Milk & Cookies

Random Caption... SUPER DONKEY BUSINESS MAN! I'm pretty sure no one reads these anyways...

These are the types of mistakes that I love.  I was most of the way done making these “Lime Tea Cookies” when I realized we didn’t have any real limes to zest.  We had some left over ginger on hand (see previous cookies), and I thought, “Hey why not.”  Lucky me, these cookies are great!  They are light and moist and  you can easily eat like 10 before you realize what just happened.  They are very quick and easy to make and they taste great.  They are definitely not as comforting as chocolate cookies, but they are perfect for a spring day or for taking on a picnic.

I didn’t end up taking a bunch of pictures this time around, so I am gonna steal a page from Zoe and put random pictures in my post to make up for it.

LOOK AT THE SILLY MONKEY…

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tspn. lime juice
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tspn. minced ginger
• 1-3/4 cup flour
• 1 tspn. baking powder
• 1/4 tspn. baking soda
• 2 Tblsn. lime juice (for the glaze)
• 1/4 cup sugar (for the glaze)

DIRECTIONS

Preheat your oven to 350°F and prepare a baking tray with parchment paper.

In a small bowl combine the lime juice and milk and let stand for 5 minutes.  In a large bowl cream together the butter and sugar until its fluffy and smooth.  Add the egg and beat it in.  Then add the lime-milk mixture and the ginger.  Finally mix in the flour, baking powder, and baking soda.  That’s it for the dough. (optional) Let it cool briefly in the fridge (1-2 hours).  This will result in softer cookies.

When you are ready drop spoonfuls of the dough onto the tray and bake them for 8 minutes or so.  The edges will just start to brown when they are done.  Let them cool for a few minutes on the tray before moving them.

The last step is to glaze the cookies.  The glaze is made by mixing the remaining lime juice (2 Tblsn.) with the extra sugar (1/4 cup).  Just brush the glaze onto the cooled cookies and let it sit for a few minutes.

Ok I lied, the last step is to see how many of these you can get into your mouth at one time!  I’m pretty sure I saw Zoe with at least 8…

Gourmet Smores? ... yes.

Super easy, no bake cookies! And see how fancy they look? These are some time consuming cookies to make, but honestly, most of that time is your refrigerator doing the work. It’s really only a little time up front and then some more time on the back end (if you plan on wrapping them up). Overall these are some of the easiest cookies I have made, and they’re already on my top 5 favorite list.

cookie credit: Joy the Baker (yet again)

Without further adu:

INGREDIENTS (makes 18-24 cookies)

• 1 box of graham crackers (14 oz)
• 3 handfuls of mini marshmallows
• 3 sticks and 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup light corn syrup
• pinch of salt

DIRECTIONS

Get out a large bowl and crumble the graham crackers into it. Break them into medium sized peices (about 1/8 of a cracker). Then toss in 2 handfuls of marshmallows. Set this bowl aside for now.

In a medium sauce pan, combine the butter, cocoa powder, corn syrup, and a pinch of salt. Warm it on the stove until all of the ingredients are melted and mixed smooth. Now turn off the heat and let it cool for a few minutes.

While waiting, prepare a 9 x 13 pan with a parchment paper to line it. When the time is up, pour the chocolate into the bowl with the crackers and marshmallows. Stir this mixture up until all the graham crackers are coated in chocolate. Then pour it all into the pan. Spread the dough around and press it down with your fingers using a second piece of parchment paper. Once its well spread out, sprinkle another handful of marshmallows on the top and press them in.

Now you should have a flat tray full of cookie mash. Set it aside for 30 minutes before placing the tray in the fridge for at least a few hours (preferably over night). Once cooled, cut the cookies into bars and serve them up.

Keep any uneaten cookies individually wrapped in the fridge.

Moonie, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs ... ok, just Moonie

Good things are a-brewin’. First of all, Switzerland was awesome! A giant thanks to Jan and Kim. I am still living on a little bit of a high from that trip, so I am taking all of life’s little annoyances in stride. I am also getting very close to making a large shift in my career path. Just knowing what is on the horizon is giving me daily energy and a better outlook on life. Last, and certainly not least… look at those cookies! I think these are the most amazing cookies I have made to date. I absolutely do not want to wait to eat one! The marshmallow filling is perfect. These cookies are a pretty large time commitment since they are completely from scratch, but man, is it worth it. Seriously…. these cookies will make you a star.

Big thanks to Nan Slaughter @ Pots and Pins for this recipe.

