It's All About Friends...And The Cookies

Holy Ingredients!

2010-04-30T22:53:00.002-04:00

The results are in, we not only baked our way through this cookbook but by the tightness of our pants we really ate our way through it! Here is the breakdown of ingredients used over the last 2 and a half months by baker. This caloric count does not out weigh the amazing taste. I would do it all again. This just puts what we bought and ate into some sort of prospective.

Zucchini Chocolate Bars

2010-04-29T19:53:00.004-04:00

This cookie bar surprised me. I read zucchini and coconut and wondered how it would come together. Marvelously indeed.

To recap my last day baking will be a delight. The sun is out and I made my final decent to the grocery store for what I thought was all I needed. Zucchini and eggs. My errands were done and it was just me and my clean kitchen, clean apron and pearls ready to get started. I am surrounded by fresh flowers, my favorite candle was lit, as well as my favorite music was kickin. The only thing was to pour a glass of wine. Yes I know it was in the middle of the day, however it was what Julia would have wanted me to do. Be surrounded by everything I love while enjoying the process.

I looked over the recipe 2 times and thought the only butter I needed was a melted part at the end. I was wrong. I actually started laughing about this. How many times did this butter thing get me. Whether it was putting it out in advance or measuring the right amount. I will never think of butter the same way. Oh and the most important item it asked for was shredded zucchini. So I pulled out my processor and proceeded to shred my 2 cups. After looking at this slaw like pile I am concerned how this cookie bar is going to taste? Then I read, to place a handful of grated not shredded zucchini in a paper towel and wring out the moisture. I started rethinking, am I supposed to grate or shred. I took another zucchini and began to grate it. You probably already know what happened to that. It pretty much turned into water. I decided to stick with the shredded and hoped for the best.

The rest of the mixture was a breeze, until I came to the chocolate chips. There isn't a time that I haven't had any in my kitchen an there wasn't a recipe out of this book that I recall that I needed any. But today I'm out, so compromise it is. I had semi sweet chocolate pieces that I chopped and it worked perfectly. Then on to the glaze, wouldn't you know it calls for a cup of confectioners sugar and I only had 1/2 cup left. I quickly grabbed my half full measuring cup, with apron and pearls on, ran to do the old fashion task aan ask the neighbor?, "Can I borrow a 1/2c. of sugar?" Thankfully my sweet neighbor, has everything on hand, and helped me out in pinch. Last recipe down and it smells de vine in my kitchen.

How can I wrap up the rest of my thoughts about my journey in one paragraph? This adventure has been one whirl wind of an experience. I have learned more baking tricks, own more cookware, and have a huge appreciation of what Sharon and Theresa have accomplished in putting this book together. So many little details to help us bake in their shoes. My grandma would be proud. She baked everything from scratch and always used the same yellow Pyrex mixing bowl for all of her creations. When she passed away it was the only thing I asked for of hers. Each time I pull it out I think of her and how much she would have loved to be with me during this journey. Thank you for helping me recharge a bowl that has primarily been used for just chocolate chip cookies. I am signing off on the completion of "It's all about the Cookies", with a big smile! I will be posting one more surprise tomorrow afternoon. So tune in for the last of the last blogs. As for now, Happy baking to all and may your kitchen light up as much as ours have. Angie

Spumoni Slices

2010-04-28T23:41:00.017-04:00

Spumoni Slices are an overnight cookie, so I prepared the dough while watching the Wings win game seven last night – GO WINGS! I sliced and baked early this morning. I briefly saw each of the Julia’s or their families today, yet, didn’t give them their cookies. I figure if I held onto them, then my bake day isn’t officially over until midnight or delivered.

Funny how one crazy, spontaneous comment, “we could bake our way through the book” (and one twist of the arm) turned into a three month long project that everyone knows is really not about the cookies but the friendship behind it. Thank you Sharon and Theresa for being so receptive!

Today, I sat at the computer a couple of times trying to put my emotions into words. I found myself scribbling a few things on paper today. I’ve been the classic procrastinator just because I didn’t want this to end! In the beginning, blogging was addicting. Couldn’t wait to check comments or how many hits the blog had or what my friends had to say. My middle child does the best impression of me receiving a batch of cookies from the Julias. He has this high pitched “OMG, OMG” with hand gestures and all. I will miss those special deliveries as well as the laughter it brought my life. We have a lot of friends who were following us but not “official” followers...thank you for all the kind comments and laughing along with us. I am happy our guest bakers got to experience the fun we were having.

Looking back I am proud of what I accomplished, pounds and all. I got through two bouts of playing single mom while my husband was away on business, a month long old-fashioned “hand” washing & drying dishes until our broken dishwasher was replaced, conquering my beloved hand painted Sour Cream cookies, the laptop accident, three kids’ birthdays and spring schedule adjustment. After it all I am still sane and smiling!

What I gained besides the obvious (pounds), great love & admiration for my girlfriends and authors and more laughter than a girl deserves, is the confidence to experiment baking in the kitchen and the drive to create the time to do so.

What I look forward to now, after a short baking hiatus, is experimenting with cupcakes (thanks Angie) and other desserts (especially with photos to tell the story), planning my holiday cookie platter, cultivating creative ideas, saving up for a professional camera and replacing my baking time every fourth day with running. I also look forward to being the founder of the “cookie de-tox” society starting after Angie’s last cookie tomorrow!

This journey has also given me the blogging world. I am now obsessed with baking blogs and their pictures that make me feel like I can touch, smell and taste the decadent creations they share. During this time, I have begun a family journal blog just for our eyes that documents fun and special times in our family. It is my replacement for scrapbooking that I could never seem to stay current or at least in the same decade.

This project has shown me that nurturing friendships (which I’m not the best at) really creates an extended family that is always there for you. Thank you ladies for the amazing experience, being so game, and the willpower to see it through to the end! A special thanks to our husbands and boys for letting us bake continually for eleven weeks, blog and have to listen to the ups and downs of every minute of it. It will make good conversation for years to come especially around the campfire. You are the best taste testers!

Thirty years from now when I am still putting on my apron and pearls to bake for my grandchildren, I know that a flood of memories will wash over me remembering this special time in my life.

What I owe my girlfriends, at the very least, is the ability to play a good game of Euchre. Sigh..It’s time to learn!

Thanks for the fun, laughter, and memories,

Love, Love, Love, Phoebe

Raisin and Almond Biscotti with Orange

2010-04-27T23:13:00.002-04:00

Where do I begin? Well, my first recipe in this project was biscotti and my last recipe is biscotti. Does anyone remember me asking what blanching almonds meant? And I wondered if Sharon would notice. I still laugh when I think about Angie telling me to read the tips in the beginning of the cookbook! I had to blanch almonds in this biscotti recipe, also. I now know what it means and also know that Sharon would have noticed! How far I've come!

Let me give you an example (or two) of how far I've come. I was hosting a family birthday party for my son, Cole, on Sunday. I was expecting company at 3:00 p.m. At 1:00 p.m. I realized that I hadn't baked a birthday cake. So I went to my pantry to retrieve a box of chocolate cake when I realized that I was out of chocolate cake mix! What was I to do? I could run to Kroger and pick up a box, or...I knew that I had all the ingredients that I needed to make one from scratch. What do you think I did? That's right, I made my son's 8th birthday cake from scratch! I pulled out my Betty Crocker cookbook and chose the recipe for Best Chocolate Cake. It probably took only 5 minutes longer to mix up that cake batter than my usual Betty Crocker cake. Was it worth it? Well, I amazed myself. However, half of the people at the party liked it better than a box cake and half like the box cake better. I have to admit, I was one of those that voted for the taste of the box cake. I guess I need to find a better Best Chocolate Cake recipe!

Example number two. Yesterday I saw a note on our family calendar that said "Need cookies" written in my husband's handwriting. When I asked him what that meant, he said that he volunteered to bring cookies to work for a baby shower to be held at lunch. He has been very supportive throughout this whole process. Instead of being irritated that I had to bake cookies on a very busy and non-baking day, I was actually touched that he wanted me to bake cookies for work! So, from 10:30 p.m. until midnight, I baked TWO (not one) batches of oatmeal cookies for him. Before you give me too much credit, I did have the base of the oatmeal cookie left over from the Basic Oatmeal Cookie recipe. Still, I baked THREE days in a row! Sharon, Theresa, you've created a monster!

The best part of this journey was not the cookies, or the six pounds that I gained by eating all the cookies. It was the excitement of reading the comments on my blogs. It was getting to know Sharon and Theresa and my friends better though those comments. It was the Easter Bunny delivering cookies at my door. It was talking, laughing and seeing my favorite people everyday because of the cookies. It's a bittersweet ending for me. I'm glad that I don't have to bake again unless I want to. But I am also sad that it's over.

Time for a new project. I still think the Friend and Cookies calendar is a good idea!

Lots of love!

shelly

Pineapple Pecan Cookies

2010-04-26T16:55:00.002-04:00

How is it possible that this is my last cookie ?? I have been thinking all day about how to start. It seems simple enough...get out the ingredients, mix em up, and bake. I found it was not happening for me. I put on my pearls and apron and decided to get started. When I went to get out my butter for softening I realized someone in my house put an empty butter carton back in the fridge. I called Angela to borrow, rather than make a trip to the store. (on a side note I have gone through at least 8#'s of butter since this has started....that's a lot.) Once I was back home after a bit of chatting, I started assembling my ingredients. Everything was going smoothly until I hit a minor snafu. The recipe did not say when to add the pecan pieces, I looked at the picture and it looked like the nuts were in the batter so I added them at the end (hope this was correct) and chilled my dough. I could not find pineapple filling at the store I was at so I opted to make my own filling. Piece of cake (or cookie if you prefer). I opted not to put the coconut on because I do not care for coconut, so a little deviation on my part. The cookie is delicious. I love the cherry, pineapple, and nuts all combined.

