Cookies

Pink Lemonmade Cookies

This summer, Pillsbury brought a whole new line of cookie mixes. They now have Orangesicle, Pink Lemonade and Key Lime Cookie (and cupcake) mixes. My fav is the orange and pink lemonade. Beceause the recipe on the box calls for butter, it tasted like homemade pink lemonade sugar cookies. Soft and oh so yummy. Go to the store right now and pick up a few boxes before they disappear from the shelves. You will be so glad you did.

Box of pink lemonade cookie mix

1 stick of melted unsalted butter

1 egg

Set oven to 375. Combine cookie mix with butter and egg in bowl. Mix until soft dough is formed. Drop dough by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet 2″ apart.

Bake for 8-10 min or until edges are light brown. Allow to cool for 2 min before removing from cookie sheet. Store cookies in airtight container.

Cookies · Daily Thoughts · Desserts

Cookies With Class

What a weekend. Am baking 400 cookies for a church event next weekend so needed a recipe that was quick and easy. After going on-line to see what I could find, I came across the old fashioned Jello Cookie and the Cake Mix Cookie. Years ago, I had had a cake mix cookie which I didn’t think tasted very good, too salty. I decided that if I substituted unsalted butter for the oil or margarine that the recipe called for, it would help not be as salty, so that’s what I did. These cookies are great, easy and so quick to make. They certainly hold their shape and would make a great cookie if you are mailing cookies to a college student, servicemen or having a group you have having to bake for. Be sure to use the unsalted butter as it makes all the difference in the world. The first recipe just uses cake mix and the second one uses cake mix along with jello. Both make a great sugar type cookie and is cheaper than buying bought rolled cookie dough and I think a lot better homemade taste. It also opens up a world of different flavors besides just peanut butter or chocolate chip cookies. See what you think and remember…baking is a great way to make a new memory

1 box cake mix (15 oz size) any flavor. (I used strawberry and orange and lemon)

1 stick of very soft unsalted butter

1 egg

MIx the 3 ingredients together until they are throughly mixed. Using a small cookie scoop or a teaspoon, place balls of batter onto cookie sheet that has been lined with parchment paper. (If you don’t use parchment paper, just be sure to not grease cookie sheet.)
Bake in a preheated 350 oven for about 10-12 minutes. Bottoms will be a little golden around the edges but just till firm to the touch. Be sure you don’t over bake. These are really good made into a sandwich cookie by spreading about a teaspoon of you favorite frosting between two cookies, flat sides facing in.

Jello Cookies

1 (15 oz) white cake mix (actually any flavor, but if you are wanting to keep colors of jello you are using to stay true colors, use the white, otherwise the yellow or other flavors might change the color)

1 small (3 oz) package jello, regular, not sugar free

2/3 cup oil (what I did was use half melted unsalted butter and half oil) You could use all melted unsalted butter if desired.

1 egg

Mix all ingredients and bake in preheated  350 degree oven for about 10 minutes.

A great combination is using chocolate cake mix with raspberry or cherry flavored jello.

I use a yellow cake mix with cherry lemonade jello. Those were really good and so pretty.

Cookies

March Munchies

It is finally here, the time of year when we begin to think about capris, sandals and possibly traveling. It is beyond me how someone might plan a car trip without thinking about what they might snack on for the 500 miles they are cooped up in the car, sometimes with small children or even just a spouse who, like mine, doesn’t like to talk much (and please don’t even go there, I know what you are thinking, “he probably doesn’t ever get a change to say a word”, there I said it for you) and depends on me to carry the conversation for the 8 hour trip. I can do that, I can carry the conversation for hours, but even I need a break from talking and that leads us to Munchies. I brought this recipe home with me from Corpus, where I was staying with a friend of my mom’s, since she lives in a nursing home, I now stay with her friend Jane. Jane loves to cook and is a really great cook. When I would get home from the nursing home at night from visiting my mom, Jane would get up the minute I walked in the door and by the time I sat down on the couch to watch TV with she and her husband, there on the table would be a plate of warm cookies to go with my Dr Pepper. She would take them out of the freezer and nuke them until they were just warm and soft. They had 3 sons, so I get the honors of being treated like their daughter. I told her that before I left, she had to give me the recipe. She called them Cowboy Cookies, but they really are just oatmeal cookies with a flair..here is the recipe. I have made them twice in one week and now Randy thinks that I should have them warm and waiting as soon as Wheel of Fortune starts. They are perfect for taking in the car for munchies. Goes great with that cup of coffee you depend on to keep you awake driving down the road, unless you want a CD of me talking…Will sell you one of those for $12.99..I think you might enjoy the coffee and cookies much more.

1 cup of Crisco shortening

1 cup sugar

1 cup light brown sugar (firmly packed)

2 eggs, at room temp

2 cups flour

1 teas baking soda

1/2 teas baking powder

1/2 teas salt

2 cups oats, quick-cooking or regular, uncooked

1 (6-oz) package semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup shredded coconut or 1/2 cup chopped pecans

1/2 cup raisins (optional) (I actually used crasins)

Cream shortening and sugars and mix well. Add eggs, beat until light and fluffy. Stir in dry ingredients and blend well. Mix in oats, chocolate chips and vanilla.

The dough will be crumbly. Drop by teaspoonful on greased cookie sheets (I used parchment paper so I didn’t need to grease that) and bake at 350 for about 10-12 min.

Chocolate · Cookies · Desserts

More Chocolate for Valentines-Chocolate Strawberry Thumbprints

In my new Food Network Mag for March, it had a whole section called the United States of Chocolate and lists lots of places where you can go for chocolate meals, candy factories across the states or spas where you can have chocolate facials…..so this is now on my bucket lists, to go to every “chocolate Event” before my cholesterol gets to high for me to eat chocolate…before this happens, I will be baking with chocolate at any given opportunity. These are from the Martha Stewart Cookie Cookbook and are simply put….DIVINE!

3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teas salt

2 oz semisweet chocolate

1 stick unsalted butter, room temp (I wonder, if I used salted butter, could I eliminate the 1/4 teas salt) I think I will be daring and try it sometime, but not for Valentines, how awful for me to serve Romeo chocolate cookies tonight and he would look at me and say, “you don’t expect me to eat these, do you, they have no salt”?

1/4 cup plus 6 1/2 teas sugar

1 large egg yolk

1/2 teas vanilla

4 oz room temp cream cheese

2 tables powdered sugar

4 oz strawberries, (about 6 medium, stemmed and finely chopped)

Sift flour, cocoa and salt into a bowl. Melt chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring until smooth; set aside. ( I nuke the chocolate in 15 sec intervals)

Put butter and 1/4 cup granulated sugar into the bowl of a mixer and mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy (I think you can guess what you can use as your model on this one)

Mix in yolk, vanilla and chocolate. Reduce speed to low. Mix in flour mixture until just combined. Refrigerate covered for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350. Put 6 teas granulated sugar into a small bowl. Form dough into 3/4″ balls, roll in sugar to coat. Space 1″ apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

Press center of each ball with your thumb. Bake 10 min. Press centers again with end of a wooden spoon, making 3/4″ indentations. Bake until sightly cracked and set, about 5 more minutes more.

Cool completely on racks. (Unfilled cookies can be stored in airtight containers for up to 3 days at room temp or frozen up to 1 month)

Stir cream cheese and powdered sugar in a bowl. Toss berries with remaining 1/2 teas granulated sugar in another bowl.

Spoon cream cheese mixture into centers of cookies; top with berries, dividing evenly.

Place on a red valentine doily and Happy Valentines Day to all of YOU!!!!