Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cookies + Buttercream Icing

It's time for February's "cookie of the month!" I mentioned last month that one of my husband's stocking stuffers was a coupon book full of monthly cookie coupons. Last month I made Oreo Chocolate Chip cookies and they were delicious! 

February is "love" month with Valentine's Day and all so I knew this month's cookie had to be filled with love (I mean red food dye) because for some reason we all associate the color red with love, hearts and roses....so Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cookies with Buttercream Icing had to be it! 

I adapted this recipe slightly from Sally's Baking Addiction and then added my own special touch by drizzling the cookies in a buttercream icing. They turned out delicious! 

I hope you enjoy them as much as Kevin did! (Maybe these will last longer than the 48 hours the oreo cookies did ;0p). 

Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cookies + Buttercream Icing

adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction

For the cookies: 

1 and 1/2 cups
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1-2 Tablespoon milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1.5 Tablespoons red food coloring
1 cup milk chocolate chips

For the Icing

1/2 cup butter, room temp

1 tsp vanilla extract 

2-3 cups powdered sugar (depending on how you like the consistency of your frosting)

1-2 Tablespoons milk (again, depending on how you like the consistency of your frosting)

Directions

Mix together flour, cocoa powder and baking soda and set aside. 

In a large bowl, cream the butter until smooth. Add in the brown sugar and granulated sugar and mix well. Mix together the egg, milk and vanilla and add to your sugar/butter mixture. Cream together. 

Add in your red food coloring. It should be a bright red color. When you add the cocoa powder to the mix it will deepen the red. Don't feel shy about adding even more red food coloring after you add in the cocoa powder...as you can see from my photos above, they're more brown than red and that's because I didn't quite add enough food coloring. 

Slowly add in your dry ingredients and combine well. Stir in chocolate chips. 

Refrigerate dough for 1 hour. Roll dough into balls and place on a cookie sheet. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-11 minutes. Cookies may not have flattened out as much as you like. Simply press lightly on the warm cookies and they will flatten out. 

While cookies are cooling, make your frosting. 

I wanted my frosting to be more of a glaze so I made the consistency much wetter than usual for a buttercream. 

Combine your ingredients until you get the correct consistency. Put the frosting/icing into a ziplock bag and cut a small hole in one of the corners. Drizzle icing back and forth over your completely cooled cookie. 

Enjoy!!

Secret Ingredient Sugar Cookie Bars!

i have a confession to make. i'm an impulsive baker. it's true and now that i've said it and it's out in the open, i feel so much better. :)


i don't know how it happens, i'll be sitting on my couch, reading, watching tv, blogging, or doing whatever and then the urge will strike. i have to bake cookies right now! it happens more often when i'm perusing pinterest, which is where i found these amazingly delicious sugar cookie bar recipes i'm about to share with you....so really it's pinterest's fault. not mine.

anyways, i'm sure you've seen these on pinterest too. they're all over the place. those pretty pink sugar cookie bars, staring you in the face, begging you to make them. well i finally did, randomly on a wednesday night while husband was at school (see i was home alone and bored which is never good for an impulsive baking addict) and they were so delicious.

they're not as pretty as some others on the internet, but they sure did taste good!

but i started them and then i realized i didn't have all the ingredients. and there was no way i was running to safeway on a wednesday night in my pajamas. so i improvised. i was out of vanilla extract (probably from all the other random baking i've done) so i added my own secret ingredient...BOURBON! bourbon went into the cookies and bourbon went in to the frosting and it was delicious!

i also ran out of all purpose flour so i substituted one cup of whole wheat flour, which wasn't bad, but i don't recommend doing unless you run out of flour halfway through making sugar cookie bars too. that being said, i didn't include the whole wheat flour substitution into the recipe below, but you're darn right i included the bourbon substitute. vanilla schmanilla ....bourbon is where it's at ladies and gents!

happy  baking!

ps...i bet if you had a christmas tree cookie cutter and some green food coloring, you could make some pretty cute and pretty delicious christmas tree cookies with this recipe. i may or may not have that planned for my christmas cookie baking binge i'll be starting on in the near future.

Secret Ingredient Sugar Cookie Bars

3/4 cup butter, softened to cool room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon bourbon (SECRET INGREDIENT!!)
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Frosting:
8 tablespoons butter, softened
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons milk or cream
1/2 teaspoon bourbon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, granulated sugar and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and bourbon and mix for 1-2 minutes. Mix in the flour, baking powder and salt. 

Lightly grease a 9X13-inch baking pan. Press the mixture into the pan.

Bake for 10-13 minutes. The bars shouldn't have any color around the edges and barely be set in the middle. Let the bars cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting, cream together the butter and powdered sugar until smooth. Add in the bourbon and mix. Add the milk or cream and mix until the frosting is light and fluffy. Add food coloring, if desired.

Best Ever Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

the weekend is for baking. and i baked a lot this weekend. which is why i'm starting out this monday with a recipe for literally the best peanut butter cookies i've ever tasted in  my entire life. you should definitely go make these as soon as physicall possibly. that is all.

oh yeah...happy  monday!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 c butter, softened
3/4 c peanut butter
1/2 c white sugar
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp milk
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 c all-purpose flour
1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl, set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, beat the butter, peanut butter and sugars for 2 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add in the egg and vanilla.

Gradually add in the flour mixture on low speed.

Place spoonfuls on a cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes (cookies will not spread much at all).