These three cookie recipes are perfect for busy bakers. With simple ingredients and minimal prep, you can whip up these cookies in no time. Bonus, they are bake-ahead-beauties which means you can bake these anytime, freeze them, and then pull them out of hibernation when you need to serve them.
Tip: Dress up your plate with extra goodies. I stopped at Sobey’s bulk foods section to pick up some chocolate-covered almonds, yogurt-covered raisins, and assorted dried fruits to elevate my plate presentation.
Walnut Snowball Cookies
Yield: 18 cookies
Ingredients:
1 2/3 cups walnuts, finely chopped
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup (225 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp fine salt
½ cup icing sugar, plus ¼ cup set aside for rolling finished cookies in
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Combine walnuts and flour in a small bowl.
- Mix butter, sugar, and vanilla with a spatula until fully combined.
- Fold the dry mixture into the wet.
- Roll 1.5-inch balls of cookie dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and place in the oven for 10-13 minutes.
- Once the cookies have cooled, roll them in the set-aside icing sugar then they are ready to enjoy.
Spiral Sugar Cookies
Yield: 24 cookies
Ingredients:
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup softened butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 vanilla
- 10 drops red food colouring
Directions
- Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, add the softened butter and sugar and mix with a spatula until well blended. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until just combined.
- Add the dry mixture to the creamed mixture and mix until it is fully combined and there is no flour residue on the sides of the bowl.
- Divide the dough in half, keeping one-half in the mixing bowl. Add red food colouring and mix until the desired colour is reached. Wrap each segment and refrigerate for 30 minutes or until the dough is firm enough to roll.
- Flour your surface and roll out the cookie dough one at a time. Each slab should be roughly ¾ cm thick. Layer the red dough on top of the white, then roll both together to form a log.
- Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until completely firm, 2 hours or overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Once chilled, remove the dough log from the fridge and slice 1cm thick segments. Lay them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 12-13 minutes.
Chocolate Cranberry Oat Cookies
Yield: 18 cookies
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter softened
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 3/4 rolled oats
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 chocolate chips
- 1 cup coconut
- 1//2 cup dried cranberries
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line 2 baking trays with parchment paper.
- Cream the butter and brown sugar using a spatula until well combined. Beat in the egg, then the vanilla. Add coconut and dried cranberries to the wet mixture.
- In a small bowl, sift the cocoa, flour, cinnamon, baking soda salt, oats and chocolate chips. Use a small ice cream scoop or two teaspoons to drop the batter onto the baking trays, 2 inches apart. Bake for about 12 minutes. Let cool and enjoy.