INGREDIENTS (makes 12-15 cookies)

Cookies:

• 1 cup sugar
• 5 tbls butter, softened
• 1 tspn vanilla
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 5 tbls unsweetened cocoa
• 1 tspn salt
• 1 tspn baking soda
• 1 tspn baking powder
• 1 cup buttermilk

Filling:

• 1 envelope unflavored gelatin
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup light-colored corn syrup
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup cold water

DIRECTIONS

Preheat your oven to 375ºF.

First thing to make will be the cookies. In a large bowl, combine the butter and sugar. Beat it together until blended. Add in the eggs and vanilla and beat it together until it is fluffy. In a separate bowl combine the flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Whisk it together until its all nice and mixed.

Now go back to your first bowl with the wet ingredients and start adding the dry ingredients and buttermilk a little bit at a time. Do this while mixing the batter, and alternating buttermilk and dry ingredients as you go. Scrape down the bowl a few times and make sure that the batter is well mixed.

On a parchment lined cookie tray, start spooning heaping tablespoon sized cookie batter. Leave a couple of inches between the cookies so that they don’t touch while cooking. Bake each tray for 9-10 minutes until fully cooked (use a toothpick to test). Let the cookies cool for a few minutes and then move them to a cooling rack. Keep baking until all the batter is used up. (should be about 30 cookies)

The filling is the fun part of these cookie sandwiches. First put the 1/2 cup of water in medium to large mixing bowl. Sprinkle the gelatin powder into the bowl and set it aside.

In a small saucepan put the other 1/4 cup of water, sugar, corn syrup, salt, and vanilla. Heat it on the stove until it reaches 244ºF. Apparently some people have a thermometer in their kitchen, so use that if you got it. I just waited for it to just start to simmer and then called it a success (my filling turned out great). Pour the hot liquid into the gelatin bowl and start mixing. Start by mixing on low for a little bit and then turn up the speed to max. The mixture will start to froth a bit and eventually will work itself into a thick foam. It supposedly takes anywhere from 6-10 minutes for the filling to get thick enough to use, but for me it took a little bit longer.


I think it has to do with the temperature… it needs to cool adequately before it will start to set. Anyways, you’ll get there. Now start spooning giant blobs of fluff onto the bottom of your cookies, using a second cookie on top to make a heavenly sandwich. Let the cookies set for an hour (or less if you are impatient).

Now pour a glass of milk and eat up!

You may have noticed a distinct lack of cookies in the last few weeks. Two weeks ago I made blueberry jam cookies based on this previous post. Last week I made two birthday cakes (one for work, one for Zoe). This week we are heading off to Switzerland!

I hope you can still get your fill of cookies elsewhere. In the mean time go read Joy the Baker. We’ll see you on the flip side.

For Serious? I am highly skeptical of these cookies...

Zoe is gone. She left me…

Well, I guess I don’t need to be so dramatic… she will be back in two weeks. While she is off playing physics-genius in Brazil, I have the whole kitchen to myself. Yep, a deprived meat-eater suddenly has the freedom to cook anything he wants. This could be trouble…

After my first steak and potatoes meal in well over a year, I was looking online for an interesting cookie to make this week and I stumbled upon this crazy creature: Joy’s Peanut Butter Bacon Cookies. Now, I’ve tried chocolate bacon before under the pretense “It’s Chocolate + Bacon…. how could it go wrong?”. Well, I hated it. But, Joy has rarely steered me wrong with her cookie recipes. After some waffling, I decided that if I ever wanted to give it a shot, this was the time to do it. So here goes… cookies + bacon…

INGREDIENTS (makes 12-15 cookies)

• 6 slices of bacon
• 1 cup Peanut Butter (all natural)
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tspn baking soda

DIRECTIONS

Start with the bacon. Cook it up in a skillet like normal, until its nicely cooked. Let it cool on a plate with some papertowels to absorb the extra grease. Then chop it up into bacon bits and set it aside.

Preheat your oven to 350F, and line a tray with parchement paper.

Combine the peanut butter and both types of sugar in a mixing bowl. Mix em’ together for about 2 minutes. Add the egg and baking soda and mix for another 2 minutes. The dough stays crumbly so it doesn’t really mix very well. Just keep going until you either get tired of it, or it looks mixed enough. Lastly, fold in the bacon by hand. That’s your dough.

Making the dough into balls is the most difficult part about these cookies. It’s messy, and the dough really doesnt want to stick together very well. Just dive in and get your hands dirty. Make the dough into ~1.5″ balls (ping pong ball size). Optionally, you could roll the balls in extra granulated sugar if you want. I did not. Place the balls a few inches apart on the tray and use a fork to mash them down a bit. Crisscross the tops or go crazy and make your own pattern!

Bake the cookies for 9-10 minutes. Then let them cool for a few minutes before transfering them to your belly.

So, are they good? I don’t know yet… I am not eating mine until cookie time.