Recipes and Cooking Ideas for Homemakers and Amateur Cooks
 

Snickerdoodle Bars

Snickerdoodle Bars

Posted on March 12, 2014 
Filed Under Cookies and bars

In the world of baking, here is what I bake the most. Snickerdoodle Bars.

snickerdoodle bars comparing

Out of the 5 people in this house, 4 of us are crazy about them. I won’t let out any secrets how long (or should I say how short) a pan of these lasts around here. I’ll give you a hint though… you might not want to blink or you could miss them. Ok, not quite.

In case you’re wondering who’s the one not crazy about them, it’s me. I really like them, but they don’t have chocolate in them. Give me monster cookies instead. That’s my all-time favorite ever.  Monster cookies is the second most common thing that gets baked in my kitchen. Why is it that I often think of my sister-in-law Liz when I write baking posts? Our friendship does go deeper than food, honestly! But I thought of her again when I wrote about monster cookies… she loves them, too. And one time, when they were here and we were going shopping, she asked me if I’d please make some monster cookies if she buys the ingredients. That was such a huge compliment and I’ll never forget it. But anyway, this post isn’t about monster cookies, it’s supposed to be about snickerdoodle bars! For a monster cookies post, go here.

One nice thing about these snickerdoodle bars is that they take only staple ingredients. So 95% of the time, they can be made at a moment’s notice. They take a whole Tablespoon of cinnamon, so another nice thing about them is that they have a bold cinnamon flavor.

Snickerdoodle Barsrecipe from my friend Shannon, and then she also put it in the Simple & Satisfying cookbook

3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/3 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. cinnamon
1 Tbsp. sugar

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1-2 Tbsp. milk (1 1/2 Tbsp is perfect)
1/4 tsp. vanilla

Cream together butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well.
snickerdoodle bars mixing

Add dry ingredients. Pour 3/4 of the batter into a greased 9×13 pan. (It doesn’t actually pour, more like scoop it into the pan and then spread it out.)
snickerdoodle bars layer 1

Mix Tbsp of cinnamon and sugar together and sprinkle over layer. Put remaining batter on top.
snickerdoodle bars layer 2

snickerdoodle bars layer 3

Bake at 350 for 25 min. (The recipe actually says 30 min, but we think they’re softer and better at 25 min.)
snickerdoodle bars glazed

Cool slightly. Drizzle with glaze.
snickerdoodle bars glaze

Now. A variation.

Lexi (11) makes these bars, but she kind of has a hard time with spreading the remaining dough on the cinnamon layer. And it is hard… the dough is sticky and firm and the cinnamon layer offers no traction. It even takes me 4-5 minutes just to spread that layer on. So, we tried something and it worked! We mixed the Tbsp of cinnamon right into the dough. The 2 bars taste the same and it’s so much easier to spread all the dough in the pan and pop it into the oven instead of the 3 layers.

The bars look different, though.
snickerdoodle bars

I like the looks of the 3-layered ones better, so I might do those for social occasions, but here at home, the all-in-one bars win most of the time. Especially if Lexi is baking.

And since we’re talking variations, if you prefer cookie form, here is our favorite recipe for Snickerdoodles.

So, there you have it. The most popular baked goods at our house. What do you bake the most?

Comments

4 Responses to “Snickerdoodle Bars”

  1. Liz on March 12th, 2014 3:05 pm

    (I finally subscribed to your posts so now I get notified right away. How slow can I be? It’s not like this page hasn’t been around for years.) I know this post isn’t supposed to be about Monster Cookies (but you brought it up first) I have tasted your recipe made by different people and I’m amazed at the different variations of it. I think you still do it the best. Although with how many I eat of others they still passed with flying colors. I guess there was prob difference in how long they beat it, baked it, etc.
    I’m guessing I would be on the same page as you with these bars. I think I did try them one time, but like you said – no chocolate. :( I make Mom’s Finnish Cake, but it’s for the children and Elvie. I don’t eat much because it’s not my thing. Apparently, the grands must have inherited the love of cinnamon.

  2. Karen B on March 13th, 2014 9:12 am

    4 of the 5 people in our house love these bars! R prefers monster cookies or something chocolate! =)

  3. Shannon on March 17th, 2014 8:18 pm

    Ohhh yummy. Haven’t made them for a long time. I know what I’m gonna do tomorrow. :)

  4. Arla on March 20th, 2014 7:00 pm

    So I made these for supper with a difference. I used oatmeal flour and all purpose gluten free flour instead of regular flour. And I tripled the cinnamon and sugar part and served it hot with plenty of glaze and ice cream. Yummy! Thanks Kay, for the recipe. Elv doesn’t like chocolate so he enjoyed this, too.

4th of July Fun with Brownies

It’s July. And it’s blitzin’ hot! Right now, mid-evening, the thermometer says 89 degrees. Perfect… it’s July.

The girls and I had some red, white, and blue fun today. This is when we were ready to start. Excitement was high. I had a few ideas, but I didn’t know what the end result would be… there was gonna be alot of experimenting going on…

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And here was the end result:

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It’s basically 4 different things… parfaits, berry shish-kabob decorations, fireworks, and randomly decorated brownies.

I made a big pan of brownies and then cut them out with star cookie cutters. I thought that would be faster because my star baking pan has only 6 wells and I’d have had to bake 3 or 4 batches. But, having it to do over, I’d use the star pan. You know how brownies kind of stick to the knife when you cut (unless you use a plastic knife)? Well, they stick to cookie cutters too. It wasn’t too bad, though, and worked fine, but next time, I’ll use my star pan.

Or, instead of brownies, it could be done just as easily on sugar cookies, cupcakes, or mini cupcakes.

The parfaits…
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The parfaits tasted awesome and were easy and could be made in a large pedestal bowl instead of individual parfaits. This one is a layer of brownies, then cream cheese filling, then raspberries, filling, blueberries, filling, brownies, and then you can either put Cool Whip or filling on top and garnish with a bit of fruit and sprinkles. You could make a pan of brownies and cut them up into little squares to make this, or you could do what I did and use the brownie scraps left over from cutting out star brownies. ???? The filling is: 8 oz cream cheese mixed with 1/4 cup powdered sugar, then that gets mixed with 8 oz Cool Whip.

The fruit shish-kabob decorations…
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These shish-kabob things had serious issues… they kept falling over. We had to keep standing them up before each picture. We originally thought we’d try to make them look like fireworks, but we kept lowering our standards til our only requirement for them was to be red, white, and blue. We should’ve just skipped the sticks and made a mound of fruit on top. Oh well, the girls had fun stabbing the stuff on… and obsessing about making sure to get them in the right order of red-white-blue… but one time, one of them asked, “Mom, would blue-white-red be ok, as long as white is in the middle?” See? Obsessing. And you know what TOTALLY makes my day after all that fuss? I didn’t notice it before, but just now I see that on the one tall one, it’s red-white-blue-white-red-blue. ????

The fireworks…
4th-of-july-fireworks.jpg

Oh, what fun! Didn’t turn out quite like I had pictured, but that may be because the girls did most of it (also not what I had pictured) and I mostly just did damage control. We colored white chocolate blue and red and then piped the 3 colors on Saran wrap over a cutting board, then sprinkled on some colored sugar and star-shaped sprinkles, and put them in the fridge to harden.
4th-of-july-fireworks-parts.jpg

After 15 minutes or so, they were hardened and ready to assemble, which included jamming the sticks into the frosting on the brownies. Does ‘jamming’ sound a bit harsh for delicate little chocolate sticks? Yep. Harsh, but accurate. ???? I really should’ve taken a video clip of that process… it was hilarious to watch and listen. ????
4th-of-july-fireworks-assembly.jpg

So, did it end up looking like fireworks? I don’t know, but we at least have to give them credit for creating something that looks like some type of explosion…
4th-of-july-fireworks-3.jpg

4th-of-july-fireworks-2.jpg

The randomly decorated brownies…
4th-of-july-brownies.jpg

This was fun. I got an inspiration for this that I’ll do more in the future for any occassion. Make a page on the computer of writing or shapes or outlines or whatever. Then, print it out and put it on a cutting board under a piece of Saran wrap. Then, pipe over it with chocolate. It’ll make writing more even and shapes more accurate. Here is the Before/After…
4th-of-july-shapes.jpg

Then, put it in the fridge to harden. Peel off and garnish. The possibilities are endless with this print-out-and-pipe-chocolate thing! One tip is to make sure it’s pretty thick. Another tip is don’t hold it very long before putting it on because your warm fingers will start to soften it and it’ll weaken and break.

Here are a couple of close-ups. Next time, I’d make an extra little thing sticking down to go into the frosting because, like July 4 down there, the Y looks like a V and the 4 looks like a triangle.

4th-of-july-brownie-star.jpg

4th-of-july-usa-brownie.jpg

4th-of-july-close-up.jpg

And, last but not least, United States rice crispy bars. After cutting it out, I put all the scraps together and re-flattened it out and cut out stars, then, sprinkled colored sugar on top. The flag is M&Ms… I had the kids separate out all the blue and red ones from a package.
4th-of-july-usa-flag-rice-crispy.jpgI used to have a plastic United States shaped mold. I had put it away for the year and when I went to get it out this year, something heavy was laying on it (a 15-lb dumbell, to be exact… yeah, don’t ask, I have questions myself!) and it was hopelessly smashed. So, I just cut this freehand. The top does look a little odd from Michigan to Maine, but hey, you can at least tell what shape it’s supposed to be, right?

Happy 4th of July from all of us! (even from Shannon, who was at work when we self-timered this picture)

4th-of-july-eat-dessert.jpg

Excuse us for eating in front of you, but we couldn’t help it when we saw that parfait sitting there. We’re going to kick back and relax this weekend, maybe grill a burger or two and watch some fireworks. See ya next week!

Comments

5 Responses to “4th of July Fun with Brownies”

  1. Sandra on July 1st, 2011 10:30 pm

    LOve it!!..me and jazz wanted to get all festive for the wkd.Love ur ideas!! maybe we can make a few:)

  2. Rosalyn on July 1st, 2011 11:21 pm

    Those are too cute! and way too much fun! ???? I know my girls would be begging to make some, too, if they’d get a glimpse… ???? Happy 4th! :)

  3. Jo on July 2nd, 2011 10:40 am

    This was so much fun to read! I hope I find an excuse to try something this weekend. Happy 4th!

  4. Renita on July 2nd, 2011 12:43 pm

    Wow. I love the computer print out idea beings I don’t do good free hand! This puts me in the mood to celebrate. :) Even my boys will wanna do some things in the kitchen after seeing this. Thx

  5. Shannon on July 3rd, 2011 9:11 pm

    Aww that looks like fun! When I saw the picture it made me realize how much I miss your skinny self. ???? Let’s get together soon.

Watermelon Cookies

Nothing says summer like watermelon cookies. Just kidding. I was only trying to sound cliche. There are probably 50 things that could go in this blank: Nothing says summer like ________ . Flip flops, burgers on the grill, buzz haircuts, sticky roasted marshmallows, sun-kissed cheeks, fresh strawberry pie, laying in the hammock, picnics, etc. etc. Oh! and watermelon. Watermelon anything.

Before we get to the cookies, I want to throw this in here. Watermelon cake. I made it a couple years ago, but you can make it this year! :)

watermelon-cake.jpg

watermelon-cake-eat-piece.jpg

And now, onto the cookies…

watermelon-cookies-close.jpg

What these cookies lacked in taste, they made up for in cuteness and fun. But, when it comes to eating sugar cookies, you can’t go by me because I’m not a sugar cookie fan. I like them ok if they’re loaded with frosting, and these cookies weren’t loaded with frosting. The girls liked them though, and that’s what counts, I guess. These particular cookies did have chocolate chips in them too, which is good, what with sugar cookies needing all the help they can get.

I didn’t know how I was going to get the cookie dough red, other than just using food coloring. So, I came up with a brilliant plan (sorta kidding about the brilliant part). I mixed up sugar cookie dough (this recipe) and cake mix cookie dough (this recipe, but I used a red velvet cake mix, and I skipped the silly Tbsp of flour). Then, I took about 1/3 of the sugar cookie dough and mixed it with a dollop of the red velvet dough. (Thought of it later that I could’ve tried simply dumping a pkg of red jello in the dough and see how that works, instead of messing with red velvet). Then I mixed in some chocolate chips. I rolled it out and cut circles, baked them, put a rind on, and cut them in half.
watermelon-cookies-dough.jpg

watermelon-cookies-without-rind.jpg

Btw, to do the green, I just piped a fat line around the edge, then spread it out.
watermelon-cookies-step-by-step.jpg

And ta-da! Watermelon-lookin’ slices!

watermelon-cookies.jpg

You know what I just thought of now? WHY did I not think to make some wedges and make some look half-eaten, like just the rind with a bit of red left on it or use a small flower cookie cutter and cut a ‘bite’ or two out of some of the slices?! So, there’s an idea for you if you make watermelon cookies… I can’t do it anymore with these because I made them last week and they are LONG gone. Oh, and another way to make watermelon cookies would be to make regular sugar cookies (not colored dough) and then frost them red, white, and green and press mini chocolate chips into the red frosting.

So, that’s the end of the watermelon cookies. But if you were paying attention up there, you know that I have most of two batches of cookie dough left. What should we do with all of it?

Mix them together and you’ll have a bunch of red cookie dough. Then, make star sandwich cookies for the 4th of July, which is just around the corner!

star-sandwich-cookies.jpg

Speaking of the 4th of July, I’m going to ‘play’ a little this afternoon and make some fireworks out of white chocolate with the help of blue and red food coloring. Then, tomorrow sometime, I’ll do a 4th of July post with those (whether they end up actually looking like fireworks or not ;) ), USA/flag/stars rice crispies, and maybe another red, white, and blue thing or two.

Comments

3 Responses to “Watermelon Cookies”

  1. Rosanne on June 30th, 2011 8:49 pm

    So cute, and the watermelon cake, I love how they ate it. Love your post, so fun to read. Happy 4th!

  2. Sharon on July 1st, 2011 11:40 am

    So, Kay, if you don’t like sugar cookies, couldn’t you use chocolate chip cookie dough and add red food coloring? Then just bake instead of cutting them out…

  3. Kay on July 1st, 2011 12:37 pm

    Sharon, now THAT is a brilliant idea! Thanks! Where were you last week when I needed you?! :)

Deviating from the Norm in Baking

Posted on May 19, 2011
Filed Under Cakes, Cookies and bars, Pies

You bake cookies. You could do it on autopilot. Your kids even know the drill… one time, Tiffany came out to the kitchen as I was starting cookie baking and said, “Can I help you bake cookies?”
“How did you know I’m gonna bake cookies?”, I asked.
“Because I saw you open the mixer and get that *pointing to the shortening* and the sugar out of the cupboard, and that’s how you always start baking cookies.”, she confidently said.

Sometimes I feel in such a rut with cooking and baking. When we have cookies around, 90% of the time they’re either monster or chocolate chip. When we have cake around, 90% of the time, it’s chocolate with peanut butter icing. When we have pie around, 90% of the time it’s either peanut butter or lemon meringue. And it looks like when I get into a percentage rut, it’s usually 90%. Seriously, though, if I make something other than the things listed above, you pretty much always see it on here. Sometimes I feel too predictable and want to change things up a bit…

We can still have our favorites, but in a different way.

Take chocolate chip cookies, for example. I was making some for an after school snack, so you know, for kids. Instead of using the same ol’ Pampered Chef cookie scoop, I just used a spoon and made teeny little scoops. The teeny little scoops turned into adorable 1-and-a-half-inch-in-diameter cookies. The adorable cookies, placed in a little bucket, turned into an after school snack that was a huge hit… little cookies, huge hit. They thought it was great that they could have TEN cookies for after school snack! ????
chocolate-chip-cookies-in-bucket.jpg

Awwwwwww.

And now, not to wreck the fun I’m-SOOOOOO-gonna-bake-cookies-this-afternoon-and-do-that-cuz-the-kids’ll-love-it mood or anything, but just let me warn you: the dough goes down v.e.r.y slowly, it takes way longer to put them on and get them off the cookie sheet, and the yield is dozens and dozens, do not even try to count.

*WHIPLASH ALERT*

We’re now going to switch from baking dozens of little time-consuming mini cookies to 1 pan of bars.

Let’s say you’re baking cookies and you mix the dough up and while the first panful is in the oven, you realize you’re not really in the mood to bake cookies after all… not in the mood to drop them onto the cookie sheet every 10 minutes, not in the mood to be setting your laptop down and jumping up 5 times an hour.

But, you’ve got a batch of dough sitting there.

