Cookie Monday - Monster Cookies

Welcome back to Cookie Monday!  This week we are making an oldie but a goodie! – Monster cookies!  The “new age” everything cookie is called “kitchen sink” cookies, but Monster cookies will always be my favorite.  I loved these cookies as a child and when I made them for Christmas last year, I decided I need to add them to the regular rotation!  Why only enjoy your favorites one time of year?! 

 

Bill of Materials:

½ C Butter

1 ¼ C Brown Sugar

1 C Sugar

3 Eggs

¼ t Vanilla

2 t Baking soda

2 C Peanut Butter

4 ½ C Oatmeal

½ C Chocolate Chips

½ C M&Ms

 

Since I am in the process of cleaning out my pantry (check out my other pantry clean out cookies), I decided to use up some leftover M&Ms from Christmas (Tip: sort the colors and use red for valentines and the green for St Patricks’ day).  Since these cookies are just for myself, I don’t care if they are green.  I’m keeping the red ones for the Fourth of July!  Comment below – I want to know if and how you use out of season items? 

First, cream the sugars, butter, and vanilla.  I used to not cream my sugar and butter and throw everything into the bowl at once, but I have learned that it really does make a difference.  Please cream your sugar and butter!

Then add the eggs and baking soda.  Then add the peanut butter and oats.  Once this is mixed, add the M&Ms and Chocolate Chips. 

 

Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes – don’t over bake these cookies, otherwise they will dry out! 

Enjoy!

Cookie Monday - Dr. Pepper Cookies

 

Welcome Back to Cookie Monday!

This week I was working on clearing our some old items in my pantry and fridge.  I had a couple packs of Diet Dr Pepper left over from when I stopped drink soda several months ago.  Instead of wasting soda, I went online to see if there were any recipes or idea to use soda for baking.  I have used use soda/beer for beer bread and saw that people have used soda and cake mix to make baked goods, so I decided to try this out since I also have an abundance of cake mixes in my pantry. 

I didn’t find an exact recipe for cookies, so I decided to just try it on my own.  I took one cake mix and one can of soda and mixed them together.

Bill of Materials:

One Cake mix

One Can of Soda

The mix was extremely thin, more of a batter for cake than cookies, but I decided to try cookies anyway!  Why not, right?

I baked my first article of six cookies without spraying my non-stick pan.  The cookies came out soft and moist like a top of a cupcake!  I was hoping they would firm up a bit after cooling, but they did not.  

These cookies were so soft causing an issue when trying to scoop them off the pan.  Several of them broke into crumbs.

I decided to see if spraying the pan would crisp up the bottoms and firm up the cookies.  After spraying the pan, the cookies were easier to remove from the pan, but still extremely soft.  You can see the difference between the cookies that had the pan sprayed vs the one that didn't.  The cookie on the top did not have cooking spray and the cookie on the bottom did.  

Although these “cakies” were delicious (cakies instead of cookies - get it?), I will probably make a few changes to this recipe in the future - like less Dr. Pepper.

Stay tuned to what I plan to do with the rest of my pantry leftovers. 

I want to try Dr. Pepper cupcakes and beer bread next! 

 

Cookie Monday - Flour Sifter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Welcome to Cookie Monday!

I bake a batch of cookies each Monday to have throughout the week for lunches, as well as a sweet treat after work.  This week, while in the process of making my weekly bread loaf, I remembered that my new flour sifter came with a cookie recipe on the bake of the label!  I decided I wanted to try this new cookie recipe and thought I would share how I approach baking any new recipe!

Recipe on the back of the label:

First, make sure you have all the ingredients (or a good substitute) before you get started.  You wouldn’t want to get half way through the recipe and realize you don’t have baking soda, etc. 

 Second, follow the recipe as close as possible/record what you changed – why? 

1.       Because if you like it, you’ll want to be able to reproduce it,

2.       If you don’t like it, you’ll want to be able to change what you didn't like about it in the future.

But you can’t do either of these things if you don’t know what you did to begin with.

For example – I usually don’t measure vanilla (because more is better, right?) in my regular go to chocolate chip recipe, however I measured for this new cookie recipe so the amount of vanilla isn't a factor in how the recipe turns out. 

For my first time baking these chocolate chip cookies, I used butter instead of margarine because I don’t use margarine. 

 

Also, I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to use sifted flour or packed flour.  Since the recipe came on the back of the sifter label, I sifted it and measured how I do for my bread.  On average, sifting flour causes the measurement to be less than when it is packed.  

I made a note of both of these "changes", so I had notes for next time.

Third, when ready to bake, run a First Article of your cookie dough through the oven.  Never heard of a First Article before?  It is a term used in manufacturing when you change a process or mix and you want to see how it turns out before running the entire batch.  I do this with new recipes so I have the opportunity to make a quick change if possible.

To do this, you just put a few scoops of dough on one pan to bake first, so if there is any issue (burning, spreading, etc) you don’t ruin the whole batch. 

I thought the cookies spread out too much while baking my first article, so I put the dough in the fridge to firm up a bit. 

After another round using the firmed dough, I thought the cookies were still a bit large, so I decided to use a smaller scoop. 

Fourth, write down any changes or notes from baking the batches and any changes you would want to make in the future. 

I thought these cookies are extremely thin which makes for a good cookie when warm, but after they cooled they were extremely crunchy.  Still good, but not my target cookie consistency.  

