Coconut Cream Cookies

I am so tired of the cold weather. Come on Spring! and Summer!! *insert amazing story of fun times and such...enough blabbing on to food* 

I am such a big big fan of simple recipes. Although I love newer recipes sometimes I feel they are overly complicated just for s&g. Delicious food does not have to be complicated! Here's a great example:

I had the sudden urge to bake goodies and a quick search found this interesting sounding recipe. I don't think I've made cookies with this much cream.

Naturally cream was the one ingredient I had to go out and buy. Can't remember why I had coconut.

Didn't feel like busting out the standing mixer. The hand mixer is doing a great job! 

Still mixing...

I had to grab a spoon to mix in the flour mixture. I tried the hand mixer...not my best idea. 

I missed a step here. The coconut was supposed to go on top and rolled into the dough. Opps. the dough was very sticky and I had to add a fair amount of extra flour.

My cheap set of round cutters does an amazing job. Even with a bent handle. I can't even remember how that happened. 

Cookies!

Just realized I forgot the coconut topping so I just added it now. Should work out just fine!

Aren't they cute?! They puffed up nicely and smell heavenly...yum! There is no time on the recipe so I started with 10 minutes. 12 minutes browned the bottom nicely. 15 was too much. Not burnt but just a touch too brown on the bottom.

My kitchen smells sooooooo good! I like to bake because I like to eat desserts but I love how it just makes the whole house smell welcoming and warm. 

These were super easy to put together and bake. Adding the cream made the dough stickier than I'm used to handling but not too difficult to figure out. These were light and fluffy with a delicate flavor. A little too delicate in my opinion but my co-workers loved them. I had to make another batch!

My Rating: Not bad but not flavorful. I won't make these again for myself.

Dylan and Friend Rating: "These are so delicious. I can't stop snacking on them" "Can you make a dozen just for me?"

Fruit Jewels

Well, it's been a while. I have no excuse but that just how life is. This is actually a recipe I made a while ago but am just now putting here. 

I found a great stash of old cooking pamphlets from a used bookstore this fall. This great margarine pamphlet was one of them. I love it! I don't know the year but maybe 1950's. Maybe

So many delicious sounding recipes but let's go for something a little different: Fruit Jewels!

I actually had to but a lot more for this recipe than usual. I don't normally keep maraschino cherries, dates, or even margarine on hand. Chopping the cherries was fun. I'm lazy so I just stuck them in a bowl and used my kitchen scissors to cut them up. The dates were already precut because I hate cutting dates! they are so sticky!

There doesn't seem like there is enough dough for all the mix-ins...

Easy recipe to follow. Just mix. I like that. Sometimes it's great to just have a simple recipe. I love how bright the cherries are!

These turned out so cute! More texture than the recipe picture but I think they look even better.

I was a little nervous because I am not usually a fan or maraschino cherries but these were tasty. They stayed nice and moist. No crispiness here. They had a light, not too sweet flavor and, even though the recipe says it makes 2.5 dozen. I don't think I got even 2 dozen from it. I'm not upset about that. I probably made them a little larger than they were supposed to be but I think they were the perfect size for me. And made the perfect amount. Because these were so moist they tended to stick together after a day or so and so they had to be eaten quickly.

My Rating: Delicious! Definitely something a little different to make again.

Peanut Cookies

Holy cow! It has been a while. There was a lot going on so I had to take a break from baking. But I am back! I found some great new cook books filled with delicious sounding recipes. The first one I ha to make involves peanuts just for my sweetie. He's been very patient during the baking drought.

I pulled this recipe from  the 1940's Metropolitan Cook Book which was put out by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. This is one of the several cookbooks I found while on vacation.

Looks simple enough and it does not look like it is going to produce 15 dozen cookies. Yeah! One common problem I am having with some of these older recipes is the amount of cookies I actually get from them. Despite what he says, neither I nor my boyfriend need 5 dozen cookies in the house.

I decided to use unsalted butter as the fat since I always have lots of it on hand. Had to buy some peanuts but gave my sweetie the rest of the container. It lasted less than a week. 

There doesn't seem like there is enough butter...but let's keep going. Gonna add the eggs.

It's starting to take shape. A nice and fluffy dough!

Always read the entire recipe first. Sometimes I don't but it is a good practice to get into. I was not paying attention and added the peanuts to the cookie dough.

It did not feel like there was quite enough peanuts so I added more to the top. 

After just 12 minutes I got these fluffy cuties!

My kitchen smells like peanuts! 

