Butterscotch Oatmeal Cookies

My daughter hates chocolate chips. Every week when I make cookies she sort of shrugs and says- you made the one's I don't like again.
Then she brings those crappy cookies to her friends. So every now and then I make ones she loves (or I just make multiple batches or split the dough and don't add chocolate chips to hers.)  Today Little Mr. was grouchy that there were no chocolate chip cookies. so he cried and crumpled on the floor in a heap of sadness and misery.
It's hard when your mom ruins her ONE JOB to provide you with chocolate chip cookies of various flavors every week.
These are pretty good cookies. I don't love butterscotch.

Recipe for Butterscotch Oatmeal Cookies

1 stick of margarine
1 stick of butter- unsalted I used Whole Foods butter. I like fancier butter normally but that's a different post.
1 1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
add chilled butter and margarine. Mix 30 seconds then scrape sides of the bowl. then cream for 2 minutes

3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
add eggs one at a time with vanilla

1 cup pancake mix
2 cups white flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
this mixture should be stirred gently with a whisk- for best results sift the flour before you measure it out then spoon the flour into your cup measure and level the top.

2/3 cup oatmeal
1.5 bags Butterscotch chips
1/2 bag white chocolate chips

mix together and scoop onto cookie sheets with cookie scoop. I used parchment paper to line my cookie sheets and baked for 11 minutes at 350 for a smaller sized scoop.

Christmas Butter Shortbread Cookies

Butter Shortbread Cookies

These cookies are perfect for Christmas. I have to admit that one of the things that makes cookie Sunday possible is that I don't eat very many cookies. So these ones can't be made very many times. 

1 pound butter- chilled

I cut mine into pieces to mix more easily. I used 1/2 tilamook butter and 1/2 plugra butter. I think imported or farm made butter is the best. Never use salted butter! It keeps longer so it is usually older on the shelf. 

1 1/4 cup white sugar. Extra fine is the best option. 

Mix at medium speed until just creamed. Don't let the butter get warm! 

2 tsp almond extract (optional) if you like almond spread almond paste over the completed cookies while they are chilling. I love marzipan so this is great! 

Add 4 1/4 cups flour in 1 cup parts. 

Add it gradually or you will end up over mixing and have a floury taste. 

Press into greased cookie sheet with ridges. I used the Williams Sonoma gold collection cookie sheets. I also used my rolling pin from them with silicone. I want a marble one but that's a separate topic. I love them. I greased it with a cheesecloth and crisco. I would always use a cheesecloth or paper towel to grease a pan/ and cheesecloth is best. 

Bake at 350 for 25 minutes until edges start to turn gold. 

Cover with sanding sugar or powdered sugar to taste- I used about 1 cup and out it on while the cookies were still warm so it melted a bit.

Cut into squares with sharp knife while still cooling. 

Let cool 

My children got a plate and used them as Legos with a sort of rapt intensity. It was about an hour of using their cookies as a fun game and carefully taking bites out of each piece. 

These taste better after they are a few days old. 

Merry Christmas! Don't eat too much. 

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/m/products/usa-pan-goldtouch-nonstick-quarter-sheet-pan/?pkey=e%7Ccookie%2Bsheet%7C150%7Cbest%7C0%7C1%7C15%7C%7C6&cm_src=PRODUCTSEARCH

Adding a link with my phone blogger is difficult so I'm including links here with this tacky method. 

http://www.plugra.com/ butter of champions. 

http://www.tillamook.com/products/butter.html

Everyone loves tilamook. 

http://www.deandeluca.com/pantry/baking-ingredients/dean-and-deluca-rainbow-sanding-sugar.aspx

Guys. Brand matters. Especially when it comes to butter. 

Nutella Cookies

Nutella White Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup butter

1 cup white sugar

1.5 cups brown sugar

1 cup nutella

mix 2 minutes on high

3 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

mix in each egg one at a time. I like using local eggs- if possible locate a local farm or a neighbor with chickens. Your cookies will taste WAY better. and you can feel good about yourself.

3 1/4 cup white flour 

I used 1 cup of cake flour and used general all purpose flour for the rest. 

1 tsp Salt

1.5 tsp Baking Soda

1 bags of white chocolate chips. 

Bake at 350 for 13 minutes or until done.

My daughter hates chocolate chips.

I have no idea how this happened.

I think about it all the time.

But it means I frequently make cookies with no chocolate chips in them. She picks butterscotch or white chocolate chip cookies and I don't ever love them. So she voted these pretty good.

This week my kiddos wanted to give cookies to their new friends in the neighborhood. I've been trying to get them to think about helping people and who they can give cookies to every week.