No problem. Just spread the dough in a sheet cake pan and bake it for 25 minutes… and ta-da, bars made from your favorite cookie recipe. I just tried this for the first time about 3 weeks ago and thought it was really great that I thought to do this on my own UNTIL some of my friends said, “Oh, yeah, I do that all the time.” :roll:
bars-from-cookie-recipe.jpg
Side note here: that’s my chocolate chip cookie recipe, except that I substituted FUDGE + 1 cup of flour for the chocolate chips. I had about 5 cups of fudge on hand from when I made this cake.
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I was going to use the fudge in the middle layer between the 2 cakes, but then when I started spreading it on, I was afraid it would be too soft and squish out from the weight of the cake plus car on top of it (I used melted-then-hardened chocolate instead). So, I used the fudge up in those cooki— uh, I mean bars.

Another way to change up chocolate chip cookies is to mix them up and bake them, leaving out the chocolate chips. Then, melt the chocolate chips, spread them on something metal to harden and make cutouts. Or just drizzle the melted chocolate over the cookies. After they’re baked, you can cut out some of the baked cookies into heart shapes… the girls (and I) did these 2 years ago for Valentines Day and we shipped them to WI to their 2 grandmas.
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For cake: sometimes I do chocolate cake with peanut butter icing in a 9×13, sometimes I do it in a sheet cake pan, and once in a great while, into cupcakes. I know, exciting. ???? Next time, I’m going to do mini ones. I made mini cupcakes for the first time last week. If you ever want to do this, one cake mix made exactly 6 dozen… I filled the wells about 3/4 full with batter. And it takes double the frosting. ???? Pile it up even more than this… it’s part of what makes minis fun. I only made a single batch, so I couldn’t put as much on as I wanted to AND I ran out.
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For pie… if you want lemon meringue pie, but not in big piece form, do this: make pie crust, cut 3″ circles, press them into mini muffin pans, and bake. Make your regular lemon pie filling and fill the crusts. Make regular meringue and pipe or dollop it on, brown it in the oven, and you’ve got these sweet li’l thangs…
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You could do that with probably any kind of pie. It’s great for potlucks or snacks.

And now, still on the pie subject, the grand finale to this whole ‘switching things up’ thing… how about calorie-free… ????
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I ran across this website (April Cottage Ramblings) one day as I was surfing and immediately saved the link. Absolutely amazing!!! Seriously, this lady is talented… she KNITTED a piece of pie and a donut!!! She knits and crochets other stuff too… I fell in love with a little short-sleeved ruffly purple sweater that she made for her granddaughter. I don’t know her, and I don’t knit, but I’m very impressed. And it sounds like she’s going to knit more cakes, so I’m going to stay tuned. :)

Coming up next… Lately, I’ve been hungry for lettuce salad with craisins and pecans in it, so I’m going to look for a recipe like that. I don’t have one in mind, so if you have a slam good one that you’re bursting to share, let me know! :)

Comments

9 Responses to “Deviating from the Norm in Baking”

  1. Kay on May 19th, 2011 8:37 am

    Every time I see the title, I think “Who’s Norm?” Hmmm, maybe I should’ve worded it differently…
    :)

  2. Beth on May 19th, 2011 9:29 am

    Love this! And I think the title is fine – my ‘normal’ is chocolate chip cookies, but I sure don’t make cakes or pies often enough to call that normal. If I make them, I’m the one who ends up eating it…can’t let that good stuff go to waste! :) I like making dessert though, so I often choose that if I need to take something to family or church activities.

    Hey, do you have the small Pampered Chef scoop? I wonder how that would compare to your method of using a spoon. Also, their large scoop is perfect for filling muffin tins.

  3. Amy on May 19th, 2011 10:47 am

    LOL… That pie slice looks like a skunk tail! I had to read what you said it was, look at it again and then.. AHhh!! Now I see it! ????

  4. Connie Stoll on May 19th, 2011 11:14 am

    Festive Tossed Salad
    12 c mixed greens, 3/4 c dried cranberries, 4 oz feta cheese. Saute 1 c chopped walnuts (or pecans) with 3 T butter, cool and toss with 1/4 c sugar, 1 tsp pepper and 1/4 tsp salt. Toss salad with dressing just before serving. Dressing: 1/4 cup red wine or cider vinegar, 1/2 cup loose fresh parsely, 1/4 cup chopped red onion, 2 cloves garlic, 1/3 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp oregano, 1/8 tsp salt and 1/2 cup olive oil. Puree in food processor or blender, regrigerate until serving. Just had this salad last weekend and it is absolutely delicious!

  5. Shannon on May 19th, 2011 2:34 pm

    Now who did you say Norm was? ???? jk!

    I think my cookie scoop is too small. It always takes forever to get to the bottom of the bowl. I just love that “bar” idea more and more!!

  6. Michelle on May 20th, 2011 8:13 am

    My mom makes those tiny cookies and I LOVE eating them, but since I often feel as though I’m being poisoned in the kitchen (slight exaggeration, of course), I’m a bar kind of girl. :) So I am very happy to know that I can do that with cookies dough, too!

  7. Jolene on May 23rd, 2011 3:04 pm

    I just recently got a wonderful salad recipe with craisins, pecans, sesame sticks, purple onion, red pepper and grated cheese. It’s so good!!! I posted it on “A page in the life of a mom” if your interested.

  8. Beth on June 11th, 2011 6:35 pm

    Isn’t it about time to eat some cheesecake? Ha! I’ll take that back, but I’d welcome a new post. :)

  9. Kay on June 13th, 2011 10:07 am

    Thanks Beth. :) Yeah, cheesecake eaten… new post coming up soon. Actually, it’ll be salad next, not cheesecake.

Chocolate Chip Craisin Cookies… with a chocolate comparison

Posted on January 10, 2011
Filed Under Cookies and bars, Holiday cooking

Ok, people, take note. I am about to write a phrase that I have NEVER written before and that I will probably never write again. Ever.

White chocolate was better than milk chocolate. Oh, that sounds weird. Seems wrong. I feel like a traitor to milk chocolate.

But I made this cookie dough, split it in half, and added milk chocolate to one half and white to the other. When they were baked and cooled, I tasted them. In all my die-hard loyalty and love for milk chocolate, I’ll have to admit that white chocolate just plain goes better with craisins.

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This all reminds me of a little conversation Shannon and I have had now and then about the museum at Lambeau field. I know, it might seem strange that chocolate reminded me of that conversation, but I have always loved analogies. Analogies help me understand things, see them in a different perspective. And this is an analogy… in which I am the milk chocolate, Shannon’s brother Preston is the white chocolate, the Packer museum is the cookies, and Shannon is the taste-tester. In this conversation, we talk about his dream of some day going to Lambeau field and spending a day there going thro the museum, reading every piece of info and history, and when he does, it’s not me (you know, ME, his favorite person ever) that he wants along …the person he wants to go with is his brother. Evidently, strolling thro’ a football museum is not date material, holding hands as you go from one display to the next.????? :) I do totally get it, though… I wouldn’t want to browse Hobby Lobby and Michaels with him for a day. Things are always the most enjoyable when you get the right combo.

Like craisin cookies and white chocolate.

White Chocolate Craisin Cookiesrecipe ripped out of either Taste of Home or Country Woman magazine, I forget which one

2/3 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups oatmeal
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 6oz. package craisins
2/3 cup white chocolate chunks or chips

Preheat oven to 375. Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, mixing well. Combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt. Add to butter mixture in several additions, mixing well after each addition. Stir in dried cranberries and white chocolate. Or do the taste-test for yourself and split the dough and try dark or milk chocolate.
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Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.
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This made 28 cookies.


These are wonderful for Christmas! Or for any time of the year, since Christmas is about 11 1/2 months away… (read: didn’t get it posted in time for Christmas). ????

Comments

4 Responses to “Chocolate Chip Craisin Cookies… with a chocolate comparison”

  1. Jan on January 10th, 2011 3:21 pm

    I like your analogy. “Pancakes and blueberry syrup!”

  2. Amy Burkey on January 10th, 2011 3:30 pm

    Shilah made these for us (with white chocolate) when we were in Idaho. I’ve been craving them ever since.

  3. Shannon on January 10th, 2011 5:37 pm

    Just so you know, I’m laughing out loud! ????

  4. Judi on January 28th, 2011 2:37 pm

    I’m usually a milk chocolate kind of girl too, but I love white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. thanks for the recipe

Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies

Posted on December 15, 2010
Filed Under Cookies and bars, Holiday cooking

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I was trying to picture a festive cookie plate to take to the cookie exchange. For awhile, I was waffling between White Chocolate Craisin Cookies and these. I ended up with these. I kinda got hung up on the white chocolate in the others, wondering if I wanted to ‘waste’ a couple batches of cookies on white chocolate… Shannon, maybe you should try them. :) (Side note: This might be confusing to some of you because I have 2 Shannons in my life (my husband and one of my friends), both of which I refer to on here hit n miss, but if you know there are 2, you can usually tell which one I mean by the context. ;)) Back to these craisin cookies, I am planning to make a batch, and add the chocolate last, dividing the dough in half and adding white to one half and milk choc to the other.

Wow, I just spent a whole paragraph writing about something that has nothing to do with what this post is about. Good grief.

First, before the recipes, I’ll give amounts: I used 5 cake mixes, which made 9 1/2 dozen filled cookies, so I actually baked 19 dozen individual cookies. Me and baking 19 dozen cookies goes great together, I loved it… if it wouldn’t make me gain 100 pounds, I’d bake every day. On the other hand, Megan (my 6-month old) and baking 19 dozen cookies does NOT go great together. Let’s just say her naptime was blissful. Although, she thought it was bliss sitting back in a corner up on the counter playing with everything within reach (except toys). It’s amazing how far a 6-month-old can reach, I found out! Anyway, I made the frosting recipe 3 times and had about 1 cup left over. So, I’ll break this down for you to save you having to get out the calculator… 2 cake mixes would make approx 46 finished cookies (mine were anywhere from 2″ – 2 1/2″ across) and one batch of frosting would do approx 38 cookies… could become one of those deals where you make more frosting to use up the rest of the cookies, then you have too much, so you make more cookies to use up the rest of the frosting, then you have cookies left, so you make more frosting…… and so on. :)

Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies

1 red velvet cake mix
2/3 cup shortening
2 eggs

Mix. Shape into balls.
red-velvet-balls.jpg

Bake at 375 for 7 minutes.
red-velvet-baked.jpg

Meanwhile, this was going on…
red-velvet-megan.jpg

Marshmallow Creme Filling

2 sticks (1 cup) butter
1 7oz. jar marshmallow creme
3 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Beat til creamy. Spread it on however you want, but I put it in a bag and piped it on. Easy and less mess!
red-velvet-filling.jpg

Put another cookie on top and you’ve got yourself a yummy little red velvet sandwich cookie!
red-velvet-tiffany.jpg

You know, I was just thinking, we could do all sorts of stuff with this because there are all sorts of cake mixes out there… use a white cake mix and put in green food coloring and have green sandwich cookies, make any kind of cake mix cookies and tint the frosting red or green, roll the assembled cookie in crushed red & white candy canes so it sticks to the frosting, dip half of a red velvet sandwich cookie in chocolate, mix up a white cake mix and a red velvet one and then fold them together til it’s red & white swirled… any other ideas?

Comments

6 Responses to “Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies”

  1. Shannon on December 15th, 2010 1:18 pm

    I’m the other Shannon and I have no ideas because I could barely get past the fact that you might not use all White Chocolate in those cookies. 8(

    That does sound like a cool and easy way to make cookies. Gonna have to think of what non chocolate kinds would be good. :)

  2. Berneice on December 15th, 2010 3:06 pm

    Hmm, these look good! I have some confetti cake mix here that someone gave us. We are not cake eaters, so they might become cookies! with red and green icing. Thanks! Oh and I can’t wait to hear about those Craisin cookies! I love craisins!!

  3. Lisa@The Cutting Edge of Ordinary on December 15th, 2010 3:33 pm

    Love these!! You are so right the possibilites are endless. I am so making these! Maybe for New Years cause my Christmas cookie baking is full-up!! Thanks!

  4. Liz on December 15th, 2010 5:35 pm

    What the world?! I thought you had a baby. I’m pretty sure that’s Megan up there and she just doesn’t look like the baby I remember.
    I used milk choc for some monster cookies I made recently. Thought you should be proud of me. :) But when I snitched the dough with a choc chip in it, it just didn’t taste as good as semi sweet. Grr. I guess maybe that would help me not to eat as much dough.

  5. Elvida on December 16th, 2010 10:11 am

    This looks really good and I have all the ingredients…just wondering if you meant crisco by shortening, or oil? Thanks!!

  6. Paul on December 16th, 2010 10:51 am

    Looks amazing!I love how simple you make it. Keep up the good work, looking forward to future posts!

Christmas Cookie Exchange 2010

Posted on December 14, 2010
Filed Under Cookies and bars, Holiday cooking

It’s that time of year when I need to unlock my extra reservoir of willpower. Here is what’s sitting on my table RIGHT NOW…
cookie8all.jpg

Seriously, the table these are on is 5′ away. I could stand up, take 3 steps, reach out and grab a handful. Or 2 handfuls (I have 2 hands). They are even all still uncovered from taking the picture. Thing is, I’m not even tempted. Nope. Huh-uh. Not me. Not at all. ????

I’m not even sure what they’re all called, so I’ll just make up a name for them if I don’t know. Oh, and hey, I’m really curious. What’s your favorite of all those cookies? If they were, say, sitting on a table 5′ away from you and you could only pick one, which one would you pick?

First, we have Monster Cookies made by Carla. Monster cookies are my all-time favorite… I’d better hide them, the others would never know. :)
cookie8monster.jpg

Next is Thumbprint Jam Cookies made by Julie. So pretty.
cookie8jam.jpg

Here are Christmas Cutouts and Candy Cane Cookies made by Janae. Way too cute.
cookie8cutouts.jpg

Then, we have Peanut Butter Cookies Dipped in Chocolate made by Linda. These call to me almost as loud as the monster cookies.
cookie8pbutter.jpg

Next is Snickerdoodles made by Deb. Shannon will claim this plate.
cookie8snick.jpg

Here are Cream Wafers made by Renita. So beautifully Christmas-y.
cookie8wafer.jpg

Next is Chocolate Crinkles made by Mary. Ohhhhh, yum!
cookie8crinkle.jpg

There are 2 plates left, one cookies and one candy. I made those. Here are Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies.
cookie8red.jpg

And this plate is Chocolate-covered Tree-shaped Pretzels, Chocolate-covered Ritz crackers filled with Peanut Butter, and O’Henry bars. The O’Henry bars recipe came from Lisa @ The Cutting Edge of Ordinary. Thanks, Lisa! They are awesome!!!
cookie8candy.jpg

Oh, and I need to point out my candle and snowflake holder… don’t you just love it? Julie (the one up there who made the jam cookies) gave it to me for my birthday this year. I LOVE it!
cookie8candle.jpg

Ok, now I know I haven’t been posting on here very much and I don’t want anybody to faint, but I have some recipes to get in before Christmas, so I’m going to post one about every day for awhile. *thud* You fainted, didn’t you?! Here are the planned upcoming posts, not necessarily in this order:
— Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies
— O’Henry bars (I know, you can get the recipe on Lisa’s site, but I want it on mine, too :) )
— Teacup Chocolates (excited about this one, this one happened only in my head so far, so hopefully they’ll turn out!… I’m making them Thurs for another cookie/candy exchange on Friday)
— Chocolate-covered Ritz Filled with Peanut Butter (I know, you know how to do that already, just by the title, but I want to show you a trick that made the process faster and funner… more fun, whatever)
— Lexi’s 8th birthday cake (it was a snicker bar with a fondant wrapper)

Don’t forget to humor me with what kind of cookie up there you’d like best! :)

Comments

23 Responses to “Christmas Cookie Exchange 2010”

  1. Aug on December 14th, 2010 3:40 pm

    Oh, wow! Those look so good. And I totally believe you that you are not even tempted. (not)

    I would pick either the red velvet sandwich cookies or the monster cookies.

    But they sure all look pretty. Those wafers look like something I would want to try too.

  2. Lisa@The Cutting Edge of Ordinary on December 14th, 2010 3:43 pm

    So glad liked the O’Henrys! They are delicious! All the cookies you guys made are making my mouth water!!

  3. Liz on December 14th, 2010 3:58 pm

    Well, the monster cookies do look really good! Is one of each not an option? I would like try the O’Henry bars too.
    Maybe you SHOULD just eat all of them that way I wouldn’t have as many temptations when you come up. :) There will probably be enough stuff here.

  4. Cheryl Weaver on December 14th, 2010 3:58 pm

    The chocolate crinkles would be my favorite. Its the first thing I saw on your table. I MUST go make some. TODAY!!

  5. Arla on December 14th, 2010 4:13 pm

    Hi Kay,
    They all look very pretty and festive. I want one of the O’Henry Bars, please. I love the cookie part of Christmas. We did a few chocolate covered pretzels this year, too. They’re time consuming but they sure do make a plate look good. BTW, Kay, when you and Shannon are in our area in about two weeks or so; don’t you dare drive by and not stop in. Just come in for ten minutes, okay, please. If you come by in evening the guys will be playing with trains, or Catan, mostly likely.

