Mystery Lovers' Kitchen: refrigerator cookies

Friday, December 13, 2024

Refrigerator Cookies @MaddieDayAuthor #ChristmasRecipe #giveaway

MADDIE DAY here, with a cookie recipe I've been making since I was a young child at my mother's side, and an apology.

I saved making this recipe and documenting it with pictures for this week. But a respiratory infection has laid me low, and I didn't have the energy to assemble dough and bake.

This is the recipe card I've had in my recipe box since high school. My mom made long rolls of cookie dough every year, and now I do, too.

I have modified the recipe a bit for clarity and health (I haven't gone anywhere near Crisco in decades...). Also, I have no idea why nuts are listed. My mom never put nuts in these cookies.

Refrigerator Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup softened butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

3 cups all purpose or unbleached white flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

Directions

Blend butter and sugars. Beat in eggs one at a time.

Stir in flour mixed with salt and soda.

Lay a sheet of wax or parchment paper on the counter. Near one long side, shape part of the dough into a roll 2 inches in diameter. Wrap the closest paper over and squeeze into a cylinder, then wrap in the rest of the sheet and twist the ends of the paper. Repeat until dough is gone.

Refrigerate or freeze for an hour or overnight.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Cut 1/4 inch slices and place half to an inch apart. I borrowed this photo from a similar recipe Cleo shared here fifteen years ago!

Decorate with green and red sugars for a holiday look or with white sugar for any time of year.

Bake for 8-10 minutes. Cool on a rack. Believe me, they are yummy!

Option: Divide dough in half. Color one half with red food coloring and the other with green. Flatten dough lengthwise along half the paper. Roll other color on top, and then roll as above. When cut before baking, the cookies reveal a spiral.

Readers: What's your favorite holiday dessert? I'll send one of you a collection of my Christmas novellas.

🍪🍪🍪

Deadly Crush is out and available wherever books are sold.

My most recent releases are Murder at the Rusty Anchor,

A Case for the Ladies,

And Deep Fried Death, #12 in the Country Store Mysteries.

Check out all my writing.

We hope you'll visit Maddie and her Agatha Award-winning alter ego Edith Maxwell on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau and sweet cat Martin north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Make Your Own REFRIGERATOR LOG PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES by @CleoCoyle #NationalPeanutButterCookieDay

From Cleo Coyle: When busy families have a hankering for home-baked cookies, they often reach for store-bought logs wrapped in plastic. While those pre-made logs are convenient, you can't beat the taste of fresh ingredients in homemade, which is why I'm happy to share my version of Pillsbury's refrigerator log cookies. And...

Since tomorrow is (I kid you not) National Peanut Butter Cookie Day, it's great timing, too. So, scroll down for my recipe, and let's start baking!

Cleo Coyle writes two
bestselling mystery
series with her husband.
To learn more, click here.

☕ A Note from Cleo

In traditional peanut butter cookie recipes, you're instructed to roll the dough into little balls and smush each down with a crisscrossing of fork prongs. If you want to stick to that standard method, no worries, this recipe can be made that way, too. On the other hand, there are several advantages to the refrigerator log method...

👉 Letting the dough rest in the refrigerator allows the flavors to develop, which produces a better tasting cookie.

👉 The log gives you the convenience of only slicing off and baking as many cookies as you need at the time, which means you can serve up a warm pan of them, freshly baked, every afternoon or evening until the dough is gone, instead of being stuck baking all the dough at once.

Nothing says Lovin' from the Oven like a pan of home-baked peanut butter cookies, slightly crispy on the outside, warm and tender on the inside.

May you bake with love and eat with joy.

~ Cleo

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To download this recipe in

a free PDF document that

you can print, save,
or share, click here.

Click here for PDF.

Refrigerator Log
Peanut Butter Cookies
by Cleo Coyle

Yields: About 4 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup granulated white sugar
1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
2 eggs, lightly beaten with fork
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 -1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
(optional) about 1/4 cup more granulated, white sugar (for topping)

Directions: Using an electric mixer, cream butter, peanut butter, and sugars in a bowl until light and fluffy. Mix in remaining ingredients until soft dough forms. Using hands, shape dough into 2 or 3 logs of about 2-inches in diameter. Wrap tightly in plastic or wax paper and refrigerate 4 to 6 hours or overnight. The flavors will develop and the log will firm up. You can now slice as many or as few cookies as you like before re-wrapping the log and returning to the fridge for storage.

Note: The most popular brand of store-bought log cookies says their brand will last 1 week after opening. That's about the same amount of time I'd give these homemade logs in your refrigerator. To freeze, slice up the cookies first, place them flat on a plate (lined with plastic or wax paper so they don't stick). After about 90 minutes, take the firmed-up cookie slices and drop them into a freezer-safe plastic bag, seal and store (up to 3 months).

To Bake: While you certainly don’t need to use fork prongs to make a crisscross design on each slice, I find the traditional look of a peanut butter cookie isn't quite complete without those cute little X’s. I dip my fork tines into a bit of water and then granulated sugar before dragging them lightly across each slice.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 to 17 minutes. The exact time depends on your oven and the thickness of your cookie slices. Do not over-bake. Peanut butter cookies with scorched bottoms are pretty much inedible, so be careful. The cookies should be lightly golden brown and not dark brown. Remove from pan promptly, cool on a rack, and...eat with peanut butter cookie joy!