Backyard Farmgals

I had to share how our cookies and goodies turned out this year.  I was really very pleased with the cookies, the presentation, everything.  I love doing this!  Every year it gets more fun to search out new recipes, find different ways of putting things together, and create something fun for those we love.   The cookie line up this year consisted of Chocolate Stars, Jumbles, Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread, Mexican Wedding Cookies, Chocolate Crackles, Fudge or Marshmallows (links to recipes provided at the bottom of the article).  Not anything too elaborate, but lots of fun and really tasty cookies.  The hubby does a lot of work for a few large and well known food companies, I don't know what possessed me to send them cookies and fudge.  It's a little intimidating to send food to people who win oodles of national awards for their salami, cheese, waffles, sandwiches.  Eeek!  What was I thinking??? We also did granola in ...

These have got to be my farmhands' favorite cookie.  I think that they are fascinated by the deep chocolate cracks, and they love how the powdered sugar coats their fingers too!  These are so good.  An all-time favorite at our house.  I invariably make them every Christmas.  I think that the powdered sugar reminds me of snow.  The dark chocolate colored dough is rolled in powdered sugar and baked, as they bake they crack open to reveal crevices of chocolate.  They are simple, but magical, and that is where the attraction lies. Chocolate crackles taste as amazing as they look.  They are crisp outside and molten, gooey chocolate on the inside.  A cookie phenomenon.  These are a Martha Stewart recipe.  As a newly married girl, I clung to Martha, she taught me how to cook!  Without her show, I think we would still be eating spaghetti, EVERY NIGHT!!!  Not that we don't eat spaghetti, but it's maybe once every few months now...

One of my all-time favorite Christmas cookie recipes.  These have fresh ginger, lots of chocolate and just enough spice.  The outside is crunchy, the inside is soft, with a coating of sugar on the cookies to make them sparkle, these are sure to be a favorite for you too. I have been making these for years and they never disappoint.  People always rave about these, so they seem to make it into our cookie boxes often at Christmas.  Give them a try, you will love them! CHEWY CHOCOLATE GINGERBREAD Martha Stewart Makes about 2 dozen 7 ounces best-quality semisweet chocolate 1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour 1 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1 tablespoon unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger 1/2 cup dark-brown sugar, packed 1/2 cup unsulfured molasses 1 teaspoon bakin...

Christmas cookie season is here!  Oh, the butter laden joy!!!  I love baking for the holidays, and every year we make an assortment of cookies to give to our favorite people.  We start a few weeks before Christmas baking and freezing until the freezer is stuffed and our hearts are full.  We bake some old favorites and some new finds.  My little farmhands get into it.  They love sampling and are the first to offer their opinion of what should stay on the list of recipes for next year.  They love delivering the cookies to friends and family, spreading Christmas cheer. This is a recipe right out of the new Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.  I love Smitten Kitchen.  I have followed this blog for years, and now I get to thumb through the delicious pages in the first cookbook.  These are called Brownie Roll-out Cookies in the book, and they really do taste like little slices of brownie.  Instead of cutting them into rounds, we went for st...

I don't know what I would do if I couldn't give at Christmas.  Really, there is nothing more meaningful or joyful than giving something of yourself to those you love.  Isn't that what Christmas is all about, LOVE? I think so.   From top clockwise: Rocky Road Fudge, Gingersnap Palmiers, Mexican Wedding Cookies, Homemade Vanilla Marshmallows, Allison's Honeyed-Almond Cherry Shortbread Since we are on the topic of love, I love these simple and fantastic cookies.  Gingersnap Palmiers are so easy to make, they are crispy, and full of sweetness and spice when you bite into them.  These really couldn't be easier! GINGERSNAP PALMIERS Modified from Martha Stewart 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar 1/4 cup dark unsulfured molasses 2 tsp finely grated fresh ginger 2/3 cup granulated sugar 1/2 tsp coarse salt 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg 1/4 tsp ground allspice 1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper 14 ounces good quality ...

Okay...can you say, "divine"?  Yep...these cookies are just that.  They are so earthy but complex at the same time.  Shortbread with bits of honeyed almonds and cherries macerated in marsala.  Good bye diet!!!  No, not really goodbye, just turn your head while I take a bite.  These really are one of my new found favorite cookies and they bring some bright fruity flavors into my holiday cookie mix.  Yum!!!  The best thing about these is that the dough can be made a few months in advance and then frozen.  Just bring the dough to room temperature before you slice it. This is a Martha Stewart Recipe, not really modified.  The original recipe macerates the cherries in sherry, I simply didn't have it and I wasn't going to the store for two tablespoons of sherry.  Instead of sherry, I had a very nice bottle of marsala, so I used that.  They were fantastic.  I never have great luck with the Martha recipes, there is alway...

Mexican Wedding Cookies - Backyard Farmgals™ Christmas means cookies to me.  I always make oodles of cookies for my favorite people, friends that I adore, and my family that is so dear to me.  It has become a tradition at our house, two weeks before Christmas, the baking frenzy begins.  I start with the cookies that I can most easily freeze (to save my sanity), and work up to the delicate little bites of sugar and butter that have to be made the day before delivery.  After everything is made, unthawed, and the final touches applied, I wrap them all up in a box with a gorgeous ribbon and deliver to those most special people in my life. Dough rolled into balls ready to be baked.  Backyard Farmgals™ The recipes that I use vary from year to year.  Some years are bright and colorful, some years are recipes from around the world, other years are earthy and simple, and last year was grown up and sophisticated.  I guess that my baking mood changes fr...

I guess I needed to feel at home today, plus my neighbor still doesn't have power and I think he needed his spirits lifted a bit!  He loves homemade bread.  So, I got up early and started in on the bread making right away.  Making bread is something that I have been working on learning, it's not something that comes easy to me.  My first loaves of bread, my husband swallowed with a gallon of milk, just to get it down.  A big cheesy smile followed by, "yeah, it was really (pause...pause...) chewy (...awkward pause...) and good".  Some loaves you could chew for a week and still not be able to swallow.  Other loaves were like rocks...David could have slain Goliath with one of them!!!  Really, it has taken a long time to learn how to do this. I ran across a website called FarmgairlFare , this is a great and very heart warming site filled with fun pictures of a 240-acre farm (if only I could be so lucky) and all of the fun animals on the farm. ...

Because it is snowing and because I have this little hibernation thing going on, I had to make something warm and yummy today.  Something that when I baked it, the aroma would permeate the whole house and fill my mind full of warm happy thoughts.  That something ended up being Sour Cream Chocolate Chip Banana Bread.  I have had this recipe forever and it is one of my favorite warm gooey bread recipes.  There is no shortage of chocolate...something that a farmgal needs every now and then...plus this recipe is a for sure crowd pleaser.  My boys all belly up to the bar for a big thick slice of this.  They love it warm, when the chocolate chips are still gooey and melted. I know that the title calls for sour cream, but I have also used Greek yogurt and it turns out equally wonderful.  So feel free to substitute with a good THICK  plain or vanilla yogurt if you don't have sour cream.  I use really good chocolate when I make this recipe, ...