Lindsey from Cafe Johnsonia has a beautiful blog with beautiful food. She’s here today, sharing a yummy treat with us, a childhood favorite. Enjoy!
I was so happy when Marie asked me to write a guest post. Then I remembered… I’m not so crafty. But I do like to cook and bake. As I thought about what to post over here, I remembered one of my favorite recipes from when I was a little kid–Root Beer Cookies.
My mom’s good friend gave her a recipe for Root Beer Cookies over twenty years ago and we still use it. (I’ve made a few slight adjustments.) While they may sound strange, they are really quite delicious. And kids love them.
Root beer extract can be hard to find. See the bottom of the post for a few sources. The one most readily available at supermarkets is the McCormick brand.
Recipe for Root Beer Cookies:
Makes about 4 dozen
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 2 cups dark brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp. root beer extract
- 3 1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1/4 cup water (optional–only use if dough is too dry)
- Root Beer frosting (recipe below)
Cream butter and dark brown sugar until very light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the root beer extract. Whisk dry ingredients together. Add a little at a time to the creamed mixture. The dough should be slightly sticky, like this:
Chill for at least an hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease several baking sheets, or line them with silicone baking mats or parchment paper. Roll into small balls (about 1″ diameter). I like to use a mini-ice cream scoop so that the cookies end up evenly sized.
Place them on the pan, leaving a bit of space between the cookies. Gently press the tops of the dough. (If you leave out the water, sometimes the cookies don’t spread very much.) Bake for 6-8 minutes, rotating cookie sheet halfway through.
Let cookies cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet before placing them on a wire rack to cool completely.
Frosting Recipe:
- 1 cup butter
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tsp. root beer extract
- a few tablespoons hot water
Beat butter on high with an electric mixer until it is fluffy. Add a little powdered sugar and the root beer extract. Beat until smooth. Add remaining powdered sugar alternately with a little hot water until a nice spreading consistency has been reached.
Frost the cooled cookies and let stand for a few minutes to let the frosting set up. (It should dry a bit on the top.) You can leave out the root beer extract and you’ll have a tasty, soft brown sugar cookie. I have substituted maple extract, added pecans, and even made chocolate chip cookies out of this recipe. It’s a keeper.
What kind of cookies do your kids like?
- Zatarain’s Root Beer Extract
- Hires Big H Root Beer Extract (what I use when I make homemade root beer)
- J.R. Watkin’s Root Beer Extract on eBay
Other cookie recipes our family likes:
- Hazelnut-Toffee Cookies
- Malted Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies
- Glazed Lemon Cookies
- Peanut Butter Cookies
- Brownie Cookies
Written by Marie LeBaron
Marie LeBaron is the founder and managing editor of Make and Takes. Always having a love of crafts, she enjoys getting messy with glue and glitter. There’s always some sort of project going on, her kitchen counter is often cluttered with crafts. When she’s not crafting and creating with her kids, she loves to run, read, and blog! Read other posts by Marie
{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }
These look and sound delicious. I can’t wait to give them a try. Here’s a couple of our favorite cookies
Double Delight Peanut Butter Cookies
http://a-heart4home.blogspot.com/2008/12/double-delight-peanut-butter-cookies.html
Coffee Meringue Cookies
http://a-heart4home.blogspot.com/2009/02/coffee-meringue-cookies.html
This looks Delish!!! Thanks for sharing
These sound amazing! I’m going to link this recipe from my blog sometime today :)
they look so yummy! I have to make these! I’m such a food geek!
These sound wonderful!
These look delicious and not too hard to make! I’m trying them as soon as I can pick-up some Root Beer extract (who’d of thought?) at the store! My kids really love my peanut butter cookies and of course, Chocolate chip. Maybe we’ll add a new favorite to our list after we try these!
that sounds yummy! how did you get the frosting to look brown. Did the root beer extract do that?
Wow! Those sound wonderful! My son is addicted to root beer so I am going to have to make these for him today!
I never knew there was such a thing!! Can’t wait to try them!
Me either, Kate! But I tried them and they’re delicious, they taste just like root beer!! Thanks, Lindsey.
Now I’m hungry!!! Maybe we’ll scout out some RBE at the grocery store today! YUM.
Those do look good! I hate to admit it but I never make cookies for my children so I have no idea what kind of cookies they like. :-( I usually make bars and their fave is snickerdoodle blondies.
I’m going to hop over and check out your brownie cookies.
~ingrid
OH how I LOOOOVE rootbeer. I will have to print this and make these for my munchkins. Thank you for sharing!