When this all began it was hard to see what we would gain from this experience (Well the extra pounds were easy to imagine, did I mention 8 pounds of butter?) First off I can honestly say I probably would have never pulled out the cookbook except to show it off to friends. I began this endeavor as a non-baker and can now happily say that I am a baker and not afraid to try anything new (in the baking department that is.) I want to thank Mom and Theresa once again for all of the love and time you guys have put into our cookies over the years.

I knew before this that I had amazing friends. After this is proves just how amazing. All of our guest bakers just jumped right in and helped out if we needed a hand. Thank you. My Julia friends are wonderful women, mothers, and wives . No matter what any of us had going on ( you can tell from our posts that there was a bit) we never dropped the ball on one another. The fact that we made this commitment to each other and stuck it out shows the true meaning of friends. I feel so blessed to have such great gals in my life, and can't wait to see what Phoebe cooks up for us next. Thanks for taking the time to enjoy this with us and I hope everyone had as an amusing time as us reading our experiences.

One more thing as Cameron and I were delivering cookies for the last time he came up with what he thinks is an awesome idea..........we should change the rotation and go through the cookbook one more time!!! What do you think Shelly??

Danielle G signing off and thinking how much I am going to miss cookie visits :( Thanks again friends.

Nutmeg Cookie

2010-04-25T21:40:00.004-04:00

Dejavu, I feel like I did this last night minus the blog. I can't believe this is my second to last cookie to blog about and I am speechless! This cookie was even faster than the last I baked. This recipe called for fresh nutmeg but due to the busy weekend I opted for pre bottled nutmeg. If I had more energy today I would have made the trip to the store. But convenience won out.

Mixing the dry ingredients was a breeze. then it called for the butter, egg, and vanilla. In haste I put them in with the dry ingredients instead of pre mixing them seperatly. I think this is why my mixture was alot dry and did not melt down the the way the picture shows. I had to give them an little pat mid way through or they would have come out like green little balls. Good news is they taste great. I will deliver both sets tomorrow. Have a great day and I will be back in 4 days with my final blog. The best part of having these daily deadlines is that it keeps me accountable. I will miss this....

Angie

Orange Filled Meringues

2010-04-25T02:04:00.008-04:00

Oh what a busy, fun, fun day it has been. All of the Julia children were able to be together to celebrate a couple of their birthdays. A kickball party, a surprise party and a sleepover were in the mix today along with the regular baseball practices, soccer games and Science Olympiad practice too.

About 6:30pm, I dropped off my oldest son at Angie’s home for her son’s birthday sleepover. My son was so excited to celebrate his friend’s birthday but I wasn’t so sure that he’d want to wake up at his buddy’s home on his birthday which is tomorrow (today actually). What was I thinking, he loved that idea! That speaks volumes to how he feels about his friendship and their family. So it was a win-win for everyone. Angie had planned a special breakfast for my son to make him feel special and I had a little something from us to open in the morning. And you know that I planned on picking him up earlier than normal in the morning as I just didn’t want to be away from him for too long on his birthday.

So back to the drop off, really, I only intended to do a quick drop off and back home to bake, bake and bake. I still had his birthday cake to make too. But there is something about Angie’s home and before you know it, you are engaged in conversation, cocktails and laughter. As I really was leaving this time to go home and bake, Angie suggested that it would be fun to bake together so that’s what we did! We shared ingredients and we split up the tasks of preparing the cookie. I already had my almonds blanched from earlier in the day (I ran home to get them). I worked at the food processor while Angie mixed the wet ingredients. When it was time to mesh the two sets of ingredients together I just dumped it into her bowl while she was mixing. We put it into a pastry bag to pipe and it just drizzled out of the bag without any control. We end up with just a plain mess. Apparently, I still don’t follow directions well because the recipe clearly states that the dry ingredients should be folded into the wet ingredients and not mixed. Folded is a key step. I was really quite content with our mess and thought that we made a good attempt and that this one just didn’t work out. There’s nothing to say we had to get it perfect, we just had to try. Well, Angie was still going strong and convinced me that we need a do-over. So that’s what we did but this time we skipped the almond blanching step (you’d never know) and proceeded to correct the step where we went wrong. Folding the ingredients together made all the difference in the world. The batter was a nice thick texture that was very easy to pipe keeping its form. I redeemed myself! Thinking back, we didn’t wait an hour for them to settle as the recipes suggests¸ we just stuck them in the oven and baked.

The filling was a cinch to create. The cookies turned golden brown and looked great. We were just waiting for the cookies to cool so we could fill/sandwich together.

That was about 11:20pm and my son was almost in tears because he suddenly wasn’t feeling well. Oh, no! We rushed to gather his belonging, said our quick good-byes, thank-yous, apologizes and got him home in bed. It’s one of those times where you feel terrible for every aspect of the situation. As sad as it makes me, I really am a firm believer that things happen for a reason. This reason must be that he was meant to wake up in his own bed on his birthday!

I didn’t get a chance to taste the cookies, but Angie finished assembling them and snapped the pics. Baking together tonight really gave me a sense of what Sharon & Theresa have fondly experienced together over the years. I think all of the Julia’s need to bake together someday because that would be entertaining! Phoebe

Millionaire Shortbread

2010-04-23T22:54:00.003-04:00

TGIF!

I spent a wonderful day with the Julias today. We went out to lunch and spent the afternoon browsing around Leon & Lulu's in Clawson. Such fun!

I started my recipe first thing this morning. I woke up, walked into the kitchen and put my can of sweetened condensed milk in a pan of water and left it to boil. Let me explain. The recipe called for heating the milk in a pan until it became thick and a light caramel color. Well, I can remember my mom making caramel out of sweetened condensed milk when I was a kid. She would put the entire can, unopened, in a pot and cover it with water. Then she would boil it for an hour or so. When it was cooled, she would open the can and it would be thick caramel. So, I thought I would give it a try.

I didn't get back to the recipe until after returning home from my day of fun with the girls. (Just as I opened the garage, the school bus pulled up-how's that for timing?!) I put together the shortbread crust recipe. This is like the third time I've had to make a shortbread cookie and I still am not comfortable with it. There is hardly any wet ingredients in the mix. Anyway, I baked my shortbread and let it cool while I ran an errand.

Back from my errand and time to open the can of sweetened condensed milk to see what's inside. Thick, sweet caramel. Delicious enough to eat right out of the can! Is it thick enough? We'll find out.

After letting the caramel layer set for a while, I added the chocolate layer. The directions said to cut it before the chocolate hardened so that's exactly what I did. I then put the whole pan into the fridge to cool it faster. When I went to take a piece of the cookie out of the pan to take a picture...well, let's just say that maybe the caramel wasn't thick enough. Or maybe it needs to cool much longer. I guess we'll know tomorrow. (I may be delivering this cookie to my friends in a bowl!)

I'll post a comment, or a prettier picture if the cookie cooperates, to let you know how it turns out. Have a great weekend!

shelly

Marble Brownies

2010-04-22T21:54:00.003-04:00

Happy Thursday. This has been another crazy, busy day. It started with chess club this morning, then off to work, after that we had a practice event at the junior high for our school district for science Olympiad. It went well. Home at 8:30, dinner, showers, and baking. I was not sure I could get it all done today but I was not going to drop the ball with only two cookies left. It is now 10:00 and I am done with two hours to spare.

I have never made a brownie from scratch, it was not nearly as hard as I would have thought. I do believe I may try this again. The recipe was different than anything I have baked before. I was very leery of melting my butter in a saucepan with 3/4 cups of water (and chocolate) it just seemed odd, but it worked just fine. Another thing I have never been able to accomplish is the whole marbling thing, in the past I have always played with it to much and ended up blending everything together. I am proud to post my picture of the wonderful marbling that has been done today :) The flavor of this brownie (cookie) is very good. The only thing I am not sure about is that my chocolate chips did not melt and I am not sure why. It is still yummy (especially if you get a bite of the chocolate chips). Ta Ta for now see you on Monday for my last blog. It makes me very sad to type that actually, who would of thought??

Danielle G.

P.S. You guys will get your cookies tomorrow on the field trip. Looking forward to it.

Holiday Macaroons

2010-04-21T23:13:00.002-04:00

I am back in town and had a fresh start this evening. This is the first cookie that I had to buy just about everything because I had none of it on hand. However going to the grocery store at 6:30 to retrieve my ingredients, having dinner (prepared by my dear husband), mixing, baking and delivered by 8:30 sounds incredible doesn't it!. I know, it doesn't even seem feasible but I even had short conversations with my girlfriends in between deliveries!

