These cookies are my first installment of the Cookie-of-the-Month Club that I donated to the annual charity auction at my office. The auction is one of my favorite things we do at my office. We get donations from our vendors, employees and friends and auction them off to our staff. In nine years we’ve raised an incredible amount of money for various charities. One of my donations was 6 months of Cookie-of-the-Month and our lawyer won it in the silent auction. He is a pretty easy customer because he told me I could make whatever I wanted that didn’t have coconut.

Also he is planning on sharing these with his family during Thanksgiving. I chose this recipe because it makes a lot of cookies and they are perfect for Thanksgiving.

Martha Stewart’s Pumpkin Spice Cookies

(from MarthaStewart.com)

  • 4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 Tbsp baking soda
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
  • 3/4 lb (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1 3/4 cups sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup molasses

Combine flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and ginger in a large bowl; sift, and set aside.

(If you have an electric mixer you’ll want to use it but you don’t necessarily need it. My arm was sore from stirring but the cookies are just as good.) Combine butter and sugar. Beat, starting on low speed and increasing to high, until mixture is fluffy; scrape the sides of the bowl down once with a rubber spatula. Add eggs, one at a time, and vanilla; beat until just combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition.

Add molasses, and mix until just combined. Scrape sides of the bowl, and add dry ingredients. Mix until ingredients are just combined.

Transfer dough to a clean work surface. Roll the dough into four 1 1/2-inch-diameter logs. Wrap in parchment or plastic wrap, and refrigerate until firm, 1 to 2 hours. (I made the dough last weekend and froze the dough. You don’t even need to thaw the dough before baking.)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Unwrap, and slice each log into 3/8-inch-thick rounds. Place rounds on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until cookies crack slightly on the surface, 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

When completely cool, decorate with easy creamy icing.

See how this makes LOTS of cookies and there are 4 more stacks of cookies behind those ones. I chose a recipe for icing from Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book instead of the royal icing recommended on the Martha Stewart website.

Easy Creamy Icing

(adapted from Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book)

  • 3 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 3 Tbsp water

Blend sugar, salt and vanilla. Add water (adding more if necessary) until the icing is easy to spread. Place 1 teaspoon of icing on center of each cookie. With small icing spatula, spread icing with circular motion. Let icing set completely (2-3 hours) before stacking cookies.

cookies, Martha Stewart, recipe, Recipes

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November 22, 2010

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