  6. Karen B on December 14th, 2010 4:16 pm

    I think i’d pick the jam thumbprints or the red velvet sandwhich cookies..? or maybe grab 1 of each! =)

  7. Freida on December 14th, 2010 4:16 pm

    Oh yum. Those look so crazy good. It would be a hard choice and I would probably sneak more than one when you’re not looking. ???? One would be the Chocolate crinkles. I have been CRAVING those for the last several weeks! Those are on my favorite cookie list! I’ll be waiting for those recipes. :)

  8. Dawn Landis on December 14th, 2010 5:21 pm

    Wow… they all look so good! I think I would first try the Thumbprint or the Creme Wafers (never had them). Your Thumbprint cookies look so much nicer & yummier than mine… I had problems with mine last year… would love to have that recipe if you have it! Later this week I am making Christmas cookies with my Mom and sis-in-law… will be great to have a selection of cookes in the freezer again!

  9. Christy on December 14th, 2010 7:04 pm

    Peanut butter dipped in chocolate. Sounds like perfection!

  10. Beth on December 14th, 2010 7:12 pm

    I definitely fainted. :) The chocolate crinkles would call my name quite loudly, but that would then be followed with a few others. :( Can’t wait to taste your candy!

  11. Shannon on December 14th, 2010 7:37 pm

    Umm, not sure what to choose after coming up from a dead away faint. :) The Choc-peanut butter ones… snicker doodles or the cut outs, obviously I don’t go for the choc like most of you. Those O’Henry bars do look awesome. Should try them, but then again, I shouldn’t, because then I’d just eat them! :)

  12. Shannon on December 14th, 2010 7:38 pm

    Forgot to say, I’m gonna sit at the computer all day tomorrow waiting on your post. ????

  13. Cheryl on December 14th, 2010 7:42 pm

    I’ll take 3 of each!! Amazing, and what fun I bet! I need to have/attend a cookie exchange!

  14. cindy on December 14th, 2010 8:49 pm

    these look so yummy! i love Christmas cookie baking and will have to come back to check out your recipes!

  15. Rosalyn on December 14th, 2010 9:51 pm

    Those Monster cookies are waay too tempting! :( Good thing they’re at your house and not mine. I’d also like to try those peanut butter dipped in chocolate ones. And the O’Henry bars. :)

  16. Jan on December 14th, 2010 9:54 pm

    You can save me one of the peanut butter ones and also some of the O’Henry bars. I need to try the tree shaped pretzels, too. Where did you find them?

  17. Kay on December 14th, 2010 10:12 pm

    Arla, yeah, we’ll take you up on those 10 minutes… we’ve got lots to squeeze in while we’re up there, but we for sure want to see you guys! Will be in touch between C-mas & New Years sometime.

    Dawn, I emailed Julie about the thumbprint recipe. She or I will post it in the comments here sometime… IF it’s not a top secret recipe that she can share. :)

    Haha, Shannon, hopefully you’re not waiting till 11:59 p.m. :p

    Cheryl, yeah, you DO need to do this! It’s so fun!… you mass-produce a bunch of cookies and then bring home a beautiful assortment!

    Rosalyn, they’re not that far away! Stop in and I’ll let you have your pick! :)

    Jan, I got them at the local bulk foods store. We oughta dip some at New Years… Northwood Co Mkt might have some. Or really, any pretzel would work. :) I was wishing I’d have gotten sprinkles to put on them before the choc hardened, but while I was doing them was a poor time to think of that!

  18. Kay on December 15th, 2010 6:53 am

    Dawn,
    Here is the thumbprint cookie recipe, complete with helpful sidenotes, from Julie:

    Thumbprint Cookies

    2/3 cup sugar
    1 cup butter
    1/2 tsp. vanilla
    Combine and beat a couple min.
    Add: 2 cups flour
    Shape into balls. (I used a cookie scoop)
    (I flattened the balls a little with a glass that has a flat bottom before indenting them) Indent with thumb or round 1/2 tsp. Fill with 1/4 tsp. (heaping) Raspberry jam. Bake at 350* 14-18 min. just till brown; don’t overbake. Cool. Drizzle with glaze. (ziploc bag worked great)
    Double batch = approx. 3 1/2 dozen
    I baked them 14-15 min.
    Glaze: 1 cup powdered sugar
    1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
    2-3 tsp. water

    Let us know how they turn out! Mmmmm, I think I’ll go eat one of these for breakfast! :)

  19. Michelle on December 15th, 2010 7:45 am

    Oh yum! I want a chocolate crinkle or two. I’ve never made them but whenever I see them somewhere else I scarf up as many as I dare without being socially kicked out. :) And then after another cup of coffee, I’d like a peanut butter cookie dipped in chocolate.

  20. Lanita on December 15th, 2010 8:20 am

    Hard to choose between the red velvet sandwich cookies or the chocolate dipped pb cookies. They all look so yummy and festive.

  21. Sheila on December 16th, 2010 10:37 am

    I have to admit my mouth did fall open when I saw a post from kitchen scrapbook. :-) The timing is really good, too, because I have a bunch of Christmas cookies sitting out on my table, so I can go fulfill the cookie/candy craving that you just gave me. :-) Although, the ones on my table certainly aren’t as good looking as yours here. They all look so nice! I would have a hard time selecting just one, but maybe I’d go for the O’Henry bars. Maybe you’ll bring some along to WI? :-)

  22. Dawn Landis on December 16th, 2010 7:30 pm

    Thanks Kay for the speedy “delivery” of the Thumbprint recipe! I’m anxious to try it!

  23. Leah Anderson on January 15th, 2011 12:58 pm

    Wow these treats look awesome! Where on earth do you find the time? Ive been reading your blog for about a year & love it! Im originally from NW Ohio now living in NC. Love your blog!

Christmas Cookies – Sour Cream Cutouts

Posted on December 7, 2009
Filed Under Cookies and bars, Holiday cooking

Other than listening to some Christmas music, this is the first thing “Christmas-y” thing I’ve done this year… Christmas cookies. (Decorating my house will hopefully happen this week yet.) These were for a cookie exchange, so I *ahem* didn’t let my eager little helpers in on the fun because I have to say “No licking!” about 273 times in the course of the project and that just sorta wrecks the Christmas spirit. So, I got up early and made & frosted them myself.

I’m not a fan of sugar cookies, butter cookies, or any frosted cookies like that because I think they’re rather dry and messy and not very tasty. Having said that, these would be about at the top of the list of good frosted cookies that I’ve had. The only better ones I can think of were some that my friend Kim made one time. They had cream cheese in them.

cmas-cookies2.jpg

Sour Cream Cutouts … recipe taken from the Christmas Cookies & Candies cookbook

Printable recipe

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
6 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup sour cream

FROSTING:
1/2 cup butter, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
3 Tbsp. milk (I added more so it would be faster/easier spreading)
Food coloring, optional

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine dry ingredients; add to the creamed mixture alternately with sour cream (dough will be sticky). Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or until easy to handle. (It’s not kidding about this… impatient me tried it without chilling. Bad idea. So, I chilled it for about an hour and the process went MUCH better!) On a floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4″ thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters dipped in flour. Place 1″ apart on greased baking sheets. Bake at 375 for 8-12 minutes or until lightly browned. (I set the timer for 10 min and they were perfect.) For frosting, beat the butter, powdered sugar, and milk until smooth. Add food coloring if desired. Frost cookies. Yield: about 9 dozen.

cmas-cookies1.jpg

Up next: Lexi’s 7th birthday cake. Her birthday was actually today, the party is tomorrow… 7 of her friends are coming after school.

Comments

10 Responses to “Christmas Cookies – Sour Cream Cutouts”

  1. Kay on December 7th, 2009 8:56 pm

    Uhhhh, I just posted this and was proof-reading it and looking at the pictures… is it just me or does that one green tree have the tip bitten off? Oops. :) Wasn’t me!

  2. Twila on December 7th, 2009 9:30 pm

    Now that you mention it… :) You must have some elves at your house!

  3. Ruthie on December 7th, 2009 10:07 pm

    The cookies must be as yummy as they look! And Happy Birthday to Lexi!!

  4. Beth on December 8th, 2009 5:18 am

    I was one of the lucky ones who got a plate of these. The sour cream must make the difference between other dry & boring sugar cookies, because these were absolutely scrumptious!

  5. Shannon H on December 8th, 2009 7:39 am

    Ohh good. I was going to start a google search for cut out cookies now I don’t have too! :) I’m going to attempt this with the girls one of these days, maybe Sat cause Madison will want to help too!

  6. Sharon on December 8th, 2009 9:06 am

    Yup, these sound similar to the ones I make and I’d agree that they’re much better than other cut-outs. I grew up with them and always thought my Mom’s cookies were just the best. Got a kick out of the bite!

  7. Dorothy on December 8th, 2009 4:34 pm

    We’ll have to give these a try. I think cut-outs are never worth the bother. Besides having to cut them out they don’t taste good. I love sour cream so these seem to be a winner already in my mind.

  8. Aug on December 9th, 2009 6:26 am

    I just got the call that today is a snow day here, so I think I’ll go mix up a batch of these and let the kids cut out and decorate with me. I remember these cookies as being extra good cut-out cookies too, because I don’t like a lot of them either. Thanks for sharing the recipe. And…I’m glad you’re back at Kitchen Scrapbook a little more again!

  9. Arla on December 10th, 2009 11:05 am

    Kay, do you know a nice tasting spritz cookie? We like to do them to add dash to our cookie plates, but they aren’t overly yummy…kind of boring in taste. Any ideas?

  10. Sarah Elizabeth on December 15th, 2011 3:46 pm

    Hi! Do these freeze well? They look great!

Cake Mix Cookies

Posted on July 31, 2009
Filed Under Cookies and bars

V-A-R-I-E-T-Y!!!! That’s what’s so fun about these cookies! You know in the grocery store, in the baking aisle, how there are several shelves full of cake mixes? Red ones, yellow ones, white ones, brown ones, confetti ones, pink ones, orange ones, blue ones… are there blue ones? Not sure about that now that I think of it.

And you can make even more variety! You can mix the colors too… make brown and pink (chocolate and strawberry) for your daughter’s slumber party… when you’re rolling the dough into balls, make them half the size they should be, then smash a brown and pink one together and put it on the cookie sheet.

I should’ve made a bunch of different kinds and then featured them all. But, I guess I’ll just feature them using one kind. The best flavor ever in the world of food.

Chocolate.

cake-mix-cookies-7.jpg

This recipe is adapted from the Tasteful Delights cookbook.

Cake Mix Cookies

1 cake mix
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 Tbsp. flour

cake-mix-cookies-1.jpg
Don’t you just wonder what magic that little tablespoon of flour does? Seems like it wouldn’t make enough difference for the bother. Next time, I should be really daring and omit it, and see what happens
. :)

Beat all the ingredients together. Roll into balls and put on cookie sheets.
cake-mix-cookies-2.jpg

Bake at 350 for 11 minutes.
cake-mix-cookies-3.jpg Yum. They have cracks in them. I like when cookies have cracks like that. Makes them look soft and chewy.

Sprinkle with sugar. I used powdered sugar. I just sprinkled some of them because I think I like the looks of them better without.
cake-mix-cookies-5.jpg

Actually, I think I like them best some with and some without. You know, variety.
cake-mix-cookies.jpg

Comments

11 Responses to “Cake Mix Cookies”

  1. Shannon on July 31st, 2009 3:52 pm

    Oh, this looks interesting. Maybe I should make some tonight with the girls, but I don’t think we’ll be using Chocolate cake mix. :)

    Saw your recipe on PW’s Tasty Kitchen. :)

  2. Liz on July 31st, 2009 3:58 pm

    I just saw a recipe like this on my cousins site (she didn’t have flour in hers) and it has been rolling around in my head that I should make them. Just takes more energy to do that kind of thing what with the good chance of having a 10 month old hanging on my skirt.

  3. Kay on July 31st, 2009 4:35 pm

    Shannon, that’s actually YOUR recipe on Tasty Kitchen, you know! ;) I love love love that site, don’t you?

  4. Tonya on July 31st, 2009 7:38 pm

    We like to make lemon ones. they are sooooo yummy!!!!!

  5. Rina on July 31st, 2009 11:20 pm

    I’ve made these! So easy and I couldn’t believe they actually tasted good!

  6. Lanita on August 1st, 2009 7:54 am

    I love these cookies! I almost forgot about them…I’m pretty sure my recipe doesn’t have the T of flour.

  7. Katrina on August 2nd, 2009 6:24 am

    I have a similar recipe–2 boxes of cake mix, 5 eggs and 2/3 cups oil. No extra flour. I’m sure they taste the same–and I love them. For even more variety, add pb chips to the chocolate or cc to the yellow ones, etc! It’s endless possibilities! (My favorite is probably chocolate with chocolate chips, too!) Yours look perfect.

  8. Elsie on August 4th, 2009 7:24 am

    I also have a recipe without the flour, but it calls for butter or margarine in place of the oil and adds 1 tsp. vanilla. They are so nice and fast when you are in a hurry.

  9. Heather on August 4th, 2009 9:18 pm

    These cookies look delicious. and easy. My 4 year old daughter and I are planning on making them tomorrow. Thanks for the recipe.

  10. Beth in NC on August 5th, 2009 9:19 am

    I baked these last night and they were SO GOOD!! My husband loved them.

  11. Robin on August 20th, 2009 10:41 am

    Just made some and they are delicious. Although I do have some flour spots in my cookies, but I suppose that it takes time to become a good cook. :)

What do you get when you mix snickerdoodles with sour cream cookies, but don’t have eggs?

Posted on June 5, 2009
Filed Under Cookies and bars

You get these cookies. Not bad, huh?

cookies2.jpg

Ok, time to dust off this site again. For those of you who have come back over the last 2 weeks to check if there’s anything new, do you sorta feel like you’re getting to know Trevor? :) And don’t you want one of his cookies?

We got a serious cookie craving awhile ago… Lexi said, “Mom, can we make cookies?” and I said “Sure!” and without another word, we both stopped what we were doing, headed for the kitchen and I went for the cookbooks and she pulled the flour out of the cupboard. That’s when you know it’s a serious cookie craving. If it wouldn’t have been, we would’ve just acted like that would be a good idea and say how we’d “sure like some cookies” and “maybe this evening we could make some” and then just went on with what we were doing.

The first problem was that we had no chocolate chips. The second problem was more serious… no eggs. There are LOTS of cookie recipes with no choc chips, but very few with no eggs. I thought of making Mary’s Cream Cheese Cookies. (The reason I thought of making those is because this exact thing had happened and after searching cookbook after cookbook, I had fiiiiiiiiiiiiinally found one without eggs.) I’ll bet you anything when Shannon reads this, he’ll wonder why I didn’t Google ‘cookie recipe no eggs’ or something like that. His brother Wendell will probably wonder that too. Now that I think of it, I kinda wonder too.  

Anyway.

What ended up happening is that we have a brand new made-up recipe. Not usually what I have in mind when I say I’m gonna try a new recipe. I looked at the cream cheese cookie recipe this time and noticed there were no secret ingredients taking place of the eggs and I had sour cream in the fridge, so I combined and deleted some ingredients and changed a few amounts on a snickerdoodle and sour cream cookie recipe and here it is:

2 cups brown sugar
1 cup shortening
1 1/4 cups sour cream
4 cups flour
2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla

Cream sugar and shortening. Add dry ingredients alternately with sour cream. Add vanilla. Roll into balls. Flatten a bit. Sprinkle generously with cinnamon sugar. Lexi was in charge of putting on the cinnamon sugar and when she started loading it on, I almost said “Not so much!”, but just in time, I thought, ‘You know, that looks kinda good!’ And it was!
cookies4.jpg

Bake for 12 minutes at 375.
cookies3.jpg

Well, they look pretty normal, don’t they?
And they tasted great! Seriously! Sometime, I want to try them with chocolate chips and omit the cinnamon sugar. Or would cinnamon be good with chocolate chips?

cookies1.jpg
Look how soft they are. They’re nice and chewy, not crunchy.

Now I hope that I’m not out of eggs AND sour cream AND cream cheese when the next cookie craving hits. If so, we’ll have to settle for No Bake Cookies, which isn’t a bad choice. At all.

Ok, I’m off to Google ‘Why do cookie recipes have eggs in them?’ Or maybe I’ll Bing it. Just this week, I learned there’s such a thing as Bing.