I did have a few follies in the blending stages that I will share. First off I did not read the recipe from beginning to end. I briefly scanned it to see if it had butter that needed to be put out. It did, 1/2c. which for those of you who would like the short cut, it means 1 stick of butter! Anyway that was this morning, fast forward to this evening. I began as I normally do, pulling out the ingredients and putting them in the corner where I do most of my mixing. This is also known as the busiest corner in the house. The garbage, the sink and the stove within a foot of each other. So I start with the first item, crushed pineapple. The cookie tip says to make sure to drain very well. So I put on the pressure. Somehow the lid folded flipped and threw a few chunks of pineapple into my sink all the while hiding, buried below the remaining pieces in the can. On to Plan B, I put the pineapple into a strainer and gently put pressure on through a spatula. It worked.

Distractions where at a level orange. My youngest was to the left of me, putting dishes away from the dishwasher, my husband to the right of me heating up leftovers and trying to have a conversation with me. My oldest was in and out of all of us trying to set the table and get to the garbage.

Back to mixing the ingredients, it asked for 1/2c. of unsalted butter melted. Right then I realized probably didn't need it to soften today. However, just to make sure I re-look at the butter equivalents. In hast, I see 8T of butter equals 1/4c. auugh! I'm a 1/4c. short! I go to the fridge all I have left is 4T of unsalted and 4T of salted. I use them anyway. But something stopped me from melting them at that point. Maybe it was the questions of where does this go, is this the right answer for math, should I make a salad as well? Anyway I re-read the butter equivalents. This time I see 8T. = 1/4 lb. or 1/2c. (lightbulb moment) I pull the excess butter! Everything is blended, and now I just need to sift the flour and powdered sugar together. Yes I know this sounds as odd to me too after the fact but a tsp. of powdered sugar I add. Then back to reading the recipe and I now see that it actually called for baking powder? OOPS I figured it wouldn't hurt.

These were small errors, but lesson learned here. Always READ the whole recipe before you start, it will save you time in the end. This being my 3rd to last cookie, and I am still learning valuable lessens! Each day is always a new experience. Have a great day today! Angie

Coconut Orange Madeleines

2010-04-20T15:03:00.002-04:00

It almost happened to me…when I woke up I didn’t realize it was my bake day! Danielle delivering for Shelly yesterday is probably the reason for my throw off- lol! This cookie is so quick that I could have easily whipped it up at the last minute but luckily I realized before the kids left for school.

This recipe requires a Madeleine pan which I do not own; however, the recipe suggests that a mini muffin pan will work just the same. Good for me. However, Theresa’s picture of her cookies is much cuter and more delicate. The mini muffin tin really doesn’t do this cookie justice.

It is another easy recipe to prepare. What I especially like is that every ingredient requires a different measuring cup or spoon so there was no washing or sharing sizes making the process quicker.

The cookies, which look like muffins, taste great. This recipe did not take 5 hours to bake. Just minutes and if I had more muffin pans the process would have been even shorter. I did go to the cake decorating store, as I needed birthday cake decorations, and did not find a pan. If I did, I would have made a second batch. I yielded 2 dozen even with the muffin tin and can’t wait to share with the pearl girls. BTW, we are again in another birthday boom – 4 more boy’s birthdays between us (one in each family) in the next 10 days. Happy Birthday “DJ”!

Another great day of baking, Phoebe

Extravaganza's

2010-04-19T18:57:00.007-04:00

Well it is 7:10 P.M. and I am still wearing my pearls. I traded my apron for a fresh cup of coffee. I thought I would enjoy my favorite beverage while I shared my guest baking experience.

I started at 10:00 A.M at Krogers to buy my preserves. I blanched and peeled my almonds yesterday.

I felt very extravagant using my new food processor that came with three bowls. I did not have to wash a single processing bowl while I worked. Modern technology is a beautiful thing. The cookie was relatively easy. I did two batches and therefore it took considerably longer because I had to wait for my square pan to cool in-between batches. The recipe said it yielded 2 dozen squares and I wanted to try some different preserves as the filling, thus the two batches. I used cherry preserves in the first one. I pureed the preserves because cherry preserves come with whole cherries in it. I thought it would be smoother and easier to spread if I pureed it and that was the case. The next batch I used strawberry preserves. Danielle liked the strawberry better and I have to agree. Let me know what the rest of you think.

I never realized how much time one batch of cookies takes. When I do my baking I assemble all the doughs, refrigerate the ones that need refrigeration and perhaps bake one of the five I might be working on at the time. I bake the others when I can get to them. Today I was packaging at 3:15 to get ready to deliver at 4:00 with my dear daughter. That was 5 hours for one cookie recipe. I could never have gotten children to school, worked at school, cooked dinner and do all the other volunteer jobs you darling pearl girls are involved in. My admiration was 100% for all of you at the beginning of this and now it is 500%.

Thank goodness Danielle had me for dinner tonite I don't think I had enough energy to think about that on top of my deliveries.

Shelly thank you for allowing me to guest bake. I would have never known this aspect of the blog adventure.

I close my blog tonite in awe of The Pearl Girls and your other guest bakers. Our would certainly is a better place because of the wonderful women you all are, your beautiful friendships and the future leaders you are doing a fabulous job raising.

Love and Admiration, Sharon

Black Forest Cookies

2010-04-18T19:32:00.002-04:00

This is the kind of day I love!! We have been so busy lately it has been difficult to squeeze in the baking. Our chess clubs big tournament was yesterday, we helped set up on Friday and were back at 8:oo a.m. yesterday morning. It was a very busy day and all of the kids had a nice time. After the tournament we brought four extra boys home with us to play. My boys stayed with Grandma and Grandpa last night and Kurt and I had a much needed date night (thanks Mom and Dad). So I woke up this morning with nothing on the calendar except for one science Olympiad practice, and Black Forest Cookies to bake. It was wonderful to not have to rush and stress about the baking. I went to the grocery store to get the two ingredients I did not have on hand - dried cherries, and dark chocolate. I have to admit I was shocked at the price of dried cherries so I cheated a bit, one bag dried cherries which is about a cup and one jar of maraschino cherries. This recipe went very smoothly and the batter was very yummy! I thought it was going to be to rich for my taste and was pleasantly surprised. The one thing I did discover is that I am not a fan of dried cherries, they are much to bitter and tart for me. I think in the future when I make this one I will use just maraschino cherries.

Danielle G.

Orange Chocolate Pinwheels

2010-04-17T22:13:00.004-04:00

Angie’s away on a business trip so I am baking for her today. What I have in common with Angie and the rest of the Julias is the extreme sport of breeding boys.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the German Chocolate cookies (noted by the authors as the easiest recipe in the book) but fortunately I didn’t get the Lemon Meringue Tarts either. Anything with the word meringue is complicated. I know this because my mom could never figure out how to make my grandma’s “puffy cookies” after she passed.

Anyway, Angie emailed the recipe to me at work yesterday. I read it quickly and was relieved to find out I had all the ingredients at home, including a zesting tool. Pretty impressive for a non-baker, huh? But what I did need to buy was some good baking sheets. The ones I have are warped, discolored and only good for heating frozen food. I also figured I needed a little somethin’-somethin’ to impress the Julias. So I used Cote D’Or Orange Noir chocolate from France. I just happened to have some in the house because a friend had brought me some back from her recent vacation in the south of France. I thought the orange flavor would enhance the zest already called for in the recipe. Plus the smoothness of this chocolate would make my cookies way more decadent than if I used baker’s chocolate.

I started mixing ingredients at 9:00pm last night since we had to be at the chess tournament all day today. But because I had to refrigerate the dough after every step I still wasn’t finished at midnight. I decided to go to sleep during a “chill” phase and finish in the morning. It wasn’t until 5:00am that I discovered my brand new, professional grade baking pans don’t fit in my oven!! Bleep! I baked the cookies anyway and delivered my samples to the Julias who were all at the tournament today.

A lot of cursing and not a lot of sleep- this is why I don’t like to bake! However, if I take a step back… I helped a friend out in a jam, supported two women’s dream by getting a cookbook, brought smiles to my husband and kids, brought back memories of my grandmother, blogged for the first time, and got to know each of the Julias a little better through the whole experience. For me, the experience was really not all about the cookies….

Thanks girls for giving me the chance to be part of your story!

Theresa

Austrian Raspberry Shortbread

2010-04-16T22:52:00.012-04:00

I was patiently waiting to make my first bar cookie since I just love every one of them. Austrian Raspberry Shortbread, just love that name, calls for the dough to be frozen and then grated in a food processor. Whoa put on the brakes….did I read that correctly? Grate frozen dough??? Well, the recipe also offers it to be grated by hand in the absence of a food processor. That sounds like…work! So I put my trust in my like new food processor hoping it could handle this job.

So last night I mixed my dough together sampling it way too many times. This just attests to the deliciousness of it! I rolled the dough into two long logs, wrapped them and put them to sleep in the freezer overnight.

Today, I put my food processor to the test and it didn’t disappoint! It just flew through the frozen dough grating it into small soft pieces that didn’t appear frozen at all. That goes into the bottom of a 9x13 pan, spread with raspberry jam (I was very generous) and top with the rest of the grated dough. Pop in the oven and forget about it for 45 minutes. Sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar as is comes out of the oven.

This recipe is another testament that simply just reading a recipe can seem overwhelming and perhaps get skipped over; however, when the baking process is broken down into a couple of steps, over a day or two, then it really becomes quite simple. The proper kitchen tools are also essential in making the baking process successful without much effort and tremendous results! I truly feel like a baker now and am very pleased that I had the opportunity to try such recipes. I will be bringing this recipe to many future gatherings. Funny how something I thought I would have never attempted now has plans to be baked over and over again.

Shortbread snacks at the tournament tomorrow boys…and parents!

