homemade Butter Mints
Food for My Family – Baby Shower Macarons
Gourmande in the Kitchen – Chocolate Blueberry Truffles
My Kitchen Addiction – Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls
She Wears Many Hats – “B” is for Boy – Itty Bitty Baby Cupcakes
Smith Bites – Strawberries with Brown Sugar Dip
What’s Cooking with Kids – Hamentashen cookies

Last But Not Least

Wenderly – Baby Cards


Adapted (just barely) from Tartellete

I enjoy cooking with my kids. I believe that teaching them how to cook and bake and feed themselves is an important part of the child rearing process. So, I set out to do that this week. First, we made brownies, but not just any brownies. We made brownies with a mint cheesecake layer, and then we topped them off with a simple ganache. I mean, it was St. Patrick’s Day. What ends a meal of corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and Guinness like a rich brownies with a refreshing minty kick? Nothing. No. Nothing.

This week also happened to be my daughter’s spring break. She lovingly declared it “the worst spring break ever, except for Saturday and Sunday,” which I instantly started repeating every time she tried to talk to me.

“Mom, can I eat a-” “Worst spring break EVER!”
“Mom, is it okay if I go outsi-” “Worst spring break EVER!”

Apparently her idea of the perfect spring break does not involve teaching her brother and sister how to add and subtract, which she did, or making me numerous cups of coffee, which she did, or making and cleaning up lunch, which she did. In my defense, she declared it the worst spring break ever as early as Sunday when she realized that going to water parks and warmer climates and the mall daily were not on the agenda. She didn’t even give me a chance to make the week fun and exciting…which I didn’t. Still, she hasn’t complained since we took them all swimming with my sister at the (free) indoor pool over there.

And to appease her, I crossed things off her “want” list like homemade macaroni and cheese, smoothies, egg sandwiches, potstickers and fried rice and the like. I also declared Friday fun day and let the kids pick one place to go. Plus, we made brownies. Mint cheesecake brownies with smooth and creamy ganache all over the top. She loves me. If only her love would be so easy to buy in three years when she becomes a teenager.

Start with the cheesecake portion with a package of softened cream cheese and an egg.

Add 1/4 cup of sugar.

Naturally, you’ll need a bit of mint extract.

We chose to add a bit of food dye to make a lovely green color. Looking for a natural dye? I’d suggest India Tree Food Coloring.

Then mix it all together until it’s smooth and uniform in color. This was very exciting for the little man.

For the brownies start with two sticks of butter. (I did not promise low fat in this recipe, did I?)

Melted. However it is you like to get them that way, make it happen.

Next add sugar

…followed by a few eggs. He actually hung on to that shell!

Then add a few tablespoons of water.

Vanilla. And mix it all up, or have one of the kids do it.

Next we’re going to lazily sift the ingredients using a too large strainer and a too small bowl. One nearly 10-year-old is holding the strainer. Tell her not to let it drop into the liquid as you add ingredient after ingredient into it, starting with flour.

Unsweetened cocoa powder.

Baking powder and salt.

Instruct the children to sift. They actually didn’t do too bad. Most of it made it into the bowl.

Spread the brownie mixture into a 9×13 pan. I lined mine with parchment to make them easier to remove. You can just grease the bottom and up the sides really well too. If you use the parchment, spray the pan first so the parchment doesn’t slide around. It will make the spreading process that much easier.

Then top your brownie mix with the mint cheesecake mix and bake for 35 minutes or so.

While the brownies are cooling, make a ganache for the top. Start with cream and a small bit of butter in a pan over medium heat.

Just when the cream starts to boil, remove from the heat and dump in the chocolate. Whisk until it is all melted.

Pour the ganache over the brownies and spread it around evenly.

And that’s it. Store in the fridge.

And eat. Then eat another one while you try to figure out how in the world you’re going to retain the most-loved mom status with the girl for the next 8 years until you ship her off to college.

Finally, I share my shortbread for all the world to see. You can just add this to the list of things I have failed or fallen short at recently. It belongs right there next to purchasing pants that actually fit my growing 5-year-old and scrubbing my floor. You see, I made and photographed this shortbread late one night before I left for San Francisco. I brought the pictures with me. I even brought the cookies with me. Yet, despite my good intentions, technology interfered. Not only did it take forEVER on the hotel’s wireless internet to upload pictures, but Tuesday night, as I was finally finishing up some things before Ole returned from his conference, the screen on my laptop faded and went blue. And then there was nothing.

