snippy doodles

In a seemingly desperate state of needing something sweet I scoured my recipes to see what I could make with my limited ingredients (nearly out of flour and brown sugar) and came across this 'snippy doodle' recipe. It is light and fluffy and would be spectacular with some fresh pressed apple cider!

Snippy Doodle

Cream:

2 T. butter

2/3 c. suar

Sift together:

1 c. cake flour (I used all-purpose)

1/8 t. salt

1 t. baking powder

1 t. cinnamon

Mix:

1/2 c. milk

1 egg, well-beaten

Alternately add dry ingredients and egg mixture to creamed mixture. Spread thinly in a wax paper lined 9"x13" pan. Bake in 350 deg. F oven for 15 minutes. Sprinkle with sugar (about 1 T.) and continue baking for 10 minutes. Cut in squares. Serve warm or cooled. Yield 18 bars.

the $350 dollar chocolate chip cookie

If you've been somewhere on this earth in the last 50 years you have probably received some version of the $350 cookie. It usually comes with a sob story about how while dining at a restaurant the customer asks for the recipe of a rather delicious cookie. She is told it costs three-fifty and agrees and gets a copy. After receiving her bill she is shocked to see it is three-hundred and fifty dollars but because she has seen the super-secret recipe they won't take it off her bill. Her revenge is to circulate the recipe. Ha, ha! I've received this by email more than a decade ago and came across a mimeographed copy in an elderly relatives recipe file. I've been craving chocolate and this sounded like it might be a savior, so I decided it was time to see if it lives up to the hype. It is a very good cookie, but nothing I swooned over (of course I realized later I didn't add the white sugar, maybe that would make it swoon-worthy?). Have you tried this cookie? Do you think their is any truth to this urban legend?

UNION STATION'S $350.00 

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE RECIPE

1 c. butter

1 c. brown sugar

1 c. sugar

2 eggs

1 t. vanilla extract

2 c. flour

2 1/2 c. oats (powdered in blender)

1/2 t. salt

1 t. baking powder

12-oz chocolate chips

4 oz. chocolate bar, melted

1 1/2c. chopped nuts (I mixed pecans, hazelnuts, almonds, and peanuts)

Cream together butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla. In a separate bowl mix flour, oats, salt, and baking powder.  Mix creamed + dry ingredients. Add chocolate chips, melted chocolate, and nuts. Place dough (golf ball size or smaller) on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350° for 8 minutes. Yield: 3-4 dozen.

(I froze half the dough to make more cookies later)

Update:  I decided to bake the remaining dough in a glass dish because it is so thick and hard to scoop. It crumbled into chunks and is very good - almost like a fudge.

Cooking with Clara

I love these videos of depression cooking with Clara. I don't know if I will make any of her recipes but it is inspiring to rethink how we eat. They cooked their own bread, grew their own vegetables (and saved seeds from the veggies), and ate lots of potatoes. My grandmother, who passed away last year at age 93, served potatoes with every meal. Usually boiled in salt water. As a kid, I got in trouble for not knowing where our potato pan was (in fact we didn't have one and I still don't know what one is, but she thought it was preposterous that someone wouldn't have a potato pan). Learn more about Clara here.

Family Cookies

I made some yummy cookies the other day. I haven't had these brown sugar cookies in over a decade. The recipe was handed down to my grandmother from her mother-in-law and who knows it came from before then. The original recipe calls for lard, but I substituted butter. As a kid I was disappointed in these sugar cookies because they were not frosted and had icky nuts in them (or raisins). As a kid I didn't like that slight bitterness of nuts and really liked the super sweetness of frosting. My tastes have matured and I now find these cookies delicious (and frosted cookies too sweet). The brown sugar and the additional maple flavoring gives a nice flavor to this variation on the typical white sugar cookies.

Brown Sugar Cookies

Cream together:

1 c. brown sugar

6 T. butter

Add:

1 egg

1 t. maple flavoring (or vanilla)

Sift together:

1/4 t. salt

1/2 t. soda

1/4 t. cream of tarter

2 c. flour

Mix dry and wet ingredients together. Roll thin. Trim with nuts* + raisins (soak first) in center. Sprinkle w/ sugar before baking. Bake at 350 deg. F for 10 minutes. Cool. Yield: 40 cookies (~ 2" x 2")

* I used pecans, but my grandmother used walnut haves. 

My favorite cookies!

My favorite cookies are molasses. It seems everyone has a different opinion on what that is, but to me they are chewy cookies with a strong flavor of blackstrap molasses and a bit spicy. I have made many different molasses cookie recipes (a friend and I made a new recipe the night before the first day of term in grad school), but this is one of my favorites and will be well enjoyed by my friends and family!

Molasses Cookies:

3/4 c. butter, melted

1 c. sugar (white or brown)

1 egg

1/4 c. molasses

2 c. all-purpose flour

1 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

1 t. ground cinnamon

1/2 t. ground cloves

1/2 t. ground ginger

1/2 c. powdered sugar

1. In a medium bowl, mix together the melted butter, sugar, and egg until smooth. Stir in the molasses. Combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger; blend into the molasses mixture. Cover, and chill dough for 1 hour.

2. Preheat oven to 375 deg. F. Roll dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the powdered sugar. Place cookies 2 in. apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Chill unused dough while baking other cookies.

3. Bake for 8-10 minutes in the preheated oven, until tops are cracked. Cool on wire racks.