Red Velvet Cookies with White Chocolate Chips

Valentine's Day is just a week away and maybe the way into your significant other's heart is through their stomach... or maybe you're celebrating Single's Awareness Day and want to treat yourself! Either way, I highly recommend making these red velvet cookies with white chocolate chips (I just starting writing and I've already had 3... and I don't even like white chocolate!). The recipe comes to us from this post by The Recipe Critic.

Now check your cupboards because this calls for a lot of ingredients:

Not pictured: sugar and eggs

* 2 1/4 C of flour
* 2 1/2 T of cocoa powder
* 1 1/2 t of cornstarch
* 3/4 t of baking soda
* 1/2 t of salt
* 8 T of butter (or 1 stick)
* 6 T of vegetable shortening (Crisco)
* 1 1/2 C of sugar
* 1 egg and 1 egg yolk
* 1 1/2 t of white vinegar
* 1 1/2 t of vanilla extract
* 1 T of red food coloring (I used 1/2 T)
* 1 1/3 C of white chocolate chips (divided)
* Parchment paper

Whew! Ok, once you have all your ingredients, preheat your oven to 375 and mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl - the flour, cocoa powder, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt. The salt is going to give it a nice added flavor, you wouldn't expect it. And try to get all the clumps out of the cocoa powder... I didn't do a thorough job and some of the clumps ended up burning in the oven!

Next, in your mixer combine the butter and vegetable shortening until it's fluffy. Then add in the egg and the egg yolk until they're combined.

Finally, add in the rest of the wet ingredients - the vinegar, vanilla, and food coloring. I only had enough red food coloring for 1/2 Tablespoon and at first I was afraid I was going to end up with pink cookies. However, the color changes in the next step!

Mixer is red - the ingredients looked might pink!

Next, add your dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Once they're combined, mix in 1/2 C of white chocolate chips. Now here's where I made a mistake: I didn't think 1/2 C was enough, so I added in 1 C of chocolate chips and didn't have any extra chips. Ideally, you want to set aside some chocolate chips to put on top of the cookie dough balls before placing in the oven, but that's entirely up to you.

Line your cookie sheets with parchment paper and start to add your cookie dough balls. I've found the best method for scooping out cookie dough comes from my mother - get a glass of water, dip a big spoon into the water, then scoop out some cookie dough and place it on the sheet. Dip the spoon back in the water, and then scoop out another spoonful. By dipping the spoon in the water, you're less likely to have any clumps of dough on your spoon and you don't have to use your finger to get any off!

At this point, grab 5 chocolate chips and place them on top of each mound of cookie dough. I did this for some but not all.. I was getting hungry, what can I say? Put them in the oven for 8-9 minutes (10 minutes burned the bottom of some but again, that was partly the cocoa powder's fault), then let them cool on a rack before stuffing your face.

How pretty some might turn out:

And how realistic some might turn out:

Either way, I can assure you they're delicious and they all look the same once they're in your stomach! Enjoy!

TOTAL COSTS: Free! 

However, I had all the ingredients on hand already

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: A little over an hour to make 3 dozen cookies

40 minutes to make the dough

8-9 minutes in the oven/batch

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 1 out of 5

Pretty straight forward, wouldn't you say? This would be a cute activity to do with your little ones on these snow days!

Oreo Peppermint Truffles

Oreo. Peppermint. Truffles. Three of my favorite things rolled into one! They're perfect for a cookie exchange or a holiday party you might be hosting, they don't require an oven, and they're super easy to make! This recipe comes to us from Cooking Classy.

Ok, so here's what you'll need:

1 Package of Oreo's (NOT double-stuffed)

16 oz. of white chocolate (I realized after I bought them I had CandiQuik, a vanilla candy coating, instead of white chocolate. It still worked!)

8oz. cream cheese (the "whipped" kind worked great!)

1 t peppermint extract

Crushed peppermints (I used 10)

Plastic bags & a hammer or rolling pin (or a food processor if you have one)

Wax paper and cookie sheet

So the first mistake I made was using a VitaMix blender to try and crush the Oreos. Big mistake and big waste of time. I ended up transferring the Oreos to a plastic bag and using a rolling pin to crush them instead.

Once the Oreos are crushed, mix the cream cheese and peppermint extract in a bowl. Now I know the instructions say to add the cream cheese mix to the Oreos but I did it the other way around and it worked just fine. 

Once you've mixed it thoroughly, then it's time to get your hands dirty! I used a big spoon to scoop out the mixture and the balls were formed quite easily. Put them on the wax paper that's on the cookie sheet and stick 'em in the freezer for 10 minutes. The original post claims you can make 36, I was lucky to get 24.

While they're in the freezer, get out your peppermints and start crushing those as well. It's times like this I wish I had a food processor. Instead, I have two plastic bags and a hammer. Double bag those suckers (incase you make a hole in the bag like I did) and crush those bad boys! It's also a nice stress reliever.

Once those are crushed, it's time to melt your chocolate. Now here's the second mistake I made: I burned the chocolate. While I was able to melt it in two minutes on the stove, I was also able to slightly burn it, which resulted in some chunks in the chocolate. However, once you dunk the Oreo balls in the chocolate and sprinkle with peppermint pieces, you can't even tell!

And voila! A yummy peppermint chocolate treat!

TOTAL COSTS: About $16 (assuming you need all ingredients - prices from Vons)
$3.99 for Oreos
$4.49 for CandiQuik
$2.99 Peppermint extract
$1.99 for Cream cheese
$3 for 2 packs of peppermints

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: Almost an hour to make 24
10 minutes with the blender (that didn't work)
5 minutes with rolling pin after that to crush Oreos
5 minutes mixing in cream cheese, peppermints, and Oreos
10 minutes to roll into balls
10 minutes in the freezer (which was enough time to melt chocolate and crush peppermints)
15 minutes to dip in chocolate and cover in peppermint

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5
The only difficult thing was crushing the Oreos and the peppermints but it wasn't that hard, just tedious. It's worth it in the end, though, I assure you!