I want to thank everyone for their thoughts about cookies, raisins, and coconut in my post asking for cookie ideas. I have once again checked out America's Test Kitchen's Gluten Free Cookbook from the library and I'm going to use that, along with some of the recipes you friends linked to, to attempt the following cookies.
1) Peanut butter blossoms - I should definitely have a PB cookie in my arsenal.
2) Sugar cookie - My husband requested it. I'll start with the cookbook and go from there. Sarah also linked to a brown butter brown sugar version.
3) Lemon cookie - I think I'm going to start with a basic lemon sugar cookie, but then I'm hoping to move on to an iced lemon cookie.
4) Meringue - Straight meringue with chocolate chips or without chocolate chips? I don't know. Game day decision? Maybe I'll try both?
5) Spanish almond cookies - I think this might be my excuse to purchase a food processor.
6) Thumbprint cookies - I'm concerned that I cannot make these structurally sound with GF flour, but I'm going to try.
BONUS!
For Christmas, I'm going to try snowball cookies - it's base is shortbread, which I've struggled with in the past, but since you just roll it up in a ball, I think I can make this work.
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Do you have season-specific cookies? Something you only make at Christmas? Easter? Fourth of July?
I have never made GF cookies! That looks like a good cookbook. I generally make sugar cookies in seasonal shapes, and anything gingersnap/ gingerbread I only make at Christmas.
ReplyDeleteSugar cookies in seasonal shapes is a classic!!
DeleteOoh! I can't wait to hear all about this, and I want photos!!! I bet they'll come out great.
ReplyDeleteThe only time I have "special" cookies is Christmas, when I make my famous biscotti, gingerbread cookies, and cut out sugar cookies. But now you're inspiring me- maybe I need to make something special for Easter. Hmm!
I'm hoping to try a new recipe every month. Will I do this? We'll see!!
DeleteI think an Easter cookie would be fun to have, but I'm not sure what? Lemon does seem springlike to me.
I'm not a huge cookie person, to be honest. I have lots of "Christmas" only bakes, but none of them are cookies! I make Unbaked Cherry Cheesecake, the saltine toffee bars, brown sugar fudge (very sweet, but should be 100% gluten free and it's my kids FAVOURITE...and you make it all in the microwave).
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely more of a cookie person than a bar person. I like the grab and go nature of cookies!
DeleteLove cookies but don't make them often. Like maybe once a quarter, with no idea what I'll make next. I've never made meringue cookies, though. Maybe next time.
ReplyDeleteI make cookies all the time. I am Midwestern enough that I refuse to go to someone's house without something in hand. Cookies are usually my answer!
DeleteI make a lot of cookies, but at Christmas I'll make chocolate crinkles. I also added zimtstern ( cinnamon stars) to the holiday baking frenzy. They are meringue and almond based- you can reroll the batter without it getting tough.
ReplyDeleteZimtstern seems popular in the comments. Maybe I'll try those, too. (Ha! My list is getting too long, isn't it?)
DeleteI did not weigh in with suggestions as I am no help at all! I only make round sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies from an ATK cookbook. One item on my 25 for '25 list is to try some GF sugar cookie recipes that can be rolled out so cookie decorating will be more fun at Christmas. I was hoping to do that in February but my surgery recovery made that impossible so I'll find another time to test a rolloutable recipe. Iowa Girl Eats has one so I plan to try that. But that's the extent of my baking plans for 2025. I rarely rarely rarely make cookies. My husband gets cookies when he goes to his mom's and he also gets a free cookie every time he goes to potbelly so the boys eat small chunks of it each day for dessert. If I bake cookies, I will eat far too many...
ReplyDeleteGood luck with rolled out cookie dough, Lisa. I've given up on it. I am more interested in taste than how it looks and I feel happy enough to put decorations on round cookies.
DeleteI eat A LOT of cookies in my life. #noregrets #yolo
Spritz cookies are my Christmas tradition!