Comments

9 Responses to “What do you get when you mix snickerdoodles with sour cream cookies, but don’t have eggs?”

  1. Arla on June 5th, 2009 3:54 pm

    I thought I was the only one who ran out of stuff you shouldn’t ever be out of, like eggs. The cookies sound really good, but I have exactly one person in our household that even remotely needs cookies. And of course, he could care less, which is so not fair. But we do make cookies. I have a bucket of them in the freezer and Lance is supposed to know that and get a cookie craving now and then and snitch when he wants one. The other reason I like to keep cookies in the freezer is for when little children come to our house and they look up at me trustingly and ask for a snack. Do I look a grandma that much? Keep it up, Kay. My drop down kept you near the top, because I kept checking in.

  2. Amy on June 6th, 2009 7:20 am

    Oh, I’ am so glad to know this! I have the occasional no-eggs-in-the-fridge thing going on too. They look wonderful! I think choc chips and cinnamon would go great together!

  3. Audrey on June 8th, 2009 8:48 am

    Well, what I would have done is gone to recipezaar.com and put in the ingredients that I had and the ones I didn’t have (eggs) and then it would have given me a list of recipes that I could make. But, sounds like maybe it turned out better for you this way anyhow! I like baking with my kids…Kendall is my little kitchen helper.

  4. Sharon on June 15th, 2009 9:51 am

    A Story:
    Faye is going to Sharon’s house.
    Faye reads Kay’s site.
    Faye thinks, Wow, no eggs, I could make some and even Sawyer could eat them.
    Faye makes cookies and takes them to Sharon’s house. (Faye is nice, you know)
    Everyone at Sharon’s house is just THRILLED (they don’t get cookies much), especially Sawyer.

    End of Story.

    Moral of Story: Kay’s a genius. Faye’s a thoughtful auntie. THANKS! :-)

  5. Sharon on June 15th, 2009 9:53 am

    oh I forgot…
    Yeah, next time try Google. You really can find cookie recipes without eggs. Some of them aren’t so good, but some of them really are.

  6. Katrina on June 20th, 2009 1:34 pm

    Okay, so all this and now I don’t know what Bing is! Off to google!
    But wait, those cookie look awesome. My husdbands favorite cookie is snickerdoodles. I’ll bet he’ll like these! Way to create and make do.

  7. Sharon on December 13th, 2009 10:19 am

    Cookies sound great. What happened to the cooking time and oven temp?

  8. lisa on January 15th, 2012 5:58 pm

    I just stumbled upon your cookies recipe and I must say these are fantastic. Thank you so much for posting this recipe — my husband and two boys absolutely love them!

  9. Liz on September 22nd, 2014 1:30 pm

    Even though this is an old post (I came looking for it because I only have one egg and thought you had posted about making cookies without eggs) I just have to say that cinnamon and chocolate chips go great together. One of my kids’ favorite cookie is sour cream cookies. I always put chocolate chips in them. Which an acquaintance of ours thinks that it just ruins them. But obviously chocolate experts such as us should know better. :) Thanks for the recipe.

Jam Bars

Posted on May 13, 2009
Filed Under Cookies and bars

Usually when I’m flipping thro’ a cookbook and a recipe JUMPS out and grabs me, it’s a recipe with chocolate chunks or melted milk chocolate in it. This time, it wasn’t though. I think what grabbed me about these bars was the cream cheese. And the fact that when there’s a brown sugar/oatmeal/butter mixture, it’s always good… like these Peanut Butter Dream Bars, for example.

This recipe comes from the Tasteful Delights cookbook. The committee behind this cookbook includes a couple of my friends, Michelle and Monica. Good recipes in there! Sometime, I want to try the stuffed mushrooms, bacon cheese chicken, frozen mocha dessert, and a bunch of others. But for now, we’ve got some scrumptious jam bars…

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Jam Bars

Printable recipe

2 cups rolled oats (I used quick oats)
1 3/4 cup flour
1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
Desired amount of cream cheese filling
Any flavor jam

Combine all ingredients in a bowl.
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Reserve 2 cups crumbs and press the rest in a 9×13 pan and bake for 10 minutes.
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Spread cream cheese evenly over crust, then jam over cream cheese.
jam-bars4.jpg I used about 1 cup of cream cheese filling.

jam-bars5.jpg I used about 1/2 cup of jam. Next time, I’d use more like 1/4 cup of jam. It was a little too sweet and the strawberry flavor over-powered the cream cheese flavor, I thought. And that’s not good when fruit over-powers cream cheese! ????

Sprinkle crumbs over jam.
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Bake until crumbs are golden. After 17 minutes, it looked like this, so I got it out of the oven… looks great to me!
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These didn’t last long around here! They’re pretty easy too. They oughta cool before cutting and eating though. They didn’t hold their shape very well while still warm. They are THE best out of the fridge. I don’t think they’d need to be stored in the fridge, but they were extra good when they were chilled. By the way, I made only a half batch (and used an 8×8 pan) because I didn’t have enough of one of the ingredients and I wanted to make them NOW.

About the cream cheese filling, I buy it in tubes at a local bulk foods store, but if you don’t have access to it or would rather make your own, here’s a wonderful cream cheese filling recipe:
8 oz softened cream cheese, 1 egg, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1/2 tsp. vanilla. Beat till smooth.

Comments

12 Responses to “Jam Bars”

  1. amy stauffer on May 14th, 2009 5:07 am

    I love “regular” jam bars, but with a layer of cream cheese filling… they have got to be 10 times better!!! yummy! and just what I DONT need!

  2. liz on May 14th, 2009 3:40 pm

    These look good. I’ll have to try them sometime. Think I would have to make the cream cheese filling though. Good to see another update.;)

  3. liz on May 14th, 2009 8:28 pm

    Does the cream cheese filling have to be baked if it has an egg in it? I know in this recipe it is.

  4. Kay on May 15th, 2009 7:52 am

    Liz, cream cheese filling is something I’ve always wondered about and never really found answers for… Does stuff with cream cheese filling need to be baked? and Does it need to be refrigerated afterwards?

    So, here’s what I do: When I make something with cream cheese filling that doesn’t get baked (like filling in a jelly roll), I always use the stuff from the tube. If it gets baked and I don’t have the a tube of filling on hand, I make some filling w that recipe up there. And I usually refrigerate the baked bars/rolls/danish overnight instead of letting them sit out. I also refrigerate cakes with cream cheese frosting.

    If anyone has answers, please tell us! :)

  5. Wendell Martin on May 15th, 2009 9:43 am

    For your Cream Cheese question try this.
    http://tinyurl.com/q9zjeq

  6. Kay on May 15th, 2009 9:58 am

    Wow, Wendell! That’s cool! Now, I don’t care as much about the cream cheese… my question now is HOW did you do that?! You know, making it type itself and the mouse moving and clicking. Maybe I should Google the answer to that question too. ????

  7. Twila on May 16th, 2009 3:18 pm

    I bought that cookbook and gave it to my daughter for Christmas, but first I copied some recipes from it!. And btw, Michelle and Monica are my nieces.

  8. Wendell Martin on May 18th, 2009 7:27 am

    Kay, If you go to this address http://lmgtfy.com/ you can type in any search. It is really good for dumb questions. Like if someone would ask you how to get to Kitchen Scrapbook or how high you rank on the search engines (#1 by the way) you could give them this http://tinyurl.com/qk457a

  9. Barb on May 18th, 2009 12:58 pm

    i made your Jam Bars for our church ladies night and they are awesome,keep the recipes coming!!!

  10. Katrina on May 19th, 2009 12:20 pm

    Looks de-lish!

  11. Bobbi on May 20th, 2009 6:49 pm

    Yum!!! I just made 12 jars of strawberry jam I may have to make these tomorrow. Thanks.

    Bobbi

  12. Traci on June 2nd, 2009 9:35 pm

    Kay, thanks for stopping by my blog. Did you change servers or something…there are so many posts on here that I’ve missed….I re-added you to my list just in case.

    The spoons are screwed on….it isn’t what I really wanted it to look like…I wanted the screws to be smooth and not have the tale tale phillips screwdriver thing on it…tee hee.
    I added a nut behine the spoons to make them stand out a bit. I was going to use forks, but was afraid they would hang on clothing and rip stuff. I do have two forks above my microwave…would be hard to snag there.
    My spoons do not match either…some even have a story behind them. We drilled holes in the spoons first…then put them up to the doors and matched them up as best we could and put a mark on the doors for the screws. I hope this is making sense….we used long screws and had to saw them off after getting the spoons attached.
    Good luck!!!

Chocolate Chip Cookies – Cooks in Training #7

Posted on April 23, 2009
Filed Under Cookies and bars, Cooks in Training

Yeah, I know… as you scroll down this page, the posts look a little heavy to kid stuff. It wasn’t planned, it kinda just happened, but how fitting… because that’s pretty much my life. And I say that in a good way, I love my 2 little girls and I know they’ll grow up way too fast. But until then, they’ll be a part of my cooking blog.

Lexi is 6. She already loves doing stuff in the kitchen, especially if it involves using her mini cooking stuff. She has declared it her job to make the iced tea around here, if I just do the part of dumping the hot tea into the pitcher. And, on non-school days, she often makes lunch around here (nothing on the stove). I’d have her pack her own school lunch, except that it makes more sense for me to do it while she’s eating breakfast or getting ready. She does have opinions though… the other day, she said, “Mom, next time you pack my lunch, do you think you could think of something healthy to put in it like an apple or something? I don’t wanna get all weak and stuff.” Thing is, it wasn’t exactly unhealthy, it was a sandwich, chips, and grapes.

Tiffany is 3. She loves doing stuff in the kitchen too. But WHY can’t she dump a 2 1/2″ in diameter measuring cup full of flour into an 8″ in diameter mixing bowl without spilling it out over the side?!!!!! ????

We’ve got a chocolate chip cookie recipe to feature today, from the Kid’s Cook cookbook. Cute little chocolate chip cookies. I told them to make the dough into balls and (because of their little hands?) the balls ranged from the size of a marble to the size of a super ball. Instead of the usual 12 cookies that I bake on one sheet, we got almost twice that many on, no problem. I realized I kinda like little cookies… they’re bite-sized and easy to pop in your mouth. This is not my usual chocolate chip cookie recipe, but it’s actually pretty close. This recipe is a small recipe, which is nice because there’s less chance of the mom having to finish the cookies when they get tired of making them and run off to play. I usually copy the directions word for word, but I’m just gonna paraphrase these because it’s written kinda kid-like and detailed.

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup chocolate chips

Heat oven to 375. Stir egg, sugars, and butter with wooden spoon until mixed.
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Add flour, soda, salt and stir with wooden spoon till mixed.
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Stir in chocolate chips. Form into balls and put on cookie sheets.
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Could I please have the cookie in the front on the left up there?

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

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Comments

6 Responses to “Chocolate Chip Cookies – Cooks in Training #7”

  1. Shannon on April 23rd, 2009 2:30 pm

    Oh boy, now mine will have to make the cookies next time. :)

  2. Lorrie on April 24th, 2009 12:03 pm

    That’s the cutest thing. They are so sweet. I miss my daughter being that age.

  3. Rina on April 24th, 2009 8:45 pm

    I cannot WAIT till my son is old enough to help me in the kitchen!!! Great pics.

  4. liz on April 27th, 2009 10:44 am

    Okay, finally getting around to commenting. I usually have one arm full when I’m on the computer.
    The 3rd paragraph sounded like you were talking about my girl. Can’t complain about Kaitlyn wanting to help bake cause she also helps me clean and do the not so fun stuff. She is wanting to start breaking the eggs too. :{
    That one choc chip cookie that you spoke for definitely looks like the best one! After Kaitlyn saw the pics she wanted to go make cookies. Didn’t happen yet though.

  5. Katrina on May 5th, 2009 12:11 pm

    Awesome! Same issues I have with kids in the kitchen. That’s how they learn though, huh! Trial and error. Looks like you let them do WAY more than I do. What a fun pail full of cookies!

  6. Bonniejean on June 7th, 2009 12:14 pm

    Thanks for the recipe! Finally a fool proof chocolate chip cookie recipe. I made them yesterday and they are some of the best cookies I’ve ever made. Yummy!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Squares

Posted on April 15, 2009
Filed Under Cookies and bars, Desserts

Pumpkin. Cream cheese. Chocolate. They make a fine trio.

This recipe comes from the Simply Wonderful cookbook compiled by the Honeybrook Community Church. I’ve only had this cookbook for several months and it’s already a favorite! It’s got lots of cheesecake recipes in it, a grilling section, and the salad department is outstanding! If I were to describe this cookbook in one phrase, it would be “good ol’ Mennonite cooking with a bit of flair”. My cookbook is dog-eared on pages with recipes I’ve gotta try.

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Pumpkin Cream Cheese Squares

Printable recipe

1 c. canned pumpkin
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1/3 c. oil
1 c. flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ginger

1/2 c. chocolate chips

4 oz. cream cheese
1/4 c. sugar
1 egg

Mix together pumpkin, sugar, egg, and oil. Sift together flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and ginger. Stir into pumpkin mixture. Pour into a greased 9×13 pan.
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Beat together cream cheese, sugar, and egg. Drizzle mixture over batter.
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Cut thro’ batter with knife for marbled effect. I know, the whole marbling thing didn’t get as pretty and marbled as I thought it should, either… too much white, not enough pumpkin showing on top.
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Sprinkle with chocolate chips. Shannon (H.), don’t even THINK of leaving out the choc chips! ????
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Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes.
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Mmmmmm! Make these at your own risk… they’re dangerous to the waistline. And they loudly call your name every time you wander thro’ the kitchen, even if you’ve hidden them out of sight.

Comments

11 Responses to “Pumpkin Cream Cheese Squares”

  1. Shannon on April 15th, 2009 2:12 pm

    Um, you know me to well. :) I was reading along thinking, “I bet it would be really good without choc chips” and I’m like “WHAT?” she’s reading my mind!!! ????

  2. Monica on April 15th, 2009 6:23 pm

    Mmmm!! They sound good!! But, I would probably leave out the choc chips, too, or maybe use the mini chips and only use half of the amount!! :) I’m not a big choc chip fan, either! The pumpkin and cream cheese parts sounds delicious.

  3. Katie Mast on April 15th, 2009 7:59 pm

    I agree that cookbook is one of the best. I have it only 1/2 a year and just love it. I got it for my mom and sister for christmas.

  4. Katrina on April 15th, 2009 8:44 pm

    Ooh, that does sound like a great trio of flavors!

  5. Debbie on April 16th, 2009 11:31 am

    Looks absolutely delicious. Just found your site and love it!!

  6. Renita on April 16th, 2009 12:07 pm

    One of the many recipes in my favorite cook book I got to try. And right now it looks real good..can you tell I’m hungry? But oh the addition to the wistline gets me to hold off at least for another day. I KNOW how I don’t have self control with something like that around.

  7. Rhonda H. on April 20th, 2009 2:12 pm

    Oh. My. I just ruined my dinner by eating two pieces of this dessert–warm, right out of the oven. Delicious! It was almost a baking disaster, as I was distracted and poured a whole cup of oil in before I realized what I was doing, but I dumped out all but 1/3 c. – and then I didn’t have quite enough baking powder – but it still turned out great. This is a keeper. Thanks!

  8. liz on April 21st, 2009 1:19 pm

    Rave reviews from the Northwoods Mennonite Church. Well, ok, they didn’t tell me that, but I took a 15 x 11 pan of them to carry in and I didn’t bring any home. Good bars and definitely put the chocolate chips in! They wouldn’t be near as good without it.

  9. Andrea on April 24th, 2009 8:11 am

    This is one of our favorites!

  10. Danielle on October 24th, 2009 8:44 am

    omg i love punkin crean chease squares they are my
    favirote!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  11. Danielle on November 25th, 2009 4:15 pm

    oh my go punkin chease squares are so good every one in my family loves them including my dad,an he doesent even like cream chease.

‘Tis the Season… bake some festive Meringue Candy Canes!

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Mostly when we talk about food, we think of taste. Well, not this time… the strong point of these candy canes is the looks, not the taste. Aren’t they pretty? I think they’d technically be called a candy… they have no substances like a cookie does. Speaking of substance, they might even be calorie-free because when you take a bite of one, within seconds, that bite dissolves into nothing inside your mouth, so the calories must dissolve into nothing too, right? ;) Lexi says they taste like dried out frosting.

They were fun to make… you get to make swirls with a decorating bag. I actually did something I’ve never done before in featuring cooking and took a video. It’s a very poor video, but my standards have gone from no videos to poor videos, so gradually, I’ll up my standards to good videos. Part of the problem may be that my lighting was bad or that I saved it in low resolution or that I was piping the meringue with one hand while holding the camera and videoing with the other hand. Not a good idea. Live and learn.

By the way, if someone would just out of the blue ask you, “How do you spell meringue?”, could you spell it? It has gotta be one of the weirdest-spelled words in the English language!