A great day of baking, Phoebe

Orange and Rum Pizzelles

2010-04-16T09:17:00.004-04:00

Good morning! Forgive me for not posting yesterday. I tried to post last night, but I was having difficulty getting my pictures to be where I wanted them in the post and it was becoming very frustrating. They are not lining up where I want them now, either, but this morning I can live with it for the sake of getting something on here. After all, it's the cookie that matters-right?

I have been looking forward to making this cookie for months! I was so excited when I saw that it landed on my schedule. The flavors looked wonderful to me and I love pizzelles. I never had them growing up. As an adult, it is the first cookie I choose on a platter of cookies.

My boss (she knows who she is) told me to make a double batch so that's what I did. I emptied out my flour and sugar canisters and the little bit of rum I had but it was all enough to make the two batches. Putting it all together was a breeze because I am an expert baker now. This recipe called for sifting the flour and baking soda together. That did not even stump me because I have a sifter! Imagine that. I don't think I've ever used it but taking it from my mom 10 years ago now has a purpose!

Thanks to my friend, Sandy, for lending me her pizzelle maker. I wanted to make the thin ones and she has the machine for both. It took some getting used to and my son, Jake, was right by my side eating all the scraps that came out of the first couple of tries. Unfortunately for him, I got the hang of it. Again, it was my melon baller that saved the day. It measured out the exact right amount of dough. I think that tool has been the most useful in my entire cookie experience. To think that I've never balled a melon with it!

The cookies do not disappoint! They are heavenly with the orange flavor and crispy texture. I may have to invest in a pizzelle maker! Until then, I'll have to be real nice to Sandy so she lets me borrow it!

Happy Friday!

shelly

Nut Balls

2010-04-14T22:02:00.002-04:00

Happy Wednesday!! It has been a very busy day here but that isn't anything new. Lots of Science Olympiad practices coming up. Our big event is only a few weeks away. I read my recipe yesterday and made the mistake of thinking this is an easy one, no prob. It was easy, just not early as I had planned. I was sure I set my butter out to soften this morning, I was going to run to the grocery store for the only ingredient I didn't have which was the 2 cups of nuts. I ended up talking to Shelly and before I knew it it was time to go to school for our bugs practice. (For anyone interested I am Cameron's coach for one of his events called "Don't bug me") So off to school I go, then to the grocery store with all of my coupons (thanks Bargains to Bounty:), and home to mix my batter. Once home I realize my butter has not been sitting out so it could become room temperature, it is still very chilled in the fridge. Thankfully my microwave has this wonderful button to soften butter so I did that. Mixed all of my ingredients and was ready to start forming balls at ten til four. Then I realize the dough has to chill at least an hour, so in the fridge it goes. The boys came home we had dinner, then I realize I do not have time to bake because both boys have practice for Science Olympiad at 6:30. Out the door we go, dropped one off at school to shoot rubber bands and the other one at Phoebes to study mammals. Then off to the Onyx Ice Arena for a friends sons hockey game. Back to pick up the boys and finally home at 8:30.

Time to start baking. The rest could not have gone smoother, I could fit almost 30 balls on a sheet per time so only three rotations of cookies. Rolling in the powdered sugar was a bit dusty(thank goodness for my super cute apron:) Once I had about 10 cooled I took my picture and now I am going to go back and finish. Ladies don't leave chess club without your cookies in the morning!!

Danielle G.

Bohemian Nut Slices

2010-04-13T23:37:00.003-04:00

Well I'd have to say if I didn't miscalculate 3/4c. of butter for 3/4 stick of butter the first batch would have come out pretty good. However I did the latter. I considered adding more butter but I had already pushed this dry train wreck a little to far. Out with the old and a few hours of waiting for that darn butter to soften. Once I began it took less than an hour.

The egg white mixture with nuts is outstanding I just hope mine taste better than what the picture shows. Yes I could have done a lot of things better however when your on your second batch perfection goes out the window. I also didn't use all my filling and even admitting that I still over stuffed oops! They just came out and I can not wait till there cool due to time constraints. Keep your fingers crossed the girls like them. I may have not used enough filling or I may have not rolled the dough fine enough. All in all great taste but you difinetly need a cup of milk for my batch. I would really like to try yours Theresa I think they would be much juicier!

See you ladies tomorrow. Angie

Gluten-free Peanut Butter Cookies

2010-04-12T23:09:00.004-04:00

My spring schedule just kicked up triple notches. With three kids finishing up their winter activities this month and each starting a sport this week, I am bound to mess up a time or two. So if I end up at the wrong venue with the wrong kid, please forgive me, if I forget to bake on my day, please forgive me, if I don’t post before midnight, please forgive me, if you don’t get your cookies delivered, please forgive me!!! Getting uniforms washed, ALL of the equipment packed and kids to their destinations on time is considered a successful day for me. I don’t do it all alone. I have an amazing husband who divides and conquers with me. It’s all good and I’m happy to do this for my kids because someday I’m going to miss this!!!! Like most kids, they have huge dreams and it’s my job to keep the dreams alive! A special thank you to all the friends and family who help us out carpooling or watching my children, you are also helping them achieve their dreams (while keeping me sane)!

So I am really proud of the fact that I am still eager to bake with all of this going on around me. Today I made Gluten –free Peanut Butter Cookies. Well, almost! I didn’t have all-natural peanut butter on hand so I used regular peanut butter and good to know they still turned out awesome! It is nice to see alternative recipes as there are so many people with food restrictions now that I’m sure this cookie is a blessing to some! However, feeling a little guilty that I didn’t get out and buy the necessary product so my girlfriends could taste what this cookie represents, I started to rationalize that they probably would have made them without the all natural peanut butter anyway. I am just showing them how great they taste with the product they already have on hand.

I really like these kinds of cookies. Just throw all the ingredients together at once and mix. Adding chocolate chips and coconut at the end finishes off the batter. The batter is a little heavy but not too hard to handle. I love the softness of this cookie and the combination of peanut butter, chocolate and a smidge of coconut flavors this cookie just right. Extremely delicious and make sure they are accompanied with a tall glass of milk! Yum! Phoebe

Bishops Bread

2010-04-11T19:28:00.003-04:00

We left the cottage this

afternoon about 1:00 and I already had had a full day. The cottage needed some t.l.c. since I had not been there in 7 months. So yesterday we put the boat in the water and spent the next four hours doing yard work(happily because it was 70 degrees and beautiful) This morning we got up and I started spring cleaning the bottom floor of the cottage. Bathroom, family room, and kitchen. We hit the road and drove home. I did not feel like going to the grocery store for ingredients and then baking. I knew I had to persevere. So after a quick shower off to the store I went. This is a more expensive cookie because of all of the different ingredients which are awesome. I knew from reading the recipe it was going to be very flavorful and it is. It has Maraschino cherries, walnuts, sweet German chocolate and dates. I did not have exactly 2 cups of dates so I added about a 1/4 cup of raisins to fill in. I also realized as I was mixing that I used 2cups of cherries when the recipe only called for 1&1/2 cups. Thank goodness it did not do anything horrible. When it was mixing it did have the consistency of bread dough. I was worried that I was going to have spillage on my jelly roll pan, but I did not. It firmed up nicely and stayed a thicker consistency as you can see from the picture. They are a very tasty cookie with wonderful strong flavors. Thanks again Shelly for switching days with me I appreciate it. So I will chat again Wednesday. Til then.

Danielle G.

Sour Cream Pastries

2010-04-10T22:34:00.006-04:00

I can't tell you how apprehensive I was about making this cookie. If you haven't figured it out by now, I like things easy and simple, with little room for failure. Over the past few days I have been watching my girlfriends successfully tackle cookies that looked WAY too complicated for me. I was so thankful that those recipes didn't fall on my days! I looked at the list of ingredients a few days ago for the Sour Cream Pastries and bought what I needed. I didn't actually READ the recipe until this morning. The first thought that went through my head was "Oh, crap!"

I remember Theresa demonstrating this cookie at the book signing. Sure, she made rolling the dough out into a perfect circle look easy but I was wise enough to know that she's been making this cookie forever. I don't bake pies and have never made a pie crust in my life. Visions of irregular shaped circles and dough sticking to every surface filled my head. However, there was only one thing to do...get started.

Mixing the dough was easy enough. I don't have an electric stand so I did it all by hand. I'm a pro at cutting the butter with flour because I've had to do that for another recipes in the book. Once the dough was done, into the fridge to chill for a few hours. At least I had some time to psych myself up for the task.

I do remember that at the demonstration Theresa was using a Tupperware Silicone Wonder Mat that has the circle measurements on it. Wouldn't you know, I have one of those! I bought one for my aunt for Christmas about 5 years ago and picked up one for myself, too. Hardly ever used it before I started baking all these cookies. So out it came. I also have a long wooden rolling pin that I got from my husband's grandmother who used to do quite a bit of baking back in the day. Can't say I've ever used it.

O.K. You see my picture. You know that I was successful at making this cookie, so here's where I am going to skip to my lessons learned: 1. rolling the dough out into a circle wasn't that hard with a little time and patience. (Notice I didn't say "perfect" circle.) 2. Figuring out how to make 12 sections out of that circle was way harder than I thought it should be! I think I need a lesson on geometry! 3. If using the right tools, anything is possible. The rest was a piece of cake thanks to the fact that I've made Pillsbury Crescent Rolls a few times in my life.