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White Chocolate Cashew Smore's

White Chocolate Cashew Smores 

This week Danielle ordered Cookies with white chocolate chips. Ever week she wants that actually but since I'm trying not to eat any cookies I've been obliging her more often.

This week was extra fun because we made them together and then she delivered them to the neighbors.

1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter flavored Crisco. I like the little pre-packaged squares.

mix for 2 minutes

3 extra large eggs
3 tsp vanilla

mix in eggs one at a time

1 cup cake flour
3 cups white flour
1 tsp Salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
(sift together)
add to mixture in at least three parts.

1 1/2 bags white chocolate chips

mix in
Bake 9 minutes at 325 degrees

Marshmallows and Cashews 

take out of oven and add one marshmallow or seven mini marshmallows
sprinkle with chopped cashews or almonds. (cashews are the preferred choice- I used raw cashews and almonds are pictured in some of the pictures.)

Bake at 4 minutes until done. Marshmallows should puff and just begin to brown.

Danielle added a bit of chocolate to some of the cookies after they came out of the oven. You should add it immediately after so it melts nice.

Almond Cookies

I went to a store and had a cookie.
It was almond and it was delicious.
So I decided to make some myself.

Almond Cookies

1 cup butter, cold
1 cup butter flavored crisco
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup sugar
whip together- make sure margarine and butter are cold

5 medium eggs
2 tsp vanilla
4 tsp almond flavoring or 1/2 cup almond paste
mix 

3 cups flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Mix in parts
Roll out the dough between two sheets of parchment paper then use a cookie cutter to get the shapes you want. I let my kids use some of their own cookie cutters to make shapes. 
(optional) chill dough for at least 10 minutes

cook at 375 for 8 minutes remove just before the edges brown. Do not overcook

My little almond cookie man. or as my son calls him- a white ginger-man

Frost with
Almond Icing  (not pictured)

2 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup water
2 tsp almond flavoring

whip
add more powdered sugar as needed

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Butterscotch cookies

I may have already mentioned this but my daughter hates chocolate chips.
Not just a little bit. If I can convince her to try a cookie with Chocolate chips in it she slowly picks them out and throws them away when I'm not looking.

It only confuses me.
so she likes to tell me exactly what kind of cookies I should make. When I make the wrong kind she understandably reminds me AGAIN that chocolate chips are not her favorite. So half of my cookies can't have any chocolate chips in them.

The things we do for our kiddos. One of the things I did for my kids a while back was to hide all their Halloween candy on top of the fridge so I could secretly throw it away make sure they didn't eat too much.
Since that didn't work perfectly I decided to employ their help is distributing candy into cookie "recipes." It took all of one type of candy to make these nice cookies.

Butterscotch Reeces Cookies

1 cup margarine

1 cup sugar

1.5 cups light brown sugar

whip together

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

mix

2 3/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

add in 3 parts

A whole bunch of reeces pieces candy  bags. 

Or you can go buy a bag at the store and save some time with the tiny wrappers

1 package butterscotch chips

mix

bake 350 for 12 minutes or until done.

Finally a cookie my daughter can get behind.

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Merry Christmas Peppermint Crinkle Cookies

Peppermint Red Crinkle Cookies

I love most uses of powdered Sugar. Because it is Sugar.So in my quest to find more ways to fill the world with powdered sugar I like to roll cookies in it. These cookies are an adaptation of a traditional crinkle cookie. It started when I was at our grocery store and saw a product that I needed to buy for cookies:Andes Mints Peppermint baking chips. Now that I've tried them I want to go buy Williams-Sonoma Peppermint Bark and go cookie crazy. When I say cookie crazy I might mean eating half of it myself.

 

1 cup vegetable shortening at room temperature

1 cup powdered sugar

1 cup sugar

Mix together three minutes medium speed.

3 medium eggs

1 tsp vanilla

15 drops red food coloring (optional)

Add wet ingredients together than mix in one egg at a time. More food coloring can be added until you get the desired color.

 3 cups of flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

have dry ingredients together and mix together with a wire whisk. Split the mixture into three smaller bowls. Children need to add each part of the cookie recipe in parts and it's easier with a separate bowl.

1 bag Andes Mints Peppermint Candies

Mix on low speed.

1 cup powdered sugar 

Drop cookie dough in powdered sugar and roll around until coated.

Refrigerate one hour and bake at 350 degrees for 11 minutes.

Tell your daughter you can't make green cookies until next week.

So close to Christmas Decoration time...

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Sugar Cookie Sunday

Sugar Cookie Sunday

  Based on the cookie recipes I've seen online I should name this recipe the best sugar cookies ever that your mom made super soft.  But the other day I made some sugar cookies. When I say the other day I could mean a few months ago or yesterday. In this case both are true. I made sugar cookies yesterday for Cookie Sunday but I didn't have time to finish the recipe posting.

