Chocolate Dipped Shortbread Cookies

There is an interesting story of how these shortbread cookies came about. Sorry Willie, (my 16 year old brother) but I am going to bash on you for just a second.  So, I had just finished a long day of work and was looking forward to putting my feet up for the rest of the night when my brother calls me and asks if I can make him cookies for a bake sale the following day.  I can never say no to baking no matter how tired I am so of course I agreed. 

I thought for about 30 minutes about what was easy to make and what he could sell easily and I decided upon shortbread.  My mom makes it every year at Christmas time and it is delicious but I had never actually taking a whack at it myself, so I thought why not?

They worked out quite splendidly and though my brothers bake sale was not very successful overall I happen to think that the cookies were... and my friends who got the left overs agreed as well. 

The bake sale that my brother did was to prevent sex trafficking and to help people to escape to freedom so in the end I was happy to help out for a good cause. 

I figured that I would do heart shaped cookies because everyone can use a little love.  Especially at the end of the school year! 

Also want to mention that I got this recipe from the Joy of Baking blog!

Ingredients:

This recipe makes about 25 heart shaped cookies. 

2 cups flour
1/4 cup salt
2 sticks softened unsalted butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup melted chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Whisk the flour and salt together and set aside. 
2. Beat butter in an electric mixer until creamy.  Add in sugar and mix until smooth for several minutes. Mix in the vanilla extract. 
3. Gently stir in the flour mixture (you will probably have to use your hands to knead it until it has a doughy consistency). 
4. Flatten into about a 1/2 inch round shape, wrap in plastic wrap, and place in the refrigerator for about an hour.  
5. Preheat the oven to 350.
6. Roll out the dough on a flat surface while making sure there is plenty of flour to keep it from sticking to the surface and the rolling pin. 
7. Line baking sheets with parchment paper before placing cookies onto them.
8. Continue to roll it out until it is about a quarter inch thick and using cookie cutters cut out whatever shape you want.

9. Place the baking sheets containing unbaked cookies in the refrigerator directly before baking for about 15 minutes. 
10. Bake for about 8-10 minutes, or until the cookies are just turning a very light brown color. 
11. If you want to make these twice as delicious melt some chocolate chips in a glass bowl and using a knife, spatula, or dipping, paint some melted chocolate onto each cookie and set aside to allow them to cool and harden. 

Feel free to add different sprinkles or decor onto the chocolate as displayed below. 
Once they have set (or even before) dig in! 

Happy Baking as always! 

Baked Churros

Hola señores y señoras! Buenas tardes!

These are authentic spanish churros, made by your one and only Kelsey.  Although traditionally in Spain they are baked plain and dipped in chocolate, I decided to go the American route and coat them with cinnamon and sugar instead. 

I have many fond memories of going to San Francisco Giants game when I was little and always making sure I got a nice warm churro before I left.  I never realized how easy they were to make!  It is true that most places probably are deep frying their churros but I wanted to make them healthier and easier for myself to make. 

I made these a few weeks ago for my spanish class at school for some end of the semester extra credit.  Because of this I made about 20 churros that were much smaller than normal (maybe 3 inches long) because I needed more, instead of your typical foot long churro.  

These do tend to cool off pretty quick though so you are going to want to try and serve them right away or keep them on a low warm setting in the oven.  I had to make these the night before I served them so I broiled them for a few minutes in the oven the next morning, but they were definitely not as good as they were right after they had finished baking. Make sure you store them in a dry air tight container if you are not serving right away.

I am officially on summer and can't wait to share a wide range of recipes with you all.  Up next are butterscotch caramel Smores bars!

Also want to make sure I give a shout out to Sprinkle Bakes, one of my favorite blogs, for the inspiration for this recipe!

Ingredients: 

This recipe makes about 10, 7 inch churros. 

2 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup Earth Balance (or butter)
1 cup all purpose flour
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Optional: olive oil

Directions: 

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and pre-grease baking sheets. 
2. In a medium saucepan, combine the water, brown sugar, and salt and stir until dissolved (on no heat).
3. Add in margarine or butter over medium heat until melted and it starts to boil.  Remove from heat and add flour.  Mix thoroughly.
4. In a small bowl combine the eggs and vanilla.  Add this mixture to the dough and combine until completely incorporated using a fork or a wooden spoon.
5. Let the dough cool, refrigerate if needed.  This is necessary to pipe the churros and have a ridges pattern.

6. Once the dough has cooled, pipe the churros using a very wide star tip onto a baking pan that is greased or lined with parchment.  For each churro that is piped. you will probably need to use scissors to cut the end of the dough as it will not stop coming out without doing this. 

My churros were very small you can make yours as big or as small as you would like. 

7. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the sides are a very light brown color and have slightly puffed up.  Then turn on the broiler and watch for a minute or 2 while they turn more crispy. 

8. Immediately after they have been removed from the oven you are going to need to roll each churro in a cinnamon sugar mixture.  If you find that it is not sticking well enough, you can brush each churro with a small amount of olive oil and then roll it in the cinnamon sugar. 

Serve and eat as soon as possible!

                                                

Definitely a very short prep time and cooking time as well which make these much easier than I ever imagined!

Thanks for tuning in! I hope you enjoy them as much as I did! Happy Baking everyone!