ReplyDeleteThose are far too much work for me and require specialized equipment I do not have! But I bet they're delicious.
DeleteThe equipment is a bit of work. No wonder I only make them once a year!
DeleteI think my go-to Christmas cookies are cranberry crumble bars, chocolate snickerdoodles, and chai sugar cookies with eggnog glaze. But! We have also made zimtsterne (aka German cinnamon stars) for many years, and they are so yummy and gluten free. A totally unique cookie, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteZimtsterne has come up multiple times here. I'll have to look into them!
DeleteThese all sound amazing! Too bad we can't send cookies to taste test via our blogs! My go-to cookies are sugar cookies, and I just made some for my dad's birthday. He liked them!
ReplyDeleteI feel like everybody should have a go to cookie. Mine are chocolate chips, yours are sugar cookies, and that's the best part - when we all get together, it's all different types.
DeleteMy mom, older sister, and I used to have a cookie baking day every year before Christmas. It was usually the first Wednesday of December. We all took the day off from work, met at my house, and made six or seven triple batches of cookies. My sister would show up with some doughs already made, I'd have at least one dough made, and as soon as the boys left for school, we'd get started. We'd make and bake like crazy, packing the finished, cooled cookies in tins for freezing until the holiday. At lunchtime, I'd order Chinese food. We usually finished up shortly after the boys came home from school. They loved it because we always set aside our Mistake Cookies for them--the ones not good enough to pack away--and they'd have them for a snack.
ReplyDeleteI haven't baked cookies in a few years now. My oven is unreliable for baked goods--too much temperature variation during baking.
What a lovely tradition, and what lovely memories they've left behind, Nance!
DeleteYES! I used to have a friend group that did this when I lived in Minneapolis. It was a whole Saturday affair. And I'd go home with many many cookies. Such a fun time!
DeleteOh, such a lovely tradition! We used to do something similar, Baking Day, which was a Saturday in December when my husband’s family would all get together and we would all bake one or two different recipes, and then we would get KFC. It was a lot of fun. Those days are behind us and best left as fond memories, alas.
DeleteSpritz and gingersnaps are my Christmas cookies. Throughout the year, I make chocolate chip (obviously), peanut butter (yum!) and occasionally oatmeal raisin (I know this is sacrilege to you but they are tasty). I should probably take a leaf from your book and branch out a little.
ReplyDeleteLook, three standby cookie recipes seems like plenty to me! You're doing more than I am.
DeleteI love your lineup here, Engie.
ReplyDeleteI do not enjoy cookies at all, but I like baking them at Christmas. Nothing fancy (gingerbread, pistachio-cranberry shortbread), but I just seem to succumb to the need to bake something in the lead up to the holidays.
I wish I did not enjoy cookies. I enjoy them more than most other desserts (definitely more than cake or bars). Are you just not a sweets person?
DeleteI love your Cookie Plan. I rarely make cookies, or any dessert, but I'd love to be the (OTT) Official Taste Tester of yours.
ReplyDeleteOh, wow. I am considering buying a really nice cookie jar so that I have an excuse to always be making cookies. I really like cookies. It's a problem.
DeleteGreat Cookie Plan. I would volunteer as beta tester.
ReplyDeleteI might need some testers! LOL.
DeleteThis sounds like a solid plan. I'd like to be invited over to taste the results as I'm sure most of them will be fabulous.
ReplyDeleteI don’t bake cookies often, but I enjoy eating them if someone else bakes them! Yours all sound delicious. I am particularly fond of thumbprint cookies, I love the little burst of jam in the center.
ReplyDeleteMy mom makes the snowballs/Mexican wedding cakes/Russian tea cakes but I'm not sure she's ever made them GF for my dad. Hm. Now I am curious - and if she does, I will find out how she gets them to, well, stay together. :)
ReplyDeleteEgg is sometimes good enough to keep things together. *shrug* I guess I'll find out in this adventure what are good setting agents.
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