Luckily, it came back, but not until after I had a little panic attack about all the what-ifs of the situation and a trip down to the hotel’s business center to hook it up to a monitor to see if the guts were still working. Backing up in progress. New laptop that was supposed to come in April is being considered for the very near future. Also being considered for the very near future? More variations on this shortbread recipe. I had so much fun thinking of something I’d want to do for the shortbread challenge offered up by Jaime at Sophistimom and Challenge Dairy that I’m inspired to do it all over again…even if I fall short of getting it up and posted by the 18th. (Disclaimer: I apologize for the poor picture quality and the lack of natural light. Tungsten was shining from the ceiling at a very, very late hour for this.)

The basics of shortbread are simple: butter, sugar, flour and a bit of salt. They are perfect alone, but the possibilities are endless. Step 1: cream the butta.

Then add the sugar and salt and cream again. Here is where it gets interesting.

Enter the candied ginger. I love the complexity of candied ginger. Spicy and sweet, yet soothing. I diced these up into teeny, tiny pieces.

And to play with the ginger came a bit of orange zest and orange extract. Have you heard the story of the Christmas Orange?

And stir those right into the creamed mix.

Finally, a bit of flour to hold it all together.

Next, shape your dough into a log-like existence. It could be round, square, whatever your fancy. I went for “lumpy rectangle.” My New Year’s Resolution is to be less of a perfectionist, and I’m starting early. Lumpy it remained.

Then take your log-like shape and wrap it up in a bit of parchment. This will help keep its shape when we tuck it into the refrigerator for an hour or more.

After it is nice and cold, slice it into 1/4″ or so slices.

Place them on a parchment-lined sheet or a baking mat and bake at 300° F for 20 minutes.

Allow shortbread to cool as you melt a bit of white chocolate.

Dip the cooled shortbread pieces into the chocolate and sprinkle with candied orange peel pieces.

And when the chocolate is set you can package them up to give away, set your kids down in front of as a snack or bring across the street to the neighbors and their very first baby girl. Just make sure you save at least one for yourself. It’s worth it.

When we moved into the neighborhood over two years ago we had no idea what our neighbors were like. We had only moved a mile from our previous residence because we were determined to stay in the same elementary school. I was nervous. I’d liked the familiar, tree-lined streets of our old, 1930s Cape Cod neighborhood. I was hesitant to think I’d find much for me on the 1950s rambler-infested street we moved to, but I had an open mind.

It turns out I had moved across the street from Sara. My first encounter with Sara happened in the middle of the street with a blue tin full of these cookies. There was an exchange. A few words were spoken, and then we returned to our individual ramblers. I knew then that I liked her. A lot. (Her cookies aren’t too bad either.) I think Ole reconsidered our marriage after he ate through the tin of cookies. Then he decided I should just obtain the recipe.

One of the many benefits of living across the street from Sara? Her recipe folder. It ranks right up there along with random babysitter when my kids are sleeping and I have to pick another one up from preschool, bringer of morning coffee, beer sharer, milk and egg borrower, neighborhood get-together host, brownie baker and genuinely real individual, who I feel privileged to know.

My favorite part about Sara’s cookies is that they are flourless, as in they lack flour. No flour. Just oatmeal. They also have a very small ratio of butter to other ingredients. I like this about them. Don’t worry, the peanut butter makes up for it.


Somehow, this managed to sneak out of the picture. There’s vanilla in these too.


Everything gets blended together in some order. I add all the sugars and dry ingredients and then cream together with the butter and peanut butter. This also means I can eat a scoop or two before I add the eggs and the oatmeal. Not that I wouldn’t eat it even if it had the eggs in it. I just happen to like peanut butter with extra sugar in it…on top of a chocolate-covered graham cracker or on a pretzel or just off the spoon.


I bought scoops a while ago. They are wonderful. They make perfectly uniform cookies. These are from my medium-sized scoop. It happens to be my most-used scoop.


Why are they called monster cookies? Possibly because they’re kind of a mash of a bunch of different cookies. You have oatmeal, chocolate chip, peanut butter. Or perhaps it’s because the recipe makes a monstrous amount.


It just means you have plenty to share, though. These were mailed yesterday morning to Mandi. She’s been patiently waiting for them. The crazy packaging? Courtesy of Kiwi’s personalized M&Ms that she sent out as thank-yous. Those were some well protected M&Ms, and now the monster cookies are receiving first class treatment on their way east.