One of the best things about yesterday was that I met up with some of the lovely ladies from Feminist Mormon Housewives. They came to be my visiting teachers. And I wanted them to stay all night and tell me everything about their lives and I wanted to have better food to invite them over for dinner and I wanted to go hiking with them. So overall it was really positive except I SLIGHTLY BURNED THE COOKIES. I have been making cookies for over a year every Sunday and THIS is the first burned cookie Sunday? That did NOT make me smile.

I burned the second batch that was chocolate cookies with kit kats and white chocolate chips. 

First I made sugar cookies because they are always popular. I had some circle sprinkles so I thought I should make cookies with them. That is really the BEST use of sprinkles ever. Sprinkles and sugar cookies are also fantastic because it is much less work than making cute shapes and rolling them out and frosting them with more beautiful shapes. That is also wonderful but sometimes I just want sugar and sprinkles.

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Sugar Cookies

Notes on ingredients:

To make these cookies vegan:

1 cup crisco or vegan Vegetable shortening. Crisco has some fantastic baking sticks that have one cup and I recommend them. I don't like washing crisco out of my cup measure. For this Recipe I don't like to use the butter flavored Crisco. My favorite brand is spectrum organics which is also vegan. These cookies are very easily vegan.

Use organically sourced non GMO sugar 

Use your favorite egg substitute. I use Ener-G egg replacer. I've had a lot of success if I mix it up in a mixer before I start making the cookies and let it sit, then mix it again.

Sprinkle Sugar Cookies

1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 cup vegetable shortening

mix for thirty seconds, then whip for at least two minutes.

2 jumbo eggs
1 tsp vanilla

mix in one egg at a time

1 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3.5 cups white flour or cake flour

mix in three parts

1-2 packages sprinkles of your choice

spoon dough into a bowl of sprinkles and completely coat with sprinkles. refrigerate for at least an hour.
Bake 10 minutes at 350 degrees

eat a lot. like a billion million.

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Lemon Drop Cookies

Lemon Drop Cookies

Today I typed out roughly a million recipes for cookies. give or take. I've been making cookies now every Sunday for almost 11 months.
So I have some recipes saved up to post later. Sometimes I make cookies and try something new and it fails miserably. I don't even eat the cookies on those days. It was an interesting day today. I went to church and it was the wrong building and I couldn't find the right one. That wasn't embarrassing at all.

I also made lemon cookies with lemon pudding.

Recipe for Lemon Cookies:
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup margarine (or crisco or other vegetable shortening)
cream 2 minutes

2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
zest of 1 medium orange
 mix in one egg at a time

1 small lemon pudding packet (I used instant)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 3/4 cups flour
mix dry ingredients together and add in at least 3 parts

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar in flat bottomed bowl

preheat oven to 350
scoop out and drop in powdered sugar.
roll in powdered sugar
freeze for 10 minutes or refrigerate for several hours.
bake around 14 minutes
remove from sheet.

optional: dip in powdered sugar again when hot and also after they have cooled.

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I should explain something about how I cook.
The first step to cooking to to clear all your kitchen counters and clean them off. with a food safe kitchen cleaner.
Then gather the ingredients for your recipe and the measuring scoops you will use. I measure out all the ingredients before I start. Then I add them to bowls in the order they will be added to my dough. the sugar and butter go in the main bowl right away since they are first. The eggs and vanilla (and in this case orange zest) get mixed together in one bowl. There is a separate bowl for dry ingredients mixed together. If it applies, there is another bowl for chocolate chips.
As I measure out ingredients I put them away. I always know if I have salt in my dry ingredients because the salt will be back in the pantry. I hate having clutter. I also like to clean the dishes as I go. Today I made bread and by the time it was in the oven all the bowls and the mixing bowl were clean.

There is nothing worse than a dirty cook, and kitchens with children get dirty enough anyway. Today while I was cooking my little one threw candy bars behind the oven and also dumped three or four cups of water on the floor. That floor gets wiped down a lot but still manages to look like a tornado hit.

I found a cute little poster that sort of reminds me of how these cookies make me feel. It's on etsy HERE. Next time I'm going to add lemon juice. The cookies have a kind of lemon bar feel.

Happy Cookie Sunday!

Butterscotch Caramel Cookies

Butterscotch Caramel Cookies

While I was at Target the other day I walked by something that seemed like it might be wonderful in cookies.
Kraft Caramel Bits.
Have you ever seen them? I hadn't. They are tiny little balls of caramel. just about the size of a chocolate chip. I guess they are for melting but you know what? I thought they would be good in cookies. So I bought them. Then I decided to make butterscotch cookies because my daughter loves Butterscotch cookies. (she hates chocolate chip cookies which I find totally incorrect.)