I prefer a bit of a softer cookie, so next time I make this recipe, I am going to try packed flour instead of sifted and see if that makes a difference!  

 

Chocolate Covered Snowflake Oreos

I feel like there is usually a “lull” in creative and fancy treats between Christmas and Valentine’s day.  Since most creative treats surround a holiday, I decided that in order to fill this gap, I'll make something truly unique “just because”!

I really enjoy chocolate covered Oreos, especially my Christmas Tree Oreos because these chocolate covered cookies are super easy to make.  They aren’t completely covered in chocolate, which means that I don’t have to get my entire hand covered in chocolate because a cookie dropped in to the melted chocolate by accident (please say you know what I mean!)  

I thought to myself, why can’t I make a similar treat, just with a different “picture”.  Why not snowflakes?

And thus the idea for Chocolate Covered Snowflake Oreos was created!

In order to make these easy winter treats I used the below items:

- Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips

- White Sprinkles

- White Candy Melts

- Oreo/Off Brand Cookies

I had the white sprinkles on hand, but you can totally do this with just the white candy melts!

First, let’s get prepared.  Melt your semi sweet chocolate in the microwave.  Start with 30 seconds at a time until melted.  Make sure to stir in between each 30 second interval. 

While the chocolate is melting, lay out some wax paper to place your cookies until they set.

When your chocolate is melted, cover one side of the cookie by holding onto one side of the cookie sandwich, and lighting dipping in the other.  You will need to “wipe” off any excess onto the side of the container you used to melt the chocolate.

Then, while the chocolate is still soft, sprinkle a few white sprinkles for “flurries”.

While these cookies set-up, melt the white candy melts.  Tip:  I usually put candy melts straight into a non-reusable piping bag and put that into the microwave to melt the candies so I don’t have to dirty any extra dishes to clean up.

Once the candy melts are melted, start drawing your snowflakes!  I cut my tip a bit fatter than I originally wanted, but the treats were just for myself so it was okay that they weren’t perfect.  No two snowflakes look alike, so it’s okay if they aren’t all the same!   Try out different designs!

Once the cookies set-up, I always store them in the fridge so that the chocolate doesn’t get soft.  But who am I kidding, these treats were gone so fast they wouldn’t have had time to get soft!

Enjoy these with a nice cup of hot cocoa or homemade latte as you sit down to enjoy some family time! 

Galaxy Sugar Cookies: How To

Stargazing season is upon us!  It is just warm enough to stay out at dark without freezing!  We enjoy gazing at stars, planets and galaxies like Andromeda!  I decided to task myself with a unique idea – making galaxy cookies without icing, just sugar cookie dough.  I thought of this idea after looking at one of my husband’s astro-images of Andromeda.  How pretty!

I decided to start with the pin wheel sugar cookie idea to create the “spin” of the galaxy with cookie dough.  These cookies are perfect for stargazing parties, astronaut themed birthdays, and even just because!

Here’s what you need:

1.  Sugar Cookie Dough – any kind will do, even prepackaged cookie dough should work fine.

2.  Food Coloring – I used red, pink, purple, and blue

Let’s get started!

First, divide your sugar cookie dough into fourths, and then divide one of the parts into half again.  You will have five parts in total.

 

Kneed food coloring into each section – blue, purple, and pink for the larger sections, red for one of the smaller sections, and neutral for the last section. 

After reviewing my galaxy image, I decided that I needed to have several layers to make several layers in the “spin”.  To make three layers, split all the colored balls into thirds.

Now, make three rainbow layers, white, then red, then pink, and purple and blue.  Roll them together so they are smooth stripes, but one layer of dough.  Repeat this with the other two sections, layer the rolled out dough using wax paper and pop them in the fridge for about 20 minutes to firm the dough.    

Pin wheel cookies are made by rolling the two or three different color layers starting at the same end, however to get the galaxy “spin” effect, you need to start the layers when the next color starts. To do this, lay the sugar cookie dough layers with the second layer’s neutral starting at the first layer’s red layer like below.

Start rolling!  Once completely rolled, put the roll in the fridge again for 20 minutes to firm up the dough.

Now the fun part!  Start cutting the dough into cookie sized slices.  The first few might not look like a galaxy depending on how smooth your layers where, keep cutting.  

Once cut, put in the oven according to the sugar cookie recipe. 

Enjoy!  Check out my Galaxy Cupcakes too! And happy stargazing!

Two Recipes: CAKE MIX Cookies and Brownies

I thought I would share a little secret…

I LOVE CAKE !!!

(okay that’s not much of a secret)… 

but I have two AWESOME recipes that use cake mix to make cookies and brownies!  This little trick is useful for an impromptu get together if you need desserts in a jiffy and just have cake mix in a cupboard (or if you just want a delicious snack).

Cake Mix Brownies:

Ingredients:

1 Cake Mix (any kind will do!)

1/4 cup Water

1 Egg

Directions:

1.  Mix all ingredients together.

2.  Grease pan and then press thick batter into pan.

3.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes.

5.  Enjoy! 

Cake Mix Cookies:

Ingredients:

1 Cake Mix

1/2 cup Oil

2 Eggs

Icing {if desired}

Directions:

1.  Blend all ingredients.

2.  Place dough balls onto ungreased cookie sheet.

3.  Bake at 320 degrees for 10 - 12 minutes.

4.  Enjoy!

5.  Add icing for a cake mix cookie sandwich!