Cookie Swap 2012 Recipe

Last year your Chocolate Priestess participated in her first ever cookie swap.  It went very well so I decided to try and take part again this year.  As last year, I was sent three names of sister food bloggers to send a dozen cookies to and then write about today.  We had to chose a different recipe from last year so I chose a cookie I could make using our cookie gun because it is fun and fairly fast and easy. Given my teaching this semester on top of my normal full time author career, I needed something quicker and simple.  I still think these cookies turned out well and I hope the three people I sent them to agree: Wendy Sondov of The Monday Box, Betsy Eves of JavaCupcake, and Sara Croft of Solid Gold Eats.

Finding a good recipe for these cookies was the biggest challenge.  Several recipes were out there on the Internet and the gun itself came with a group of recipes.  I decided to try this one because it used unsweetened chocolate in it and the more chocolate the better, right?

In return for my joining this cookie swap and supporting the charity it was attached to this year, I also received a turner or flipper from OXO.  In regards to the cookies I made for this swap this didn't work very well, it wasn't quite firm enough to deal with the spritz cookies I made this year because one fo the tricks to these is that you have to remove them fast because as they cool down they stick harder to the cookie sheet.  I'll try the OXO product later and then post about it.

I decided to combine this recipes post with a Special Sacramental Review as well because I used the last three bars of chocolate from DOVE.  I also modified the original recipe so here are the resulting cookies: Triple Chocolate Spritz Cookies.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup egg substitute
2 T skim milk
1/2 tsp creme de cocoa
13 sections of DOVE 71% chocolate bar, melted
2 cups whole grain flour
1/4 tsp salt
more DOVE 71% chocolate bar, melted

Preheat oven to 375°F.  Do not put anything on your cookies -- no butter or non-strick spray, no parchment paper.

Cream together shortening and sugar until well blended.  Add egg, milk, and creme de cocoa and beat until it is all fully mixed.

Melt your chocolate (13 sections) until smooth then add to the wet ingredients mixing until thoroughly combined.  The DOVE bars melted very easily in the microwave.

Mix together flour and salt then add the dry ingredients to the previous wet mixture until smooth.  The batter will be slightly stick but over all a semi-solid dough.

Roll the dough into tubes and add one at a time to the cookie press or cookie gun as we call it here.  Then choose your design pattern and place it on the end of the press.  Make sure when you force out the dough you keep it perpendicular to the cookie sheet and lift straight up.  The dough should stick to the cookie sheet.

Then bake for 10 minutes.

Remove from heat and immediately lift the cookies off the hot pan and onto parchment paper.  If you don't do this quickly the cookies will start to cool and stick.

To reuse the cookie sheets make sure you cool it off completely before putting down more dough.

Let cookies cool completely.

Then melt the remaining chocolate and dip one-half of each cookie into the liquid and set it back on the parchment paper. The chocolate should return to a solid state in about 1-2 hours.

This made almost 50 cookies!

The cookie part that wasn't dipped in the chocolate was more sweet than I had hoped but the dipped part was excellent in terms of amount of chocolate flavor.

Also in return for my sending out cookies, I received cookies back from three people.

The first cookies to arrive were from Sara at Solid Gold Eats who sent a dozen "Peanut Butter and Strawberry Vanilla Jame Thumbprints." We love these types of peanut butter cookies around here but we never had them with a fruit center/top before.  Very nice combination of the fruity and the peanut.

The second batch to arrive were these Chocolate Peppermint Cookies from the baker chick.  These looked very chocolatey and so I, of course, was thrilled.  The little pieces of peppermint on top was seasonal yet this much like the previous dozen, could easily be made at other types of the year by using different sugar candies on top.

Saturday, December 15, 2012, the Chocolate Peppermint Crinkles arrived from Java Cupcake.  Her cookies had a ways to travel since she is blogging and serving her country overseas.  They arrived well in this red plastic container.