Chocolate Chip Winter Cookies

The holidays just got sweeter with a little help from NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE Morsels! These Chocolate Chip Winter Cookies are packed with dried fruit and nuts then pressed with sugar for the ultimate holiday cookie or gift!

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We hear it in the song-laced air, the hymns of the season, tales of fire roasted chestnuts, warm pudding, and halls bedecked in holly. We see it as the days grow short and the nights extend their reign, darkness adorned in holiday lights set against a backdrop of amber hued hearths, while the carols celebrating love and life defy the cold dead of winter. We feel it in the warmth of a wintry season devoted to age old tradition whose true purpose is creating the memories that will cherished tomorrow.

Yet it’s more than sights or sounds or warm feelings. The season, you see, has a flavor and an aroma all its own. Whether your family roasts the telltale chestnuts, prepares the perfect turkey, barbecues sausages at midnight, or sets out overflowing trays of men made of gingery bread, it’s a season where food is among the foremost ‘traditions,’ the ‘object’ around which the festivities circle.

While gingerbread men and their candied houses are ubiquitous, and while grain cakes were the favorite on my family’s table growing up, one of my more recent favorites is something a tad simpler, something I can prepare throughout the season, and not just for Christmas Day – classic chocolate chip cookies. The thing is, I like to ‘remix’ them my way, to give them a bit of the season’s greetings for precisely this time of year to take the tried and true chocolate chip cookie and transform it into more of a ‘Winter Cookie.’

To start things off blend flour, butter, granulated sugar, molasses, vanilla, baking soda, salt and eggs until smooth. Then add in chocolate chips, I prefer NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE Semi-Sweet Morsels for consistent quality. Along with the chocolate chips, add in chopped walnuts and almonds, dried cherries, and continue to blend the mixture, keeping it smooth.

Once the dough is thoroughly mixed, portion it out as rough dough balls onto ungreased baking sheet, with each portion being about a teaspoon in size. Now, dust the bottom of a glass or mallet with plain white sugar, and gently flatten each of the dough balls, re-dusting with sugar between each press. The idea is embed the top of the cookies with sugar crystals. No, dusting the cookies with sugar afterwards won’t work.

Once that’s done, bake the cookies at 350 degrees for about fifteen minutes, or until lightly golden.

Living the Gourmet

Yields 3

Chocolate Chip Winter Cookies

5 minPrep Time

12 minCook Time

17 minTotal Time

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Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks) softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 3 tbs. molasses
• 1 tbs. vanilla extract
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 eggs
• 12 oz. NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE Semi-Sweet Morsels
• 1 cup chopped nuts (I used walnuts and almonds mixed)
• 1 cup dried cherries, chopped

Instructions

1. Preheat oven 350 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl mix together, at medium speed, the flour, butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, molasses’s, vanilla, baking soda, salt, and eggs until blended. Add the chocolate chips, chopped nuts and dried cherries and continue to mix at low speed until incorporated.
3. Using two teaspoons drop slightly a rounded spoonful of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
4. Place about a 1/4 cup of sugar in a saucer and dip the bottom of a glass into the sugar and slightly press each cookie with the sugared glass bottom.
5. Bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden.
6. Let cool on a cookie rack.

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And you’re done. Having today’s ‘Winter Cookies’ on hand as a late night snack with hot chocolate, or as a light dessert after lunch or dinner is a great way to keep things seasonal on a day to day basis, and besides that they really just pair excellently with a cold winter night.

What are some of your favorite holiday confections? What are some of your traditional recipes for the winter, and how do you put a new spin on them to keep things fresh? We would love to hear from you.

For more NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE inspiration, follow along on Facebook & Pinterest. Also, click here to save $0.50 when you buy any one (1) Nestlé® Toll House® Morsels or Cookie Dough!

Thank you to Nestle Toll House for sponsoring today’s post and inspiring me to try Nestle Toll House morsels!

Enjoy with Love,
Catherine
xo

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