Cookie Recipes & Coffee
Go straight to Cookie recipes
There is no rainy day that I wouldn't end up baking cookie recipes with my daughter. Since we have moved to England this has become our little ritual. There are so many easy recipes for kids so the choices are endless. It is such a big pleasure to see my little girl having great fu is always so sweet and yummy.
I know many parents who don't know how to spend quality time together with their children. I would say, find a good book full of cookie recipes and start baking cookies. It doesn't matter if you bake chocolate cookies, Christmas cookies, sugar cookies and so on, children will be happy with any of those cookie recipes. From my own experience I know that they love to help in the kitchen and have actually great baking skills. Mixing, weighing, cutting, cracking eggs, kneading,... an absolute heaven for every child. Sometimes my daughter argues with me, because she wants to do everything herself (sorry my sweetheart, you should grow a bit more).
I often experiment when we bake cookies together. It is because I love to pair coffee and food and compare different tastes to find out if the taste of cookies matches well with the taste of coffee. But for doing this I need a help of all my family and friends (my dear guinea pigs :) ...sorry guys!) who "voluntarily" eat my cookies and have them together with a nice cup of coffee. It is quite exciting to wait for their final verdict. By now I haven't received any complaints yet and nobody has quit this "hard" job yet :). Hmm, I wonder why?
Here are the cookie recipes which have been tested in our kitchen recently and are in perfect harmony with a cup of coffee:
What are cookies?
Cookies (or biscuits in the UK) are small, crisp, flat and yummy baked sweet or savoury cakes that are good to nibble. Sweet cookies could be accompanied by coffee and savoury by a soup.
There is a big difference between homemade and commercially made cookies. Homemade cookies taste better, they are not so sweet, don't contain additives and you have a choice of using only the best ingredients. Can we say that for commercially made cookies? I don't think so.
What do I need to start baking cookies?
In most cases cookie recipes contain flour, butter, sugar, eggs, baking powder and different flavors. Nothing that couldn't be found in almost every kitchen in the world.
Cookies can be made using a wide variety of methods. They can be:
- rolled and cut out
- shaped like drops
- shaped like tuiles
- moulded
- piped
- decorated with icing, chocolate, dry fruits, sweets and more
Cookies are usually baked in 10-15 minutes and are best eaten straight from the oven. If they are not stored properly they become soft and tasteless in a day or two. That's not really a problem in our house because there is not only my daughter who craves for something sweet and yummy, my husband is even worse.
Before you start baking cookies please remember:
Cookies don't need to be fancy or complicated, they are just perfectly good in their "yummy" simplicity.
Cookie baking tips
- Preheat the oven 10-15 minutes before you start baking cookies. Bake them 2-3 minutes less than originally prescribed time and check. If cookies are not baked continue with baking for another 2-3 minutes. Get an oven thermometer.
- Before baking place cookies on cool baking sheet or they may start to melt and spread out.
- Make sure to leave some room between cookies on the baking sheet (depends on the recipe but an inch or two is usually enough).
- Chill the dough before cutting out and baking cookies. It is much easier to work with chilled dough.
- Bake only one baking sheet at a time in the center of the oven.
- Cool cookies on a wire rack to prevent them becoming soggy, unless the recipe states otherwise.
- Use top quality and fresh ingredients.
- Do follow the recipe if it calls for ingredients at a room temperature.
- Make sure your butter is at room temperature otherwise it won't cream properly with the sugar.
- Don't substitute flour types, use the type of flour suggested in a recipe and don't over mix the dough.
- Measure all quantities correctly.
- Do not grease baking sheets unless the recipe says so as this may affect the taste and baking itself.
- Store soft cookies in an airtight container. This could be a jar or a tin with a tight fitting lid. Cookies should be always cooled before storing. When stored, crisp cookies slowly become soft, and soft ones can harden and dry out.
Good to know
- The name cookie is derived from the Dutch word koekje (little cake). Mini cakes were made by accident when cooks used a small amount of cake batter to test the oven temperature.
- Almost every culture has some kind of cookie-like treats.
- Cookies are usually eaten for a snack or as a dessert.
- There are so many easy recipes for kids where cookies can be dropped, moulded, pressed, refrigerated, make like a bar or rolled.
- If you would like to start cooking with kids you can find easy recipes for kids in almost every cook book from your local library or in your favorite magazine.
- There are so many good web sites with really good cookie recipes, so just take some time and start exploring.
- Easy recipes for kids usually require only basic baking ingredients, so there are no big costs.
- If you don't feel sufficiently confident to start cooking with kids by your own find a cooking course in your area.
- Most of cookie recipes don't require any special baking skills, just a lot of good will.
- Do not hesitate, cooking with kids is such a great fun and such a rewarding activity. Cooking with kids has also an educational value.
- Usually children eat too much junk food so cooking with kids teaches them how to make things themselves.
- If they learn a few basic easy recipes for kids their eating habits could improve and change dramatically.
- But most importantly cooking with kids must be the time full of fun and joy, not only for a child but also for a parent. Enjoy!
