Sunday, January 12, 2014

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



Sunday, January 5, 2014

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.








Sunday, December 29, 2013

Lime Coconut Cookies


Lime Coconut Cookies

I really liked the lemon cookies so I decided I had to make Lime ones to match. 

1 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup white sugar

whip together

3 eggs
2 whole limes, juiced
zest of two limes
1 tsp vanilla

add to butter mixture in parts

2.5 cups flour
.5 cups cornstarch
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Add in three parts

1 cup coconut
blend in.
scoop out dough into powdered sugar

bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until done.

Which recipe is your favorite? Lime or Lemon? maybe we should make orange cookies sometime soon.




Sunday, December 8, 2013

Vegan Oatmeal Cookies


Classic Vegan Oatmeal Cookies.
1.5  cups brown sugar
1 cup demerarra sugar
1 cup vegan vegetable shortening
mix

egg substitute equivalent to 3 eggs
vegan vanilla
mix in one egg at a time

3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
mix in (split into several parts to add in gradually)

1 cup oatmeal
mix

extra demerarra sugar in bowl
scoop out cookies into sugar 
bake at 325 for 12 minutes or until done.

One of the best things about vegan cookie dough? safe to eat all of it without danger of food poisoning. Also I can feed the kids all the cookie dough which they love.
If these cookies end up a little burnt substitute white sugar for demerarra sugar.
These cookies won't flatten as much as a traditional cookie so shape them how you want to cookie to be and if you cook until they look just like your traditional cookies they will be burned. I usually take them out after 11-12 minutes even if I normally would leave them in and they turn out perfect.
The first time I made these I don't know if the planets just aligned correctly but they were some of the best cookies I've had. If they have trouble sticking together add more shortening.

It breaks my heart to see things suffer. I used to try to volunteer with dog rescues to help them have a better life and better conditions and I still hold a special place in my heart for people who are working to help abused animals.  At the same time I do not love the squirrels that used to dig up the bulbs I planted in my back yard.  I don't think I could hunt an animal and kill it. Sometimes that makes me think I shouldn't eat them at all. In an ideal world I think I would be vegan. One of my closest friends is Vegan and sometimes I make her cookies. She is always very nice about it even if I don't think the cookies are as good as they should be.
I HATE most of the chocolate chip products that are out there for vegan consumers. They just don't taste good. One of the biggest problems if you want to make vegan products is trying to make them taste the same as non-vegan ones. There are a lot of delicious foods that are animal products free but don't expect something that isn't milk to taste like milk My favorite vegetable shortening is Vegan and it doesn't taste like butter but it makes the most delicious sugar cookies and whips up really nicely when you cream it with sugar. The best whip in a shortening I've ever seen.
I practice different tastes with vegan and allergy sensitive cooking not only because I feel like I should be able to reduce my negative impact on animals. It's also because I want to be good at making cookies everyone would enjoy and that means knowing how to make several different kinds of cookies.  I think it is good to try to figure out ways to cook so that people with dietary issues and concerns can still participate. I have a child with a dairy allergy so every week I make one kind of cookies with no dairy. That's fairly easy since vegetable shortening is great to bake with. I also have friends with gluten intolerance. Much trickier. Especially since almond flour seems very expensive. I've decided that a lot of experimentation is the way to improve the cookies so here is one of my favorite vegan cookie recipes.

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Monday, December 2, 2013

S'mores Cookies

 S'mores Cookies



One day one of my co-workers told us all that she made s'mores cookies. They were FANTASTIC. Incidentally, that same co-worker is also fantastic at braiding hair. She taught me how to do a starburst crown braid which you can learn on the cute girls hairstyles youtube channel. I had no idea how awesome Youtube was for pretty much every question I've ever had. My new years resolution this year was actually to learn how to do my hair better so this was perfect. I still can't really braid my own hair but I did braid my daughters hair and I was proud that she didn't fuss.
These cookies are actually some of my favorite I've ever had.  I recommend them to everyone. They are a little bit tricky with kids because you have to take them out of the oven to add the graham crackers and marshmallows so be aware that if you child is too young to control themselves or always wants to touch things out of the oven it would be best to wait until after bedtime on these cookies.



1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter
cream for at least 2 minutes
3 medium eggs
2 1/2 tsp vanilla
mix in 1 egg at a time
3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
mix dry ingredients together and add in at least three parts
1 bag semi sweet chocolate chips
mix in semi sweet chocolate chips
bake 5 minutes
add at least 
7 teddy grahams
bake 5 minutes 
add approximately
7 mini marshmallows and chocolate on top. I used mini hersheys
cook until they are done (3-5 minutes)

Monday, November 25, 2013

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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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

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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