There are a lot of baking recipes that I have wanted to try over the years but ultimately wouldn't attempt because certain steps looked complicated and overwhelming to me. So I really never baked ANYTHING except cake and brownies from a box. Through this process, I am learning that most of the time, the difficulty lies in my head. Also, because I am committed to making these cookies, I am forced to do it and give it my best effort. In the future, I hope to get myself to at least try a recipe and if it works out, good for me. If not, I'll scrap it and find another.

By the way, I ate a warm cookie just out of the oven and I must say, DELICIOUS! For those of you that don't have the cookbook, did I mention that these cookies have apricot preserves, walnuts and coconut in them!

Until Thursday! shelly

Tri-Colored Almond Slices

2010-04-09T12:34:00.003-04:00

These are so fun and colorful. The green layer reminds me a little of pistachio while all three together remind me of ice cream!

Lets see, pretty uneventful process. No electrical failure, no laptop drop, no missed ingredients and no spill over! This is a good day and its Friday. The only disaster is my kitchen sink which I will tackle later. Something new, I have never worked with almond past before. For those of you who have FYI, it now comes in a tube in a box. It is quite thick to work with so when I blended the paste with my sugar, I put it in my food processor with the dough blade and it made it much easier. (Side note: make sure you blend well as the almond paste once blended does not really break down any more.) Then back to my original bowl with the rest of the ingredients and hand mixer.

As you can see, I decided to give you a picture prior to cutting into squares in fear mostly they would fall apart. I think Theresa"s picture in the background shows you the size while my photo is the step right before. The only thing I changed was trimming the sides prior to the chocolate drying. I figured if I waited the chocolate would crumble off the sides. It worked out. The trimming pieces are a great treat in the end.

On a last note, my children keep me smiling when its baking day. They have 3 styles, totally invovled from batter to clean up, somewhat invloved- ask to help out on a task or two, and not invovled at all except the frequent pass by to see how it is going and tell me how delicious it looks or smells. My favorite today was when my middle son came by to try the trimmings. He grabbed a bite looked at it started to walk away then realized how good it tasted and came back for more. The best part was as he walked away the final time he looks over his shoulder and says "Bon appetite!" I instantly thought of Julia and how this all started. After I replied back, Bon Appetite!" in Julia Child's accent, a feeling of accomplishment came across my mind.

Have a great weekend and see you in 4 days. Angie

Sugar Crisps

2010-04-08T23:09:00.004-04:00

Sugar Crisps took me back in time. As a teen I often would make cinnamon tea rings, soft pretzels and braided breads all involving yeast. However, I didn’t have the baking bug today! I procrastinated till late afternoon making the dough knowing full well it would take at least four hours for the dough to rise in the refrigerator.

Before I got around to baking this evening, the kids and I all treated ourselves to a Lemon Thin Shelly dropped off. While I was enjoying the cookie, I used my free hand to open the lid of my laptop. The keyboard also lifted up with the lid and next thing I know, the laptop is falling off the half wall and crashing down a flight of stairs. Screams of horror…total silence (thinking what just happened?)… too paralyzed to move…deep, deep breaths! The conclusion is it has some aesthetic damage but it still works. The question will be for how long? It is only two months old. Trying to count my blessings as my children were giving me “at least we weren’t in a car accident” and “at least it wasn’t one of us falling,” etc.

Then I had to bake.

As the recipe suggests, work fast as the dough will get too soft to work with. That’s the truth. I was not working all that quickly as my mind kept replaying the awful moment of the computer falling. Twisting the Sugar Crisps was getting difficult with the soft dough so some of them didn’t turn out as pretty but they still taste delicious. Love the sweet crispness.

I’ll let the pictures finish the story. I quit for the night and will bake the rest tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a better day! Phoebe

Lemon Thins

2010-04-07T22:58:00.003-04:00

Here's the story. At 10:00 a.m. I started to make this cookie-honest! I was just about to mix my dry ingredients into the mixture when the power went out. My son, Cole, was watching me and wondering how I was going to mix up the dough without my electric mixer. The boys and I just had a conversation the other day about how people lived without electricity. They thought it would be impossible! Well, I showed him! I got out the wooden spoon and started using manpower. I was feeling pretty good about the lesson I was giving him that life does go on without electricity. The batter was mixed up and I was ready to bake. Then Cole wondered how I was going to bake the cookie without the oven. Yeah, he got me there.

I called Angie to see if she lost her power since she lives so close to me. Her power went out for a minute and blinked right back on. Angie offered to pick up my batter and bake the cookies for me because I had guests visiting from out of town. She's so sweet! However, I felt that since her power came right back on, our power would be on soon.

Fast forward to 3:30 p.m. I am saying goodbye to my company and hustling my boys out the door for dentist appointments. Still no power! Danielle G. invited us over to her house for dinner since I couldn't cook. (Thanks again, Danielle!)

Well, the power was on by the time we arrived home at 9:15 and I got started on the cookies right away. It took a couple of batches to get my cookies flat enough to be considered "thin". I was very generous with the lemon zest in the batter and on top of the cookie so you can really smell and taste the lemon. I think this recipe is one that will be repeated!

shelly

Almond Crescents

2010-04-06T09:44:00.006-04:00

Boy is it nice to be home. Our first trip without kids in 10 years. I have to say leaving your children and dog is more difficult than I thought it would be, but we had a nice time and Kurt bowled well. I was nowhere near a computer for four days and I really missed my friends and our blogging(and the kids and dog). You guys as always did an awesome job. Thanks again to Sandy for taking over for me and doing a beautiful, tasty cookie.

Well nothing like a little diffuculty to get me back into the swing of things. As you can see from the pictures Gavin took immense pleasure in grounding up our almonds. Cameron took part also but he's not into having his picture taken anymore. As I was reading my recipe I was wondering how I was going to get 7 dozen cookies out of such a small amount of ingredients. I was not able to, I must have made them to big. I think it made 31 cookies, and mine did not puff up pretty like Theresa's, they were very flat when they came out of the oven. The cinnamon and sugar makes them look much prettier. So all in all a very easy recipe with very few ingredients, the longest part was forming the half moons. The almonds make it a nutty, tasty treat.

My next baking day is Saturday and we are going up north to put the boat in the water!! This has never been done before the kids are out of school and we are excited. So I will either bake on Friday or Sunday. Maybe Angie or Shelly will trade with me??

Danielle G.

French Lemon Squares

2010-04-05T19:50:00.003-04:00

Piece of cake! I think, the only thing I did not have on hand was the eggs! Easter robbed me of them all. I think mine could have cooked a little more however I was afraid to burn the tops. So out they came out after the 20 min. My only question, what is the significance to mixing for 10 minutes? Hope you all enjoyed them. Sorry for the short post however I am going back for a little lemon treat. Happy Easter. A

White Chocolate Chip Dreams

2010-04-04T21:38:00.003-04:00

As predicted, I lost some sleep over baking and blogging. I was up late last night baking cream cheese bars and crepes for morning breakfast to go with the coffee that I’ve given up for the last 40 days. As soon as the clock hit midnight, my pot of coffee was perked and ready for a midnight swig but it wasn’t as good as I remembered! Perhaps, that’s an indication that my bad habit may be kicked!!! Technically, I baked on Easter Sunday since it was after midnight. My philosophy was if I was going to dirty my kitchen, I was going to do it all at once.

Next it was on to making White Chocolate Chip Dreams. This cookie calls for orange zest and white chocolate chips. I really, really love the orange flavor. It makes this cookie outstanding and I could have eaten the entire bowl of cookie dough. The white chocolate chips give it that oh, so sweet flavor. I know next time I need a cookie fix, which will be quite sometime after this venture is over, I will whip these up just for the yummy dough. The recipe is easy to follow and no sudden disasters occurred early Easter Sunday with every store closed. I think my cookies turned out great.

Drizzling the white and dark chocolate over the cookies was successful. I have always bought the specialty candy pieces from the cake decorating store but this recipe called for chocolate squares found at the grocery store. This new tip will save me an extra trip in the future. Sandy graciously lent me her small squirt bottle to drizzle the chocolate. This worked well but sometimes I would get an air bubble that would cause me to lose the continuous line of chocolate. I also wanted to experiment with the baggie technique too. I was able to get out most of the air thus eliminating the air bubbles. I found the difference between the techniques is in the amount of chocolate that was being released. The bottle had a wider opening so I used triple the amount of white chocolate required. I snipped a super small hole in the baggie to drizzle a fine line and had left over dark chocolate. In my opinion, it’s just a matter of preference. I like how beautiful the drizzle makes these look. I just may do this topping on traditional cookies to give a little pizzazz!

I had my sweet Easter Bunny making personal deliveries with me today. The only problem that we did have was getting the cookies to their destination without the topping melting some. He had to leave two deliveries on porches and hopes that your cookies didn’t turn out too messy. Angie, we hope those two beautiful dogs next door didn’t get to your cookies first!

I admire that Theresa’s daughter, Catherine, created this recipe. Apparently she has inherited the baking gene! Lucky her!

Now it’s off to bed to snuggle with my little Easter Bunny. Happy Easter, Phoebe

Acorn Cookies

2010-04-03T23:56:00.004-04:00

Happy Easter, Friends. I hope everyone is enjoying this special day with family and friends, lots of food, and of course, cookies!

