Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

Double Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

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When just beginning in my bakery, I started with a small box of baking soda. On the back was a recipe for a combination I had never considered – Chocolate Cranberry Cookies. The bakery kept me busy, enough so that I had little time to experiment. Once I switched to writing recipe books, I have had more opportunities. Nearly nine years later, I finally made my version of this cookie – and it has proven to be a delightful combination!

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If you are reading this, you are also getting a sneak-peek!  These delicious Double Chocolate Cranberry Cookies are one of the recipes that will be featured in my upcoming Thanksgiving / Christmas / New Years cookie recipe book.  This project has been in the works for a few years now, and it is my plan to publish it around September this year.  Keep an eye on this website along with my social media locations for updates.  If you would like to know when this book publishes, I would be happy to add you to my notification list — email me!  Don’t worry, I won’t send you newsletters — those things drive me bonkers.

INGREDIENTS

    • 12 Tablespoons – 180 ml Unsalted Butter, softened
    • 3/4 cups – 120 ml White Sugar
    • 3/4 cups – 120 ml Brown Sugar
    • 2 Large Eggs
    • 5 Tablespoons – 75 ml Strong Coffee or Espresso
    • 2 teaspoons – 10 ml Pure Vanilla Extract
    • 1 1/2 teaspoons – 7.5 ml Baking Powder
    • 1/3 cup – 80 ml Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
    • 2 cups – 480 ml All-Purpose Flour
    • 1 cup – 240 ml Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
    • 1 cup – 240 ml Dried Cranberries

mix ingredients chill drop cookies

MIXING

  1. cookies stacked allow coolIn a mixing bowl, cream butter and then combine the two sugars. It may be necessary to stop mixing and scrape the bottom of the bowl so that butter and sugar are mixed uniformly.
  2. Beat in eggs, coffee, vanilla extract, baking powder, and cocoa powder.
  3. While mixing, add one cup of flour at a time. Avoid over-mixing the flour; if necessary, stop mixing between making measurements and adding flour.
  4. Add the chocolate chips as the last of the flour becomes completely blended. Mix in the dried cranberries by hand.

BAKING

  1. Heat oven to 375° F/190° C/Gas Mark 5.
  2. Using a spoon, scoop small amounts of dough – 1 1/2 tablespoons or about the size of a ping pong ball – onto a cookie sheet. Space these apart, about 6-9 at a time.
  3. Place cookie sheet in the oven for 9-13 minutes. The cookies should be done when the edges are slightly browned.

TIPS THOUGHTS

Experiment with changing the extract – orange, almond, or rum should compliment the chocolate and cranberry flavours. Also, white chocolate chips might add a festive look if you want to use these as Christmas cookies.

PSST!!! You may notice that the ingredients above are similar to my Chocolate Ginger Cookie Squares in the Christmas cookie section. Yep – I just reused and modified my recipe and made it as a drop cookie. Which means, of course, that you can do either of these recipes as drop cookies or cookie squares!


A NEW Version of
Make Your Own Darn Good Cookies

Make Your Own Darn Good Cookies Update Cover artFor years I have wanted to get new cover-art for my debut book “Make Your Own Darn Good Cookies“.  I have also wanted to find a printer who could affordably give me interior pictures in colour.  I am excited to announce … IT’S HERE!!!

Available now through LuLu.com, I have re-released MYODGCookies — and it’s so new, I haven’t even received my proof copy yet!  If you go to their site you will find 2 listings — look closely — one is standard-bound paperback, the other is comb-bound.  Only the standard paperback will receive global distribution — which should start soon — so look for this new version through online book retailers and ask for it at your favourite local bookshop.

Let's Bake Cookie Squares and Biscotti!Do You Want To Try Before You Buy?…

Click the picture to get a copy of my FREE SAMPLE E-BOOK!

Also, check me out online at FacebookTwitter, and now Instagram for further updates on my upcoming books.

 

Thanksgiving & New Years Photo-Help!

Shutter-bugs, Photographers, Folks with Photo-collections – I need your help!

One of my nutcrackers — not these — will stand guard for Christmas

My latest cookie recipe book is on track to publish Spring 2022.  This book will feature tasty treats for winter holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years.  Although time is getting snug, I think I’ll make it – but I need a few pictures …

The photos of my cookies are in good shape.  I have found that getting other people involved makes my books more fun.  What I lack are pictures for the chapter openings.

What I am looking for are simple photos with a single icon that is immediately recognizable with its holiday.  I have a small collection of nutcrackers, and I will be taking a picture of one to represent Christmas.  I still need photos that represent Thanksgiving and New Years*.
* Update – I may have some New Years fireworks photos to choose from already.

I will of course need colour photos with good composition, lighting, and resolution.  These pictures be used in multiple products – print books, e-books, etc – possibly in some marketing.  The contributors of these photos will be mentioned in the Acknowledgements section of the book and receive a complimentary copy of the book in gratitude.  Also, the copyright section of the book will acknowledge you as the owner of the image.
(Note that the primary product will be a print book with black & white photos in the interior, including these chapter openings.)

Have photos or ideas for these pictures?  Send me an e-mail.

Hope you can help — Happy Holidays to you & yours!

Don

Beat Your Black Friday Blues

~ The Loved & Loathed BLACK FRIDAY ~
What Are You Doing?

this is linked with shameless self-promotionAre you hitting the Black Friday sales?  Hiding out, staying home, and avoiding the chaos?  Or are you busying yourself with something else today?

Aside from drinking coffee and enjoying some leftover Thanksgiving PIE, I’m at home working on a few future-book-projects. For the past week+, while the e-book file of my current recipe book is getting reviewed for me, I’ve kept myself busy making progress on a few future book projects. One of these calls for me to create some NEW COOKIE RECIPES — which couldn’t have me More Pleased! Black Friday

I enjoy the creative process of imagining new baked goods and bringing them to fruition — it puts me in my element.  Get an idea, figure out how maybe to make it, give it a go, possibly fail, try again, and then … finally … FIND IT!  For the book I am chiefly working towards, I want recipes with finished baked goods with serious visual and taste-bud POP.  Cookies that delight the eye, that the hand can’t resist picking up, and makes a mouth smile from a promise fulfilled.  If a cookie could have the electric ambiance of a rock concert, THAT would be THESE COOKIES Make Your Own Darn Good Cookies available on AmazonBlack Friday

As you know from my first book — Make Your Darn Good Cookies, published last month on Amazon — I gratefully accept recipe submissions.  If you have a cookie recipe you’d like to submit for possible publication in one of my future books — and in this case a recipe that to you looks and tastes like ROCK’n’ROLL — please run-don’t-walk to e-mail your submission to me.

Can cookies be Rock’n’Roll?
OH YEAH!  I think so…

Do you want to do some experimenting, too?  Download my FOUR FREE COOKIE RECIPES from my recent book, go get in your kitchen, and have some FUN!