Salted Peanut Cookies

A couple of months ago one of my aunts contacted me and asked if I wanted two old cookbooks. Of course I wanted them! One is a typed community cookbook and the other is a green spiral notebook filled with handwritten recipes and clipped recipes from newspapers. My dad actually recognized the book from sitting on the shelf of his mother's old house. It is worn and a little water damaged but filled with interesting recipes. The handwritten ones are harder to read and follow the old recipe style: list of ingredients followed by 'mix and bake until done.' I'm not quite ready to tackle one of those! Instead I found a newspaper clipping of a cookie recipe from Ruttger's Lodge. Since I am dating a peanut addict, I thought I'd give it a chance.

Still not certain on the original date but I'm guessing it was started in the 1930's or 1940's and then continues through at least the 1970's.

A hand written cookbook and I decide to go with the printed recipe. But it is suppose to be 'good enough for Paul Bunyan.' 😀

Only had to get the cornflakes! (Now what do I do with a bock of cornflakes?) The most difficult part was hiding the peanuts from Dylan.

Ohhh...butter and sugar...yum!

Dump it all in and mix!

It's a very thick dough. I'm not certain the point of the cornflakes. I kinda feel like they are going to get either crushed or mushy in the baking.

Drop cookies are the best. Not just because they are the easiest.

These cookies spread! I'm glad I left plenty of room because they are large and thin. And they smell soo soo soo good!

These look so good! And smell heavenly!! You can actually see the cornflakes in the cookies. I'm surprised.

These were amazing cookies! Super easy to put together and bake and they tasted wonderful! It made a fairly large batch so you can share them (unless your boyfriend eats them all). I managed to get a couple out to friends before Dylan stole the bag. I might try chopping up the peanuts next time. Maybe. I enjoyed the large chunks of peanut. To my surprise you could actually taste the cornflakes and they added a great flavor and crunch to the cookies.

My Rating: Keeper!

Dylan's Rating: These are my new favorite!!

Oatmeal Molasses Cookies

Is it a guy thing to not ask for something directly and just hint at it? My dad does it. Dylan does it. Here's the conversation that lead to me baking these. 

We were in the baking section of the supermarket.

Dylan: Are oatmeal raisin cookies hard to make?

Me: No, why?

Dylan: They are my favorite cookie. 

...silence...

Dylan: Do we have everything to make them?

Me: We just need raisins.

...silence...

Me: Do you want me to make oatmeal raisin cookies?

Dylan: If you want to. (while holding raisins)

Me: Put the raisins in the basket.

And so, I made oatmeal raisin cookies. They are not my favorite cookie. I don't hate them and I'll eat them if they are free. I found this recipe in the 1951 edition of Cooking for Two revised by Sally Larkin. I have a ton of molasses, don't know why, that needs to be used. I didn't know if Dylan liked the taste of molasses but we will see.

Lots of sugar!

It doesn't call for creaming the shortening which is interesting. Everything just goes in together!

Everything except for the oatmeal...

...and raisins. This is thick dough. Mix thoroughly to make sure the raisins don't stick together.

These are drop cookies but I really wanted to shape them. 

These baked up perfectly in 12 minutes. I was concerned since it calls for a lower temp than I am used to. My kitchen smells amazing! This is why I don't allow scented candles in my kitchen. It covers the smell of deliciousness.

These were so easy to put together and bake! They taste heavily of molasses so if you don't like that you will not like these. I enjoyed them, as much as I can enjoy oatmeal raisin cookies. They have a nice amount of raisins. Not too much. Not too little. It also was not too oatmeal-ly. It did not taste like a dense, bland, breakfast bar. Yeah! Dylan loved them. 

The title of the book was correct. I had a couple and he ate the rest so...yep. Cooking for Two.

My Rating: Not bad for a cookie.

Dylan's Rating: "These are the best oatmeal raisin cookies I've ever had. Can we make them again? Can you teach me how to make them?"

Banana Drop Cookies

Despite the crazy one day of snow and the single obnoxiously cold day, spring weather is in the air. Daffodils are blooming! And it is time to do a little spring cleaning. Goodie. My house is too messy so I decided to tackle the fridge and freezer and what do I find?! Frozen bananas! So I took a break to bake. I really wasn't in the mood for breads or muffins so cookies from The Cookie Jar were perfect. Bonus: I found my missing mini chalk easels! And I think I need to work on my handwriting. In my defense, they are tiny easels and the chalk is huge.

 Looks super simple with no unusual ingredients. I used walnuts.

 I did not include the bananas in the picture. They looked really gross.

I love directions with a little bit of mystery. These instructions and directions were not well laid out. I am assuming that the nutmeg is part of the group sifted together with the flour. The mixture is quite dry.

 See, I told you the bananas looked gross.

These came together easily. I made them smaller to have more to share.

 My house smells like banana bread! So yummy! Yes, there is a missing cookie. So what?

These looks so nice! A pleasant change from all the holiday chocolate.

These are delicious little bites. A mixture of banana bread and banana muffin tops that you can pretend is a healthy snack. The spices are very subtle and you almost can't taste them at all. I would add more cinnamon and larger nuts. They were not quite as popular at my workplace as other cookies but people are "dieting." And they are chocolate fiends.

My Rating: Great and a unique way to use leftover bananas hiding in the freezer.

Friends and Family Rating: "These are really good! I hope you have more." "Yum!" "10 out of 10"

Frosted Oatmeal Cookies

I received this wonderful gift after the holidays, a cookbook that belonged to my great grandmother! It does not have a date in it.

 It is filled with delicious recipes including some I had never heard of before. I was going to wait until the holidays to make some but I got so many request for oatmeal cookies (so many!) that I thought I would go ahead and try one of these.

Oatmeal cookies are not my favorite but this one has icing so it might be okay.

Interestingly this recipe calls for the raisins to to be cooked and chopped with some of the 'raisen water' set aside. Mixing everything together!

Using milk to keep the cookie dough from sticking while flattening the cookies out. I never used milk before but it worked really well.

The finish!

These were great cookies! I actually really liked them and I am not a fan of oatmeal. Although it was mess to clean up, I liked the raisins chopped instead of whole. All in all this cookie has a less oatmeal feeling to it. It was more cookie and less like eating a whole bowl of oatmeal. And there was icing!

My rating: Keeper!

Friends and Family: "These are the best!" "The pecan was different but good."