I had every intention of getting my cookie done early in the day. In fact, I set my butter out last night so that it would be at room temperature and I wouldn't have to wait. Well, I don't know how it always happens, but the day slipped away from me. I was enjoying the nice weather early in the day and went shopping once the rain started. The next thing you know, it's 6:00 p.m. and I can't bake because the Spartans are playing in the Final 4. With their loss, boo hoo, came my deep depression which put me off baking for a while. Finally, around 10:30 p.m. I made my way into the kitchen and slipped into my apron and pearls. Instant pick up!

This recipe has very few ingredients so it only took minutes to mix it together. It took a little longer to make 50 little balls, and even longer to try to make them look like acorns. Theresa is an artist because I don't think mine resemble acorns very much-even after 50 tries! Maybe once the chocolate and nuts are on them they will look more like acorns.

As I sit here and wait for the cookies to come out of the oven, the Easter Bunny has arrived at our house and I'm watching him hide eggs everywhere.

The cookies are out of the oven and the house smells so good! I've prepared a few cookies for the picture and popped a few in my mouth. These cookies are dangerous because they are little bite size temptations!

I love the leaf plate that Theresa used in her picture. I don't have anything like that but I do have a bunch of leaves that I've pressed over the years. It's an obsession for me to pick up colorful leaves in the fall and press them. I've been doing this for at least 10 years and have never used the leaves for anything. Now I know my collection had a purpose!

Well, I may have to decorate the rest of the cookies in the morning since it is now 12:30 a.m. and I know it will be an early morning at our house tomorrow!

shelly

Lace Cookie

2010-04-02T15:38:00.005-04:00

Hello, Ladies-when Danielle G. asked me to sub for her the day she had to make the "Lace Cookie", I thought, sure. This cookie requires no mixing and the ingredients seem simple enough. Little did I know what an experience it would turn out to be. The procedure of making the batter was rather easy. All on top of the stove in a saucepan. After lining the baking sheets with heavy duty foil, I was ready to drop my batter by 3/4 spoonfuls. (Here's a hint if you ever make these...the cookie batter spreads on the cookie sheet before baking-you kind of have to be quick.) Once the cookies were done, they cooled for a good 15 minutes. Carefully peeling them away from the foil was not an easy task. I used a special spatula to finally reach that goal. They are very delicate. So many of them cracked or broke at that time. Uniformity also went out the window. Some turned out larger than others, you will see. The next step was to simply drizzle them with the melted mixture of sweetened condensed milk, chocolate and finely ground walnuts-which, as stated, were optional. Of course, I integrated the nuts into the recipe, trying to get a product exactly as shown in the picture. I had the bright idea to put the chocolate mixture into one of the ketchup bottles that I just happened to have, and go on to drizzle them so perfectly. Ever try funneling before? Big mistake! What ended up happening was the nuts were not as finely ground as I thought so they would get stuck in the hole atop the dispenser. It was really comical to witness the chocolate mess I had going. I was panicked. Nino...can you please help me figure out how to drizzle the chocolate? (It was now 10:30, Thursday night...yes, I was cheating and baking prior to Danielle's actual day.) Problem being, the mixture started to harden as it sat out. He concocted a baggie with a slit and started some artistry work. Uh-oh. They looked terrible. The chocolate was globbed here and there and most of the designs looked like a capital "S". I surely didn't want you to think that I marked each one with my initial, and I realized that I cannot give these to the ladies looking like this. Well, I remade a batch today. They seem more uniform than last night's. The chocolate mixture is missing the nuts. I was not going to try that again. I also found a smaller squirt bottle (for lack of a better word) in the Chocolate Factory Kit" I've had for years, but forgot that fact last night. The drizzling is much more appealing. I also tried to sprinkle finely ground walnuts over the chocolate mixture, to no avail. They just wouldn't stick.

These cookies are delicious. Light and crispy and very chewy. I did enjoy making them both times. The old saying "Third times a charm" will be motto If I ever attempt these again. I kind of consider myself a semi-pro.

Enjoy, and Happy Easter!

Sandy

Chocolate Crackles

2010-04-01T22:46:00.004-04:00

Good Evening, I had to work all day, pulling into the driveway at 8:30 this evening. My wonderful husband helped me out by being my last minute guest baker for tonight. Here is his journey for the night...

For over 40 days I've listened to how much chaos it is to pack kids school lunches, get them out the door, and get the ingredients together to make and bake the cookies that will be discussed in this blog. As my lovely wife was working, I had the pleasure of experiencing the "art" of baking the Chocolate Crackles. Not only was this enjoyable, it was therapeutic. The art of slowly adding ingredients at the exact moment while keeping the kids full of healthy snacks made me realize how much I should stay at work. Throw in the fact that I had steaks burning on the grill and two more boys being dropped off to spend the night, it's a miracle that we are able to blog this early in the evening. All kidding aside, these are the best cookies I have ever made and I certainly enjoyed participating - JR.

Thank you Jack, these are like mini brownies but with a twist. The two of us have eaten at least 5 each and that can not be done without a cup of milk. Thank you! so good! Angie

Thimble Cookies

2010-03-31T22:44:00.004-04:00

What a beautiful glorious day it was today! It’s even better in my house since I got to bake Thimble Cookies and the smell is amazing. Nothing better than a home filled with freshly baked cookies! The dough is really simple to prepare with basic ingredients that everyone has on hand. The rest is just as straightforward. Roll dough into balls, dip in egg whites and roll in walnut pieces, then press the center with a thimble. I sew so I had a thimble. I wanted to be authentic to the recipe so I used the thimble instead of my thumb because then I would have made thumbprint cookies. I sanitized the thimble for those who are wondering. Alternating baking sheets, bake for 5 minutes, then press down again with thimble and bake 12-15 more minutes. I got too distracted at times and had to stop and think if it was the 5 minute mark to re-press or the 12 minute mark to take out of the oven! I doubled my recipe today so I’ve been at this for quite some time! I got smarter by the end and started to load up the cookie trays with more cookies than I should. Typically, this would be a recipe that I would have passed over to bake because the jelly filling just looks like too much work – not! It’s just a quick dollop on the top and the jelly adds the perfect texture and flavor to this delicious cookie. I am converted! Theresa wrote that she has had this recipe for 45 years in her recipe box and now we have the privilege to make this keeper of a recipe go on for years to come.

On a different note, I know many families are having a difficult time making ends meet in our tough economy. I learned of three more families I know, just this week, who have been dealing with job losses. My family, working in the auto industry, certainly has had our share of scary times. So when Danielle G. introduced us to www.bargainstobounty.com, I knew this was something BIG! Bargains to Bounty helps Metro Detroiters stretch their dollars by featuring deals & coupon matchups for stores, along with online deals, coupons, money-saving strategies, and more. This site has been an incredible blessing to my family. This week, I was able to purchase 1 oz extracts for .25 each saving me $3.68 per bottle at Meijer. Needless to say, I will not have to buy anymore vanilla for the year. My best deal was purchasing $71 worth of Cover Girl Make-up for free (I did fork over $4 in sales tax). In the last three months, I personally have saved $1000. Couponing is a commitment; however, I feel that it is my responsibility to save my family money and now I am even able to donate groceries to those in need because of the bounty I am receiving! Please share this information so others can have these blessings for their families.

I certainly was in a sharing mood today. There were many surprise cookie deliveries…giving is definitely more fun than receiving! If I missed you, perhaps I’ll get you on the next round, my friends! Danielle “Phoebe”

P.S. Some of the later deliveries got to see me in my standard baking attire. However, I wanted to say to the man at the gas station, haven’t you ever seen a woman pump gas in an apron and pearls??? Shelly, I was clothed!

Oatmeal Cookies with Butterscotch Chips

2010-03-30T23:26:00.006-04:00

I am so glad that this recipe was in my rotation. Oatmeal cookies have always been my favorite. My mom used to make them for us once in a while when we were kids but I don't think I have ever made them myself. I was reading about all the variations of ingredients that could be mixed into this cookie and the possibilities are endless!

It was a cinch to mix together all of the dry ingredients and it makes enough for 4 batches of cookies. I took out only enough for one batch (we need to keep our cookie consumption to a minimum these days!) The rest of the dry mixture will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 months. I'm so excited that I can make oatmeal cookies anytime I want!

When the kids got home from school I mixed the wet ingredients (an egg, water and vanilla) and added the dry ingredients. It took one minute! I love this recipe! My son, Jake, found a bag of butterscotch chips in the pantry and made the decision to add that to the mix. I used my melon baller (so glad I have that tool-never once used it to ball a melon) to measure out the dough and get consistent sized cookies. I ended up with 3 dozen.

I got the cookies packaged up and delivered them to my girlfriends at the school concert tonight. It was a fabulous concert! I'll try not to eat Danielle G.'s cookies before she gets back from her vacation...but if I do, I know it will only take one minute to whip up another batch!

shelly

Aunt Irene's

2010-03-29T07:33:00.005-04:00

I invited my friend Angela to guest bake for me today. After perusing the cookbook I realized that this recipe is the one I have been preparing for all along. I had every tool and gadget needed to make this a smooth wonderful experience. If you were not at the signing or do not have Sharon for a mother you may be overwhelmed by some of the instructions.

