Butterfinger Cookies

There was another bartender birthday last week at Murphy's!  As I may have mentioned before, I love helping people celebrate their special day, even if it's just by baking something especially for them.  Frazier requested something containing either Reese's Pieces or Butterfinger, so I put my thinking cap on (yes, I seriously wrote that) and tried to figure out what to make with those two flavors...  It was, to say the least, a challenge. 

Let me put in a disclaimer that I know I don't have to bake every week, and that I'm aware that the people I bake for could care less what I bring in.  I know it, I really do. I know this is all self-imposed.  I'm competitive though, and despite the fact that there's no one to compete against AND no real prize, I look forward to it and that's what's important.   That and I like being able to try new things out on a willing audience.  Anna is a good sport, but there's only so many baked goods I can force on her before she threatens to move out and I'm left without a roommate and have to leave the beautiful house.  I can't have that happen.  So I bake for other people.  But back to the issue at hand...  Frazier's birthday!   

Cake cookies are always popular but, since they're so easy and I've made them before, I didn't feel they were quite special enough for a birthday treat.  I found this recipe on Tasty Kitchen, and decided to make two kinds of cookies because nothing says "Happy Birthday!" like two kinds of cookies with lots of candy in them.  True story.

Naturally, I didn't take any pictures.  But both of the cookies went over really well.  I was concerned that baking would change the texture of the candy, which was part of the reason Fraz requested those two types, but thankfully that didn't happen.  The chocolate cake cookies with Reese's Pieces were crunchy, and the Butterfinger cookies managed to retain the stick-to-your-teeth texture that so many people (though not really this girl) love about the candy.

Toffee Sandwich Cookies

I have a lot of toffee left in the house from making cake cookies and my friend Allison, who invited me to go to a concert with her this past weekend, happens to love toffee.  I wanted to do something different, one can only eat so many cake cookies, so I turned to Tasty Kitchen.  If you haven't checked it out yet, you really should.  The site was started by The Pioneer Woman and, like most of what she does, it's amazing.  I've already mentioned another recipe that I found on the site, and it didn't disappoint when I looked for something to do with all the toffee I had in my kitchen.  Here's a link to the original; I followed it exactly and was not disappointed. 

This picture doesn't do these little babies justice, they were incredible.  Quizmaster Devin definitely downed three of them without taking a breath, and that's high praise.  I won't lie though, these were better on the second day.  Something about the flavor of the cream working in to the cookie really complemented the toffee.

I took these on a road trip to San Antonio with Allison and Nicole this last weekend; Allison's wonderful boyfriend Michael snagged some sweet tickets to the rodeo/concert and was nice enough to host all three of us crazy girls.  We had such a fantastic time; shopping at La Cantera, eating at Jenny's every chance we got, singing along as loud as we could to the Eli Young Band...  These cookies were definitely a nice treat after we got back from our adventures.     

Oatmeal Cookies

They're gone, the holidays are over.  I've found it difficult to get back in to the routine of going to work and being productive.  There's just something about the holidays and not working a full five-day week in the office until the end of January that really messes with my ability to concentrate.  Funny how that happens.  Anyway, the scatterbrain even extended into deciding what to bake, that never happens to me! Finally, on Thursday, inspiration struck.

You see, after every holiday the candy that goes along with it is put on sale.  I'm not so much a sucker for candy corn after Halloween, or Necco hearts after Valentine's Day, but after Christmas they put M&Ms on clearance!  Who doesn't love that kind of thing?!  Anyway, I bought three different kinds of M&Ms (dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and mint) for half price, then there was a ton of Christmas candy, and even marshmallows left over from the holiday festivities.  The endless possibilities flooded my brain and suddenly it was Wednesday night and I still hadn't made a decision.

For some reason, after getting an H1N1 immunization (it was the nose thing instead of a shot, free and I didn't even have to wait in line so I figured it would be a good use of an afternoon), I felt inspired.  I would make oatmeal cookies with various mix-ins.  I knew I could use the rest of the toffee bits from the chocolate cake cookies but wanted to have another option, just in case.  I myself have yet to decide whether or not I like toffee, so people should have options.  "What people?", you ask?  I don't know what people really, since it's not like I bake for a demanding audience, but just in case someone was picky?  I really enjoy the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies at Potbelly, but didn't have any chocolate chips at the house so I substituted my discounted M&Ms (don't judge).  The substitution sparked some discussion because I wasn't sure if the candy shell would interfere with the texture of the cookies.  I honestly don't know why I worry about these things, it's a stupid cookie, but I'm weird like that.

I used the oatmeal cookie recipe in my Baking Bible.  Seriously, that's the title of the book.  It's pretty amazing and for the life of me, I can't find any more copies of it. It's part of a series of "bibles" that Barnes and Noble carried for a while and, thanks to my working at a B&N College for far too many years, I was able to snag one for a ridiculous deal several years ago. 

Ingredients

1 1/4 Cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 Cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 Cup granulated sugar

3/4 Cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 Cups quick or old fashioned oats

Mix-ins: I used about half a bag of M&Ms for half of the dough and about 1/3 of a bag of toffee chips for the other half.

Preheat oven to 375. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a small bowl and set aside.

  In a large mixing bowl beat butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla until combined.

Gradually beat in the flour mixture (rather pretty, isn't it?). 

Stir in oats and mix-ins.  Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 7-8 minutes for chewy cookies, or 9-10 minutes for crispy cookies.  Or, if you have a crazy oven like mine, check the cookies after 6 minutes and remove them from the oven only to find that they are crispy.  Let cool on cookie sheets for 2 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. 

