So I put up my Christmas decorations early this year. I was feeling sad and sorry for myself, so I bought a tiny tree for our house. I enjoyed wrapping it in little lights and buying decorations that would go on the tree.
The holidays can be a tough time of year for some of us. I don’t have it bad by any means, but I can admit sometimes I get sad when I think about not being close to family and friends from home. I tend to miss my mom’s cooking, so making food myself makes me recall great times and memories together.
I think of being a little one beside her making cookies every year before Christmas. I remember making little jam cookies, almond crescents and candy cane cookies.
I’ve written before about baking to relieve stress and sadness. It’s something I do and I enjoy experimenting when I can with new recipes. I buy all the food magazines that come out for December and review the recipes to see which ones look delicious.
I try to make sweet recipes with ingredients I already have so I don’t have to go to the store and buy one off ingredients. Some of these cool recipes have special ingredients that you may only use one time to make something, while others have staple ingredients from the cupboard.
I worked for a cookie company for a short time developing recipes. It was a happy job, where I got to experiment with many ingredients to create new flavours that would be part of the packages that were being sold. Cookies and baking make people happy!
So with all this being said, I love baking cookies at this time of the year. I will be coming up with more recipes as the month goes on and I will be sharing them. Bake these chocolate crack cookies and have an afternoon cup of tea!
Chocolate Crack Cookies
Ingredients
1.5 cups AP flour
½ cup butter, melted
¼ cup cocoa powder
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup sugar (for topping)
Directions
-Preheat oven to 325F
-Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside
-Cream butter and sugar until fluffy
-Add egg and vanilla extract
-Fold dry ingredients into wet, making a light dough
-Using a tablespoon, scoop the dough and roll into small balls
-Place white sugar onto a separate plate and roll the balls in the sugar
-Place on a tray lined with parchment paper
-Bake for 11-14 minutes, until the cookies have spread slightly
-Remove from the baking tray and let cool on a plate
You left the crack out of the cookie recipe ingredients!