Brown Sugar-Cinnamon Cookies

I’m back again. It’s been a bit too hot to bake lately, so I’ve been focusing on all the fresh fruit in season. I recently fell in love with apricots, and have been trying to master broiling them. The first recipe I tried came from here: http://prouditaliancook.blogspot.com/2011/08/easy-labor-day-weekend-ideas.html. The pistachios and apricots tasted wonderful together, but the honey did not sweeten the apricots enough for my family’s tastes.

Attempt No. 2 came from Joy the Baker (http://joythebaker.com/2011/06/simple-roasted-apricots-with-honey-mascarpone/). The flavors were far simpler, but the apricots came out of the oven wonderfully caramelized, almost like marshmallows initially. In addition, adding the mascarpone after broiling still allowed for some wonderful ooziness. I loved this recipe so much; I might have repeated it with my lunch three days in a row…

So, the seasonally available goodies have stolen away my attention for a while. I went Marion berry picking last week and will probably pick blackberries in the coming weeks. I’ll try to post some jam recipes as I have time.

Wonderful summer flavors!

Without further ado, here is my newest cookie attempt from Tina Casaceli’s book Milk & Cookies. I tried her Brown Sugar-Cinnamon Crisps. Mine turned out a bit chewier than the recipe indicated they should turn out, but I also struggled with the dough expanding in the oven. Overall, they were large and delicious sugar cookies with a slight kick of cinnamon.

Here are the ingredients:

3 cups (12 ounces) all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon backing powder
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
1 ½ cups (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature*
1 ¼ cups (8 ¾ ounces) brown sugar
2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk
½ cup (3 ½ ounces) granulated sugar
*Due to a shortage, I had to mix unsalted and salted butter. I just left out the salt in the dough.


½ cup (3 ½ ounces) granulated sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat temperature: 350ºF

Before I jump into the recipe, I’d like to acknowledge some mistakes. First of all, if you are going to crack your eggs ahead of time like me, crack each egg into a separate container. Otherwise, you will struggle to add each yolk individually. Second, I think I did not chill the dough long enough, as the heart shaped cookies looked a bit more like hearts from someone who suffers from high HDL, not normal, Valentine’s Day friendly shaped hearts.

Mistake No. 1

Now to the instructions.

Combine the flour, salt, baking soda and cream of tartar in a medium sized bowl and set this dry mixture aside.

Put the butter into your mixer that is fitted with a paddle. Beat it on low, increasing the speed to medium and keep the mixture going for 3 minutes. The butter should be very light and smooth.
Add the brown sugar in ¼ cup intervals. Once all of the sugar has been added, beat the mixture for another 2 minutes.

Add the yolks one at a time. Have a rubber spatula out to scrape down the sides of the bowl after each egg is added. Add the vanilla and beat the mixture for another minute.

Keep the mixer running as you add half of the flour mixture and the milk. The milk allows you to keep the mixture from getting too tough to be mixed. After these additions add the rest of the flour and mix by hand with a kneading motion, being careful not to overwork the dough. Just make sure that all of the ingredients are blended together.

Mixing Montage 

Make a large disk out of the dough, and wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for 1 hour to 3 days, until it is firm.

When it’s time to bake the cookies, make sure the oven has been heated to 350ºF. Line baking sheets with parchment paper for easier clean-up.

Unwrap the dough from the plastic wrap and place on a floured surface. This is the point in the recipe where I veered off course. I rolled out the dough, cut it into heart and circular shapes, dipped it in a cinnamon-sugar mixture and dropped it on the cookie sheets. I baked the cookies for about 10 minutes, removing them once they were brown along the edges. That is a little harder to gauge with these cookies due to the darker colored dough from the brown sugar. Allow the cookies to cool on wire racks and store in an airtight container for up to a week, if you don’t eat them sooner.

Golden and not over-expanded