When I think of the holidays I have fond memories of baking cookies with my Mom. We would open up the “cookie factory” out of my Mom’s kitchen every Christmas, pumping out a huge assortment of our favorite cookies. When I got married to my husband his favorite cookies were Melting Moments. They were a cookie that his Grandma had made, his mother had made, and a family staple. I had never heard of them! Of course, since they were his favorite I had to learn how to master making them. This is his Grandma’s Melting Moments Cookies Recipe which produces a delicious cookie that is delicate and melts in your mouth as the name implies. The secret to the melting, delicate flavor is in sifting your ingredients to achieve a silky texture. It’s not as hard as it sounds though and anyone can do it!
Begin by creaming one cup of butter and gradually beating in powdered sugar. Then slowly sift in corn starch and flour and mix well.
Next chill in the fridge for an hour. If you live in the frozen tundra like I do (Northern Minnesota), then take advantage of that bone-chilling cold weather and stick your bowl outside for ten minutes. They will be chilled by then 🙂 Hey, the cold has to be good for something right?!
Then form small, bite size balls and smash them down just a little with your fingers so they are slightly flat, instead of ball shaped. Put them on a parchment lined cookie sheet or use a Silpat mat like I do (LOVE my Silpat mat!). Then bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes until bottoms just start to turn brown and tops of cookies aren’t doughy feeling anymore.
While the cookies are baking, start making your frosting. Use McCormick food colors and Pure Vanilla Extract to make the simple frosting recipe.
Combine melted butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk together to make frosting.
Then add red McCormick food coloring to one bowl and green McCormick food coloring to the other bowl and mix well. My husband’s family always colors their frosting very light so they are more of a pastel red and green. I prefer a little more bold red and green coloring which always makes my cookies stand out from the rest!
Once your cookies have cooled, frost the tops of them and let them dry.
Store in an airtight container or freeze. They freeze very well so you can make them ahead and pull them out the day you need them!
Print the recipe off below or pin this post to easily find it later!
Sarah | Must Have Mom
Melting Moments cookies melt in your mouth as the silky layers dissolve.
2Tbspmelted butterdivided in half in 2 bowls (mix your frosting in two bowls and then color it so you have red and green frosting)
1cuppowdered sugardivided in half
1tspMcCormick pure vanilla extractdivided in half
3tspmilkdivided in half (or enough to thin frosting for spreading)
McCormick Food Coloring
Instructions
Cream butter and gradually beat in the powdered sugar (sifted).
Then sift in corn starch and flour gradually, mixing as you add.
Chill one hour in fridge.
Remove from fridge and form small, bite size balls.
Place on parchment lined cookie sheet (or use Silpat mat) and smash down slightly so they are flat and not ball shaped.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 12-15 minutes until just starting to brown on the bottom and so the tops no longer feel doughy.
Mix together the frosting ingredients in two separate bowls.
Add red food coloring to one bowl and green food coloring to the other bowl and mix well.
Frost cookies once they are cooled.
Store in an airtight container or freeze for later.
In 2014,McCormickmarks its 125th anniversary by celebrating the role flavor plays in all of our lives, inspiring flavorful conversation, and giving back to communities around the world. For every story shared on any ofMcCormick’s brand websites or social channels,McCormickwill donate $1, up to $1.25 million, to United Way to help feed those in need.
My Melting Moments were featured over at A Southern Mother. Grab some more great Christmas cookie recipes in her Cookie Exchange post!
“Most people think the butter should be so soft that it's broken down, but the most important thing is that you want a little bit of give to the butter.” If you want to get technical, she says the precise temperature should be between 63 and 68 degrees — where it's cool to touch, but your finger can leave an indent.
During the melting process, the butter's water content evaporates, leaving only fat behind. This results in a more concentrated flavor and a softer texture in your cookies. It also helps distribute the fat more evenly throughout the cookie dough, resulting in a more uniform cookie.
It all makes a difference. Our control cookie, as with most cookies, uses softened butter, and this recipe tends to be a bit cakier. A cookie made with the same amount of melted butter will give you a fudgier, chewier cookie. It helps it spread out more and gives you some nice divots to catch more chocolate.
For chewier cookies and bars, we melt our butter instead of following the usual procedure of creaming softened butter with sugar. This simple switch frees up the water content of the butter so that it can freely interact with the flour in the dough or batter.
Why did my melting moments go flat? If your biscuits are spreading too far in the oven, the dough was too warm or possibly too much butter was added. If the dough is very warm or you are baking on a hot day, place the rolled and flattened biscuits on a tray in the fridge for 15 minutes to firm up before baking.
Trust me – I ate my fair share of Melting Moments just to be sure. There's no eggs or raising agents, which means they are super simple to make. And they boast a unique buttery texture that means they literally melt-in-your-mouth -> get it?! The final touch is a smothering of creamy vanilla buttercream.
Brown sugar, meanwhile, is dense and compacts easily, creating fewer air pockets during creaming—that means that there's less opportunity to entrap gas, creating cookies that rise less and spread more. With less moisture escaping via steam, they also stay moist and chewy.
It's fine to leave unsalted butter out on the counter for a few hours if you're planning to bake with it, but if you're going to leave any butter out at room temperature for an extended period of time, make it salted. That's because the salt in salted butter adds extra protection against any sort of bacterial growth.
Cornstarch helps product soft and thick cookies. Using more brown sugar than white sugar results in a moister, softer cookie. An extra egg yolk increases chewiness. Rolling the cookie dough balls to be tall and lumpy instead of wide and smooth gives the cookies a bakery-style textured thickness.
Baking soda is typically used for chewy cookies, while baking powder is generally used for light and airy cookies. Since baking powder is comprised of a number of ingredients (baking soda, cream of tartar, cornstarch, etc.), using it instead of pure baking soda will affect the taste of your cookies.
Room temperature butter is just the right consistency to incorporate air when it's creamed with sugar. These trapped air pockets result in risen, fluffy cookies. If the butter is any warmer, it won't incorporate enough air and your cookies will have less rise.
If the butter isn't at room temperature, it won't blend smoothly with the sugar and you'll end up with a bunch of butter shards with crystallized sugar instead of a nice creamy whip. In other words, not softening your butter may result in your cookies going splat instead of puffing up.
The temperature of your butter is critical when creaming butter and sugar. Too cold, and your sugar won't properly dissolve into your butter. Too hot, and your cakes will end up flat and greasy. The magical temperature of softened butter is actually around 65℉, slightly cooler than the ambient temperature of your home.
In cookies, for the purpose of creaming with sugar, butter is best at room temperature. In breads — well, that depends. The number of guises butter wears in everyday recipes is enough to make you stare longingly at a bottle of canola oil: If we only used oil for everything, life would be so much simpler.
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