Meringue Candy Canesfrom the Taste of Home Christmas Cookies and Candies cookbook

Printable recipe

3 egg whites
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. peppermint extract
Red paste food coloring

In a mixing bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. Add cream of tartar; beat on medium speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar, 1 Tablespoon at a time, beating on High until stiff peaks form and sugar is dissolved, about 6 minutes. Beat in peppermint extract.
meringue1.jpg

Cut a small hole in the corner of a pastry bag; insert star tip #21. On the inside of the bag, brush 3 evenly spaced 1/4″ strips of red food coloring from the tip to 3/4 of the way to the top of the bag. Carefully fill bag with meringue. Pipe 3″ candy canes onto parchment-lined baking sheets. I didn’t have parchment paper, so I used tin foil. Worked great and they didn’t stick to it.
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And now for the video:

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See the difference in redness here in these 2 panfuls? The top ones on the left were made first. I guess the food coloring got less concentrated as the meringue slid past.meringue4.jpg

Bake at 225 for 25 min; rotate baking sheets to a different oven rack. Bake 25 min longer or until firm to the touch. Turn oven off; leave canes in oven with door ajar for at least 1 hour or until cool. Yield: 4 dozen. I must’ve made them bigger because I got only about 2 1/2 dozen, but I did use the #21 tip.

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Put these festive candy canes on an assorted cookie plate for your mailman this Christmas! Or take a plate to your local fire dept. Or to your neighbors. Or eat all your Christmas cookies yourself.

Comments

4 Responses to “‘Tis the Season… bake some festive Meringue Candy Canes!”

  1. Shannon on December 14th, 2008 9:16 pm

    Had to come watch this video. :) Where’s the sound? Wanted to hear a step by step how-to-do on it. :)

  2. Jessica on December 14th, 2008 9:30 pm

    cool.

  3. Katrina on December 19th, 2008 7:20 pm

    Those look great!

  4. lou on November 23rd, 2011 11:08 am

    How much sugar in grams do i need?

Butter Pecan Turtle Bars

Posted on July 15, 2008
Filed Under Cookies and bars

I can’t tell you how good these are! It’s good I don’t have a pan of these sitting around, what with trying to be on a diet and all. I’d be helpless.

This recipe came from the Tasty Favorites cookbook and the 2-page spread that they’re on is a dynamite 2 pages. Seriously, I was trying to choose between all 4 recipes. First, I weeded out the Chewy Peanut Butter Bars, I think because I wasn’t too sure about the coconut… they, by the way, are not similar to the Peanut Butter Dream Bars featured awhile ago. Next, I weeded out the Chocolate Crunch Bars, mostly because I had made something similar to those before, except the brownie part was a brownie mix in my other recipe instead of made from scratch like this one. I just could not choose between the Caramel Toffee Bars and the Butter Pecan Turtle Bars (which are actually called Butter Pecan Turtle Cookies in this cookbook, but I’d say they’re bars because they’re made in a pan then cut apart, not made individually like cookies). And finally the Turtle ones won. BUT, you will probably be seeing those other recipes sometime in the future.

Back to that Tasty Favorites cookbook, I love it! It’s got 227 pages of good solid down home cookin’ recipes in it. It’s compiled by the Pleasant Grove Mennonite Church in IN. If any of you readers are from there, you did a GREAT job compiling that cookbook! I know my cousin Nic goes to that church, but I don’t think I know anyone else there.

Anyway, back to the Turtle bars…

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Butter Pecan Turtle Bars

Printable recipe 

2 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup pecan pieces

Mix flour, sugar, and butter, and pat into a 9×13 pan.
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I wasn’t too sure about this crust when I was making it. It seemed too thick for as fine and crumbly as it was. But after it baked, it was perfectly firm and not crumbly at all.

Sprinkle pecan pieces over crust.
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Caramel Layer:
2/3 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 cup milk chocolate chips
In a 1-qt pan, combine butter and sugar, cook. When entire surface boils; boil 1/2 to 1 minute, stirring constantly. Pour over pecan crust.
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Anybody getting a caramel craving? I’m feeling a strong urge to make these bars again.

Bake at 350 on center rack for 18-22 minutes or until caramel is bubbly all over and crust is lightly browned.
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Sprinkle chocolate chips on and allow to melt slightly, swirl as they melt.
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I will not go out to my kitchen and make these right now. I will not go out to my kitchen and make these right now. I will not… somebody, please help me… I could use a bit of willpower here.

Comments

14 Responses to “Butter Pecan Turtle Bars”

  1. Traci on July 15th, 2008 10:00 pm

    I WILL go out to my kitchen and make these right now…..oh darn, tomorrow is WEIGH IN WEDESDAY….When I get a few moments, I’m sure going to blog about your site….I LOVE the pictures!!!

  2. Barb on July 16th, 2008 4:44 am

    I WILL…

  3. Lisa on July 16th, 2008 4:49 am

    My husband LOVES Turtles. I have to make these for him. You may see this recipe turn up on my blog soon!!

    Are they the same consistency of a store bought Turtle?

  4. Shannon on July 16th, 2008 6:41 am

    My mouth is watering!!!!! I gonna make these today!!!! I love turtles so I’ll even put the choc on top. :) Oh, was I suppose to be yelling at you not to make them??? :)

  5. Rene on July 16th, 2008 8:13 am

    I just have to make these! I have 2 events that call for a dessert this week (birthday of a co-worker and our church ladies night out). Who knows I might even make them twice!!

  6. Kay on July 16th, 2008 8:48 am

    Lisa, I’m not even sure what store bought turtles are like. Do you find them in the candy section?

    Rene, you make them once, you’ll make them twice. :) These got compliments at the picnic that I took them to.

  7. Lisa on July 16th, 2008 1:42 pm

    Kay – yes they are in the candy section. They are round and have the pecans kinda sticking out of them. Very popular at Christmas time. I believe the box is red striped. My husband wants a box every time he sees them. I think I will have to make these for him this weekend!

  8. Liz on July 16th, 2008 3:59 pm

    You are going to have to start telling me what dishes are yours at social functions. Once I see them on here I wish I would have tried them that way I know if I like them or not. I heard someone make some comments about those bars but never got around to try them. I love turtles so I am sure I would have liked them.

  9. Roxanna on July 16th, 2008 9:07 pm

    I made these today and they are great! Barb ate some-actually, I think she ate half the pan! :)

  10. Karen on July 16th, 2008 9:56 pm

    These look fabulous!! I want one RIGHT now!!

  11. Barb on July 17th, 2008 9:02 am

    No, I did not eat half the pan, but they were WONDERFUL! I am going to make them for our family reunion this weekend.

  12. Traci on July 18th, 2008 2:13 pm

    Ok, my dd read the recipe and we baked the CRUST for 18 minutes BEFORE putting on the carmel…so, we didn’t bake the caramel….not really sure if it turned out like it was supposed to do, but they were still awesome. My caramel didn’t seem to go as far as yours….would you know why? Thanks for the recipe.

  13. Kay on July 18th, 2008 2:54 pm

    Traci, glad you made them. :) I’m not sure about the caramel… I made exactly how much the recipe said and had a 9×13 pan. You probably did the same. When I poured it over the crust, I tried to cover the whole crust while pouring so I wouldn’t have to spread it to the parts I missed. I still had to close in little gaps by spreading it and the caramel layer isn’t very deep at all… the chopped nuts still stuck out above it.

  14. Rene on July 20th, 2008 7:57 pm

    Ok…I just pulled these out of the oven and they smell amazing!! It was near 100 today so I really debated with myself about turning on the oven. I’ll be back to let you know how they turned out. I’m glad you mentioned the crust being so crumbly at first because I was worried I didn’t put in enough butter.

Smiling Sugar Cookies – Cooks in Training #2

Posted on July 11, 2008
Filed Under Cookies and bars, Cooks in Training

I’m going to try to do this series without talking every time about big messes and me using a rag every 2 minutes before the mess takes over my kitchen. Hmmmm… now, I’m sitting here with nothing to say if I can’t talk about that…

Just kidding. We had fun. And now Lexi can finally stop sharply inhaling and saying, “Mom, let’s make these sometime!” whenever she sees these cookies in the 2004 Quick Cooking cookbook.

Smiling Sugar Cookies

Printable recipe

1/2 cup butter (no substitutes), softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups flour
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
About 24 popsicle sticks
1 cup vanilla frosting
Food coloring
Assorted small candies (we used M&Ms)

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Cream the butter and sugars. Beat in egg, milk, and vanilla. Combine flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture. Roll the dough into 1 1/2″ balls.
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Insert stick into the center of each. Place 2″ apart on lightly greased baking sheets; flatten slightly.
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Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned.
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That baking time is a problem for 2 little energetic cooks. Tiffany and I made frosting and Tiffany licked the beater while Lexi wrote stuff with popsicle sticks to pass the time. And they still kept peeking in the oven and asking if the cookies were almost done.

Remove to wire racks to cool. Divide frosting between bowls and tint them to desired colors. Put each frosting in a plastic bag and snip off a small corner of the bag. Pipe hair and mouths onto cookies. Use a small dab of frosting to attach small candies for noses and eyes.
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smiling5.jpg Ah, I just love that chubby little hand with a decorating bag. She actually didn’t do too bad at decorating for a 2-yr-old.

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Let dry for at least 30 minutes. Yield: about 2 dozen.

And here’s the finished product…
smiling8.jpg They would’ve been kinda cute poked into something and standing up, but I couldn’t think of anything around here that would work for that. 3 were eaten plain, we got 19 cookies out of the batch.

Here’s the smiley section. Alot of the food I take pictures of (if it’s for a meal) gets photographed while everyone is coming to the table or sitting down already and when I take more than 1 picture, there are jokes like, “Wasn’t it smiling the first time?” With these, the joke was, “Oh, now the food actually does have to smile!”
smiling9.jpg Yes, those are all smileys… use your imagination. Tiffany did that one by herself with the red mohawk. And the one with the yellow hair and green eyes has a beard… Lexi’s creation (before we even started decorating, she said she’s gonna make one with a beard, don’t know why she thought of that, she’s rarely around anyone with a beard). I made only one of these and I certainly hope you can tell which one. :)

Soon, Lexi got bored with smiley faces, so she switched to flowers and a butterfly…
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Now, about making these with your kids… I just went back to check the time on my camera. The very first picture (dumping ingredients into the bowl) was taken at 2:54 p.m. The last picture taken (them sitting there holding cookies) was taken at 4:30 p.m. 1 1/2 hours… not alot of time. Skip storytime and spend 1 hour less on the computer someday (ouch, less computer time? that hurt. Let’s switch that one to ‘skip scrubbing the kitchen floor and weed the flowerbed some other day’). They will have a ball of fun and it’ll make memories for them. And hopefully not too bad of nightmares for you.

Oh, and by the way, this is actually a good sugar cookie recipe if you just want to make regular sugar cookies sometime. I don’t like sugar cookies because they’re always so dry and tasteless (that’s my opinion, I live with a couple of people who really like them), but these are better than most of the sugar cookies I’ve had.

Comments

3 Responses to “Smiling Sugar Cookies – Cooks in Training #2”

  1. Katrina on July 11th, 2008 9:53 pm

    Cute and how fun. I REALLY need to do this kind of thing with my kids more. (4 boys) Thanks for the reminder.

  2. Kelsie Hoover on July 12th, 2008 5:08 pm

    I might try these at out next girl’s club…I’m in charge of craft for the younger half (ages 4 or so-10)…it usually ends up being 15 girls. I will definetly have the cookies made before hand…hopefully we don’t mess up the entire gym! thanks for the idea.

  3. Suzanne on December 28th, 2008 6:15 pm

    I really love the fact you get your kids involved with the cooking. I find it really sad nowadays that girls my age (25) only know how to pull a box of mac n cheese out of the cabinet and that’s what they know how to “cook.” I think it is great your kids are learning the basics and more of how to cook!

Sweet Lemon Bars

Posted on June 28, 2008
Filed Under Cookies and bars

I love looking thro’ recipes, cookbooks, etc. It can keep my attention as good as any interesting book. And one nice thing about it is that it is calorie-free… the looking and reading, that is! Where I get into trouble is when something reaches out and grabs me and I can’t help but go out to the kitchen and make it. That’s why I purposely don’t keep chocolate chips on hand. Chocolate is my weakness. And I do believe that I’ve become immune to getting sick from it.

Anyway, it was raining yesterday evening and the church ballgame got cancelled, and I was in the mood to bake something. So, I started going thro’ recipes. I had no chocolate in the house, so any recipe with that was out. I also had no brown sugar, so that threw out alot of cookie recipes. Then this lemon bar recipe caught my eye, and I had everything on hand, including fresh lemons. I didn’t know if any of us even liked lemon bars, but they sure looked tempting on the picture, so lemon bars it was.

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Sweet Lemon Bars …recipe taken from an Easy to Bake Easy to Make recipe card

Printable recipe 

1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. grated lemon rind
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 3 oz pkg cream cheese, softened

Preheat oven to 350. Line bottom of  8″ square baking dish with parchment paper. I didn’t do that, I just greased the pan well. Mix flour, butter, and powdered sugar together using hand mixer until fine crumbs form. Using drinking glass, press crumbs evenly into bottom of lined baking dish.
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This was sort of a joke. I started like that, but then ended up using my hand. Worked great!

Bake until crust is lightly browned, about 15 minutes.
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Meanwhile, beat eggs, sugar, and salt until light and fluffy. Add lemon rind and lemon juice. Blend in cream cheese. Pour over baked crust.
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Return to oven and bake until firm in the center when touched, about 25 minutes longer.
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Cool to room temperature; sift powdered sugar over top.
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Cut into 9 squares and cut each of the squares in half diagonally to make triangles. Serve or store in refrigerator. Makes 18 triangles.
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For the grated lemon rind and the lemon curl garnishes, I used the tool pictured below. Not sure what it’s called, maybe a lemon zester/scorer. It’s a Pampered Chef item and it works like a charm! I cut off a string of peeling with the part in the middle of the tool, then curled the peel around a pen so it would be more apt to curl on the plate later. I tried to find a utensil with a round handle and had none, so I used a pen. Yeah, even my wooden spoon handles aren’t round! The grating was actually lemon zest, done with the top part. I do it in as tiny pieces as possible so it dissolves or whatever it does that you don’t see it or feel the texture of it in the finished product.

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I liked these bars the best chilled. When I told Shannon that, he said he’s tried them at every temperature from slightly warm to chilled and they passed with flying colors at all stages. They were just tops and I do know now that baked stuff doesn’t have to be chocolate to taste great and leave you coming back for more. So, we were pretty hard on them and I don’t think I’ll tell you how much of the pan is left! And we’re not sharing, so you’ll just have to make them yourself. :)

Comments

9 Responses to “Sweet Lemon Bars”

  1. Shannon on June 28th, 2008 10:57 am

    I love lemon bars!! Makes me think of Africa. Freida’s mom made them all the time when we were over there and we just inhaled them!!

  2. Rene on June 28th, 2008 12:41 pm

    I just love lemon bars! I’ll be making these soon I’m sure!

  3. Freida on June 28th, 2008 1:01 pm

    Ditto. Lemon bars are tops!!!

  4. Berneice on June 28th, 2008 2:01 pm

    Amen,amen! Love lemon bars, basically anything lemon hits the spot on a hot summer day.

  5. anita on June 28th, 2008 8:16 pm

    When I see lemon bars that ask for lemon zest i know its going to be good i’m going to have to give them a try some time….

  6. Denise on June 29th, 2008 7:07 pm

    Lemon bars are one of my hubby’s favorites. When we were dating, he would drive the 1100 miles from Mississippi to PA to come and see me. So at least one time I sent lemon bars with him. I’ve never seen or made this particular recipe. It looks too!! good!!

  7. carolyn on June 30th, 2008 2:45 am

    Ive never tried lemon bars, but thank u for sharing here, will give it a try :-)

    cheerio

  8. Katie Mast on June 30th, 2008 3:38 pm

    Lemon Bars are one of my husbands favorites as well. I will make these, they look great. Yes that Zestor works great, i use mine a lot to. Thanks for sharing this delightful treat.

  9. Sheila Graber on July 11th, 2008 11:46 am

    I thought these were a little too sweet and not enough lemon but it’s my fault b/c I didn’t have lemon zest and just used the recommended amount of juice instead of increasing it. The crust was perfect-I am going to use it again w/ my fav topping in a 9×13. 6 eggs-6 Tbsp flour-1 3/4 cup sugar-1 cup lemon juice-3 drops yellow food coloring. Bake an additional 25 min and they’re delicious if you like a tart/sweet lemon bar!

Whoopie Pies

Posted on June 15, 2008
Filed Under Cookies and bars

My Father’s Day post I had planned didn’t really happen then, but Happy Belated Father’s Day anyway. Especially to the father of my daughters. And also to my own father.

