The most wonderful time of the year, it really is especially to motivate baking cookies.
We just love the holiday season and usually start early, sometimes even as early as July, you heard of Christmas in July right?
Usually right after Thanksgiving or a few days before we start cookie baking day, and below you will find all are must-makes every year.
They all freeze great and I do have to keep an eye on them or they will all vanish before the holiday comes these cookies are all family favorites.
We have all the popular cookie jar cookies and some a little fancier, everyone has a different favorite cookie they enjoy and we usually make them all.
There are 24 kinds of cookies to choose from here for you today to choose from and if you don't see one you like check out my 25 Holiday Cookie Recipes.
It's like having your own cookie cookbook right here and that's why we call it our One Stop Cookie Shop!
Every year our family gets together to bake cookies.
My family in Utica, New York calls it their cookie bake day, and every year they set one day aside to make them all.
Here in Florida where I live sometimes, we have cookie exchanges but most of the time I usually pace myself for a whole month baking one at a time.
If you really get stuck for gift giving try my filled Mason Jars that have dried soups and other fun ideas to give to hard to buy folks.
If you don't see your favorite cookie chances are you will find it by searching my blog on here in the top right corner.
Enjoy! Happy baking and have a delicious holiday baking season there is something for everyone here do not miss my tips on mailing cookies, freezing cookies, and storing them!
Growing up in Utica New York, Grandma always had a package of these cookies growing up on the table.
Then as time went on we never found them again.
After several tries I finally got the right consistency and taste and these brought back a ton of memories for me.
Soft, not too sweet chocolate cookies that looked like rocks, and yep you guessed it, that's what I called them as a kid.
They really are quite soft and spongy compared to a rock, but since they looked like one in color, that's all I knew them by.
This recipe has been made many times until I could duplicate it to memory and this is as close as I could get them to taste like the originals I remembered as a child.
One thing that I realized after several tries, the cocoa is a key ingredient for the most authentic tasting cookies.
I loved these cookies then and now and happy to make a copycat version.
The cookies are a memory etched in my mind and coming home from school eating these with a cold glass of milk or hot cocoa in the winter time just warms my heart.
They came in a clear plastic bag and had very thin icing on them and these are very similiar especially in shape, size and taste.
If you are from the Utica, New York area and loved a chocolate cake rock looking cookies, you just found a great likeness to your childhood memory.
Scroll down for the recipe card, if you're not interested in the history behind this delicious cookie, and print it off.
Bakeries in Utica
My first memory was these are dark in color, a chocolate cookie with thin icing that came from a bakery in Utica, New York on Bleeker St. The cookies were light and airy, rich dark chocolate with a thinly glazed icing on top.
I have made several recipes over the years, and these came the closest ever!
These have no spices in them, a hint of almond flavor or vanilla, a light chocolate cookie, that's is a truly decadent delight! These are NOT meatball cookies.
Molded into Shape
The cookies were in an oval-shaped form.
They also were all irregular in style, shapes, bumpy, not uniform.
I loved the lightness inside and almost spongy texture.
My grandmother, Victoria Colenzo Ferraro, always walked from our Lansing St. home and would come home with a package of these cookies from a store called Traversa on Bleeker St.
Lucky for me my brother Luke Colenzo remembered the name of this store, I just couldn't remember the name as it was so long ago back in 1960 something.
They had the best cookies I remember as a child and these are a close second for sure!
Other Bakeries
Later on, we had another bakery I remember called Rosatos that made these delicious cookies.
A little lighter in chocolate color, still similar, light and a great likeness.
After over 50 years in that memory, I decided to keep making cookies until it came close to that memory.
These brought back so many memories to friend and family, I wanted to share the recipe with you.
Not Exactly the Same
The ones my grandmother brought home were a little different.
They were almost a dark brownie color, I since then have tried some darker cocoa powder and got even closer.
If you can find the darkest cocoa powder that would be the ticket to the ones I remember in the 1960s.
These are more like the ones we find locally in Utica, to this famous bakery called Rosato.
This is a close copycat of that bakery.
Utica Has Some of the Best Italian Food and Bakeries
I always encourage everyone to visit my hometown, Utica, New York you're missing out on some great Italian authentic foods.
If you can order dark unsweetened cocoa powder online instead of using regular unsweetened cocoa, that is a key to making darker fudgy looking cookies.
King Arthur, doe sells unsweetened SPECIAL dark, this is online or you can find dark in specialty bakery shops.
Do not overcook these cookies, or the results will be dry.
They should be a bit springy to the touch in the middle.
Copycat cookies are never exact, but these will bring back amazing memories of childhood cookies that looked like rocks in the 1960s.
