Wednesday, September 22, 2010

This one deserves its own post!


I have been posting many of the cookie recipes that I baked for the girl scouts from the ones they submitted as their favorites. THIS recipe is the best one so I am giving it its own post. This is the best and my all time favorite. I will be making this again and again. It can be customized to whatever holiday you are celebrating.

Howling Candy Corn Cookie Bark
16 Oreo Cookies, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 cups pretzels, coarsely broken
1 bag (12 oz) white chocolate chips
1/2 cup candy corn
Halloween Sprinkles

Spread cookies and pretzels on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Melt white chocolate (60 seconds in the microwave, let stand 30 seconds then stir). Drizzle white chocolate over the cookies and pretzels. Use a spatula to make sure everything is well coated with the chocolate. Press the candy corn and sprinkles onto the bark. Cool completely then break into pieces.

COOKIES


Ok, I have been seriously busy! My daughters are in Brownies. Their leader has a Brownie troop and a Junior troop with 24 girls total between the two troops. As part of one of their badges they each submitted their favorite cookie recipe and made up little cookbooks with all the recipes in it. At the next meeting we decided they should have an opportunity to try all the cookies. This is where I come in. I have a rather large kitchen so I volunteered to host this meeting. I also volunteered to make all the recipes! Well, their leader did make the 2 recipes submitted by her girls. I saved 4 of the recipes for them to make at the meeting. Each meeting is one hour so I had to make sure the recipes I saved were doable in that amount of time. The other 18 recipes had to be done in advance. The meeting was on Monday, 9/13 at 3:30. My family and I spent the weekend at Disney and did not get home until late Sunday evening so I did not get started baking until 9 pm on Sunday.

I baked the hardest ones on Sunday night and was up until 3 am. The next morning I started in again at 8:30 after getting the girls off to school. I finished the last batch at 2:30 and had an hour to prepare for the kids to arrive at 3:30. There were a TON of cookies! I am going to post the favorites here. I have pictures of most but I did not take pictures of the buckeyes because I did not think I would be posting that recipe. That was one of the ones I made on Sunday night and it was the most time consuming. It had me questioning my sanity. The dough is very crumbly and does not look like it will come together. I panicked and hit the Internet to check out other recipes to see if I had done everything right! Then, it made like 100! And, each one has to be dipped in chocolate! I would have been in bed by 1:30 had it not been for that recipe! However, it did taste really good. I got a lot of comments on them. So, I will post the exact recipe here. If you make them I would 1/2 the recipe. But they are really good. So, that said let's get started:

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

More Cookies!


Here are some of my favorites of the cookies I made for the Girl Scouts. Five of these are in the picture. I am also including two recipes that are not, the Buckeyes and the Gingersnaps. I got so many comments on those that they need to be included, they are good.

Gingersnaps


1 1/2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup black strap or dark molasses
1 egg at room temperature
1 cup butter, melted and slightly cooled
2 2/3 cup flour
2 tsp ginger
1 1/2 tsp each cinnamon, ground cloves & baking soda
3/8 tsp salt
Granulated sugar

Combine brown sugar, molasses and egg in a large bowl and mix well. Beat in butter.

Sift together flour, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, baking soda and salt. Add to butter mixture. turn dough onto lightly floured surface and shape into 4 long logs. Cut each in half crosswise to make eight logs and roll them about 5/8 inch thick. Freeze until thoroughly chilled, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease baking sheet. Put a 1/2 inch layer of sugar in a pie plate. Cut logs into 1/4 inch thick slices. Coat each slice with sugar. Flatten to about 1/8 inch and place 1 inch apart on baking sheet. Bake for 6-8 minutes. Let cool about 30 seconds and then remove to a cooling rack. Sprinkle with additional sugar.

This recipe makes 30 dozen cookies. That is a lot of cookies but the rolls of dough can be kept in the freezer until needed and just thawed until you can slice them before baking so it is a great dough to have on hand.


Buckeyes


I was almost not going to share this recipe but it got such rave reviews and I have to admit that I really like them so here they are. Unless you want to feed a lot of people halve the recipe!

3 cups creamy peanut butter
1 1/2 sticks butter, softened
2 lbs confectioner's sugar
16-32 ounces chocolate chips melted

Mix together the peanut butter and the butter. Add the confectioner's sugar and stir until well combined.

This is where I thought I was doomed! The dough looked like crumbs. I wanted to add more butter or peanut butter to make it come together. I ran to my computer to look up similar recipes to see if I was on track. Needless to say, when you grab this stuff and roll it, it will come together. I made it into walnut size balls. Once rolled, chill the balls.