I’ve got good memories growing up. Dad spent alot of time with us, from laying on the floor playing games with us to taking the family out on the boat multiple times a week in the evening in the summer.         Dad taught us children how to play chess when we were pretty young. He’d take off his queen AND give us hints. As we got older, the hints stopped and eventually the queen came back on, and we could even beat him sometimes.       We went boating and picnicking on islands and fishing alot too. I grew up here among the many lakes in the northwoods and a boat was almost as important to own as a car, in our opinions. At a certain age, Dad stopped taking the fish off of our hooks and said we were old enough to do it ourselves. I don’t remember exactly what age that was (maybe 9 or 10 yrs old), but whenever it was is when I started mostly just going along fishing for the ride and not getting my pole out. I missed seeing my bobber jerk underwater and feel the tug on the line, but it was worth giving up not to have to take a fish off the hook!         His storytelling ability is amazing and kept us very entertained and wide-eyed growing up… especially the stories involving his horse Dusty and the stories about their one-of-a-kind neighbor.    Oh, and one other thing, not alot of people grew up with yearly Donald Duck renditions by their dad of the “Happy Birthday to you” song. :)

Another thing about Dad is that he loves whoopie pies. Every year for his birthday, Mom would make him whoopie pies and at least one year, she made a whoopie pie cake. It was huge (maybe about 12″ across) and looked exactly like a whoopie pie. I haven’t made whoopie pies for years, but I did just lately. I was so disappointed that they didn’t turn out like Sheila’s OR Julia’s… the 2 people that I consider to be whoopie pie queens. But oh well, they were good anyway.

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Not sure why this picture has a lavendar hue! ????

Ever wonder why whoopie pies are called whoopie pies? I didn’t really wonder it until Lexi wondered it and started questioning me like I’d just automatically know. It’s like 3 desserts all in one… they taste like chocolate cake with frosting, but you bake them like cookies, and they’re called pies! Maybe it’s one of those things that will forever be a mystery… try explaining that to a 5-yr-old! Her world is full of questions and she’s not satisfied with no answer.

Whoopie pies …recipe taken from the Tasty Favorites cookbook (Pleasant Grove Mennonite Church)

Printable recipe

2 cups sugar
1 cup shortening
2 eggs
3/4 cup cocoa
2 tsp. soda
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup hot water
1 cup sour milk or buttermilk
4 cups sifted flour (sift?! Does anyone out there sift?)

Mix and drop by teaspoonfuls (I did more like 2 Tablespoonfuls) on cookie sheet. I spread them out a little so they wouldn’t be so thick. I don’t like thick whoopie pies… too much cake.
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Bake at 400 for 8 minutes. I baked it for 7 minutes.
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Filling:
2 egg whites
2 Tbsp. vanilla
4 tsp. flour
4 tsp. milk
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup Crisco

Beat egg whites until stiff. Add vanilla, flour milk, and powdered sugar. Beat and cream, then add Crisco. Spread filling on bottom side of one cookie.
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Top with another cookie. Yield: 66 cookies (33 sandwiches) Here you go, Dad… I wish you could just pick one off the screen!
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This recipe tasted great, but I had a couple problems with it. The filling didn’t get white. It was a light tan. Do you think the vanilla is a misprint? Should it be teaspoons? Everything else in the filling is white except the Crisco I used is yellow, so I think it was mainly the vanilla’s fault that it got tan. The other problem I had was that the cookie part made 5 1/2 dozen cookies, which made 33 sandwiches, but the filling was gone after 24 sandwiches. And it was none too thick, either. So, next time, I’d either make 1.5 times the amount of filling or do what I did this time… filled the leftover cookies with ice cream.
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That was good! They tasted like ice cream sandwiches!

On a different note: I won’t be posting on here much at all this week… we have Summer Bible School at church Monday – Friday and I’m teaching the nursery class (4-yr-olds), so that’s where I’ll be during the day. Then, the rest of the time I’ll be trying to keep up with the laundry, cleaning, etc. around here. Some wonderful ladies from church who aren’t teaching offered to make suppers, so I’ll probably be doing little cooking this week. I will be making rice crispy treats for snack time at Bible School though. :)

Comments

12 Responses to “Whoopie Pies”

  1. Shannon on June 16th, 2008 6:12 am

    The girls would love these. Mom used to make them all the time at home. I love your tribute to your Dad, sounds like fun stories growing up. Someday you’ll have to do a book for your own family. :)

  2. Freida on June 16th, 2008 7:17 am

    We are big whoopie pie fans here. I haven’t made them in awhile, but they never last long around here. These look good. I don’t like the thick ones either.

  3. Twila on June 16th, 2008 7:47 am

    I think the best part of a whoopie pie is the fluffy filling so I always make 1.5 recipes of that for every one recipe of the cookies and I load ’em up! :-) I use the recipe from the original Basics cookbook which calls for 1 T. of vanilla (but I have “tsp” penciled in). It also calls for 4 T. each of flour and milk and 4 C. pwd. sugar to 1 1/2 c. Crisco. I wonder if the butter Crisco wasn’t part of the reason for the tan colored filling. When you have time you could make them again with reg. Crisco and try clear vanilla and report on the difference. :-) Have a good week with those energetic 4 year olds!

  4. Lisa on June 16th, 2008 8:16 am

    I blogged about whoopie pies when I made them back in April. They are a huge hit at my house. When I was getting ready to post, I researched a bit about the origin of the name. I didn’t really find a straight forward answer (see link below)

    http://thecuttingedgeofordinary.blogspot.com/search?q=whoopie

    My recipe came from Leites Culinaria and made 24 pies. (48 tops and bottoms with more than enough filling). My filling only called for 1 TEAspoon of vanilla. That might be where you got the brown filling. You can buy clear vanilla, but for just one recipe, it probably isn’t worth it. Mine also look smaller than yours (I’m just judging by how big they look in your hands), so that might be the reason for running out of filling. I just might have to make whoopie pies again, your post is making me crave them now!

  5. Katrina on June 16th, 2008 9:45 am

    I’ve been lurking on your site since finding it linked on Cookie Madness a few months ago. Your stuff always looks yummy!
    I recently went on a rice krispy treats binge and made a bunch of different kinds. You can look at my blog and see some different ones, if you’d like. Choc/PB, Red/white/blue, Strawberry/Banana. The possibilities are endless.
    Have fun.
    http://www.kevnkoi.blogspot.com

  6. Jessi on June 16th, 2008 2:32 pm

    Whoopie pies were a fav of mine, as a kid–I should try them w/ my kids now…..

    As for the icing-here are my thoughts–yellow crisco can taint the color and I think 2 TBSP is A LOT of vanilla….AND, if you made your cookies thinner–that means that you’re going to have more cookies to fill, so, therefore, you’d need more icing (b/c even though the cake part is thinner-it’s not like you’re going to go thin on the filling….ya know what I mean?)

    Okay-now my tummy is growling….teeehee!! gotta print this out, to take me w/ back “home” when I go visit my family next month.

  7. Barbara Miller on June 16th, 2008 3:25 pm

    My son is a fireman and around Christmas he mentioned whoopie pies to them and they were curious so I made some I also made pumpkin ones. They loved them.(Of course they like most anything I send) I heard?? The reason for the name is because a mom made them and the children were excited and yelled “whoopie”. Sounds good enough for me.

  8. chelsa on June 17th, 2008 6:52 am

    i had never had whoopie pies before i met my h.s. sweetheart at age 15, now my husband! :) my mother in law made them quite often back then… she would make them for my birthday, not enough time i guess anymore b/c she hasn’t made them for a few years! i have always wanted to try, but been to nervous i would mess them up! our recipe in the church cookbook (bethel mennonite, odon indiana) looks kinda hard… but yours seemed more simplified, or maybe it’s just not intimidating b/c it’s not in a book! haha! but thnaks, i’m def. going to try it soon!!

  9. Michelle on June 18th, 2008 9:36 am

    Yum… Whoopie pies are my favorite cookie! I’ve learned with making frosting for cookies you always have to make more than the recipe says.

  10. Lorinda on June 18th, 2008 12:32 pm

    Hey, cousin, this website is really cute! My mom told me about it, so this is how I found it. Ahhh, whoopie pies. I have to tell my own whoopie pie story. It was 5 days after Rose’s birth and I was hanging up laundry outside on the washline (which I really should not of been doing at that moment in my life), and this construction worker nearby shouted across his construction fence, asking if I would please bake him some whoopie pies. He said he’d pay for them. And me, being a sucker for money, baked them. And yes, I was severly sleep deprived and not thinking straight. And no, I didn’t make a big profit either. But ahhh, I could eat one right now. By the way, I’m experimenting with homemade pizza. Do you have any recipes for it on this site? I tried to search, but for some reason it didn’t work. Maybe you can direct me to the right link. Thanks!

  11. Sean on June 21st, 2008 6:41 pm

    i haven’t had these in years!

  12. Jessica on June 21st, 2008 6:41 pm

    I love whoopie pies!

Peanut Butter Dream Bars

Posted on May 28, 2008 
Filed Under Cookies and bars

There are just some recipes you fall in love with when you read over them and you know you’ve just gotta try it. The recipe today was one of them. Most of the recipes like that for me are cookies, bars, or a dessert of some sort.

Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t just do a dessert site instead of a general cooking site. But, on second thought, that might not be a good idea because think of all the desserts and cookies and stuff I’d have to make to keep it updated! That wouldn’t be good for the wasteline.

In case you wonder, you pretty much get stuff hot off the press here. So, you know what we’ve been eating within the last day or two. I’m not a plan ahead person in any other area of my life (it’s something I’m trying to work on though!), so I’m not with this site, either. I have no posts made ahead. For example, I’m planning to make my ‘Out of my Comfort Zone’ lettuce salad with fruit in it today and post it tomorrow. And no-posts-made-ahead is why my site died the week I went with Shannon on a business run to PA and also over Memorial Day weekend.    

Anyway, I don’t know why I said all that just before saying this: these bars are an exception, I actually made them last week! I think it was maybe Thursday. So they are long gone by now. I only made half a batch because I didn’t want a huge pan of them around here. Way too tempting! I got the recipe from Michelle. She said, “I think the title doesn’t do them justice. I think a better name would be Peanut Butter Dream Bars. See what you think.” And I agree! Oatmeal Bars sound like a healthy something with raisins in. These would NOT fit that mental picture!!! See what you think. 

oatmealbars7.jpg

Oatmeal Bars

2 cups melted butter (starting out with melted butter… you KNOW they’re gonna be good!)
2 cups brown sugar
2 tsp. soda
4 cups quick oats
3 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2/3 cup peanut butter
2 14-oz cans sweetened condensed milk
2 cups mini choc. chips or mini m&m’s

Mix together melted butter, sugar, soda, quick oats, flour & salt until it’s crumbly.
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Set aside 3 cups. Press the rest into a greased 15×10 pan. Remember I made a half batch. I couldn’t decide what size pan would be half of a 10×15. That’s 150 square inches, so half would be something that’s 75 square inches. An 8×8 is 64, a 9×13 is 117. So I picked the 8×8. Maybe I need more baking pans. Or maybe they don’t even make 8×9 pans (72 sq in) or better yet, 7 x 10.5, that would be perfect. Um, let’s see, I forget, were we baking or having Math class?
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Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.
Mix peanut butter and sweetened condensed milk. Spread over the baked crust. Pour/drizzle worked great. Yum, doesn’t that mixture look good?! It is. I licked the spatula afterwards.
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Mix mini choc chips or m&m’s with the reserved crumbs. Sprinkle the reserved crumbs on top of the peanut butter and sweetened condensed milk mixture. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.
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Enlarged to show texture. And that creamy caramelly peanut buttery layer. These definitely do not fit the ‘Oatmeal Bar’ name. In a recipe that has peanut butter and M&Ms and oatmeal, WHO would pick out the oatmeal and name them THAT?! So, Peanut Butter Dream Bars they will be. They are, of course, irrestistably good. They’re a bit crumbly, for example, you wouldn’t want the kids to walk around in the house eating them. But then, who’d ever let their kids do that anyway. Thanks for the recipe, Michelle! It’s a keeper.

Edit: I made them again and put a half recipe in a 9×13 and that was perfect, they were not as crumbly as they were with the 8×8 pan.

 

Comments

32 Responses to “Peanut Butter Dream Bars”

  1. Annette33 on May 28th, 2008 8:25 am

    Oh, those look good! I will have to try this recipe. Yes, I am one of those moms that lets their kids walk around with crumbly food, lol. I know, one bad habit. I recommended your site yesterday to my scrappin’ friends at DMarie. I love the fact that your recipes seem simple, and look so delicious with attacked pics. Just the motivation I need to cook some scrumpcious stuff this summer.

     

  2. Lisa on May 28th, 2008 8:28 am

    My boys would go wild over these….heck who am I kiddin’ so would my husband and I. Do you think that a regualr 9×13 pan would work on a full batch of these? I don’t have a 15×10 pan. That recipe is for a full batch right? Thanks!

     

  3. Shannon on May 28th, 2008 8:37 am

    Ohhhh I’m looking for something to bake this morning and I think I just found it!!! I have to go see if I have everything. I love peanut butter & oatmeal and these look wonderful!

     

  4. Kay on May 28th, 2008 8:48 am

    Annette, so you’re a scrapper… me too! Thanks for sharing this site with your friends! :)

    Lisa, I’ll bet it would work. Yeah, the recipe is for a full batch. They might be a little thicker, but then mine would’ve been a little thicker too because my pan size would’ve been a little less than half of a 10×15… see Math work above. :)

    Shannon, do NOT let the chocolate out! I’m so afraid you will. And no, it wouldn’t be better with white chocolate!!!! :)

     

  5. Jo on May 28th, 2008 8:53 am

    Well, I don’t love PB, but everyone else in the family does. And even I liked your PB cookies. ???? So it looks like I’ll have to try these out…once I have brown sugar in the pantry again.

     

  6. Berneice on May 28th, 2008 8:55 am

    These are a favorite of Lorens. Not mine though, I stay pretty far away from PB. They sound so good with that condensed milk I had to try them, but still couldn’t hack that PB!

     

  7. Shannon on May 28th, 2008 8:57 am

    Ha ha Kay. :p I came back to write the recipe down and I see your comment. I was cosidering leaving it out but I might go with half white half choc. :)

     

  8. Freida on May 28th, 2008 9:39 am

    These look wonderful. Doesn’t look like I should make them for tonight, tho, since Shannon and Berneice both beat me to it. That’s ok. I’ll just make them some other time and eat them all myself. :-)

     

  9. Karisa on May 28th, 2008 9:58 am

    OHHHHH they look heavenly and I am going to put these on my list of things to make in the near future.

     

  10. Dawn on May 28th, 2008 12:06 pm

    YUM! :-)
    I love this site so much. I am such a sucker for easy recipes. :-)

    God Bless!
    Dawn

     

  11. Roxanna on May 28th, 2008 5:18 pm

    These look awesome! I’m on my way to the kitchen right now! I’m not sure they fit in my diet-but oh well-I’ll exercise more tomorrow! :)

     

  12. Karen on May 28th, 2008 7:48 pm

    YUMMMMM….i LOVE THESE AND ACTUALLY THE FRIEND WHO GAVE ME THE RECIPE CALLED THEM DREAM BARS.

     

  13. Roxanna on May 28th, 2008 8:48 pm

    Yep-they’re wonderful! They are richer than I thought they would be though. I made a full recipe so some will probably go in the freezer for later! Thanks again for another wonderful recipe!

     

  14. Jo on May 29th, 2008 7:24 am

    Just wondering…quick oatmeal or regular, or doesn’t it matter?
    Titus is getting br. sugar for me right now, & these will be baking up in my oven sometime today. Mmmm, can’t wait!

     

  15. Denise Weaver on May 29th, 2008 10:50 am

    Wow!! This looks super good. And I was thinking of making some peanut butter cookies for this weekend’s carry-in church supper. The supper is planned for the chorus coming to sing and for the church folks and any other visitors. I’m on for cookies or bars. Well I already planned to make choco. chip cookies and peanut butter cookies but now it will definitely be pb dream bars! Going shopping tomorrow with my sis-in-law so, I’ll get what I don’t have. THANKS!

     

  16. Audrey on May 29th, 2008 1:30 pm

    Wow! Those look like they would be right up our alley! I love peanut butter and chocolate! In fact, maybe I’ll make them for company this week end! Seems like maybe they would get too thick or high for the kind of cookie sheet 15X10 pans that I have. What do you think? They only have that low edge on them? Also, is there a way to print just a recipe on your web site, instead of getting everything that goes along with it? Could I maybe cut and paste to another program or can I somehow do it right from this web site?

     

  17. Kay on May 29th, 2008 2:03 pm

    Roxanna, thanks for trying them and for the feedback! Yeah, they didn’t fit into my diet either. :(

    Jo, I’d say definitely quick oats… but then I never buy regular and use quick oats for everything w oatmeal.