Everyone loves these and I still make them often.
Hope you love these copycat Rosato chocolate rock cookies as much as we do.
chocolate cookies, copycat chocolate cookies from Utica, Rosato cookie recipe, Utica New York cookies
cookies, chocolate cookies, baking, iced chocolate cookies
italian
Yield: 18Author: Claudia Lamascolo
Copycat Rosato Cookies from Upstate New York
prep time: 10 min cook time: 15 min total time: 25 mins
These are a childhood Italian cookie recipe that looks like a molded oval chocolate rock that is covered with thin icing.I grew up in the Utica New York area. This is a copycat recipe and not an original. It's as close as it gets.
ingredients:
1/2 cup shortening mixed with melted 2 - 1-ounce squares of the unsweetened chocolate ( I use Bakers semi or dark chocolate squares.) make sure they are 1 ounce each
1 tablespoon of Dark Cocoa or Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup brown sugar,
1 whole egg with 1 egg white,
1 teaspoon of vanilla or almond extract I used almond,
1/2 cup milk with 2 teaspoons of red wine vinegar let sit to sour for 10 minutes.
1 1/2 to 2 cups flour (depending on humidity and area the dough sometimes takes more flour)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder,
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
instructions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl combine all ingredients and blend together to form a thick dough. The dough will come away from the bowl when correctly blending is completed so add more flour if it seems too thin until it gets nice and thick.
Form and mold into egg shapes with floured hands.
Bake at 375 degrees for almost 10 minutes until middles are dry-looking. Around 10 to 12 minutes varies by the oven and where you set the racks. They will puff up and be dry in the middles. Keep an eye on them at 10 minutes.
Cool and frost.
For Frosting: I mix 2 cups of powdered sugar with water a little at a time, to make a thin glaze.
Dip the top of the cookies into the glaze, it should cover the tops.
Mom's Wedding tray favorite no-bake fig cookie and recipe:
Packages of fig cookies store-bought cut in half (she would use fig newtons) You will have to judge how many you need. She made enough to feed 300 people!
Chocolate Chips melted (she would use semi-sweet chocolate chips)
Crushed walnuts
Wax paper
Cookie sheet
Directions:
Cut the cookies lengthwise in half. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave until free-flowing.
Dip each cookie into chocolate using a fork allowing the excess to drop off into the bowl.
Roll in coarsely chopped walnuts. Set on a wax paper-lined cookie sheet and allow to dry. You can also freeze these for them to set quickly.
Grandma's Italian Chocolate Spice Cookies is on every holiday Christmas cookie tray every year without fail.
I think just about everyone in Upstate New York, especially in the Utica, New York area, makes these cookies for Christmas and wedding trays.
These chocolate cookies have a sweet chocolate spiced flavor and a perfect fall-flavored cookie.
Decorated with a delicious white homemade easy frosting, it adds just the right blanket of snowy feel to bring a feeling of winter comfort to the cookie tray.
Of course, being such a popular cookie on Italian wedding trays and local bakeries, these were referred to as meatball cookies, maybe a little more familiar name for you.
Like most kids back in the 1960s we seem to all have different names for our Italian foods in every household.
You may even have named them something different like frosted chocolate balls, spiced chocolate cookies or maybe just those chocolate chocolate chip cinnamon balls.
These cookies ended up being the most popular for my kids growing up and their favorites.
If you are looking for the perfect chocolate cookie to celebrate the traditions of La Bufana look no more these are the cookies we make in place of coal to celebrate the day!
This is a double chocolate chunk cookie is one we make on January 6th in observe to the Feast of the Epiphany that is celebrated on January 6 as a national holiday in Italy!
Every year we have this tradition to bake cookies around Christmas Italian legend on the old woman who gave gifts to the children who were good on the eve before January 6th and if you were bad all year then you would get coal.
The cookie is full of chocolate goodness and certainly one recipe to add to your collection if you're a true chocolate cookie lovers.
This is the one recipe you'll ever need after one bite of these delicious coal cookies aka chocolate chunk cookies.
You've probably heard about Death by Chocolate cakes before but have you ever tried Death by Chocolate Cookies? Well here is my favorite recipe for chocolate lovers out there.
If you want a loaded chocolate cookie that is bursting with creamy chunks of pure delight, this cookie will be your ultimate addiction.
These are so full of amazing chocolate flavor they sure don't last long even how decadently rich they are.
The name Death by Chocolate stays true to its name without hesitation, as they are over-the-top chuck full of chocolaty goodness from start to finish in every morsel.
Easy to make and the quickest off the cookie tray first, especially during a holiday.
Scroll down to the recipe card and bake a double batch, these won't last long!
