White Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

It’s Christmas baking season! With only a few weekends left before Christmas, there isn’t much time for baking. Today, I dedicated the afternoon to baking these yummy treats. Hopefully, I will have time to bake more cookies in the coming week. I originally wanted to make reverse chocolate chip cookies, but I only had about a half cup of white chocolate chips left. Oh no! Time to get creative! I decided to add some chopped up Hershey’s Cookies and Cream bar, some smashed up peppermint candies, and finally I topped the cookies with candy cane bits before placing them in the oven for a festive touch.

White Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups flour
2 eggs
1 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup cocoa
1tsp vanilla extract 1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup Hershey’s cookies and cream bar, chopped
4 mini candy canes, smashed
15 peppermint candies, smashed (If I had more candy canes, I would have used those)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 ̊F or 177 ̊C. In a medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream together butter, sugars, and vanilla with an electric mixer. Add in eggs one at a time, mixing completely. Slowly add in the dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon. Fold in chocolate chips, Hershey’s chocolate pieces, and peppermint bits. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Push the balls down slightly and sprinkle crushed candy canes on top of each cookie. Bake for 10 minutes and let cool.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Cinnamon Rolls

This weekend has been quite relaxing. Saturday afternoon was spent shopping and walking around on the cobblestone streets and enjoying the amazing weather around Isu station with the Simmering Seoulmate. The evening was spent having some pizza at Bonny’s Pub and enjoying a few drinks with friends. We came home quite early, which was nice for a change, as most nights that we go out, I am left spending Sunday exhausted. Since I was well rested and feeling great, I thought today would be a good day to try out some cinnamon rolls. I have wanted to make cinnamon rolls for quite some time now, but have been discouraged about the time and effort that goes into making them. I came across this recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction, which seemed like it was easy enough and looked yummy. I hope you try out this recipe on a lazy afternoon and I promise they are well worth the wait!

Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients

Rolls:
2 and 3/4 cups flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 packet instant yeast
1/2 cup water
1/4 milk
2 and 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter 1 large egg

Filling:
3 tbsp unsalted room temperature butter
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk

Directions

1. Rolls: In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, and yeast and stir together well.

2. Pour water, milk, and butter into a microwave safe dish and heat for about a minute and a half stopping to stir every 30 seconds. Pour the mixture into the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Add the egg and stir until the dough form into a ball and come away from the sides of the bowl.

3. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 3 minutes. Then, set dough into a lightly oiled bowl and let rest for 10 minutes. Heat oven to 140ºF or 60 ºC, then turn off once heated.

4. Filling: After 10 minutes, roll the dough out onto a cookie sheet. Spread the butter across the dough. Mix together sugar in cinnamon and sprinkle over the dough.

5. Cut the dough into 8 even pieces. Roll each piece up and place in a lightly greased pie or cake pan.

6. In your warm oven (turned off), place the rolls inside and let rise for 90 minutes. After the rolls have risen to about double their size, cook for 25 minutes at 375ºF or 190 ºC. After about 10-15 minutes cover with foil so the tops don’t burn and finish cooking.

7. Glaze: While the rolls are cooking prepare the glaze. Combine powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and milk and stir until there are no lumps. Once rolls are finished, drizzle over rolls and serve warm.

Rolls can be kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator for about 5 days. Enjoy!

*Recipe adapted from Sally’s BakingAddiction*