Erin's Secret Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chris requests these cookies more than any others. They are probably my favorite too-- thanks to Erin for giving me her top-secret recipe.

This time I made them bigger than usual:

This is true for lots of types of cookies: when you take them out of the oven they don't look all the way done sometimes! Take them out anyway and let them cook on the pan for awhile.

I delivered them to some ladies at Church!

Also this week... long story short, I had to bake the Date Picnic Cake again!

It turned out better the second time.

Nothin like Experimentin

An experiment... I wanted to bake cookies without going to

the grocery store, so I found a recipe and made these yummy jam cookies

Anyone recognize this?

I would make these smaller next time because I think they'd be

prettier if they were teeny, but they tasted delicious!

I made cut-out cookies with the rest of the dough

Billy Ann's Date Picnic Cake

I volunteered to bake this cake for a Relief Society activity this week. A woman in my ward is a very talented cook and shared this recipe.

Billy Ann's Date Picnic Cake

1 heaping cup pitted dates-- chopped

1 1/2 cups boiling water

1 tsp baking soda

Pour water over dates and add the soda.

Let stand until cool.

Cream together:

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup shortening

2 eggs

Mix well, and add the date mixture.

Sift together:

1 1/2 cups plus 2 tbsp flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

Add to the first mixture. Add 2 tsp vanilla.

Pour into greased 9 x 13 pan.

Sprinkle over the top:

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup chopped nuts

1/2 cup chocolate bits (Billy Ann says get the good stuff)

Bake 34-40 minutes at 350 degrees.

Soft Snickerdoodles

1 cup Crisco

1 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla

Mix well!

Add:

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

3 cups flour

Mix well again!

Here I covered my Kitchen Aid bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for a few hours while I went about my life.... You can also freeze it for 15 minutes... you just need the dough to be firm for rolling.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cinnamon sugar coating-- a 1:4 ratio of cinnamon to sugar. I used 1 tbsp of cinnamon and 4 tbsp of sugar, and it was plenty for one batch. Put the cinnamon sugar mixture in a shallow bowl. Make cookie dough balls about 1/2" to 1" thick... I like having almost-bite-size cookies, so I keep them pretty little. Coat each dough ball in the mixture and put 16, spaced evenly apart, on each cookie sheet.

Bake for 8 minutes. Let cool on cookie sheet for about 5 minutes.

Enjoy!!!

Spicy Cinnamon Cookies

A (sort of intentional, sort of not) variation of Linda Doeser's recipe in 1 Dough 100 Cookies (find it here), and a big thank you to Abby and Reed for buying me the book for Christmas last year! And the picture was taken from my phone, so the quality of the photo wasn't super... but the cookies tasted good!

1/2 cup Crisco

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 tbsp 100% pure maple syrup

3/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

Mix well!

I used my Kitchen Aid to mix these because I'm lazy.

Add these:

2 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

Mix well again!

Halve the dough into ovals and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Unwrap and roll out the dough onto parchment paper... I have almost no counter space so I use a cutting mat on my kitchen table as a rolling zone! Surprisingly, it is big enough!

Flour the rolling pin (before I had a rolling pin, I used an unopened jar of spaghetti sauce... for real) and the parchment paper/cutting mat! Roll out the dough until it is 1/4" thick and cut out cookies. I used a round 2" fluted cookie-cutter. Use a spatula to transport cookies to cookie sheet!

Bake for 6-7 minutes. (I am at high altitude, so times/temperatures may vary.)

Let cool on the cookie sheet for 5-10 minutes before transporting cookies to a cooling rack.

Drizzle Icing:

In a medium bowl, add hot water 1 tbsp at a time to 1 cup of powdered sugar. Mix until it is liquidy enough to drizzle! Pour icing into a ziploc bag and seal. Cut a tiny tiny corner off one side and drizzle over cookies! I did one layer going one direction and the other layer perpendicular. Pretty pretty cookies!!