Melt chocolate. Here I must interject something. I have found that here in Florida, melted semisweet chocolate morsels never really set up firm again. Maybe it is the heat and humidity but the chocolate stays somewhat soft and messy so I would recommend using the chocolate candy disks they sell and places like Michael's.

Using toothpicks or skewers to hole the cookie, dip them in the melted chocolate leaving some of the cookie exposed on top. Place on wax paper lined sheets until set.

Okay - I was only going to post what I thought was the best, but the above 2 recipes got rave reviews so I felt compelled to share them here. Below are my favorites!

Chocolate Chip Treasure Cookies

1 1/2 cups graham cracker
1/2 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups flaked coconut
1 (12 oz) package semi-Sweet chocolate chips
1 cup walnuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 375. Combine graham cracker crumbs, flour and baking powder. In a large bowl beat together milk and margarine. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Stir in coconut, chocolate chips and walnuts. Drop by rounded tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 9 minutes.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Mix together all ingredients. Roll into small balls. Dip a fork in flour and use ti to slightly flatten each cookie. Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown.

The formed dough balls can be frozen and thawed and baked as needed.

Cinnamon Cookies

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp molasses
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/8 tsp baking soda
1 tbls ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. Cream together butter and sugar. mix in egg and molasses. Sift together the flour, baking soda and cinnamon. Add to creamed mixture. Drop by teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10 -12 minutes.

The following bars are really good.

Chocolate Chip, Oats 'n Caramel Cookie Squares


1 roll Pillsbury refrigerated chocolate chip cookies
1 cup quick cooking oats
2/3 cup caramel topping
5 tbls flour
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup chopped nuts
6 oz semi sweet chocolate chips

Heat oven to 350. In a large bowl break up cookie dough. Knead in oats. Reserve 1/3 cup dough. Press remaining dough in a 9 inch square pan. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until dough puffs up and appears dry. In a small bowl mix caramel topping, flour and vanilla. Sprinkle walnuts and chocolate chips over crust. Drizzle with the caramel mixture. Crumble the reserved oat mixture evenly over the top. Bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cool completely then cut into squares.

I love coconut so this next pick was a given!

Coconut Cream Macaroons

3 7 oz packages sweetened, flaked coconut
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2/3 cup canned cream of coconut
1 tbls vanilla
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 large egg
1 bag (12 oz) semi sweet chocolate chips
1 tbls vegetable oil

Heat oven to 350. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Sprinkle 1 cup of the coconut on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally until lightly browned. Cool. Leave parchment on cookie sheet for baking cookies. Mix the toasted coconut, remaining coconut, the flout, and salt in a large bowl. Beat together the milk, cream of coconut, vanilla, almond extract and egg until well blended. Pour over dry mixture and mix well. Drop by heaping teaspoons onto cookie sheets. Bake 12-14 minutes until golden brown. Cool completely.

Heat the chocolate and oil over low heat until the chocolate is melted. Drizzle the chocolate over the cookies. Let stand until chocolate is set.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Cake Mix Cookies


The following 3 recipes all use a cake mix. They are super easy to make and the dough is easy to work with so if you are in a hurry and need a quick cookie to bake up with ingredients you can keep on hand these are for you! The first recipe is for Snicker Doodles. These are really good but especially awesome served warm from the oven. This is what I do when I am entertaining. I make the dough and form it into balls. I put them in the fridge. When my guests sit down for dinner, I preheat the oven and quickly roll as many balls as needed in cinnamon sugar and bake them. I serve them fresh and warm!


Snicker Doodles


1 box Yellow cake mix
1/3 cup oil
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

Mix together the cake mix, oil, eggs and vanilla. Roll into 1 inch balls. The balls can be refrigerated at this point if desired. Stir together the sugar and cinnamon. Right before baking roll the balls in the cinnamon sugar. Place on cookie sheets and bake at 375 for 10 minutes.


Lemon Snowflakes

1 box Lemon cake mix
1 egg
2 1/4 cups thawed cool whip
powdered sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 350. Mix the first 3 ingredients. The batter will be very soft and sticky. Drop teaspoons of dough into a bowl of powdered sugar. Shake around until completely covered. Remove from sugar and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes.

Chocolate Fudge Cookies

1 box Devil's food cake mix
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Combine all ingredients. Roll into walnut sized balls. Place on parchment lined cookie sheets. Bake 8-10 minutes. Cool on baking sheet 5 minutes then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.