Wheat Flake Nut Drops

First, thanks to Guido for scanning all the recipes in the last two posts. Now, about these cookies, they are easy to make but just "Okay" in the taste department. If it weren't for the nuts they would have been boring. When baking them it was also deceiving as to when they were done. They looked a bit raw but when removing them from the oven and touching them, they were firm and ready to be removed. The fact that the recipe called for two eggs may be why they had tiny holes in the finished product. The funny thing is that the best cereal to use in baking cookies are corn flakes but none of Betty's recipe calls for them. I know they had corn flakes back when she wrote the cookbook!!!

More RECIPES!!!!

RECIPES!!!!

Oatsies

This is a pan cookie of sorts. The base of oatmeal and sugar, basically, is baked until bubbly and then cooled. The cookie is then topped with melted chocolate chips and nuts. Sounds simple but the bottom never really set. After an hour I put the chocolate topping on as it was cool but not really firm and it was getting late. I put it in the refrigerator to hasten the process and when cutting it about an hour later, it still was not really firm. So, I put it back into the fridge for the night and this morning it still was sticky on the bottom. The taste is decent only because it is chocolate and anything chocolate is usually good. Would I make it again, probably not. I know it has been a while since we have posted recipes but will do so this weekend!

Oatmeal Drop Cookies

This cookie is designed to be very easy to make. If it were any good that would be fine. However, I really was unimpressed with the taste and the texture. They were easy, you just mix the ingredients in order and can even do it without a mixer, but they ended up somewhere between crisp and soft and will probably be too soft tomorrow. The recipe included ginger and cinnamon but it wasn't enough or the lack of vanilla was a problem. Anyway, I wouldn't waste my time or ingredients following this recipe.

Crunchy Nut Cookies

Yum! This is a recipe that I would definitely make again. They had a good nutty taste (I used walnuts) and were a nice combination of crispy and chewy....although who knows what they will be tomorrow. The recipe also made quite a few cookies so there were plenty for the UH group as well as the Ahn's next door. They only took about eight minutes to cook so keep an eye on them so they don't over brown. Also, the balls of dough are flattened using a sugar-covered glass bottom and if the nut is too large, you can't flatten them evenly. Use your fingers to flatten the areas the glass can't reach. The little bit of sugar left on the top gives them the crunch in the name!

Peanut thins

This is good recipe for peanut lovers. The dough is rolled out directly on the cookie sheet to make a 12" X 6" rectangle. After baking, the large cookie is iced and topped with chopped peanuts. When completely cooled, it is cut into small pieces. Making the peanuts stick to the icing was more successful with the first cookie and I am not sure why. Maybe its because I let the second cookie cool longer. With or without lots of peanuts on top, the cookies were good.

Another cereal recipe using Coco Puffs. This one also does not require baking but cooking the chocolate mixture that you pour over the cereal and then let it harden into balls. The last recipe that called for this approach was a disaster so I was a bit apprehensive starting this one. First, I cooked the mixture a lot longer than before and it worked this time or maybe the other recipe was just a dud. Anyway, this would be fun for kids to make. When making the mixture into balls, I just put my hands inside baggies with Pam sprayed on them and had no problem with the chocolate stuff sticking to my hands. The other tip is to really, really push the balls together firmly! I then got a bit creative and thought how much fun it would be to put several balls together to make a tree for the holidays. You could buy spice drops and stick them into the tree to look like ornaments or lights. People could then pick balls off the tree to eat...just a thought! I was going to attempt another recipe but then the washer started leaking and after several hours Guido was miraculously able to fix the water injector and save us having to buy a new washer. I am not in the mood to bake anymore today so check the blog tomorrow. Thanks for fixing my washer, Guido!!!!

Cherry Blinks

Sorry, forgot to blog after making these on Thursday! I am still in the cereal section and so used Wheaties for this recipe. Instead of being in the batter, you use the cereal, mashed up, to coat the dough balls before baking. Also, you put half a maraschino cherry in the middle which is what gives it the "cherry" part of its name. The recipe did not make lots of cookies which was fine since these were just okay to me. I probably would not make them again. The funny thing is, the best cereal to make cookies with is cornflakes and there are no recipes for that combination. Tomorrow I move to Coco Puffs.........

Fruit-Flavored Puffs

I am still in the family section and these recipes seem to all use some kind of cereal. This one called for "fruit-flavored corn puffs" and I had to improvise as I couldn't find Fruit Loops. I found Captain Crunch with Crunch Berries and so figured that the crunch berry part would suffice. Of course, that meant digging thru the box and separating the different types of cereal. What I wouldn't do for this challenge!!! Anyway, these are really just oatmeal cookies with cereal thrown in which gives them an interesting crunch and taste as well as making them more colorful. The cookies are very thin and crisp so you need to keep a close eye on them while cooking to get them out before getting too brown. Also, make sure to take them off the tray immediately or they will stick. They harden while cooling so don't worry if they seem undercooked. Now I have Cheerios and Captain Crunch to eat for breakfast!!