I’ve never heard of Root Beer Cookies….sounds so YUMMY! My kids would love them.
OOooOoo these cookies look delicious! I’ve never heard of Rootbeer Cookies before.
Oh my goodness, these look just wonderful!
+Jessie
Thanks for all the comments!
KatieG–the root beer extract does make the frosting brown. And it tastes soooo good. :)
That sounds so good! I love root beer!
I love trying new foods and asking my boys to try new foods. Won’t they love it when the new food is a COOKIE?!? Thank you for the awesome recipe.
I think I’m going to make these for our next family party – we have one every month and I think all my nieces and nephews will really like these cookies – they’re so fun and yummy!
Man, these look so neat! I always see the RB flavoring and always think to get it to add to my extract collection. Next time, I am gonna buy it and make these! Nice job, Lindsey!
Wow…I’ve never heard of Root Beer Cookies. I bet my husband would love those!!!
Thanks Lindsey! I will have to try these. My root beer float loving dad might really love them! He likes to put crushed skor bar in his floats. Might add some of those on top.
I love root beer so I’m going to have to make these cookies for sure. I can’t wait they look delicious!
Oh my! These look different and wonderful! I’ll need to try them. Our current favorite is peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips…
These sound interesting -I’m trying to picture what a root beer cookie would taste like (besides root beer . . I don’t think I can picture this beverage in cookie form). We actually have root beer extract kicking around since that was one of my husband’s Christmas gifts – the stuff needed for making homemade rootbeer. He’s having fun with it and enjoys it immensely, but it’s a bit yeasty for my tastes.
My friend, the Casual Baker, posted about my favourite cookies here: Caramel Cream Sandwich Cookies: http://casualbaker.blogspot.com/2006/10/anatomy-of-cookie-wich-lets-talk.html
And here’s a link to a blog entry (I don’t know this person – just googled a recipe title and this was the first one that came up!) that includes a recipe to the best cookies I’ve made recently: Dorie Greenspan’s Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. http://kitchenconfit.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/oatmeal-peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-cookies/ – so good!
yum! I have a list of things I want to make with the kids; we try to cook one thing together each week; next week’s it baked doughnuts; we will definitely be putting this on for the week after; I’ve never heard of them til now.
I love root beer…never thought about trying to bake with it! Will have to check this out.
Forget the kids. I love root beer! I’ve tried recipes using bottled root beer, but never thought to use the extract. (duh). Can’t wait to try these! Thank you for sharing your recipe & great photos. ;o}
Looks like fun. My husband would love this with the rootbeer flavor, too. He’s taking my birthday week off this week so it may be on the to-do list of ‘fun things to bake’. Another fun thing I’m going to try this week is mini banana splits using those tiny bananas. Have you seen those? Really cute.
Gracias,
Hannah
I’ve never heard of such a thing! They sound delicious. Never 100% happy with what’s presented to me, I’d like to turn these into brownies, but really only because it would be easier to frost them ;-).
My husband loves rootbeer. These will be a great surprise for him. Thanks.
Just finished frosting the last Root Beer Cookie at our house. :) Oh so yummy! Thanks a million!
I’m excited to try out the Malt Chocolate chip cookies. I think they’ll be great for my neighborhood block party this weekend.
I’m SO making these! We love cola cake and there is not Root Beer in Poland but I have some of the extract.
I can’t wait to try them. I’ll come back and tell how they turned out (unless I hate them, which I won’t. Neither will the kids.)
OMGosh,just love these.This recipe makes alot.So I made half the batch (for kiddos and family)and refrig.the rest and made a fresh batch for my husband’s poker group.They all loved it.i think the trick is refrig the dough in a log.it Makes it easy to slice and refrig frosting as well.I added white sprinkles gives it a rootbeer float feel:)LOVE,LOVE THESE!!Thanks!!!
wow, root beer concentrate? I’ve never seen that before.
Looking for a quick 30 min, meal that I can make in the office kitchen without a lot of ingrediants.
I added a little more flavoring in than called for, after tasting the first batch, also for the frosting. They are delicious, but why is my frosting cream colored and yours is brown?
These were really good! I loved the recipe and so did everyone else. Love your blog!
I am looking forward to making this recipe. Thank you for the great illustrations and detailed instructions! You are the best!!!
Anybody tried substituting extract with the real deal? Cant find root beer extract at any grocery stores
I need to try these cookies. What size do they end up being with the mini scooper?
I’ve never heard of root beer cookies before but after seeing those I *have* to bookmark these and try them this weekend.
I love these cookies. I’ve been making them since I was 9!!!
I linked this recipe on my blog today :D