When the Nog Meets Cookies
Thursday 12.10.09So I’ve had multiple requests for the eggnog cookies recipe. MULTIPLE. So here it is:
Mrs. Fields Eggnog Cookies
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup SALTED butter, room temp (Mrs. Fields calls for this)
1/2 cup eggnog
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon nutmeg (optional)Preheat oven to 300F.
In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg; mix well with a wire whisk and set aside.
In a large bowl, cream sugar and butter with an electric mixer. Add eggnog, vanilla and egg yolks and beat at medium speed until smooth. Add the dry ingredients and beat at low speed just until combined.
Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased baking sheets, 1″ apart. Sprinkle lightly with nutmeg or skip this step and sprinkle on the nutmeg after you ice the cookies. Bake for 23-25 minutes or until bottoms turn light brown.
Transfer to cool, flat surface immediately with spatula.
Eggnog Icing
3 C. confectioners’ sugar
1/4 C. softened butter or margarine
1/3 C. commercial eggnog (use as much as you need)In small mixer bowl, beat confectioners’ sugar and butter or margarine until well blended. Gradually beat in eggnog until icing is smooth. Makes about 1 1/2 cups.
And then I heard a friend who made them talking about how she couldn’t make anymore because she didn’t have any yokes. And I said, “Huh?” “You know, the two egg yokes.” “Oh, I didn’t do that: I used one whole egg.”
Likewise:
- I measured the baking powder in the palm of my hand
- I squeezed in an unknown amount of cinnamon out of the plastic container
- I grated nutmeg til I was tired of grating
- I did not use salted butter
- I added salt (palm-measured, of course)
- I did not mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl
- I baked them at 375
SO be forewarned: just because you get a recipe from a cookie that I made, it doesn’t mean that I actually *followed* the recipe. It’s more a set of guidelines to give some generous boundaries with wiggle room in between.
And I wonder why my chemical-engineer-father and math-major mother and bio-chem-brother and I don’t see more eye to eye. 
Ahh, but your mother’s mother would totally understand as does your auntie. Receipes are “guidelines” — kinda like the speed limit says 35 but one can go 40 or 43 or any number of those “instructions” that can be ignored without dire consequences. You takes your chances–otherwise, how boring would it be to measure 1/2 teaspoon, why mix dry separately? I mean, c’mon. Recipes, schmescipes.
I hear ya – a friend asked for my stew recipe and I had to tell her, “um, I don’t really have one, it’s just made up in my mind and different every time based on what I have in the fridge/cupboard.”