Molasses Cereal Patties

There is no picture, there are no patties.....this one did not work! I think it is supposed to be similar to rice krispie treats but using cheerios and a syrup that you cook with molasses and various other things. However, either I didn't cook it long enough or its just too humid in Hawaii for these to harden. I think it is the former since I even put the bowl of "glop" (that's what it looked like!) into the fridge and it never firmed to the point I could make it into patties. I thought about just eating the stuff straight from the bowl but it really wasn't that good..it's a no-bake recipe by the way. So, it is in the garbage and we are on to another recipe! The only good thing is that I had to buy Cheerios and I love Cheerios but would never buy them just to eat. So I have some good breakfasts coming up! The other funny thing is that Betty never uses a brand name (this was written in the 60's) of the cereals so you have to figure out what kind of cereal she is talking about. The descriptions sound so funny and I know Cheerios were around in the 1960's. I remember eating them as a child. Happy Veteran's Day everyone!!

Golden Carrot Cookies

For cookies, these are pretty healthy! The cookie part uses 1 cup of mashed carrots and not very much sugar. They are more like little carrot muffins, soft and easy to eat without icing. The recipe calls for them to be iced with orange icing and that gave them a real "tang" and made them sweeter. They are similar to the Orange Drop cookies from a while ago. I used fresh-squeezed orange juice in the frosting and also used raw carrots instead of the bagged mini-carrots as sometimes those have a "plastic" aftertaste. The only drawback is that they will get very soft by tomorrow with Hawaii's weather!

Alice's Oatmeal Rounds

This was a much better cookie night! Alice knows her cookies...these were easy and tasty! Very crisp and using a sugar-coated glass bottom to flatten the dough gave them a crunchy top. They actually tasted like an oatmeal /snickerdoodle combo cookie. I hope they are as good tomorrow so the UH gang and Bob and Trish get the full effect!

Malted Milk Rounds

I don't know how this recipe ever made it into the cookbook. It was a nightmare to make and was not exceptionally tasty after all the work. I really would like to have a word with Betty Crocker right now after having a frustrating evening! The first challenge was finding malted milk powder. It took four stores and, as usual, found it at Times which is where I never expect to find anything. The dough had to refrigerate all night, which I did, but it still was so hard to roll out and cut with a cookie cutter that I had to resort to alternate means. Even adding quite a bit of flour, it still was impossible to do according to the directions. So, I put teaspoons on the cookie sheet and then flattened them with the back of a glass dipped in flour. The resultant shape was not round but I really didn't care. They also did not take as long to bake, probably because they were a bit thinner than rolled-out cookies. Also, the recipe called for an ungreased sheet. Yeah, right! After scraping the first batch off the tray, I then washed it off and did all the following trays on greased sheets. The final component of these cookies was to ice them with malted milk icing. The recipe looked like it was going to make way more than I thought I would need so I only made 1/2 the recipe. This gave a nice spot of icing for almost all the cookies. The icing dressed the cookies up but I think made them too sweet--even Guido agreed with that conclusion!!! It took so long to make them that it was too late to bring them down to Alex so hopefully I will see Alex tomorrow before he leaves so the UH people will get some. OK..glad this night is over!!!

No cookies tonight!

Just to let the early blog-checkers know that I am not baking tonight! The cookies dough is made but needs to be refrigerated overnight and I didn't get home early enough to chill it and bake it. They also need to be rolled out(ugh!) and then iced so it will be a two-night job. So, look forward to Thursday. Also, I am so happy about Kirk getting into TWO med schools today ( Commonwealth and Tulane) that its hard to focus!!! Congrats Kirk!!!!

Monkey-Faced Cookies

Sorry that I didn't post last night...I headed to bed after finishing the cookies as I was tired! Thanks for the vote of support for the executive decision, Kristen!! I look forward to the help when you get home. About these cookies, they are the first in the "family cookie" section and are supposed to be great fun for kids as you put 3 raisins on each cookie and they are supposed to look like faces when they bake. After looking at one tray, I decided to just put the 3 raisins in the middle of each blob of dough and not to try and make them look like eyes and mouth and they came out looking better. You can look at the picture and decide! As for the taste, they are a crisp molasses cookie. Not the best molasses cookie I've ever tasted but I like anything molasses...will see how crisp they are today after a rainy night. One word of advice, the directions say to let them stay on the ungreased tray for a minute before removing but they firmed up so fast that they were hard to get off so I took them off immediately. The whole thing about the raisins making faces seemed kind of silly but it was fun to look at them in the end...kids would have fun doing this!

Wunder-bar Cookies

Since I didn't bake last night as it was Halloween, I decided to bake two kinds of cookies today. Also, the Lemon Snowdrops did not make many cookies so this way there will be enough cookies for the UH group! These cute, little cookies are easy to make and easy to eat. Nothing exceptional about them but a good addition to a tray of cookies. I just wished they had brought the Phillies a bit more luck! Tomorrow is another day and hopefully they put the Yankees in their place! I have also made an executive decision and will work around the next chapter which is holiday cookies. I will make the cookies for the appropriate day( for example, St. Patrick cookies on St. Paddy's day!) but don't want to be making Easter cookies in November! There are quite a lot of Christmas cookies so I will start on them after Thanksgiving to stay with the season!

Lemon Snowdrop Cookies

These are pretty, tasty cookies with a nice lemony flavor in the filling. The cookies are really just shortbread but the filling gives it the "tanginess." The filling actually looks and tastes like the filling in lemon-filled donuts. The recipe for the filling actually made much more than I used so you could either use more filling per cookie or double the cookie part of the recipe and make more cookies overall.