Cookie season

By Sharon Ghag

McClatchy Newspapers

Life is sweet, especially since a batch of home-baked cookies can still make someone’s day.

Butter and sugar prices may give some bakers pause this holiday season.

Don’t let them.

We’ve scoured through the new batch of cookbooks and baked up a selection of cookies with an eye on tight food budgets.

One recipe requires no butter, another uses shortening, one is light on sugar, and some don’t skimp at all.

Here’s more on the cookbooks:

“One Sweet Cookie: Celebrated Chefs Share Favorite Recipes,” by Tracey Zabar (Rizzoli, $30): The international array of cookies includes cherished family favorites and signature best sellers from 70 of New York’s best culinary talents. This is a book to buy and keep; has glossy paper and color photographs.

“The Cookiepedia: Mixing, Baking, and Reinventing the Classics,” by Stacy Adimando (Quirk, $18.95): Each section begins with pictures of all the cookies, from buttery to chocolaty, fancy to fruity, spicy to nutty and seedy. This is a great gift for beginning bakers.

“Sugar, Sugar: Every Recipe Has a Story,” by Kimberly “Momma” Reiner and Jenna Sanz-Agero (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $29.99): This collection down memory lane — featuring cakes, pies, cookies, bars and candies — includes bourbon balls, rum balls and church windows, those beautiful no-bake slice cookies made with colored marshmallows. Yum.

“Biscuiteering Book of Iced Cookies,” by Harriet Hastings and Sarah Moore (Kyle Books, $18.95): There are fewer than a dozen cookie recipes in this book, but the iced cookie ideas and templates will hook you and inspire you.

“Baking Style: Art - Craft - Recipes,” by Lisa Yockelson (Wiley, $45): Words can’t do justice to this decadent ride through baking in all its buttery glory. This is a book meant to be treasured and savored and enjoyed as much for the recipes as for the photographs and Yockelson’s thoughtfully written prose.

“So Sweet! Cookies, Cupcakes, Whoopie Pies, and More,” by Sur la Table (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $15) Colored photographs, gift-able size and breadth of whoopie pie recipes mean it won’t be sitting on the bookshelf too long.

GREAT PUMPKIN COOKIES

This recipe is from Toni Fiorenza of Toni’s Courtyard Cafe & Catering, Merced, Calif. (www.toniscourtyardcafe.com).

1cup butter, softened

1cup white sugar

1cup brown sugar

1egg

1teaspoon vanilla

1cup canned pumpkin

2cups flour

1cup old-fashioned oatmeal

1teaspoon baking soda

1teaspoon cinnamon

1/2teaspoon salt

Blend butter, sugars, egg and vanilla in a large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and blend well. Combine all dry ingredients in separate bowl and slowly stir into pumpkin mixture. Place spoonfuls of dough on buttered baking sheet.

Bake 325 degrees for 25 minutes or until center of cookie is lightly firm to the touch.

You can add chocolate chips to the dough to make great chocolate chip pumpkin cookies.

OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES

Makes 2 dozen

This recipe is from “The Cookiepedia: Mixing, Baking, and Reinventing the Classics,” by Stacy Adimando (Quirk, $18.95).

1/2cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

2/3cup light brown sugar

1egg

1teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4cup all-purpose flour

1/2teaspoon baking soda

1/2teaspoon salt

1/2teaspoon ground cinnamon

11/2cups old-fashioned or quick-cook oats

2/3cup raisins

Cream together the butter and sugar on medium until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and mix a bit more.

Sift flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon into a bowl. Pour in the flour mixture and work mixer on low just to work in dry ingredients. Stir in oats and raisins with a spoon.

Scoop out tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto parchment-paper-lined sheets about 2 inches apart.

Bake 12 to 14 minutes at 350 degrees.

Chilling dough results in a taller, chewier cookies.

Sweet-Surplus-Of-Chocolate Cookies

Makes about 21 cookies

This recipe is from “Baking Style,” by Lisa Yockelson (Wiley, $45).

2/3cup plus 1 teaspoon unsifted bleached all-purpose flour

1/8teaspoon baking soda

1/4teaspoon salt

11tablespoons (1 stick plus 3 tablespoons) unsalted butter

3/4cup packed light brown sugar

3tablespoons granulated sugar

2large egg yolks

21/2tablespoons vanilla extract

1cup plus 3 tablespoons quick-cooking (not instant) rolled oats

12ounces bittersweet chocolate chips

2/3cup firmly packed sweetened coconut

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment. Sift flour, baking soda and salt together.

