5 COOKIES IN 1 COOKIE DOUGH

Yes, you read well. Today we are going to talk about how we can get five different flavors of cookies from a single base cookie dough. Aside from those five flavors, depending on your creativity and your desire to do different things, you can get many more flavors and combinations. For example, for this post and the board that you’ll see a little further down there are more than five different cookies. Using that base cookie dough, with five different flavors, I got at least 10 different cookies. Crazy all that can be done with such a simple recipe.

Now, ideally you want to do this in different days so you don’t get too tired. If you are anxious like me, you can do everything in one day. I warn you, I spent the whole day in the kitchen when I made these. Be sure to read the tips, there I will tell you how you can split in 3 days so as to not get too tired.

Before we continue, I’ll link some cookie recipes you might like as well.

PARTS OF THIS MAGIC COOKIES

The base cookie dough is just one recipe. It’s perfect because you really put it together in two minutes. Even faster if you use a mixer with the paddle attachment. Once that cookie dough is ready, the fun part begins. The first thing you are going to do is determine how much you want it to be vanilla based and how much you want it to be chocolate based. For example, I took out a little less than half for the chocolate base and the rest was all vanilla. The next step is letting that dough rest. If you are in a hurry, put it in the freezer for 30 minutes and it’s ready to use. I put it in the fridge overnight.

From there, again depending on how many cookies you want of each flavor you will be dividing both cookies doughs. This part is not an exact science. For example, I wanted more or less the same amount of vanilla and cinnamon cookies. Then, the piece that I want to be lemon flavored was smaller and so on. Just separate the doughs roughly depending on how many flavors you want.

The great thing about this dough is that there is nothing left over. Those last tiny leftovers, can be collected and you can make marbled cookies. I left the chocolate and vanilla leftovers. Marbled cookies of those two flavors was delicious.

LEMON COOKIES

Turning our basic vanilla cookie dough into lemon cookie dough is super easy. All you have to do is add a little lemon zest and a few drops of lemon juice to the dough. I am not going to put amounts because this depends on how much dough you leave for this cookie and how much lemon flavor you like. I added the zest of half a lemon and a splash of juice and that was enough for me.

CINNAMON COOKIES

Just like the lemon cookie, for this one you just have to add cinnamon. I am a fan of cinnamon. For these cookies I added cinnamon until the dough looked darker. Also, I wanted to make sure that the cookies really had completely different flavors. A teaspoon or a tablespoon of cinnamon depends on how much cinnamon you like. Don’t be afraid to taste a little bit of the raw dough. Just to know the flavor and if you need to add more. But a little bit, don’t go overboard with the raw dough.

CHOCOLATE COOKIE

Before any other flavor, I divided my dough into practically two (one of the pieces was smaller, the one I separated for the chocolate). The base dough is so buttery, that adding a little cacao powder didn’t affect the texture too much. Perfect. From that chocolate cookie dough I also got another flavor, but I left most of the dough with only chocolate.

ORANGE AND CHOCOLATE COOKIES

This is the only variation I made to the chocolate cookie dough. Just like lemon, it’s super easy to add this citrus flavor to chocolate dough. A little orange zest and a splash of the juice. Voila! A delicious chocolate and orange cookie to give more flavors to these cookies.

ADD ONS

This post is getting a bit long. The thing is that there is too much to talk about because so much can be done with this cookie dough. Incredible. I promise to put a lot of photos to cut the text a little so it doesn’t get too boring. What do I mean by add ons? Aside from giving this dough different flavors, I wanted to turn them into different types of cookies as well. Sandwich, cookies dipped in chocolate, different shapes and different sizes. All this was actually to give variation to the cookie board and I ended up getting excited about the flavors.

To add even more flavors and textures to these cookies I used five fillings or add ons. I used dulce de leche, semi sweet chocolate, white chocolate, white chocolate ganache and cinnamon sugar. These five little things made my cookies, which were already delicious, transform into something more.

COMBINATIONS

Flavor combinations to justify the add ons I wanted to use. Dulce de leche to make alfajores with lemon and chocolate cookies. Next, combine the dulce de leche and cinnamon sugar to turn the cinnamon cookies into churro-style alfajores. Delicious.

I use semi sweet chocolate to cover some cookies and half of other cookies. Mini chocolate cookies dipped in chocolate, vanilla cookies with a touch of chocolate and finally chocolate hearts with one half dipped. Also using a pipping bag, I made chocolate lines on some marbled cookies.

The same with white chocolate, some chocolate lines on cinnamon cookies. That’s one of my favorite flavor combinations by the way. White chocolate and cinnamon goes so well. So, it occurred to me to make some alfajor type cookies with the whipped white chocolate ganache too. I told you I got excited.

Finally, that same ganache was used to make a few chocolate sandwich cookies as well.

TIPS FOR PERFECT COOKIES

Cooling: Once the dough is ready, I recommend leaving it in the refrigerator overnight or in the freezer for at least 30 minutes. Although you can leave it in the refrigerator for just a few hours, making the dough the day before was more comfortable for me. Well wrapped in plastic wrap so it doesn’t catch the flavor of the fridge and that’s it. This is especially important if you live somewhere with hot weather.

Distribute tasks: What do I mean by this? It’s better to gradually assemble these cookies on different days instead of all in one day. You can make everything in one day but chances are you will be standing in the kitchen all day and it gets exhausting. I recommend making the base dough the night before. It will take you 20 minutes maximum with cleaning included. Let it rest overnight in the fridge. The next day you bake all the cookies and if you feel like it the third day make the extras and assemble. I say “if you feel like it” because it’s not absolutely necessary, on the contrary, cookies are perfect on their own too.

The flavors: Keep in mind what flavors you want to make before starting so you can separate the amounts of dough that correspond to each one. This makes the process more organized. Therefore, before starting, you can grate the lemon and the orange, for example, simply to have everything at hand.

Storing: This is specially important if you are going to spread the tasks over different days. Keeping the cookies in a container with a lid will keep their freshness and flavor. On a plate with tightly closed plastic wrap also works.

WHAT CAN I SERVE THE COOKIES IN

A few ways you can present the cookies as a gift, in a afternoon get together o dinner party as dessert.

EQUIPMENT

Measures: Cups, tablespoons and a kitchen scale. Measuring your ingredients in these kinds of recipes is very important.

Bowls: For the initial cookie dough, then another one for the chocolate dough. The rest of the flavors can be added on the counter easily.

Cutlery: Knives, spoons, etc, everything you need for the process.

Grater: For the lemon and orange zest.

Chopping board: To cut everything you need.

Cookie cutters: I used two different sizes. 6.5 cm and 2 cm cookie cutters. The shapes I used are heart, starts and circle cookie cutters. I also made some squares using a knife.

Plastic wrap: To cover the cookie dough.

Stand mixer with paddle attachment: This is not absolutely necessary but it makes it easier and quicker.

Rolling pin: To roll out the dough to the desired thickness.

Cookie sheet: To bake the cookies. The size of the cookie sheet depends on the size of your oven.

Parchment paper: Or a silicone silpat. This is so that the cookies don’t stick to the cookie sheet in the oven.

Mixer: I used a small hand electric mixer to whip up the chocolate ganache once it is almost frozen.

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