These baked up nice and fluffy. And smell delicious!

These came together quick and easy and didn't require anything special. I didn't even have to bust out the standing mixer! They were very light in texture and flavor. These will not be mistaken for peanut butter cookies. The peanut taste was barely there. If I hadn't mistakenly added peanuts to the mix there would not have been much peanut flavor. That being said, they were delicious. Easy enough to throw together in a pinch and you just have to remember to add extra peanuts.

My Rating: Pretty good. Easy for a last minute cookie.

Dylan Rating: "Needs more peanuts but it's nice."

English Tea Cakes

I have been really into simple baking lately. Nothing fancy or overly complicated. Just nice, easy cookies. I need to take on something more unique but maybe later. I loved the introduction to this recipe and had to make it, English Tea Cakes from the 1951 edition of The Cookie Jar. Tea cakes are similar to cookies, right?

The only thing I was missing was the currants. I had raisins and golden raisins but no currants. The British school teacher calls for currants and so I must get them!

I got a box of Zante currants, which are basically really small raisins. They are kinda cute!

Creaming butter and sugar! I tried for an artsy shot. 

Time to add the currants! These are fun. I am going to have to find more recipes with them. It does seem like a lot of currants...

Believe it or not, I actually read all through the instructions it just never clicked that this was more of a bar recipe instead of a cookie recipe. The recipe did not give dimensions for the pan except 'shallow.' Okay...I just grabbed my largest cookie sheet. I hoped it will fill out the pan in the oven, like a cake.

Hmm... It did not fill out the pan. Damn. It kind of looks like an uneven sheet cake. Oh well.

Time to cut them into little squares. I used a pastry cutter instead of a knife and it worked so much better! I was actually able to cut in straight lines. Wow!

Look at these delicious cuties! The currants all fell to the bottom of the tea cakes but next time I'll just have to cover them in flour first.

I just happened to decide to bake on a beautifully bright day. Sunshine and light tea cakes!

These are moist yet light delicious snacks! The thinner parts of the pan turned out much crisper than the thicker center but all parts were edible and tasty. Next time I would either bake it in a smaller pan or spread it out more evenly. I loved the little Zante currants! It felt like you got more currant flavor through out the cakes. These kept very well in a sealed container on the counter.

My Rating: Keeper! Easy and just different enough.

Dylan's Rating: Yum! I like the thinner ones better.

Friend Rating: "I did my best to make them last all week- last one this morning- They were GREAT!"

Chocolate Drops

It's is finally a new year! I am ready for new and exciting things. I usually don't do New Year's Resolutions because I am too lazy to keep them but this year I thought I would try to make and keep a few. Starting off simple with just a little bit of exercise every week and drinking less soda. I am also going to try to update my blog more regularly. No promises. Especially since January is almost already over... Perhaps I should start in February.

For my first baking adventure for the new year I decided to go easy. I pulled out the wonderful 1940's Christmas Cookies pamphlet from Wisconsin Gas & Electric. They are nice and easy to follow! And usually turn out great. I want to start on a good note.

I had a whole bag of walnuts so had to use those. A little bit of online hunting revealed that 1 square of chocolate equals 1 ounce and that sour milk is 1/2 a tablespoon of vinegar then whole milk added to the 1/2 cup line. And sour milk looks and smells gross so don't think too much about it.

I hate chopping chocolate. Can't tell you why but I find it annoying and messy.

When you are melting chocolate in the microwave, take your time! Do it 15 seconds at a time and mix in between heatings or you will end up with a bubbling mess that is only good for the trash.

So light and fluffy! I'm kind of concerned that these are going to be too soft. I might have to chill them in the fridge for a while.

Well, these actually didn't need any chilling. They stayed together quite well on the tray, ready to be topped off with an walnut.

The smell of cookies is in the air!! I should bake more often... 

It was way too cold to go outside for a picture so I had to actually clean off a table. Boo. 

Little chocolate clouds!

These are amazingly light and airy!! Adding baking soda and sour milk causes a cool chemical reaction which creates cloud cookies! I added chopped walnuts in addition to the one on top. For variety. It was too easy to eat too many of these. Just sit down and start snacking and soon the bag will be empty. The one change I would make would be to add mini-chocolate chips to the mix. I definitely felt that there wasn't enough nuts in the cookies but I think mini chips would be even better. Keep an eye out for an update!

My Rating: Keeper! Must try again with mini chips.

Dylan's Rating: Sooo good! Sooo light. I could eat the entire bag. Can I eat the entire bag?