Bad cookies

I found a wonderful-sounding cookie recipe the other day: Strawberry shortcake cookies. Doesn't that sound terrific, like a beautiful summery snack?

I had a bag of frozen strawberries left over from last year's crop, so I defrosted and drained them in anticipation of making the recipe. In fact, I quadrupled the recipe because that's how much frozen strawberries I had on hand.

The results were lovely. 

The taste ... not so much. There wasn't anything really wrong with them, you understand. It's just that they were, well, cake-y. These were strawberry shortCAKE cookies and tasted cake-y. Not like cookies.

We tried to like them, we really did. But whereas cookies normally get eaten fairly briskly in this household, these seemed to just ... linger.

After a few days, I saw mold growing on them and decided enough was enough. I consigned the entire quadrupled batch to the composter.

Not recommended. Reminded me of this meme:

Oatmeal-raisin cookies

I decided to make cookies a couple weeks ago, and Younger Daughter plugged for oatmeal-raisin. I hadn't made those in while, so I agreed.

I use a favorite recipe found in this book:

These cookies are nice and moist and I've been very pleased with the recipe.

I double the recipe, and the resulting dough is too much for my largest mixing bowl; so I use two mixing bowls and just put a single recipe in each bowl. Here are the dry ingredients (except flour):

Wet ingredients:

Salt, baking soda, vanilla, cinnamon.

One bowl mixed, one not (yet).

Now the flour. It's too hard to mix if I add the flour earlier.

Last of all, raisins.

These cookies take vigilance while in the oven. A minute too long, and they're too crisp for my taste. A minute too little, and they're not quite cooked. The recipe says 8 to 10 minutes baking; I set my kitchen timer at 8 minutes at first, but usually I'm satisfied at 9 minutes. Everyone's oven will be different.

A delicious treat anytime.

Chocolate chip cookies

At last for all you cookie-lovers, here's the scoop on the chocolate chip cookies pictured on the masthead.

I'm in search of a recipe for good chocolate chip cookie. I've tried many over the years with varying success, but for one reason or another they just... miss the mark, I guess.

Well I just found a new recipe on a page called, oddly, A Girls' Guide to Guns and Butter.

The recipe seemed simple enough, so I tried it... and ooh la la, they were delicious! And picturesque!

I'm not a huge chocolate fan, so I significantly reduced the suggested amount of chocolate chips in the recipe, but otherwise I followed it exactly. Below is the recipe, including the notes from the Girls' Guide page.

• 11 T (5.5 oz, weight) salted butter, melted (hot is fine)
• 2/3 C light brown sugar (do not pack the brown sugar into the measuring cup but scoop it out gently and simply level it off – it should be loose and fluffy, or you will end up using too much and your cookies will be tough)
• 1/2 C granulated sugar
• 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk (if you don’t feel like separating your eggs, two whole eggs will work as well, resulting in flatter cookies)
• A dash of vanilla
• 2 C all-purpose flour
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 C dark chocolate chips (you can also use all semi-sweet or all bittersweet or any combination you like)

Bake at 325F for 12-14 minutes (in my oven, it's 16 minutes).

Last night I made a fresh batch of these cookies, and tripled the recipe. The photos below represent the tripled amount.

I started with butter.

While the butter melted, I cracked eggs and separated some extra yolks as well.

Loosely-packed brown sugar...

...and white sugar.

Adding melted butter.

Mixing. The liquified butter makes things very, well, liquidy.

Baking soda and salt (I forgot to photograph the vanilla).

Adding flour.

The first time I made these cookies, I noted how loose the dough was, even with the flour mixed in. This is due to the liquified butter. Would it hold its shape when it was time to bake, I wondered, or would it blob all over the cookie sheet?

I added about a third or a quarter of the recommended chocolate for the simple reason that I'm not crazy about chocolate (yes, I know -- heresy). Add as much as you wish.

By the time I was ready to put the dough on the pan, the butter had cooled enough that the dough did indeed hold its shape.

While the first batch of cookies was baking, I chopped walnuts. To me, that's what makes for a superb chocolate chip cookie -- lots and lots of walnuts. Sadly no one else in my family sees the light in this regard, so I usually reserve a portion of the dough for last, and load it with walnuts.