    Audrey, I actually thought of that same thing, my 10×15 has low sides too. I should’ve made a full pan to try it, then put the rest in the freezer like Roxanna did. That gooey layer would drip over the side if it wasn’t down in the sides of the pan. Oh well, I’ll just have to make them again in a full batch. :)
    And about printing recipes, I’m going to make printer-friendly recipes (without all the progress pics and extra chatter) and attach a link, but haven’t figured out a good way to do that yet. For now, you could copy and paste into a program and delete the pictures and print it. Or scrawl it down w pen and paper.

     

  18. Marilyn on May 29th, 2008 6:30 pm

    I tried the bars and they were oh sooo good! Definitely a recipe to keep in my file! :-)

     

  19. Jo on May 29th, 2008 8:04 pm

    I just pulled a pan of these out of the oven. :-) I used half reg. oats & half quick oats—we’ll see if that makes them too crumbly. And, I used a 10×15 pan—the sides of the bars baked up higher than the edges of the pan, but nothing ran over. Can’t wait to taste them; the house smells wonderful! ???? Bring on the calories!!!

     

  20. Amber on May 31st, 2008 6:49 am

    My pan suggestion is a 7.5 x 11. I have 2 of them and they’re a great in-between size. :)

     

  21. Janice on May 31st, 2008 11:54 am

    I tried to leave a comment the other day but our internet service wasn’t good. Then I made the bars, (1/2 batch here) and can’t leave them alone. They are even better after a day or two b/c the filling sets more. While eating them, I think of the oatmeal part. :)

     

  22. Mary Faith Yoder on June 2nd, 2008 8:22 am

    I took these to our carry in yesterday and they were wonderful! I used my Pampered Chef bar pan and it worked out well. I was a little afraid it might run over in the oven because it was really full, but it didn’t. I probably won’t make them real often because I don’t have desserts like that around on a regular basis but the recipe is definitely a keeper and one that I will have handy for when I do want to make something. :)

     

  23. Suzanne on December 7th, 2008 3:03 pm

    I just made these this afternoon. They are currently still in the oven, but I am absent-minded today and didn’t read that you cut the recipe in half when you did it. I accidentally made the whole recipe and tried to squeeze it into an 8×10 pan, I think. My hubby tried the crumbly part, and said it was good. We shall see how they turn out! Oh and I only had one can of sweetened condensed milk, so I made my own. I took 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons evaporated milk, 1 cup sugar, and 3 tablespoons butter and cooked it until it came to a boil. It wasn’t as thick as the canned stuff, but it worked out okay for this particular recipe! Thanks for sharing it!

     

  24. bakingblonde on May 18th, 2009 6:54 pm

    I made these and loved them. I slightly modified this recipe and used a 9×13 pan like you recommended. They were so quick and easy with great results! Thanks.

     

  25. Christy McCullough on February 2nd, 2014 1:55 pm

    I saw this posted on facebook. Going to try them…my only question…what point do I add the chips? right before i bake them…or in the reserved topping?

     

  26. Kay on February 18th, 2014 4:14 pm

    Christy, mix them into to the reserved topping.

     

  27. Teresa on March 11th, 2014 1:39 am

    Oatmeal or Quick Oats? Because when you say oatmeal, to me that means you actually made a bowl of oatmeal and added 4 cups of oatmeal to the recipe. 4 cups of Quick Oats (not rolled oats) makes more sense, but I didn’t see anywhere on the recipe which one it is.

     

  28. Kay on March 12th, 2014 7:33 am

    You are right, Teresa. It should not say oatmeal. It is quick oats. I edited the recipe just now and it now says quick oats. Thanks for pointing that out!

     

  29. Courtney on June 12th, 2014 11:38 pm

    Just made these tonight and they were delicious! The only issue I had is the chocolate chips seemed to fall off when I cut and served them. Any suggestions to make sure they stick to the top without burning them by leaving them in too long?

     

  30. Kay on June 12th, 2014 11:54 pm

    I have a little problem with that when I use M&Ms, but when I use choc chips, they seem to melt into the oats mixture and stick a little better. Pressing down on it before baking seems like it would make the peanut butter layer squeeze up the sides, so that doesn’t sound like a great idea. I wonder what would happen if you’d mix the peanut butter and sw cond milk with the reserved crumbs and choc chips.??? Obviously, I’m just brainstorming here. :) Thanks so much for the feedback!! And now you made me hungry for them again… been awhile since I’ve made them.

     

  31. Michelle B on October 27th, 2014 2:40 pm

    Maybe a dumb question, but what size sweetened condensed milk can should I use? I have two sizes

     

  32. Kay on November 6th, 2014 9:02 am

    Michelle, thanks for that question! I’m going to edit the recipe to specify that. It should be a 14-oz can.

     

Snickerdoodles… who named these cookies?!

Posted on May 14, 2008
Filed Under Cookies and bars

These cookies don’t have chocolate or nuts in them, so I’m not cracked over them, but I live with people who are. That’s fine with me though because it gives me a chance to bake something that doesn’t tempt me. I could inhale half a batch of monster cookies or s’mores sandwich cookies in, well, I guess I don’t really want to say how fast I could do that. Anyway, I was just looking thro’ my Cookies and Bars category and I was surprised how varied the selection is! It’s not ALL just the kinds of cookies and bars I love. There are some others in there like gingerbread men and Mary’s cream cheese cookies. And now these:

snickerdoodle3.jpg

Classic Snickerdoodles

A bit of trivia first… did you know that Snickerdoodles originated in New England and the origin of the name is still a mystery. It may come from the German word Schneckennudeln, which were cinnamon-dusted sweet rolls. Anyway, I’ve often wondered where the name came from and always thought it was kinda fun to say, it just rolls off your tongue… Snickerdoodle, snickerdoodle, snickerdoodle.

2 3/4 cups flour
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 3/4 cups sugar, divided
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
4 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375. Coat baking sheets with cooking spray. Combine flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Combine butter, shortening, and 1 1/2 cups sugar in a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Stir in eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Stir in flour mixture. Beat with mixer on low speed until combined, about 1 minute. Mix remaining sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Shape dough into 1″ balls; roll balls in sugar mixture. Place balls on prepared baking sheets.
snickerdoodle1.jpg

Bake until  lightly browned, 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven; let stand 1 minute.
snickerdoodle2.jpg

Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely. Makes 4 dozen cookies. I must’ve made mine too big because it made just under 3 dozen.

snickerdoodle4.jpg

They were good. I asked Shannon how he’d rate them and he said, “They’re ‘make again frequently’ quality”. And judging by the way the girls ate them/asked for more, I think they’d agree!

Comments

6 Responses to “Snickerdoodles… who named these cookies?!”

  1. Shannon on May 14th, 2008 1:12 pm

    I need to make these sometimes altho my girls do prefer choc in their cookies. :)

  2. Judi on May 14th, 2008 1:15 pm

    I love snickerdoodles. Just a nice light cookie and like you said you don’t over eat.

  3. Emily on May 15th, 2008 5:57 am

    What is for Lunch today I am Hungry!

  4. Amber on May 17th, 2008 10:40 am

    Snickerdoodles are one of my favorite cookies! I don’t make them very often, because i eat the whole batch…

    BTW, what’s your secret to keeping cookies soft? Mine are wonderful for about 2 days, then they dry out. (I keep them in tupperware) Am i baking them too long, etc.?

  5. Kay on May 17th, 2008 11:00 am

    Replying to Amber:
    So, your cookies last more than 2 days?! LOL
    My mom always put a bread crust in with the cookies. It amazingly keeps them soft! So, that’s what I do when my cookies get dry or hard.

  6. Amber on May 20th, 2008 4:19 pm

    Ha! My DH loves them the first day, and then there they sit… I don’t bake cookies very often for that reason. Thanks for the idea, i do that in my brown sugar. :)

BLTs, Fresh Strawberries, Marbled Brownies, and Summer!

Posted on May 3, 2008
Filed Under Cookies and bars, Main dishes

Two of my favorite foods in the summer… BLT sandwiches and sliced fresh strawberries with sugar.

blt1.jpg

strawberries2.jpg

You know those hot days when you still need to eat, but just the thought of sitting down to a cooked meal makes you sweat. BLTs fit the bill like nothing else does… it’s substantial, but not hot. And the fresh strawberries, you can’t get much more summer-y than that. Unless you eat watermelon, out in the yard, with juice dripping off of your elbows. Oh, and don’t forget about fruit pizza… that’s gotta be the ultimate summertime dessert! Makes me hungry for some now.

But, so far, I can only dream of summer… while eating my BLT and fresh sliced sugared strawberries in the house. Looking outside at the lawn that is varigated green and brown, lightly coated with snow from last night. Sighing at the thermometer that has a hard time pushing up past 55. Trying to picture the bare trees with green leaves on them again. Bending over my flower bed, looking for a sign of life from the bare spot where my tulips usually eventually show up. Telling my girls that yes, don’t you remember, it does get warm enough to run outside barefoot and with no jacket.

Here in northern WI, we’re always chompin’ on the bit for Summer to get here, but it pretty much always comes at the same time… that last snow in May (I doubt the one last night was the last), gardens being planted the end of May, several frost scares. But when our summers get here, they are BEAUTIFUL! Just perfect. That’s why we brave the ice and snow and sub-zero weather for months, just so we can get those 3 months of summer. It’s all worth it. And if you ever want to come see for yourself, don’t forget your boat… we’ve got lots of lakes around here!

Back to those BLTs…
Shannon and I were talking about BLTs several days ago and I got such a craving for them and couldn’t get them out of my mind until I made one. Yeah, cravings like that can come when you’re not pg!
So here it is.
blt3.jpg
Nothing fancy. And they’re quite easy to make. Bacon, lettuce, and tomato layered between 2 pieces of toast with mayo on them. Now did YOU get a craving for one? 🙂

And the fresh strawberries,
strawberries3.jpg  they’re going on sale pretty often at Marketplace, so I can’t resist keeping them around.

strawberries.jpg
I wash and cap them (or it it uncap? decap? decapitate? whatever, take the stems and caps off), and then slice them with an egg slicer. Works great!
Then, sprinkle them generously with sugar, stir them, let them sit for at least 5 minutes, stir them again, and eat. Ok, I know you didn’t need those instructions.

Speaking of cravings that you can’t ignore… I saw these on Cookie Madness on Friday and HAD to make them. Here they are.
brownie1.jpg
Try them! They are SO good! They’re called ‘Marbled Peanut Butter Brownies’ (that’s a link to the recipe). And her pictures are awesome… they make you feel like you could pick the cookies right off the computer screen. These bars taste like a candy bar. Peanut butter and chocolate. Don’t let the multiple steps scare you off. The directions are easy to follow. And they’re well worth the effort! Mmmmmmm!!!  I found Cookie Madness just recently. You will be glad to have the link. It’s a goldmine of all kinds of cookie/brownie/bar recipes, plus some other recipes and tidbits too.

Have a good weekend! And look for a couple Mexican recipes coming up on Monday… Cinco de Mayo.

Comments

11 Responses to “BLTs, Fresh Strawberries, Marbled Brownies, and Summer!”

  1. Denise on May 3rd, 2008 12:52 pm

    Looks so good. I also got so hungry for a BLT that I bought stuff for it too. As far as the strawberries. The local strawberries from Lousianna (hardly anyone grows them around here, apparently they do not grow well) are already over for the year. Was so good a couple of weeks ago to have fresh strawberry pie, shortcake and just simply crushed strawberries with sugar over ice cream. And fresh local tomatoes probably will soon be in although mine in the garden just have 1 or 2 blossoms on. And you say you get hot in the summer. I say you don’t know what hot really is till you live down South :-) I’d love your summers but I like our longer fall and spring. Can’t have it all, so guess I’ll be content where God has me placed.

  2. amy on May 3rd, 2008 12:56 pm

    Those brownies sound wonderful except I made chocolate crinkle cookies today and my stomache aches from all I ate! :( I can’t wait for tomatoes and strawberries. NO snow here,but plenty of wind.

  3. Monica on May 3rd, 2008 1:28 pm

    Mmmmm, I love BLT’s!!! Sadly, tho, I have to eat them by myself because my husband hates tomatoes!! He’s not a big meat eater and I don’t think he’d be too fond of a Bacon and Lettuce sandwich either!! I was trying to come up with some kind of sweet thing to make for this weekend and those Peanut Butter Brownies look like just the thing!! I think I’ll try them!! Can’t wait for those Mexican recipes!!

  4. Mama Bear on May 3rd, 2008 2:54 pm

    Hi! I just had to give a shout out to a fellow Menno! :) I’ve been lurking your blog for some time now and just right now realized you are Mennonite! Me too! :)

  5. Liz on May 3rd, 2008 4:09 pm

    I actually don’t ever remember having a BLT sandwich. Add a hamburger to the mixture and I am pretty sure I had that. I guess I must really be from the back sticks. I am glad you clarified that about the cravings.=) The bars look good too. I’ll have to check them out. Off to wondering how BLT’s do taste…

  6. Anna on May 3rd, 2008 5:45 pm

    My favorite sandwich is a club sandwich, but your blt might make me switch. That’s one good looking sandwich!

    Thanks for trying to brownies. I kept mine in the refrigerator overnight and found they taste even better the next day.

  7. Shari Ellen on May 3rd, 2008 6:21 pm

    My girls would have fun making the fruit pizza with me. It’s so beautiful and colorful. We just had BLTs for lunch on Friday – for the first time since last summer.

  8. Freida on May 4th, 2008 2:30 pm

    Oh wow, that all looks so good. My husband is not a huge fan of BLT’s, so I hardly ever make them. But I do love them. Our strawberries are looking good now, so I’m excited about eating them fresh from our garden in a month or so. :-) I imagine your summers are well-looked forward to and appreciated a lot, but I too am glad we have our spring and fall. Sorry, but I think Ohio is better. :-)

  9. Patsy Clairmont on May 4th, 2008 4:48 pm

    Where did you get such healthy looking tomatoes? Way too early in MI to find yummy tomatoes…but you’ve triggered fond childhood summer memories of these two-fisted sandwiches. And the aroma of bacon frying makes me levitate. Then add a touch of Miracle Whip to the trio and I’m a happy girl (ok ol’ girl).

    You know what? Tomato season or not your pictures have talked me into it–tonight is officially BLT night.

    Thanks for the motivation and the wholesome blog.

  10. Lisa on May 4th, 2008 5:32 pm

    Ok now you have me craving a BLT (hold the T for me please). Those P-Nut Butter brownies are a must make. If I didn’t already have my Mothers Day menu planned for next weekend, I would be making those….oh well there is always the next weekend.

    Oh that fruit pizza is a must make too!

  11. Shannon on May 5th, 2008 11:04 am

    I HAVE to make those brownies. :):) I’m not a tomoatoe eater so the BLT’s are out for me!

Irresistible Peanut Butter Cookies

Posted on April 28, 2008
Filed Under Cookies and bars

Ok, here we go again. The break is over. I had enough Tasty-Kakes and Starbucks to last me for awhile now.

I wish Tasty-Kakes would come to WI. Well, they do come to WI… but only when we bring them here from PA or FL. A couple years ago, I ordered a bunch and they were shipped UPS. For awhile, every time after that, when we’d see a UPS truck, Lexi (who was 3 at the time) would say, “Mom, let’s ask him for some Tasty-Kakes!” I guess she thought those trucks had a never-ending supply of Tasty-Kakes in them. Kind of like ice cream and a Schwans truck. Would be nice to be able to just flag one down a UPS truck whenever the Tasty-Kake urge strikes.

And since we live up in the boondocks here, our closest Starbucks is 1 1/2 hours away, so we don’t get there often. But along the turnpike, going across IN, OH, and PA, there was often a Starbucks at the travel plazas. Very nice! I tried a couple different things, plus my favorite: a caramel frappucino.

Now, back to the kitchen, new recipes, and all…

pbcookies5.jpg

This one isn’t really a new recipe. To me anyway. You’d know that if you’d see my recipe card… it’s bent a little, it has a bit of sugar stuck to it, and it has a blue star (written by me) up by the recipe name. What first caught my eye when I was flipping thro’ the cards was the word “Irresistible”. Yeah, that wasn’t me putting that word in the title, that’s the name of the recipe: Irresistible Peanut Butter Cookies. So, I decided to try them. They were wonderful, and I’ve been making them for the last couple years. The recipe is from an Easy-to-Bake-Easy-to-Make recipe card.

One thing that was interesting is that it calls for Crisco (w the logo) shortening and for awhile, that exact recipe was on the Crisco cans. I don’t know why I had never noticed the word “Irresistible” on my Crisco can before. Now, the recipe on there is “Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies”. I wonder how often they change the recipes on their labels.