I mixed the dough on Saturday so Angela and I just had to get up Sunday and get to rolling and filling. I had all of the ingredients needed except for the sweetened condensed milk and 3 oz. cream cheese. At Meijer Gavin and I stood in the aisle not sure what to purchase as far as the condensed milk because I have never used or purchased it before and there were a lot of options. I made the mistake of writing just condensed milk on my list so that's what we bought. As Angela and I are getting ready to mix our filling I realize my mistake and call mom to say there is no substitution for sweetened condensed milk in the book. Off to Hollywood we go to buy sweetened condensed milk.

On our return everything went smoothly, Angela is a natural baker. She had no problems rolling out the dough. Theresa we used the green bands on the rolling pin, no width was stated and those seemed the easiest for us to work with. Mom had purchased the flipping tool Theresa used at the demo and it was invaluable. I enjoyed having my friend over and being able to take action shots of each step. Thanks for doing all of the work Angela.

In my finished product picture my edges of the cookie are not a smooth as Theresa's. Angela was correct I cut them to soon. After letting the next batch cool they turned out just like Theresa's. I figured that it's no fun to show all perfection so I kept the other picture in there.

Just a reminder that Kurt and I will be out of town this week. My friend Sandy also the mother of boys, is going to guest bake on Friday for me. Thanks Sandy, have fun, and happy baking.

Danielle G.

Apricot and Ginger Butter Cookies

2010-03-28T22:39:00.011-04:00

As I sit here typing in my pearls and apron ( and pj's) I have realized that a new baking genre is before us. We have successfully baked our way through the first half of "Its all About the Cookies" cookbook with Author Sharon. And our next half of the books' Author is Theresa. Which means only one thing, new ingredients. Just when I thought I had done it all, Section 2 kicks in and is ready and eager to show me some new ingredients as well as techniques. love it.

Once I read that I needed dried apricots I thought, this will be a quick trip to Kroger. However, after the apricots it asked for crystalized ginger? Something I don"t think I have ever heard of. My next thought, this is not going to be a quick trip to Kroger. Once in my car I had folded to the idea that I would have to go to Vince and Joes to get my crystalized Ginger. Still not sure if this is a ginger root that I am going to get to zest or something entirely different. But instead I called my standby Kroger to see if they had this item in stock. When the customer service person put me on hold I figured might as well turn right and drive the distance to V & J. Surprised again when the stock manager got on the phone and said he had it!!!! yippee. There it was right next to the regular ginger but this bottle with the crystallization was $9.99. Oh well at least the drive was short. Then off to get my dried apricots near produce. I started to panic, could it be this was the specialty item they might not have? Nope, they had it as well. My only question is there were 2 brands 1 from Turkey which was cheaper and the other from the Mediterranean. Does it matter? Another surprise was there was a different style of crystalized ginger in produce, that were not in the rock formation but more like an elongated apricot. They were only $2.00 guess what I put back?( see attached)

The recipe called for them both to be finely chopped. Let me give you a big tip. Do not put these in your processor. My mini broke. So with the knife I chopped. I hope these were fine enough.

After these small insights it went pretty smooth. That is until I asked my Sioux chef Jack to help on the dry ingredients. He put them together for me then I told him to pour it into my butter/sugar mixture slowly. To me that meant a little at a time, to Jack that meant all at once somewhat slowly. I yelped and he jumped. Then we laughed. I was afraid it would not come together if the flour was poured in all at once. However the baking Gods were with us and all was good.

The "Pearl Girls" prevail!

Thanks Theresa for waiting so patiently for us to get to your recipes. Its gonna be fun. Angie

Raisin Tarts

2010-03-27T23:35:00.003-04:00

Coming off a wonderful night with girlfriends, I had a permanent smile on my face baking in my apron and pearls today! Thank you again, Sharon!

Theresa and Sharon, not only has your cookbook taught us much needed baking lessons but it has created so many special memories amongst friends! It is a new chapter in our blog as this is the first of Theresa’s cookies! So here’s to the next five weeks of baking!

Ever so proud of myself that I made my first tarts. They took a few steps but it was really fun making the crust and filling. I did these in stages throughout the day so I really didn’t notice how long they took. This recipe calls for a food processor to mix the dough for the tart crust. This delighted me to use my old but new food processor. I assumed I would have to cut the butter into the mixture with a pastry blender or knives but the food processor does all the work. I like that!

After chilling, I rolled out the dough, cut 30 circles with a biscuit cutter, and tapped each circle of dough down into the mini muffin tins with a special tool.

The filling is easy to make but very interesting because I’ve never boiled raisins before. Rhubarb, strawberries, blueberries but never raisins and they are delicious! I even had to thicken the raisins with a water/flour mixture and I always love the science behind the thickening process. I filled each tart with filling and baked. I used a toothpick to retrieve each hot tart out of the pan to cool. Nuts garnished on top to complete. They taste great!

What I like is that Theresa created this recipe with a combination of her mother’s best pie filling and adapted it into her own tart. I think Theresa’s mom would have been proud that her amazing filling is being enjoyed by so many others. Theresa, you inspire me to create my own recipe someday!

Danielle “Phoebe”

Miniature Cheesecakes

2010-03-26T17:05:00.004-04:00

It's 5:25 p.m. I have 4 dozen miniature cheesecakes completely done and 1 dozen more that I just put in the oven. They will bake 20 minutes, then I will cool them on a rack for 5 minutes, dollop them with a topping and stick back in the oven for 5 minutes. If my math is right, they will be done just shy of 6:oo p.m. which is a good thing because I am going to a party at Angie's house tonight at 7:00 p.m. Hopefully I will figure out how to package these cookies so I can give them to my girlfriends at the party tonight.

Now, what I'm about to tell you will shock you...these little cheesecakes took me all day! In all fairness, I shouldn't say all day. I started at 11:00 a.m. Once I made the dough for the crusts, I was supposed to chill for 3 hours. I stuck it in the fridge and moved on to mixing the batter for the filling and topping. It was noon at this point so off I went to do some housework. After about 30 minutes of housework, I got bored and decided to get started on the cookies. I only grabbed a handful of dough out of the refrigerator so that the rest could chill as long as possible. I called Danielle G. and she talked me through how to use the wooden dowel to pat down the pie crust in the mini tins. It took me a while to get the first tray done. I found that the dough started to stick when it warmed up. So, I put some of it back in the fridge to chill and grabbed another handful of chilled. Finally I got them filled and in the oven. They came out perfectly beautiful and delicious.

The process did not speed up any with my new found experience so when Angie called at 2:30 p.m. I told her that I couldn't come to her party tonight because I would still be baking these cookies. She thought I was kidding!

I've had a lot of time to think today and I was thinking that if I had another mini muffin tin the process would have been a little faster. However, as it stands now, it would have to be a very special occasion for me to undertake this recipe again. Especially since I baked the much quicker, easier cheesecake cookies last week that were just as tasty and all the ingredients went into one pan!

Sharon, I have had so much fun baking all of your recipes and have found quite a few that I will definitely make again. So far this process has taught me that baking really isn't that difficult. I was also surprised that there were very few ingredients that I had to purchase because most of the time I had everything on hand. Theresa, I am looking forward to making your recipe on Tuesday!

shelly

Basic Cookie Dough - Marmalade Slices

2010-03-25T20:32:00.004-04:00

I must start with the truth. I baked and delivered yesterday. Thursdays in my house start with getting up at 6:30, kids up at 7:00, out the door for chess club at 7:30 where I am a parent volunteer, I leave school at 9:00 to get to work by 9:30 and usually work until 8:00 or 9:00. Today was different because I had to leave work by 6:00 to get the family and go to curriculum night at the junior high at 6:30. YIKES!! Yesterday when I realized all of this I was overwhelmed so I baked and delivered last night.

I had no idea what it meant to roll in jelly roll fashion. Unfortunately you can not see my log on the right very well but let me tell you it was the first one and so not pretty. I finally realized by the third one what it meant ( for the record I did this on my own without an s.o.s call to my mom.) I have to say I was not looking forward to this cookie because I do not care for orange marmalade or raisins. Surprisingly with all of the cinnamon and sugar and the walnuts it was actually quite good. My family loved it, I thought it tasted like a cobbler and suggested we have it over vanilla ice cream. My end product on this plate looks great. My girlfriends can vouch for me that they did not look like that when I delivered them. (Except Phoebe's) They must not have been cooled enough and turned to a mushy mess. I suggested to them to try them over ice cream too. I am going to bake early again next time. I was going to have a guest baker because Kurt and I are going out of town, but then I realized it was my first recipe on Theresa's side of the book and decided I could not do that. My friend Angela and I are going to bake them together on Sunday and I will blog on Monday. This is a challenging cookie and I feel up to the task, because I am a baker now. The 1st half of the book will be done tomorrow. We will be celebrating tomorrow night at Angie's can't wait.

Mom I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you and Theresa doing all of this hard work. I am having a wonderful experience with my awesome friends and also getting to appreciate how much love actually goes into "cookie day". You guys are wonderful and thank you for all of the cookies.

Danielle G. "the baker"

Basic Cookie Dough- Fruit Bars

2010-03-24T22:49:00.004-04:00

I did it! and at 8:00 is was not looking like I was going to get these even started. I left the house at 6:00 am and by the time I got home I didn't feel well. By 8:00pm no cookies had been started and I was in bed. It wasn't till my oldest came to lay down with me and play with my hair in efforts to make me feel better, did I strive for more. Boy did that do the trick. I decided for the sack of our pact that this was not going to keep me down.