These ended up being pretty good, even Anna wasn't terribly opposed to them and she said she's not generally a fan of oatmeal in cookies.  I think she may be converting to a sweets lover, if only just a little bit.

Chocolate Cake Cookies

A few years ago, when I was still living in a dorm room and didn't have a kitchen of my own, my friend Julie brought me cookies for the holidays.  She was much fancier than I was, and lived in an apartment off campus.  Because she's a nice girl, she included the following recipe with the delicious cookies. 

Ingredients
1 box of cake mix
1 stick of butter, softened to room temperature
1 egg

I can't even tell you how many times I've made these cookies since then.  As with the Ice Cream Cupcakes, this recipe can be done any number of ways depending on what flavor cake mix you buy, what kind of mix-ins you add, or even what frosting you top them with so go crazy!  They're so easy and the texture is amazing.

One thing about these though...  In the early stages of mixing, the dough (especially when you're using chocolate cake mix) looks like dirt.  No really, every time, I get convinced that I don't have enough moisture in the bowl and that they're going to be terrible.  Want proof?  

Told you.  Anyway, just don't worry about it, keep mixing!  It'll turn out fine, promise. 

In the original version, Julie used yellow cake mix, blue sprinkles, white frosting, and then piped blue snowflakes on the cookies she brought me that first time.  Festive, no?  I've made them with yellow cake and pink sprinkles for a party for Shelby.  More recently I made a chocolate version, half of which were topped with leftover peppermint frosting and the other half had toffee bits mixed in. 


Before I frosted the plain cookies, Anna was able to try one and declared them her new favorite cookie.  You have no idea how much of an accomplishment this is.  My roomie doesn't enjoy the sweets, she's more of a savory girl, so for her to proclaim the plain chocolate cake cookies the best baked good I've ever made is pretty significant.

Caramel Apple Cookies

I usually don't like making cookies.  They always seem to take such a long time and I often discover that I've left them in the oven for too long.  When I saw this recipe, I can't remember where, I was instantly interested in the flavor combination.  Who doesn't love caramel apples?  After putting off making these for several weeks I finally made them and, after some initial disappointment, I think I got it right.  Here's the recipe, with a few tips I used to make things go a little more smoothly. 

Ingredients
1 C butter
1 C brown sugar
1 C white sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
2 C flour
2 3/4 C old fashioned oats (not quick cooking oatmeal)
1/2 t salt
1 t baking soda
12 oz. caramel baking bits (I couldn't find caramel baking bits so I bought a bag of caramels and cut them up)
2 C Granny Smith Apples (this ended up being two regular sized apples)

In a large bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy.  Add the vanilla and egggs, beat until combined.

Measure oatmeal into a food processor and pulse until ground finely.  In a medium-sized bowl, stir the oatmeal, flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda until combined.  Set aside.

Peel and finely chop the apples.

Using an electric mixer stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture until combined.  Stir in the caramel bits and apples.  Refrigerate the dough for an hour (after making an initial batch, I froze the dough overnight and the next batches were considerably better).

Roll the cookie dough into balls, about golf ball size and bake on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet in an oven preheated to 350 for 10-12 minutes.  Cool the cookies on the pan for 4 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

These cookies spread like crazy and the caramel escaped (and burned) in the first batch.  They were considerably more successful after I froze the dough, much less spreading and the caramel held up a little better in the hot oven.  I also thought the flavor improved after freezing; much more like a caramel apple.

Zebra Cookies

I came home for Thanksgiving on Wednesday to spend time with my family.  We're really close and always have a good time with each other so I've been looking forward to the holiday for a while now.  One of my favorite parts of the holidays is getting to spend time with my three year old niece, Shelby.  She's so sweet and it's been amazing to watch her change from a little blob to a real person who talks and has opinions.

On Thursday, Shelby found a cookbook that my mom used with my sister and me when we were growing up.  It's from Gold Medal Flour and, even though I haven't seen it in a while, when she showed it to me it brought back a lot of memories.  It's called Alpha-Bakery and has a different recipe for each letter of the alphabet.  Shelby flipped through the pages and stopped at Z, Zebra Stripe Cookies.  She asked if we could make them and I told her that, because it was still Thanksgiving Day and she had another meal to eat, we would try to make them on Saturday.

Saturday came and it was decided that after my mom, Dominique, and I finished shopping we would pick Shelby up for baking and a sleepover.  We picked her up, got back to the house, and set about getting all of our ingredients out.  Have you tried baking with a three year old?  It's tough.  Keeping her focused was an issue but Dominique and I managed to let her help as much as possible while still getting the cookie dough together.

The recipe was easy enough, but the instructions for making the stripes weren't very good.  After a couple of tries, Dominique managed to figure it out and we were in business.  Here's the recipe with what I'm pretty sure was the method Dominique devised for the striped dough.

 

 Ingredients:
3 C all-purpose flour
1 C granulated sugar
2/3 powdered sugar
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 C margarine or butter, softened
1/4 t salt
1 egg
1/4 C cocoa

Mix flour, sugars, vanilla, margarine, salt, and egg until dough forms.  Divide dough in half, mix cocoa into one half.  Pat or roll each half into a nine-inch square.  Cut the cocoa dough into thin strips and lay on top of the plain dough, make sure to press the strips firmly into the dough so they bake in to each other.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled, 1 to 2 hours.

Heat the oven to 375.  We didn't much feel like cutting zebras out of the dough, so we used cookie cutters to make shapes out of our striped dough.  Shelby was in charge of picking which cookie cutter we used, so there's an assortment.  Christmas angel, Texas, gingerbread man; it's a mixed bag.  Put the cut out cookies on a cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes.  When we ran out of space on the dough for cookie cutters, we just smushed the left over dough together and made marbled cookies.