Cream the butter in the large bowl of a free-standing mixer on low speed for three to four minutes. Add the brown sugar and beat on moderate speed for one minute. Add the granulated sugar and beat one minute longer. Add the egg yolks, beating on low speed until just incorporated. Blend in the vanilla extract and then the sifted ingredients until flour particles are just absorbed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula and then blend in the rolled oats, then the chocolate chips and coconut.

Place 3 tablespoon mounds of dough about 3 inches apart on prepared baking pans.

Bake 16 to 17 minutes, or until just set. The edges off the cookies will be just a bit darker than the centers.

PETITS FOURS A L’ANISE

Makes about 100 cookies

This recipe, from “One Sweet Cookie: Celebrated Chefs Share Favorite Recipes,” by Tracey Zabar (Rizzoli, $30), is from Andre Soltner of the French Culinary Institute.

When you bake these cookies, they rise a little and look like mushrooms.

1cup granulated sugar

3large eggs

1tablespoon whole anise seeds

2cups all-purpose flour, sifted, plus more for flouring pastry sheets

Unsalted butter for pastry sheets

Butter pastry sheets and dust with flour.

Put sugar and eggs in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix for about 10 minutes on high speed, until a ribbon forms when a whisk is inserted and lifted from the mixture.

Add the anise seeds and beat for a few minutes more, until the seeds are blended. By hand, with a spatula, gently fold in the flour.

Put this dough in a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch tip. Pipe dough onto the pastry sheets, forming circles 3/4-inch across.

Let them dry overnight, or at least four hours, at room temperature.

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Bake cookies for about 10 minutes.

PETITS FOURS DE NOEL

Makes about 100

This recipe, also from “One Sweet Cookie,” is also from Andre Soltner.

8ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter

1cup granulated sugar

1/2teaspoon cinnamon

3ounces candied orange peel (optional)

8ounces ground almonds

Grated zest of 1 lemon

3small eggs

4cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface

1egg beaten with a little cold water

Cream butter and sugar. Add cinnamon, candied orange peel, almonds, lemon zest and three eggs and mix thoroughly. Add flour and knead until you have a smooth paste. Enclose dough in plastic wrap and let rest in refrigerator overnight, or up to two to three days.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Butter a pastry sheet and dust it with flour.

On a floured work surface, roll out the dough to a 1/4-inch thickness. Cut with cookies cutters. Combine scraps and roll and cut again. Arrange cutouts on the pastry sheet. Brush them with beaten egg. Bake until they are golden brown, about 10 minutes.

TRIPLE CHOCOLATE COOKIES

Makes 2 dozen

This recipe is also from “The Cookiepedia.”

13/4cups all-purpose flour

1/4cup cocoa

13/4teaspoons baking powder

1/4teaspoon salt

12ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

1/2cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

11/4cups dark brown sugar

1/4cup sugar

3eggs

11/2teaspoons vanilla extract

1cup semisweet chocolate chips

Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into a bowl and set aside.

Set a small pot of water on the stove and bring it to a simmer. Place chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set the bowl atop the pot. Stir chocolate until it’s melted and smooth. Remove from heat.

Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and the vanilla and mix to combine. Pour in the melted chocolate and continue beating. Add the flour mixture and chocolate chips, half at a time, and mix on low speed, until just incorporated.

Refrigerate dough 15 to 20 minutes, or until firm. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Roll dough into 11/2-inch balls and place on cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake for eight to 10 minutes. Cookies will firm once cooled.

MOLASSES CONSTRUCTION CRUMPLES

Makes about 4 dozen

This recipe is from “Sugar, Sugar: Every Recipe Has a Story,” by Kimberly “Momma” Reiner and Jenna Sanz-Agero (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $29.99).

21/4cups all-purpose flour

2teaspoons baking soda

1/2teaspoon salt

1teaspoon cinnamon

1teaspoon ground ginger

1/2teaspoon ground cloves

1/4teaspoon salt

3/4cup vegetable shortening

1cup packed light brown sugar

1/4cup molasses

1large eggs

1cup granulated sugar, for rolling

Whisk flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves in a large bowl; set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the shortening and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about two minutes. Mix in the egg and molasses on low speed until blended. Add the flour mixture gradually, and beat until just incorporated, about one minute.

Form the dough into a ball, and cover tightly with plastic. Chill for at least two hours.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line sheets with parchment paper.

Put granulated sugar in a small bowl. Roll a tablespoonful of dough into a ball the size of a large walnut. Dip the top half of the dough ball in sugar and place it sugar side up on the baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until cookies are set but soft in the center.