One other thing, I always wonder how peanut butter cookies got that trademark crisscross pattern in them. I don’t think any other kind of cookie has that and you can always tell a peanut butter cookie by it. I Googled it and there were answers like “To tell them apart from other cookies”, “They don’t taste as good without that”, “They don’t flatten by themselves in the oven”, “They did it in the 1930s and it stuck”. :)

Irresistible Peanut Butter Cookies

1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup Crisco shortening
3 Tbsp. milk
1 Tbsp. vanilla
1 egg
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt

Heat oven to 375. Place sheets of foil on countertop for cooling cookies. Combine brown sugar, peanut butter, shortening, milk, and vanilla in large bowl. Beat at medium speed w electric mixer until well blended. Add egg. Beat just until blended. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to creamed mixture at low speed. Mix just until blended. Drop rounded tablespoonfuls of dough 2″ apart on ungreased baking sheet. Flatten slightly in crisscross pattern with tines of fork.
pbcookies1.jpg

pbcookies2.jpg

Bake one baking sheet at a time at 375 for 7-8 minutes, or until set and just beginning to brown. Do not overbake. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet.
pbcookies3.jpg

Remove cookies to foil to cool completely.
Makes about 3 dozen cookies.
pbcookies4.jpg

Soft and chewy… just like a cookie oughta be! Wish I could give you one. Oh yeah, that’s right… there are none left to give.

Comments

10 Responses to “Irresistible Peanut Butter Cookies”

  1. barb on April 28th, 2008 5:34 pm

    Those cookies look great. I’m going to try them.
    When I grew up, my parents had a bakery (still do)
    When we made peanut butter cookies we used a hand-held meat tenderizer to make the pattern in the top. It looks a little different than fork marks but a lot faster. Also, I have a recipe for peanut butter cookies that has a peanut butter filling between two of the cookies. They’re called nutter butters. I make them often and have shared the recipe MANY times. I will leave the filling recipe here. You could use it with any p.b. cookie recipe, but if anyone would like the recipe that goes with this filling, I will share that too.

    Nutter Butter Filling:
    1/2 c. peanut butter
    1/4 c. butter (softened)
    1/4 c. milk
    2 c. powdered sugar
    Beat butter and p.b. together, then add powdered sugar and milk. beat till smooth. If it is too thin you may need to add more powdered sugar so it will “stay” between the two cookies.

  2. Kay on April 28th, 2008 5:53 pm

    Sounds good, Barb! Thanks! I’ll have to try that next time I make p.b. cookies. Looks pretty easy. :)

  3. Freida on April 28th, 2008 6:23 pm

    I LOVE peanut butter cookies. Next best thing to monster cookies. :) I shall try this recipe.

  4. Tamara Merritt on April 28th, 2008 6:46 pm

    Thanks Barb for the Nutter Butter filling YUM

    Are you the same Barb of Frito Salad fame?

    My Peanut Butter cookie recipe is:

    1 c. white sugar
    1 c. peanut butter
    1 egg

    Mix and drop. Press with fork. (I loved Barb’s meat tenderizer idea!!!) Sometimes I will make balls, and roll in sugar, and then press.

    Bake at 350 til done.

  5. Rosalyn on April 29th, 2008 10:43 am

    Good to see you back on here after your “coffee break”. It was nice being able to meet you in person!

  6. Judi on April 30th, 2008 9:28 am

    Missed you and I’m glad you’re back. Your playhouses look too cool. My Maintenance Man, as I like to call him, loves peanut butter cookies. I don’t make them too often because we certainly don’t need them. He says he eats best when we’re having company lol.

  7. Esther on April 30th, 2008 10:42 am

    I love your site. I get some many ideas of things to make for meals. I was wondering though i wanted to make the raspberry cream cheese rolls you posted about awhile ago and cant find the donought mix. The store i shope at has a bulk food section and they didnt have it their either. Where can i find it. I’m dying to try the rolls. Thanks

  8. Kay on April 30th, 2008 11:02 am

    Esther,
    I had the same problem. Couldn’t find it around here either, so I asked a friend from OH to ship me some because she said they have it at a bulk foods store near her. Got any friends from OH? Or PA? :) You could also Google it and order it online or you could try something different, like roll mix. I’ve never tried it with anything other than donut mix, but finding donut mix is a VERY common problem with me and other readers on here!

  9. Esther on April 30th, 2008 2:09 pm

    I’m from Pa actually Lancaster area to be exact so I guess i’ll just have to check at more bulk food stores in the area. Thanks for your help.

  10. Anna on May 1st, 2008 10:23 pm

    I think I’d like your cookies better than the ones I made today. That is, the Magnolia Bakery Copy Cats. Yours are more traditional and I like when peanut butter cookies have shortening in them rather than all butter. The shortening gives them a better texture.

    Thanks for stopping by my blog, Cookie Madness! I am looking forward to reading yours too :).

Rich and chocolatey, 7-layer bars

Rich and chocolatey, 7-layer bars

Posted on April 19, 2008
Filed Under Cookies and bars

bars9.jpg

These are the only kind of bars that last more than a couple days around here. It’s not because they’re not tempting, it’s because they’re so RICH and you can’t eat more than a couple at a time. One glance at the list of ingredients and I think you’d agree. They are oh-so-good though!

I’m sure this recipe is in quite a few cookbooks, but the one I used is from the Derstine cookbook.

Seven-layer bars

1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 cup coconut
1 cup chocolate chips
1 pkg. butterscotch chips
1 can Eagle Brand condensed milk
1 cup chopped nuts

Melt butter or margarine in 9×13 pan. Sprinkle over top graham cracker crumbs, coconut, chocolate chips, and butterscotch chips. Drizzle milk over top. Add 1 cup nuts. Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 min. Cool and cut.

bars1.jpg   Layer #1: butter.

The dark that you see under the pan is just a hot pad… the pan was hot from melting the butter in the oven.

bars2.jpg   Layer #2: graham cracker crumbs

bars3.jpg   Layer #3: coconut

My Grandma made Lexi’s apron for her (the one that makes the brown sugar pie). Grandma wears that kind of apron all the time and she sewed a few miniature ones for the great-grand-daughters. They were really cute even though they look a bit old-fashioned.

bars4.jpg   Layer #4: chocolate chips

I like chocolate chips way better than butterscotch chips, so I always trade quantities and put in the whole pkg of the chocolate and only 1 cup of the butterscotch.

bars5.jpg   Layer #5: butterscotch chips

bars6.jpg   Layer #6: sweetened condensed milk

bars7.jpg  Layer #7: chopped nuts (I used pecans.)

bars8.jpg   Just came out of the oven. Slightly browned around the edges.

bars10.jpg                                                                                                                                                                                            Mmmmmm! Just delicious!

 

Comments

9 Responses to “Rich and chocolatey, 7-layer bars”

  1. Irishcoda on April 19th, 2008 1:07 pm

    Hi, thanks so much for visiting and leaving a comment at my blog. I haven’t made a seven layer bar in years but I have to say reading the recipe and looking at the pictures has my mouth watering for one…just one, yes, they are so rich! :)

  2. amy on April 19th, 2008 1:20 pm

    I can eat more than one of those. No wonder I struggle so!!

  3. Razor Family Farms on April 19th, 2008 5:26 pm

    My grandmother used to make them for church functions because the ingredients were usually always in her cupboards. Delicious!

    I found your blog by way of The Pioneer Woman and must tell you that I am totally hooked on it now. I’ll happily continue to read it over the next few days. What fun!

    Blessings!
    Lacy

  4. Shannon on April 20th, 2008 5:16 pm

    ohhh these look good. :)I’m gonna go eat peanut butter brownies.:p

  5. Rosalyn on April 21st, 2008 10:45 am

    MMMM!! I can’t wait to try these–I’m pretty sure I have all the ingredients on hand!! ????

  6. Judi on April 21st, 2008 12:02 pm

    I usually make these around the holidays and yes, they are rich.

  7. Drew Kime on April 21st, 2008 9:29 pm

    “It’s not because they’re not tempting, it’s because they’re so RICH and you can’t eat more than a couple at a time.”

    That’s why I eat dark chocolate. Milk chocolate is designed to be so bland you can eat forever and never be satisfied. But one little piece of 85% cocao Lindt and a small glass of milk and I’m set.

    It works for other foods too. Real butter, heavy cream, bacon … yum.

    Drew
    http://blog.CookLikeYourGrandmother.com

  8. Al Malekovic on April 29th, 2008 1:26 pm

    Hi! My name is Al Malekovic and an owner of a very small company “Country Bobs Inc”. We make the world’s greatest sauce. I would like to send you a bottle to try and maybe comment on your blog about it. Someone said bloging is a way to let people know about Country Bobs. So if you would like please email me your address after you look at our web site. Thanks for your time. Al Malekovic

  9. Katy on August 22nd, 2009 12:58 am

    Thanks for the recipe- they turned out delicious!

Oreo Cookies – Why Buy ’em when you can Make ’em?

Posted on March 29, 2008
Filed Under Cookies and bars

Are you wondering if I’m serious? You’ll find out at the end.

I was paging through a cookbook one day last week while I was laid up with my sprained ankle. It was the same day and the same cookbook that I saw the Fudge Sundae pie in a few posts ago. Anyway, I saw a recipe titled ‘Oreo Cookies’. I read the directions and they do get flattened and I wondered if someone had actually figured out how to make them with that taste that only Oreos have and with the crunch, too. I had to try them. So, from the Cooking with the Horse and Buggy People cookbook…

Oreo Cookies

1 cake mix, white or chocolate (I used chocolate)
2 eggs
2 Tbsp. water
2 Tbsp. cooking oil
1/2 cup cocoa

Let stand 20 minutes. That’s the first directions given, but I took it to mean after everything was mixed together! Do not refrigerate.
oreo1.jpg
Shape into balls. Flatten with bottom of glass greased once and dipped into Nestles Quik (I think it’s actually called ‘Nesquik’) for each cookie. Bake at 300 for 8 minutes.
oreo2.jpg 

Here are the cookies right out of the oven. Yeah, they pretty much look the same as when they went in. Maybe slightly fatter.

I think I went a bit overboard on the Nesquik with a few of them. Oh well. That might not be a bad thing.

Filling:
1 envelope Knox geletin
1/4 cup cold water
1 Tbsp. plus 1 cup powdered sugar (not sure why the 1 Tbsp!)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup Crisco

And that’s where the recipe ends, folks. No directions. This cookbook is kinda interesting that way. Sometime, I’m gonna scan in a recipe from it and see if you can help me figure it out. Usually, I can kinda go from past experience and know what to do, but there’s one recipe that sounds very yummy that has me clueless. Anyway, I mixed the filling up and spread it between 2 cookies.
oreo3.jpg
I actually ended up making the filling twice. All I have is butter-flavored Crisco, which is yellow. It makes the filling a light yellow, which I didn’t think looked too good, so I made it again and used butter instead. It turned out fine. This recipe made 25 1/2 complete sandwich cookies (51 halves).
oreo4.jpg

Now, our take on them: When my taste-testers (aka: my husband and girls) tested them, here were their responses: Husband, “They look like mini whoopie pies” then after tasting one, “They’re better than Oreos.” Lexi (5), “Oh, they’re so cute!” then a little later, “Mom, can I have another one?” and Tiffany (2), she didn’t say anything, she just pulled it apart, licked the frosting off, refused to eat the cookie part, and begged for another one.

They ARE cute. They were the size of Oreos, except fatter. And  they sorta had the same taste. But they didn’t have the crunch, they were soft like regular cookies, which if you ask me, when it comes to cookies, ‘soft’ is better than ‘crunch’. Some things aren’t like that though. Like chips. These cookies were a bit time-consuming to make though, for no more than food than it ended up being. Maybe if I’d make them bigger it would help.

I doubt I’ll get the urge to make them again. Like I said, “Why make ’em when you can buy ’em?”

Or isn’t that what I said?

—————————————————-

Coming up next… the making of Tiffany’s birthday cake. So check back on Monday! It’ll be along the same lines as the other birthday cakes in the ‘Birthday Cake” category in the ‘categories’ section, so you can go look at those awhile if you want to.

Comments

7 Responses to “Oreo Cookies – Why Buy ’em when you can Make ’em?”

  1. Shannon on March 29th, 2008 10:59 am

    My sentiments exactly. Why make them when you can buy them. :) Can’t wait to see the cake.

  2. barb on March 29th, 2008 11:09 am

    The filling recipe I have for homemade oreo cookies has marshmallow cream in it. If you would like it, comment back.

  3. Salvatore on March 29th, 2008 11:15 am

    What a goodness!!

  4. Liz on March 30th, 2008 7:47 am

    I loved Tiffany’s take on the cookies. Sounds like a regular 2 year old.=) I really should go get ready for church instead of reading your site though.

  5. Charlene on March 30th, 2008 10:55 am

    Did you ever have the soft oreo cookies?? My children love them ,these look almost the same.

  6. Charlei Miller on June 27th, 2008 5:51 pm

    Could not agee with you more..

  7. Nathan on March 13th, 2011 11:55 pm

    I did a similar recipe to the one you did. Came out the same way. The only difference between the two; I used a stamp pad (don’t worry it was never used with ink prior to or afte making the cookies) to make a design on them.

When you’re out of eggs… and you get a cookie craving:

Posted on February 28, 2008
Filed Under Cookies and bars

I guess I never paid enough attention, but do you know how many cookie recipes take eggs?! I’d say roughly 99% percent of them! Lexi wanted to make cookies and we had no eggs, so I started going through cookbooks. There were nobake cookies in the Derstine Cookbook, but we wanted ‘bake’ cookies. Finally, we found “Mary’s Cream Cheese Cookies” in the Treasured Recipes for our Mothers cookbook by the Lebanon Valley Christian School in PA.

“Who’s Mary?” Lexi asked.
“We don’t know her. She just gave the recipe to put in the cookbook”, I said.
“Well, we should cross out her name and just call them Cream Cheese Cookies cuz we don’t know her.” was Lexi’s reasoning.
We didn’t cross anything out… Mary is still getting credit for the cream cheese cookies in our cookbook.

Mary’s Cream Cheese Cookies

1 c. butter
6 oz. cream cheese (we just threw in the whole 8 oz)
1 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 c. flour
4 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. vanilla

cookies1.jpg Cream butter, cream cheese, and sugar. Add rest of ingredients. Refrigerate for 1/2 hour. (Ha, the dough didn’t last in the fridge for 30 min! With 2 eager helpers asking every 10 seconds if it’s ready yet, I got it out after about 5 min. Worked just fine.) Form balls and roll in crushed Wheaties.
cookies2.jpg (This is still at the beginning of rolling. Tiffany hasn’t started playing in the Cornflakes yet. What a mess it turned out to be!)
cookies3.jpg Bake 350. That’s all it said. Not how long to bake them or anything. I baked them for 10 min, then thought they didn’t seem quite done, so I let them in for 2 more min. and that seemed perfect. So, 12 minutes it is. The batch made exactly 3 dozen cookies. Also, we didn’t have Wheaties, so we used crushed Cornflakes.
cookies5.jpg On whether we liked them or not, let’s just say that those 3 dozen cookies look like they might not last a full 24 hours around here! They are nice and soft and moist, not dry like regular sugar cookies. Must be because of the cream cheese. I think I might try these sometime for frosted sugar cookies (without the Wheaties/Cornflakes), like at Christmastime. I’m sure they’d need to be refrigerated the full length of time to be rolled out though.

Comments

9 Responses to “When you’re out of eggs… and you get a cookie craving:”

  1. Freida on February 28th, 2008 8:47 am

    neat site! And the cookies do look good. I’ll have to try them sometime when I get in the “no-eggs” predicament.

  2. Aug on February 28th, 2008 10:05 am

    Hey, very cool! I still need your Xanga site though so I can be informed when you post. Now I can just go here to look for recipes instead of to “Taste of home’s” site! ???? I love the way you explain everything and take step by step pictures. So much fun, since i love to cook too. Yeah, looking forward to some healthy stuff that maybe I can try in March.

  3. Katrina on February 28th, 2008 10:56 am

    Those look really good.

  4. Shannon on February 28th, 2008 12:37 pm

    I’ve run into the “no eggs” problem already too. Gonna have to keep this recipe around, looks good.

  5. Sharon on February 28th, 2008 2:50 pm

    I have finally found an egg-free substitute that works in cookies, because my predicament, unlike yours, is that Sawyer is allergic to eggs :-(. So YAY!!! for this recipe. (By the way, the substitute is probably something you don’t have on hand–1+ T. flax meal mixed with 1+ T. water per egg).

  6. rosa on February 28th, 2008 4:39 pm

    The new site looks really nice. I’ve been enjoying your xanga site for awhile and am looking forward to getting your updates here. I’m hoping you will be posting more often now that you have a “real” site!

  7. Janice on February 29th, 2008 11:44 am

    I don’t think I’ll wait until I have no eggs on hand (as the chickens keep laying a few), but the next time the cream cheese craving strikes. I LOVE cr. ch!

  8. Marilyn Martin on March 3rd, 2008 6:46 am

    I like the look of your new site and am looking forward to many more great recipes!

  9. Shandolynne on March 12th, 2008 12:36 am

    I found your site through your comment on Nate & Tricia’s blog. I tried these cookies tonight. YUMMY!