After much baking, and deliberation, a winner has been chosen for the Challenge Dairy Shortbread Challenge! A panel of judges, which included a chef, chose the Bleu Cheese Currant Shortbread Rounds! So, congratulations, Kristen! Well done! I had not even considered anyone would enter with a savory recipe. This one was sweet, and savory, and sweet again. It was very inventive, and quite delicious. This little swirls of flavor would make an easy and elegant little appetizer.

If you have not already looked all the entries, though, please click on all of them in the comments section and take a look. All were delicious, and finding a winner was very difficult.

I’d also like to thank Challenge Dairy who has sponsored this contest, and who will be giving Kristen a year’s supply of Challenge Dairy Butter.  If you didn’t win, don’t worry, you can still go to their website to print off coupons.

And now, on to these chewy ginger molasses cookies. Awhile back, Brooke gave me a plate of gingerbread men. I think they were meant for my family or something, but all I remember was that I ate almost every single one.

They had this hidden flavor I couldn’t put my finger on. So I had to keep tasting them. Again. And again.

When I finally realized the flavor was orange zest, I had to eat a few more, just to be certain.

Coming up with a chewy cookie when you don’t use shortening is very difficult, as far as I am concerned, so I usually don’t take chances. That’s why I generally take a chewy cookie recipe, that is already tried and true, and then make it my own. Though these are pretty different from Martha Stewart’s Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread cookies, I used that recipe as a guide.

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Aren’t you glad you came to my blog today??? This is my post for the Baker’s Dozen Ultimate Cookie Exchange! Yea!!!! Some other bloggers and I are sharing cookie recipes today, and all of them can be seen by clicking here. Be sure to check them out, since many of them will be having giveaways—including me!

Let’s get to that first, shall we???  One lucky reader will not have to lift a finger to enjoy some scrumptious cookies for the next couple of months.  Platine Cookies of Los Angeles has offered to award one very lucky reader a three month subscription to the Cookie of the Month Club (I am seriously tempted to enter the giveaway under an alias).

The Chef and owner, Jamie Cantor (her name is Jamie, so she’s already cool, as far as I’m concerned) started Platine Cookies awhile back, and her cookies and bakery have been mentioned in People Magazine, Vogue, LA newspapers, and all over the web.

Her cookies are all natural, and perfectly wonderful, so if you want to win some, click over to PlatineCookies.com, decide which cookies look the most delicious to you, and tell us about them in the comments section.  Only one entry per person please.  I will choose a random winner on Monday morning, December 14.

If you don’t win, that’s totally fine, since I will have their link over there in the sidebar for whenever you get a craving and need to order some.

In the meantime, if you’d like to whip something up on your own, try out my recipe for the cookies in the picture.  They were pleasantly addictive.

vanillekipferl

To be honest, I have no idea how to pronounce these. You’d think, since I have some German heritage, I might actually know a tiny bit of German, but I don’t.

I decided to make these back in the summer when I was rereading my favorite book, The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson (Oh yes, this is my favorite book now). The main character’s mother makes the Kipferl to celebrate something really special, and since the author gave such a delicious narrative of the process of making them, I knew I needed to make them, too.

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I can’t tell you all how excited I am!

A few weeks ago, I had this idea that it would be fun to get together with some other food bloggers and challenge them to take a list of ingredients and their measurements, and then just see what they would come up with.

When Challenge Dairy started following me on twitter, I thought how fun it would be to get them involved with my idea somehow. They are a California based Dairy, and I’ve been using their butter over the years. It’s my favorite brand.

Here’s the scoop:

The Challenge Dairy Shortbread Challenge
Win a year’s supply of butter from Challenge Dairy!*

Here’s what you have to do:

Simply take ingredients in my basic shortbread recipe, then make it your own!

2 sticks butter
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups all purpose flour

You can add in whatever you like, roll it out, cut it out, press it into a pan, or bake it up however you want. When you have made your shortbread, take a photograph, and post it on your blog along with the recipe that includes what you added, baking time, temperature, etc and a link back to sophistimom.com and Challenge Dairy. Then post a comment on this contest blog post, stating the name of your shortbread recipe, with a link to your entry post on your own blog.

All entries must be posted in the comments by December 18th at midnight.

Entries will be judged on creativity, flavor, and visual presentation. The winner will receive a year’s supply of butter from Challenge Dairy.

Although a purchase is not required, all valid entries must include a link somewhere in the post to Challenge Dairy’s website.  Here is the link: http://www.challengedairy.com.  The site has recipes, and a $.50-off coupon!

The winner will be selected on December 22nd and will be awarded the prize and will have their recipe featured right here on sophistimom.com.

*If the selected winner is outside of the Challenge Dairy market (see website for all states that sell the butter), that person will be awarded with a $50 cash gift card.

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When my friend’s son tried these, he couldn’t stop talking about them all the way to his karate class. I hope you all like them too.

While we’re creating apple recipes, I couldn’t be more excited, or surprised, about winning zoebake’s contest. Zoe is a cook book author, and an extremely talented baker. She and Aunt Else’s had a giveaway last week, and I won an aebleskiver pan. I can’t wait to use it, and come up with new recipes to post on sophistimom.

Be sure to go and visit their sites to find out more about them.  Click here for Zoe’s, and click here for Aunte Else’s.

Thank you, Aunt Else’s and thank you, Zoe!!

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I know this seems like a bit of a cop out, seeing as last year I made those lime bars, but the name of these just makes you want one, doesn’t it? It’s like one last throw back to the summertime captured in a cookie.

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If food can be a sin, then these cookies are shamefully immoral. Not only do they have a pound of peanut butter in them (which for some people is actually lethal*), but they have enough sugar and butter to make a small village in a developing country happy for a week.

I first tried them at Whole Foods. They were so delicious, I thought I’d go back and read the ingredients. The first three ingredients were sugar, brown sugar, and butter. Only after the fifth or sixth ingredient did they mention grain of any kind. Last week, I was telling my friend about them, and she said, “Oh, monster cookies. My mom used to make them.” The ones she was raised on were not nearly as glycemic coma inducing, so I fiddled with her recipe and tried to bring them a little closer to what Whole Foods had.

Brace yourselves: these are not for the faint of heart, but they’ll make some kid at a bake sale really happy.

*If you are planning on making these for a school bake sale, be sure to check with the school that there are no peanut allergies that would make these too dangerous to have in the building.

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Last year, I started on the first Monday in September, and posted a recipe everyday that week that would be fun for a back to school bake sale (Click here for that post).

A couple of those posts were a big hit, particularly the lime bars and s’mores bars, so I decided to do another bake sale week this year.

These peach cobbler bars were quite delicious, I must say. But I have a long week to go with all these recipes. I hope I don’t gain 5 pounds.

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