Hoot Owl Cookies....Hoot! Hoot!

When I was a little girl, my fondest memories are of my mother happily baking in the kitchen. And in the Autumn and Winter, she was baking every chance she could get. I remember once coming home from "trick 'r treating" to the smell of homemade raised donuts. Ooooh if you ever tasted my mother's donuts, it would ruin you for life on the donut shops!

This recipe for Hoot Owl Cookies is a refrigerator cookie. Mom used to make these around Halloween.
It comes from an Old Pillsbury Family cookbook, but I have adjusted the recipe a bit.

2-1/2 cups cake flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp fine salt

3/4 cup butter

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp madagascar vanilla

1/4 teaspoon Caramel Lorann Oil

1-1/2 squares unsweetened baking chocolate, melted and cooled

1/4 tsp baking soda

***

For decorating

Semi-sweet or Milk chocolate Chips for eyes

White Chocolate Chips or Cashews for beak

In a bowl, Sift flour with baking powder and salt. Set aside. In mixing bowl, cream butter with electric mixer at med speed , beat until creamy smooth, then gradually add brown sugar, incorporating well. Add egg, vanilla and Lorann Oil and mix well. Stir in flour mixture, adding 1/4 cup at a time until well mixed.

Divide cookie dough into thirds, and remove 1/3 dough. Stir baking soda into chocolate, then add to the 1/3 dough, mixing well. Cover and chill until the dough can be easily handled.

Divide the plain and chocolate dough in half. Return half of the dough to refrigerator.

Roll the plain dough to a 4-1/2 x 10" rectangle on lightly floured wax paper. Roll the chocolate dough into a 10" long roll. Place the chocolate roll on the center of the rectangle

.

Lift the sides of the of the wax paper to roll cover the chocolate roll with the plain dough.

Wrap the wax paper around the dough and chill. Repeat process with remaining cookie dough.

Chill dough well, for at least two hours. I usually prepare the night before and allow to chill overnight for easier handling.

***************

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cut the firmly chilled roll into 1/8-1/4" slices.

Place two sliced cookies touching in the middle on a greased cookie sheet or Silpat mat.

This creates the owl face with two eyes.

After all the cookies are placed on the cookie sheet, they will have softened. Pinch the top corners of the cookie to make ears.

If you want to make a Menacing Owl, push the top of plain cookie dough forward over chocolate dough eye, as shown.

Place one chocolate chip on each eye. You can place them with the point up, but I also like to push the pointed end of the chocolate chip into the cookie to create a flat pupil to the eye.

The original recipe calls for a cashew nut for the owl's beak. This is quick and easy, and once the cookies are baked and cooled, they will be ready to serve. But because nut allergies have become prevalent, if I am baking for a group other than my family, I wait until the cookies have cooled and add the beak later, using white chocolate.

Bake the cookies in a 350 oven for 8-12 minutes until lightly browned on the sides. Remove from oven and place cookies on a cooling rack.

When the cookies have thoroughly cooled, melt about 1/2 cup of White Chocolate chips. Spoon melted chocolate into a plastic pastry bag with a #8 tip.

Pipe a bead on the left side of bottom center, as shown. Repeat same step on the right side, the pipe over the middle, pulling down to the bottom creating a beak.

Allow the chocolate to completely cool and firm up.

You can make these look like cute Hoot owls, or if I make them look menacing,
my husband calls them Horned Owls.

To each his own.

Hey, it is Halloween after all! We can become anything we want on that day!!

Happy Hauntings!




Note:
The creator of this recipe is Natalie R Riggin

It was the 2nd Grand Prize Winner in the Pillsbury Bakeoff in 1956

The link to the original recipe

Thank you Natalie. This has been a family favorite for years!

Photos by Jacque Benson -2009 all rights reserved.

Spooktacular Halloween Cupcakes

How fun is Halloween. This year, I would like to

share the step by step instructions to create

Fun and Spooky  Key Lime Cupcakes!

You will need:

2 dozen of your favorite cupcakes, baked and iced

( I used Rhonda's Pink Lemonade Cupcakes,

substituting Limeade for the Lemonade concentrate along with green food coloring

and iced the cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.)

Airbrush

Americolors Airbrush colors

Avocado, Violet, Orange

White and Black Confectioner's Melts

Plastic Piping Bags

1-1/2" Egg Molds

White and Black Candy Clay*

1" and 3" circle cutters

#8,#4 Piping Tips

PME Wheel Cutter

* Candy Clay Recipe

I used a half recipe and have some left over.

(Be sure to Check out A&H CakeDesign for

Americolors, PME tools and Ateco Cutters.)

 Melt 1/2 cup white confectioner's melts. Pour into a plastic piping bag and

cut off tip. On Parchemnt paper, pipe 8 lines intersecting in the center, as shown above.

Connect the lines, creating a "spider web".  You will need two dozen webs.

Make extra to allow for breakage. These are easier to handle if piped in heavier lines.

Allow to set and carefully lift off parchment paper with a thin spatula.

 With remaining white chocolate, fill 8 egg cups.

Allow to harden then pop out of mold and set aside.

Wash and dry chocolate mold.

Melt 1/2 cup black confectioners melts and fill 16 cups.

Allow to harden and set aside.

 Roll out white candy clay on surface dusted with confectioner's sugar.

Using 3" circle cutter, cut 8 circles.

 Stand white egg on end and drape the 3" circle over it, creating

a ghost's body.

 Set aside and allow to firm.

 Using the black candy clay, roll out between sheets of wax paper
Cut a 1-1/2" wingspan using the PME wheel cutter.
Make 8 batwings

These do not need to be perfect. In fact the presentation

is much cuter if they all are a bit different.

Place 8 eggs, narrow end up, over the wings and allow to firm.

They should attach to the chocolate, but if they are difficult, you

can use melted chocolate to attach.

Using the 1" circle cutter, cut 8 circles.

Using the large end of your piping tube, cut 8 circles.

Score the wings, as shown above. ( Please forgive the blurry photo!)

Then cut down the center, creating a set of wings.

Place on the sides of  8 black egg, narrow end down.

Set aside.

Using the large end of your piping tube, cut a curve from both

sides of the 1/2" circles.

Cut in half, as shown, using the PME wheel cutter.

These will serve as ears to the bats and owls.

Set the ears in place.

Roll out white and black

candy clay somewhat thin.

Using the end of the #8 piping tube

Cut 16 circles for the owls eyes.

Then cut 16 pupils using the end of the #4 piping

tube as your cutter.

Place the black pupils on the white eyes

and set in place on the top side of the owl.

Cut 8 more circles using the #8 piping tube as the cutter.

Cut evenly in half and place, as shown, to create eyes for the bat.

Cut 16 Black circles using the #8 piping tube.

Set in place on ghost, as shown.

Spray 8 each of the cupcakes in purple, orange and green.

Carefully place the spider webs in place. Expect breakage.

Then set the owl, ghostie, and bat on top of the cupcakes.

Now go PARTAY!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Tutorial and Photography by Jacque Benson

All Rights Reserved 2010

This material may not be republished or reproduced in any manner without the expressed permission of the author.