So I made them.

1 stick Margarine
1 stick unsalted Butter
1 cup white sugar
1 1/4 cup brown sugar (I used dark brown which I rarely do)
cream together 2 minutes

add 3 medium eggs
2 tsp vanilla
mix in eggs one at a time.

3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt ( I didn't level it on account of the unsalted butter)
mix in at least three parts.

1 bag Kraft caramel bits
1 bag butterscotch cookies.

Bake at 350.

My thoughts-
The caramel bits sort of exploded out of the sides of some of the cookies which I didn't love.  But my daughter told me I was the best mom ever and that she loves me forever so go figure.
My mother updated me that unsalted butter was the way to go because it doesn't store as long as salted butter so normally when you look at the butter on the shelves the unsalted butter will be relatively new whereas the salted version can sit quite a while without going bad.
So of course I bought unsalted butter because my mom put the fear of salted butter in me.

Cookie Sunday

Every Sunday Something Magical Happens in my House.

We make cookies.

A Short History of cookie Sunday.

To understand cookie Sunday I should probably explain a few things about myself.

1. I am a single mom

2. I am Mormon

3. I used to blog about Sunday Thoughts.

4. I like eating.

When I grew up I think my mom made bread on Sunday. She also helped us make our school lunches.

which normally contained ginormous cookies I could easily trade for a Nutty Bar at my leisure. 

Also we didn't really get to watch awesome shows on Sunday. And we didn't really go to friends houses. And we didn't play outside.

I always felt like Sunday was a huge "dont." Don't go crazy and Don't go shopping and Don't watch TV.

Then I had children. These children asked me what we should do on Sunday. This Sunday dilemma is one of the first realizations of how arbitrary parenting was. I don't actually care if you watch TV all day on Sunday. Sitting in church discussing what to do and not to do and when you would consider your Ox in the mire and hearing stories of cars miraculously producing gas to the family wouldn't have to spend money on Sunday got mixed in with really really wanting to order pizza on Sunday. Like more than I would normally even consider eating pizza.

Then I became a single mom and my world sort of fell apart. 

One of the things I realized was most helpful for me was to have a schedule. To know what I was doing so I didn't just sit on the couch and cry all day. I realized I wanted to be actively in control of my life. I didn't want to blame other people for the bad things that had happened to me or for my circumstances. I didn't want my life to be a great big list of "Don'ts." To me Sunday just seem like a bunch of questions I couldn't answer.

I thought I should take a different approach. I would try to build traditions of things that we "did" on Sunday. To distract my children from my existential breakdown about their television habits and keep me from throwing away all their electronic devices. If Sunday was to visit the sick and afflicted and help the needy and build family time I would do that.

So we make cookies. Every Sunday. for over a year now. We bring our cookies to our neighbors. Or a friend that needs cookies. Or people visit us and we eat cookies. Or we take them with us when we hike the Y. (that's another good Sunday activity- haul my children up the mountain.) I bring cookies to work on Monday.

To prepare for the kids helping I split the ingredients into bowls. One bowl for each egg and vanilla, one bowl for the sugar, three bowls for the dry ingredients (I split them into three separate additions because that's what my mom taught me) one bowl for the chocolate chips.

One child dumps in a bowl and the other one starts the mixer. Then they help eat the dough while we are baking the other cookies. Then they run a plate over to the neighbors. Then they eat cookies.

I'm trying to make a point of being more proactive about the type of person I want to be. If I want to be religious I need to have something to show for it. I happen to have lots of cookies to show for it. they are something I make on Sunday. Something I am DOING rather than just a list of rules.

Cookie Sunday is the most fantastic religious decision I've ever made.


Recipe for the pictures:
Preheat oven to 350
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 stick margarine (I used Imperial for this recipe)
1 stick salted butter
cream 2 minutes

2 extra large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
add eggs 1 at a time

3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup cocoa powder (I used Giradelli this time- brand has a HUGE impact on the taste)
stir together- add to other ingredients in at least three different parts.

1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup white chocolate chips

I am always experimenting with how many chocolate chips to add.
Line cookie sheets with aluminum foil.
scoop out cookies with an ice cream scoop.
refrigerate at least 5 minutes before putting them in the oven.bake around 12 minutes. 
Check your cookies. then if you are me add 2 more minutes.

The total cook time depends on the size of your cookies.
every week I try to make the cookies just a tiny bit different so I will post what I think. This recipe is pretty classic and easy.
I hope you can make it for Cookie Sunday this week!
xoxo

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