a snowy day recipe.

Hi people!

I knew we would pay for having so little snow this winter!  And here it is… a significant amount of snow in WNY in late April.

Something about snowy days makes me want to bake.  Anyone else like that, or is it just me?

This is what I want to share with you – my recipe for these:

Oatmeal cookies with white chocolate chips and craisins.

I am not a huge fan of oatmeal cookies, especially store-bought ones.  For some reason, though, I love these cookies.  They are incredibly soft and chewy and I love that you can change them up adding different ingredients.  This is actually based off of the Quaker’s Best Oatmeal Cookie Recipe, with a couple of changes.

The BEST Oatmeal Cookies

2 1/2 sticks margarine

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

3 cups quick-cooking oats

(optional ingredients:  white chocolate chips, craisins, raisins, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, etc.)

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Soften butter.  Mix butter and sugars.  Add egg and vanilla and mix well.  Add remaining ingredients and mix.  Drop dough from a level tablespoon on a greased cookie sheet.  Bake for 10 minutes.

Happy Snowy Baking Day!

**pumpkin cookies with caramel frosting**

A couple of friends have requested this recipe… so here it is!

 

Pumpkin Cookies with Caramel Frosting

1 cup unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup canned pumpkin

2 eggs

1/2 tsp. salt

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, optional

1/2 cup raisins, optional

frosting:

3 T butter

4 T milk

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar (preferably dark but light will work)

1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

3/4 tsp. vanilla

Cream butter, sugar, vanilla, pumpkin, eggs, and salt in a large bowl.  In another bowl, mix flour, cinnamon, baking soda and baking powder; add to creamed mixture and mix well.  Add walnuts and raisins and mix.  Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 11-12 minutes.  Let cool.

To make frosting, combine butter, milk and brown sugar in saucepan.  Bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.  Let cool.  Stir in sugar and vanilla.  Beat until smooth and creamy.  Frost cookies. 

 

Hope you enjoy these as much as we did!!

Let me tell you about The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies I have ever tasted…

Wow.  That was a title, wasn’t it?  It was totally meant to grab your attention.

And now that I’ve got it, I will share with you an awesome recipe.  These are so, so good.  They taste like a cookie you might get from a bakery or coffee house.  And you can make them in your own home!! 

I have always used the good, old, Nestle Tollhouse cookie recipe.  Because I don’t like change.  But in this case, change was definitely good!  There will be no more tollhouse cookies in this house for sure!

So here goes.  And I really apologize.  To someone.  I got this recipe a while ago from some website.  I don’t remember where.  You see, I have this bad habit of copying down recipes from the internet on scraps of paper near my computer… and then I don’t actually try the recipe for six months… and by then I can’t remember where I got it.  So thanks, and sorry, to the awesome (nameless) baker who came up with this recipe!

Bakery Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups + 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

12 Tablespoons butter, melted

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 egg yolk

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 1/2 to 2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Mix flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.  In another bowl combine butter and sugars.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture and mix until blended.  Add chocolate chips.  Scoop six 1/4 cup balls of dough onto cookie sheet (I used an ice cream scoop and it worked well… you want these cookies to be large!!).  Bake for 15 minutes.

~enjoy~

P.S. Got a favorite cookie recipe?  Share it with me!