Tag: dessert

Raspberry Short Bread Cookies

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Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming, and I cannot wait. I know they are a little ways off, and Halloween has yet to pass. Still the excitement of the holidays and all the goodies involved with each are enough to get your mouth salivating for the future. Halloween has its candy and cookies. Thanksgiving has its turkey and pumpkin pie, and Christmas could mean many things.

Raspberry Short Bread Cookies are a treat I always equate with the holidays. Do you remember the little holiday cans filled with small tasty cookies? These are the cookies that I think about when I reminiscence about Short Bread. Remembering and celebrating good times with family and friends is what the holidays are all about.

Raspberry Short Bread Cookies are really not that difficult to make. After I got past the initial shock of the unconventional cookie dough, they turned out to be wonderful little additions to my friend’s birthday tea party that I mentioned last week. After mixing the main ingredients together, I saw that the dough looked like a graham cracker pie crust, except flaky. I started to think that something had gone wrong. I expected a more adhesive dough. The recipe says to mix until light and fluffy, but flaky seems to be a better description. Upon rolling the dough, it becomes more adhesive, and the expected cookie shape begins to form.

Cut them into strips as the recipe states, and you are well on your way. To create a crease for the jam to set into, I used my thumb and made a little valley. The recipe says to use a wooden spoon end, but mine was built differently. A clean dowel rod might work as well, if you have a big enough one available.

So remember, “The holidays are fast approaching. Be prepared with a new, fresh baked holiday treat.”

Check out the recipe here: Raspberry Short Bread Cookies

Photos are the Property of "The Cooking Carpenter" Copyright ©2012
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One Sweet Date Night

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“Oh, I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts, Deedly Dee! There they are all standing in a row.” OK maybe you won’t get this one unless you have children or are one, and I guess I am probably the latter of the two. Both Zazu and Rafiki sing this song from “The Lion King,” and it gets stuck in my head almost every time that I think of coconuts.

Movies are a great part of what I enjoy, including “The Lion King”, but it seems that sometimes it is the easy date choice. Every Friday for probably the last ten years, my wife and I have tried to make it a priority to have a standard date night. Sometimes they get routine by just going to a movie and having dinner. Not much conversation and interaction are involved when going to a movie, and I have been trying to think of more creative ways of enjoying time with my wife.

This last Friday for our date night we decided to make cookies for some of our friends and just spend some quality time together. We made Coconut Butter Cookies (this is where the coconut comes in) and Peanut Butter Cookies. It really didn’t take long to make the dough, then we realized that we had to refrigerate them for three hours. The Peanut Butter Cookies we could have made right away, but I like a chewy cookie. The recipe said, “for a chewy cookie refrigerate for 3 hours.” I decided to let them stand overnight, and we enjoyed the rest of the night together.

Both cookies are excellent recipes and are very easy to make. Do not let the wordiness of the one overwhelm you. It is an excellent recipe. We mixed each ingredient individually to get an even mixture and enjoyed the cleanup afterwards. After all you get to taste the cookie dough off of the bowl and spoon. It was fun, and we enjoyed being able to hand out the cookies to our friends.

So remember, “Have a sweet date night, and cook up something together.”

Recipes can be found Here:
Coconut Butter Cookies
Peanut Butter Cookies

What Makes a Cowboy Cookie?

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OK, so I have been on this Cookie Kick for a little while now. I am sure that the calories are going to make me look as round as they are, but I have been enjoying baking and eating them way too much if you ask me! My latest experiment is the “TEXAS COWBOY COOKIE,” and they are wonderful.

I am not sure as to what makes a “Cowboy Cookie” though, let alone a Texas one. I am guessing it has to do with a comment made in the recipe. It states, “Makes 24 Texas sized cookies or 36 Yankee cookies.” Yes I guess everything really is bigger in Texas, even our cookies. These cookies are also very hardy and will fill you up pretty easily. They are everything that you would want a cookie to be.

Be careful when you make them though. The recommended recipe, is enough for a large posse. You might want to cut the recipe in half for just the family to enjoy. You can adjust the recipe a little through the Bigoven website. I have enjoyed having them around though – with the emphasis on the “round”.

Even though I am from Texas, these cookies are as cowboy as I get. In other words, just call me a city boy! I do love a hardy cookie though; especially one with pecans, chocolate chips, coconut flakes, cinnamon, oatmeal, and a whole lot of flavor. The cinnamon really enhanced the flavor, inspiring a miriad of comments from friends and family.

Check out the recipe. They are easy! They are filling! They are wonderful! Remember, “The size of a cookie can bring a whole new meaning to the term round-up.”

Click here for Recipe!

UMMM! Magic Cookie Bars

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Magic Cookie BarsMost cookies could be considered magic – in my opinion anyway. Yes these wonderfully delectable pieces of heaven have captivated children “SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME.” Well I cannot say that for sure, but every child I have ever known would eat them until their stomachs hurt if they were allowed.

Magic Cookie Bars are no exception. They are made of graham crackers, butter, Eagle Brand condensed milk, chocolate chips, coconut flakes, and walnuts. They also have the variation of adding butterscotch chips, raisins, or cranraisins.

However, I have never seen this recipe with Peanut Butter Chips, and I cannot understand why. They add so much to the recipe, and I don’t always get into the butterscotch chips, raisins, or cranraisins. If you use approximately the same amount of total chips that the recipe calls for, in varying amounts of each flavor, then I think that these peanut butter chips are great additions to the recipe. Most of the people who ate them said that they prefered, and even really loved, the ones with the peanut butter chips in them. I highly recommend this variation!

A word of caution: the Recipe from the Eagle Brand Website, states to use parchment paper to make it easy to remove the cookies from the pan. This would have been great, but I came across two problems. First I immediately tryed to remove them from the parchment paper, and they were still too moist. This caused them to want to bend, so I left them in the pan for a while longer. After a bit of time, they did stiffen, but then they stuck to the parchment paper. This was an unexpected outcome that I think the condensed milk influenced.

It was not fun trimming paper off the sides of the cookie, but the bottoms slipped right off the paper. Unfortunately, with trimming the paper off the sides, I had to throw some of the cookies away too. That is like Cookie abuse. Oh well, at least I learned something from it. Parchment paper may be a good idea, but I will seek out a better way to do this. Stay posted!

So remember, “Trimming down, is a sticky situation.”