First batch (walnut-less) out of the oven, second batch in.

The evening's bounty.

My husband suggested calling these Trollhouse cookies -- which sent me into gales of laughter -- but they shall remain nameless, I suppose.

Easter cookies

A couple days ago, I decided to make some sugar cookies. This particular recipe calls for the cookies to be topped with frosting, and just for slips and giggles the girls and I decided to divvy up the frosting into four different batches, and color each batch.

As usual, I made a tremendous mess. I have this incredible talent for making the kitchen really, really messy anytime I do something. What can I say, it's a gift.

The cookies themselves are rather bland; but coupled with obscene amounts of frosting, they're a hit.

Here's what we ended up with. While we didn't deliberately set out to make Easter cookies, it certainly seemed appropriate with all the pretty pastel colors. So, we called them Easter cookies.

Here, Younger Daughter makes a creation.

Ta da!

Lydia gives broad hints that she'd like one too.

A nice (and colorful) snack to have around the house.

Shortbread cookies

One of the specialty things I only make at Christmas (besides Irish cream, of course!) is shortbread.  The secret ingredients to rich and flaky shortbread is butter (no substitutes!) and rice flour. Rice flour is pretty easy to find in most grocery stores. Shortbread has only four ingredients: flour, rice flour, sugar, and butter. I'm not milking Matilda right now, so I used store-bought butter.

Mix the butter and sugar together.  I soften the butter in the microwave then mix it by hand.  You don't need an electric mixer when making shortbread.

Mix the flour and rice flour together.

Then cut the two sets of ingredients together.

If the butter is soft enough you can use a spoon, otherwise you'll have to use your hands.

With regular shortbread (meaning, just flour, butter, and sugar), you can shape the dough however you like for baking.  Some people make large rectangles and later cut them into finger-shaped pieces.  Others make a large circle and cut it into pie-shaped wedges.  Since this particular recipe has rice flour, it's much more flaky than regular shortbread and so won't hold up if you bake it in large shapes.  So I just make small balls and gently flatten them with my palm.  The cookies tend to spread out as they bake, so I don't put more than six per sheet.

Watch the shortbread like a hawk when it's in the oven because it's easy to overbake.  Everyone's ovens are different so I can't give a precise baking time.  In my oven, the cookies take 13 to 14 minutes.  Yes, it's that precise.  Much longer, and the edges get too brown.  These turned out juuuuust a hair browner than I wanted, but not bad.

The cookies are very fragile, so don't manhandle them too much.  I like to let them cool on the cookie sheets for a couple minutes to harden up, then gently transfer them to a cooling rack.

Here's some of the completed batches.  These are given to friends and neighbors for a buttery treat.

Here's the recipe:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup rice flour
1 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar

Mix butter and sugar by hand (soften the butter if need be) until sugar is dissolved.  Separately, mix flour and rice flour together, then add to the butter mixture and knead until dough resembles short crust.  Bake at 350F.

I octupled the recipe and ended up with about eight or nine dozen batches (I lost count). The recipe multiplies very well.

Happy eating!

Survival cookies

We were having tea with our friend Enola Gay last week, and she had a platter of cookies on the table. Older Daughter, enjoying tea with us, took a cookie...and just about went ballistic over the taste. Enola called them "survival cookies" because they can be made entirely from storable ingredients - nothing fresh.

Older Daughter has been begging Enola for the recipe ever since. Enola kindly posted the recipe on her blog, so today I made a batch at Older Daughter's request (well...more like a plea). I won't post the recipe since Enola has it on her blog.

It's a messy, messy dough. Be liberal in the use of flour on the cutting board.


Rolled thin and cut with a cookie cutter (well, an upside down tumbler).



A dollop of fruit preserves (raspberry in this case):


Sandwiched over with another cookie cutout:


Lydia lies faithfully at my feet while I work (just in case I drop something, don'cha know):


Enola's recipe called for 8 to 10 minutes at 350F, but it took me about 15 minutes per batch:


I doubled the batch so we got quite a few!


These are hearty, filling cookies. Nothing light and fluffy about them! One is plenty for a snack.