Two friends, miles apart, who love to bake!
“It’s always better to give than to receive”. While the saying may be cliche, we fully agree! Christmas is our favorite time of the year and half the fun is buying or making gifts for our friends and family! We’ve compiled a list of our …
Who here loves brie? (raises hand enthusiastically). Let’s be honest though, I love pretty much every kind of cheese and I will use any excuse to eat it. I recently ordered a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch with a side of mac and cheese. That’s …
Peanut butter and jelly. Macaroni and cheese. Spaghetti and garlic bread. Whiskey and water. Justin Beiber and Selena Gomez (even though I’m the only one still rooting for them). Celine Dion and Las Vegas. Buster Posey and the Giants. USC and football. Nutella and everything. Steph and Matt. Me and Niall Horan (my One Direction obsession is shining through right now and I’m totally ok with that…). Ok maybe not that last one, unfortunately, but some things are just meant to be.
Chocolate and peppermint is one such pairing. Especially around the holidays.
About two years ago I developed a terrible habit that took a toll on my waistline and my wallet. I would get a tall Peppermint Mocha from Starbucks regularly. As in once a week. As in maybe twice a week. Well if we’re being honest, more like three times a week… with the occasionally fourth on the weekends. Oops!
That isn’t the case anymore. My pants got a little snug and I now pay rent so there goes the excess spending but I still treat myself to one occasionally and love any peppermint/chocolate dessert combo!
These cookies are adapted from the cookie portion of the German Chocolate Cake Cookies. They’re easy to make and great for travel so they’re the perfect cookie for the Food Blogger Cookie Swap! Steph and I participated in the swap last year and throughout the year I’ve been thinking of what kind of cookie to make this year. The chocolate/peppermint combo was just calling my name. I received some amazing cookies this year and can’t wait to participate next year! Hope you enjoy 🙂
-Kelly
Ingredients:
Directions:
Pumpkin Pie is my favorite. It’s a classic! It is a staple in most homes on Thanksgiving and also on Christmas. Why do we only get to eat this pie once or twice a year?! It really is a shame. Since I wouldn’t be with …
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! The holidays are always my favorite time of year! Here at Long Distance Baking, we love Christmas. We love it so much in fact, that we’ve been known to listen to Christmas music a couple times throughout …
It just wouldn’t be the holiday season without excessive amounts of cookies, am I right?? My first big holiday baking day included these cookies. Kelly and I have been waiting a year to participate in the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap…we couldn’t wait to get matched up with other bloggers and get started!
The FB Cookie Swap is in it’s fourth year and is hosted by Julie at The Little Kitchen and Lindsay at Love and Olive Oil. The official partner of this year’s swap was Cookies for Kid’s Cancer and each participating blogger made a donation during the sign up process. We raised over $12,000!! Way to go guys!
Next we were given the names of three other bloggers and sent them each a dozen cookies. I wanted to make something festive, but not too traditional (just in case their other matches had the same idea). White chocolate always seems to be forgotten about (at least in my house) so I thought I would give them some attention. I love the cranberries for an extra pop of color and a tartness to counteract the sweetness of the chocolate. Let’s just say it’s a good thing I had to give these cookies away!
My mom had given me a huge assortment of cookie packaging and bakeware as part of my birthday gift; it was so fun packaging up these cookies! It really makes it so much more special when you are baking for someone else. My matches were Carrie at Diet Deep Dish, Diana at Life Off The Clock, and Michelle at My California Kitchen. I loved the fact my matches were other bloggers I didn’t know. It was a great way to discover new blogs and friends!
The cookies I recieved were White Chocolate Hazelnut Crunch Cookies from Chocolate and Marrow, Double Chocolate Chocolate Cookies from Sarah Cooks the Books and a mystery batch of Chocolate Biscotti!
These White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies are a simple twist on my White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies and are super easy to whip up. Which is always handy in case you have a cookie swap of your own or need some treats for a holiday party and procrastinate until the last minute. No judgement here 😉 Kelly made Danish Butter Cookies, but rumor has it they were so good she ate them all before getting pictures. Recipe coming soon!
Thank you Julie and Lindsay for hosting the cookie swap and can’t wait to participate again next year!
~Stephanie
White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
It’s December 8th. The Reed Wedding is on May 16th. Today I decided that I really needed to increase my wedding cake practice. Because I’m obviously running out of time… Today I went Christmas shopping. However, I did not buy any gifts. Instead, I bought …
Can you believe it is December?? Where did the fall go?! We hope you had a great Thanksgiving weekend filled with family, friends and delicious food. This month tends to get hectic and busy, but giving back to others is a tradition we both strive …
Believe it or not but I have never made homemade sugar cookies before. I’ve decorated homemade sugar cookies as a kid and I’ve eaten a ton around the holidays, but I have never made them myself. This past weekend I decided it was time to change that. And what better way to frost homemade sugar cookies than with royal icing??
I used Steph’s Sugar Cookie recipe and it is seriously the best!! When I visited Steph in Boise for New Year’s two years ago, she made these cookies and I ate one with every meal. No joke, I had a sugar cookie at every meal. Sometimes two… But it was vacation and New Year’s and we went to Bikram Yoga one day when I was there so it was totally acceptable 😉
Last year she posted a Royal Icing recipe using egg whites. Since I’ve never made sugar cookies or royal icing before and Steph has made the egg white version, I though I’d try royal icing using meringue powder. Super easy!!
I had visions of my cookies looking perfectly frosted and ready to be sold at the Starbucks counter. Unfortunately the presentation needs a little work. I was too impatient to make them bakery worthy this time but now that I have a great royal icing recipe to use, next time they will definitely be photo worthy! Hope you enjoy and Happy Holidays 🙂
-Kelly
Ingredients:
Directions:
While we did start this blog mainly for sharing our baking adventures, a lot happens in our lives outside of the kitchen! Kelly and I will each be posting a Monthly Musing to discuss…whatever we feel like! It could be book reviews, new music we’re …