Old-Fashioned Gingerbread Cookies

On December 11, 2025December 11, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, cookiesLeave a comment

It’s hard to imagine celebrating the winter holidays without a little gingerbread in the mix. The combination of molasses, ginger, and other spices creates cookies and loaf cake that seem made for cozying up next to the woodstove and watching the snow come down.

The gingerbread cookie recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon is an old one that I’ve made bolder with extra spices. When I want an even stronger ginger flavor—any time of year—I make Triple Gingersnaps or Triple Ginger Cake. But expanding just the ground spices gives traditional cookies a little kick yet keeps them smooth and ideal for decorating.
Learn to make Old-Fashioned Gingerbread Cookies

Smoky Oatmeal–Cranberry Cookies

On December 5, 2025December 5, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, cookies2 Comments

I usually make more sweet treats in November and December than I do all the rest of the year, mostly because I’m sharing them widely. Last month I was using homegrown fruit in Crumble-Top Deep-Dish Apple Pie and cherry pie. This month is all about cookies, as I share this week and next in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.

These cookies will travel with me across three states when I visit family over Christmas. Some will find their way to gatherings and parties. Others will become my favorite chairlift snack in our just-opened local ski area. So the cookies I make each holiday season vary widely, from aged family favorites, to eye-catching sweets for party trays, to sturdy treats that tuck into a ski jacket pocket.
Learn to make Smoky Oatmeal–Cranberry Cookies

Peanut Butter Thumbprint Cookies with Ganache

On December 20, 2024December 20, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, cookiesLeave a comment

One of the beauties of ganache is that it can be a feature or an optional decorative touch for a dessert. When I shared my recipe for Ganache (Chocolate Glaze), I emphasized how it can be drizzled over everyday cookies and other desserts to make them seem a little fancier. The recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon makes the creamy chocolate integral to the cookie, using it as the filling for peanut butter thumbprints.

The cookies I use as the thumbprint base are simply Fresh Ground Peanut Butter Cookies. Once you’re comfortable making those, then the chocolate upgrade creates a stress-free holiday version. If you bake them as thumbprints but run out of time for decorative chocolate, spoon it into their centers or pop open jars of homemade jam for the filling. Run out of time after you mix the dough, and you can easily bake it off with the traditional cross-hatched look. The everyday cookies are so delicious on their own that they’d be welcome at any party.
Learn to make Peanut Butter Thumbprint Cookies with Ganache

Fresh Ground Peanut Butter Cookies

On February 22, 2024March 15, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, cookiesLeave a comment

Every since I first encountered a bright red nut-grinding machine in a grocery store, I’ve been a fan of fresh ground peanut butter. You can see the shelled peanuts in the hopper (and often almonds in a neighboring machine) and watch them come out the dispenser as creamy nut butter. The result isn’t the ground peanut clump submerged under an inch of oil that you often find when opening jarred natural peanut butter, and it lacks the added butter, sugar, salt, and preservatives of aggressively marketed brands. It’s just nuts.

Peanut butter features in all sorts of baked goods, but as I explain this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, many recipes were originally written for peanut butter spreads already heavy in butter and sugar. It took me several batches of cookies to adapt the recipe I grew up with for fresh ground peanut butter. It was well worth all that sampling and experimenting: these cookies are easy enough to make for everyday snacking yet tasty enough that I can add them to a holiday cookie tray.

Learn to make Fresh Ground Peanut Butter Cookies

Chocolate Rum Balls

On November 30, 2023November 30, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, cookiesLeave a comment

Just last night, I finished preparing my make-ahead cookies for the holidays. I rolled the last balls in powdered sugar and stacked them in a cookie tin, where they will sit untouched for the next 3 weeks to age before they are ready to be shared and eaten by family and friends.

Each year, in the days after Thanksgiving, I bake two kinds of cookies that taste better the longer they sit: Vanilla Bean Cookies and Chocolate Rum Balls, the recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. I’m at least the third generation in my family to create these cookies, and friends have adopted them as part of their own holiday tradition. These recipes are such a sweet way to end the year and remember past baking days with my grandmother, mom, sister, and others.
Learn to make Chocolate Rum Balls

Pumpkin–Chocolate Cookies

On October 27, 2023November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, cookiesLeave a comment

When I shared my technique for Roasted Winter Squash Puree last November in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, I made it part of a series leading up to a classic Creamy Roasted Pumpkin Pie, just in time for Thanksgiving. It’s one of the many delicious reasons I grow, roast, puree, and freeze pumpkins and winter squash. The cookie recipe I share this week (in my 100th column) is another.

With dense pumpkin puree at the heart of these cookies, they’re almost cake-like in their consistency. They come out of the oven domed with soft centers, especially if you take the time to chill the dough before baking so that they hold their shape. I drop them onto cookie trays by the spoonful when I’m baking them for daily enjoyment. For a fancier presentation, you can use dampened fingertips to shape them into smoother balls and drizzle them with melted chocolate.
Learn to make Pumpkin–Chocolate Cookies

Snickerdoodles

On March 30, 2023November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, cookies2 Comments

Snickerdoodles have been one of my favorites ever since I raided Grandma Tiny’s cookie jar as a kid. I’d like to say that the recipe I use today, and shared this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, follows her original one closely, but I can’t be certain: in all the times I watched her bake these cookies, I never saw a cookbook or recipe card. She knew all of the ingredients and measurements by heart.

The only change I knowingly made to her recipe was to replace vegetable shortening with butter and coconut oil, a blend I prefer for pie crust too. I’ve also come up with a sourdough snickerdoodle variation that replaces an egg and some of the flour with sourdough starter. The cookies’ defining tanginess, normally created just by the cream of tartar, becomes even stronger, yet they remain sweet and chewy.
Learn to make Snickerdoodles

Vanilla Bean Cookies

On December 1, 2022November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, cookiesLeave a comment

To kick off the December holiday season, I shared a favorite family cookie recipe this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. Vanilla Bean Cookies are an appropriate way to start a month that emphasizes baking not only for their flavor but also because of how you create them: by making the cookies and letting them sit for several weeks. They’re the first cookies I make each holiday season, quickly followed by Chocolate Rum Balls, and they’re some of the first to be devoured when I crack open the cookie tins.

These cookies are special to me because of their history in my family and because friends continue to adopt them and include them in their own holiday traditions. My grandmother’s original recipe seemed untouchable, but I recently improved on it by switching to organic ingredients, especially a tapioca-based powdered sugar instead of one laced with cornstarch to prevent caking. After years of making this recipe, the flavor and texture were better than ever, making the extra cost well worth it.
Learn to make Vanilla Bean Cookies

Chocolate–Sour Cream Cookies

On March 31, 2022November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, cookiesLeave a comment

Some years, I’ve spent April focused on recipes for making your own cheese and other homemade dairy products here on the blog. Now that I’m writing the Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, I’m rewriting some of those recipes with the tweaks and upgrades I’ve made to them over the years. I’ll be sharing those new-and-improved recipes here this month.

My Flathead Beacon column will feature recipes that use these fresh dairy products and hopefully inspire you to try making them yourself. I couldn’t resist writing in March about a few of those recipes, including Savory Herb and Sour Cream Scones, Sourdough–Yogurt Pancakes, and this week’s Chocolate–Sour Cream Cookies. So check out the recipes in the column, and then come back here to the blog for the homemade dairy instructions.
Learn to make Homemade Sour Cream and Chocolate–Sour Cream Cookies