Kitchen lights on, no time to wait for the butter to come to room temp, so micro to soften it goes. Dalton comes down to see if I needed any more help. It is 8:35 pm I did not decline! We worked so well together, like a well oiled machine. Within an hour we were done. He even stayed to dry all the dishes. Yippee. This recipe called for a apricot preserve or jam. Since I was not feeling well, my dear husband ran out to get me a jar. He came back with sugar free ( I was concerned). In hind site this was a good thing. Did I tell you I have gained 10 pounds since the beginning of this challenge? not good. Anyway there is enough sugar in the crust and topping that it does not make a difference so you might as well save yourself some calories. Lastly as I look at my picture my top is golden however in the book it looks as if there might be powdered sugar added? Whos's to know what can be down with digital photography these days. I love the way these cookies make me feel. Even though they are not light in calories when you eat them you may think they are.

Delivery may be tomorrow you just never know! Angie

Basic Cookie Dough - Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

2010-03-23T13:58:00.005-04:00

As long as you allow enough time for the butter to soften and the dough to chill, these are again quick and easy. I have this recipe memorized. That’s how easy it is. Once the dough was mixed, it was divided in halves and rolled into two equal logs on parchment paper and chilled. Later, I melted the chocolate in a double broiler. I sliced the chilled dough 1/8 inch thick, baked and sandwiched together with the melted chocolate. The completed cookies need a little time in the refrigerator to allow the chocolate to solidify. I love the perfect size of this cookie. My only suggestion is to make more because they won’t be around for long. I had a cute little cookie monster snatching up the dough before they made it to the oven. I caught him hiding in the next room eating his stolen goods. He was kind enough to leave some to be shared. Danielle “Phoebe”

Chocolate Pecan Balls

2010-03-22T22:27:00.005-04:00

The only reason that I am posting so late is because I have not yet taken a picture of my cookies. I don't think I'm going to get a picture tonight so I will just add it when I get it (maybe tomorrow!)

You see, I started the batter last night because I looked ahead at my recipe and I realized that I wasn't going to get off as easy as I did for the last few recipes. Plus, I needed to chill the dough for at least 3 hours to overnight. The dough was simple enough; however, it had very little wet ingredients (1 c. butter and 2 egg yolks) and like Angie, I only have a hand mixer. It couldn't handle the amount of dry ingredients that needed to be added so I had to go old school and put some effort into hand mixing it. Into the fridge and off to bed!

This morning I figured I had this cookie in the bag since I had a big bowl of dough that had been chilled all night. All I had to do was form little balls, roll into powdered sugar, bake and roll again into powdered sugar. I figured that I could fit a million of these little balls on a cookie sheet and get them all in the oven at once. It didn't quite work out that way. The dough was very dry and crumbly, almost like old playdough so it took some work to form it into balls. Then I rolled each ball in a bowl of powdered sugar...what a mess! I was wearing black pants, too! I spent about an hour forming and rolling balls and I had only made it through half of the dough. I got tired so I decided to bake what I had and do the rest later.

Well, it's later (10:30 p.m.) and I still haven't rolled the rest of the balls! The ones I did make were DELICIOUS and worth all the work. I bagged up all the cookies I made (except for the few I tasted) for my friends before I took any pictures. I hope to get the rest baked tomorrow and post a beautiful picture that captures how delicious these cookies taste. Until then...shelly

Basic Cookie Dough - Thumbprint Cookies

2010-03-21T10:27:00.002-04:00

This basic cookie dough is fantastic. This recipe called for the basic ingredients with orange zest added. I was able to use my zester again. That is an indispensable tool to have on hand in the kitchen. If you don't want to spend the money on an expensive one my husband, the finish carpenter tells me you can pick one up at the hardware store for under $5.00. It is called a drywall rasp and is exactly the same thing. I was low on jelly so my last batch I filled with nutella it is good but not as awesome as I thought it would be. The ones with the raspberry jam have more flavor. I did not get 5 dozen out of this recipe I think it is because I made them to big, they took much longer than the time indicated in the recipe. Overall a very simple user friendly cookie. Danielle G.

Basic Cookie Dough- Cinnamon Sugar Cookies

2010-03-20T11:11:00.001-04:00

Well I have really messed up by not posting last, and Danielle is right on schedule so I am really behind. I did bake and get things done yesterday however I thought I would make it home in time to post before the midnight hour. I was wrong! So I am sorry to mix things up a bit.

The ingredients for this recipe were very simple to assemble. However if your like me and only have a hand mixer your worries are how long do you mix so as not to burn out your motor? this is a fine line that luckily I have not crossed. The recipe called for the 1/8" roller pin bands which I have, however I chose not to look at my cheat sheet which says what color corresponds to which thickness. I thought I could eye it and make an executive call. Guess I was wrong, I used the 1/16" which is why my cookies look like mini pie crusts. oops. They are definitely light and fluffy.

I will sign off and will promise to stay on my scheduled day of posting. Happy baking this week girls. Angie

Basic Cookie Dough - Spritz Cookies

2010-03-19T23:18:00.007-04:00

To prepare for this recipe, I watched a quick tutorial on-line on how to use a cookie press cause I’m such a rookie. It was helpful and thanks again to Sharon for lending me another baking tool! The dough was so simple to prepare but I have been cursed a couple of times messing up the rather easy recipes. This one didn’t avoid the curse. I accidentally grabbed the wrong teaspoon and added double the amount of salt – yuck, yuck, yuck. An unrecoverable error! On to batch two – perfect but not enough time to bake so into the fridge to wait.

At 10 pm, I stuck my cookie sheets in the refrigerator for 5 minutes prior to pressing out cookies. Apparently, this trick helps the cookies stick to the pan for easy release. I re-whipped the dough to get it back to a soft consistency. It only took me a couple of minutes to figure out how to press out cookies and they came out so cute and charming. I didn’t spend much time decorating these as I am not fully recovered from the painted Sour Cream cookies.

Danielle "Phoebe"

Cheesecake Cookies

2010-03-18T20:38:00.003-04:00

Another easy cookie for me! In fact, this was so easy that I almost goofed it up! First I enjoyed another beautiful day and didn't start my cookie until about 3:00. Two steps to this pan cookie-first I pressed the crust into a pan and baked. I set aside a bit of the crust to crumble on top. Then I mixed the filling and popped it back in the oven. Five minutes later, Angie called me and I was gloating about how I got another easy cookie recipe. She was looking at a picture of it in the cookbook and asking me questions about it when I suddenly realized that I forgot to put the crumble on top. I ran to the oven, pulled out the pan and rectified the situation! Thanks to Angie for calling me at that exact moment in time! I will be delivering the cookies to my friends tomorrow morning. My neighbors have enjoyed them already tonight!

shelly

Almond and Hazelnut Cookies filled with Nutella

2010-03-17T11:33:00.002-04:00

7:30 a.m. I began blanching my almonds. This is the first time I have had to do this. Phoebe is right, super easy. The hardest part was the time it took to peel them. It was a morning of many firsts, all of them good. I was able to ZEST 3 tbs. of orange peel which was also a first. I am now a zester!! One small orange gave the three tbs. I needed and there was no peel left. As you can see from my picture the recipe called for five egg whites whipped until peaked and then "add the sugar to make it stiff and glossy." I can not express how excited I was that when you do this correctly it works just like every one told me. If you have not been following since the beginning I urge you to look at my first recipe, "My Moms Lemon Meringue Tarts" it was truly a disaster. I feel I can confidentally state that I am an egg white whipper!! These cookies are a little time consuming about three hours start to finish. They are definitely worth it. I have never had Nutella that I can remember, combined with melted chocolate, wow divine. I do have to admit I cheated just a bit. My mom gave me the hazelnuts she had left and it did not quite equal the amount I needed. Rather than go out and get them I substituted a 1/4 cup of walnuts. You grind them in the food processor all together and I decided nuts are nuts. (Don't tell my mom.) they taste awesome and are ready for delivery. DanielleG.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie

2010-03-16T09:15:00.003-04:00

Good Morning, You have know idea how thrilled I am to be posting by 9:30 in the morning. After last weeks debacle and taking more than 2 days to deliver my cookies I had to recover by completing my batches early today.

Chocolate Chips cookies are my thing. I have the Nestle recipe memorized and could make them in my sleep. Growing up in was not unusual for me to come home from school and make a batch of Chocolate Chip cookie dough. Yes, just the dough! My brother and I would eat it till it made us sick to our stomach then my Dad would finish it off when he came home. So this recipe was pretty easy.

The only major difference in this recipe is using crisco over butter and adding the oatmeal. To be consistent I decided it would be a good idea to burn one batch. Not in the original plan but once I walked the kids outside to grab the bus, the fresh air must have put a trance on me. The next thing I knew, I engaged in a long conversation with a neighbor and as I started to walk back inside, my baking brain woke up this made me run. Obviously the cookies were going to be burnt but I wondered "How bad?" We'll just say I will be throwing that dozen away.

It's a great start to the day. Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone. Back to blog in 4 more days. Angie

Sour Cream Cookies

2010-03-15T23:45:00.006-04:00

I am pleased to present Sour Cream Cookies to you today! With one bite, this cookie had me hooked and I couldn’t stop talking about it at the book signing. When I found out it fell on my bake day I was skipping with joy! Then anxiety quickly set in. A great deal of anxiety! The picture in the cookbook shows painted Sour Cream Cookies. I am serious, cookies painted with a fine paint brush in great beautiful detail and colors. After two weeks of totally freaking out, I decided to tackle this cookie with a fun attitude and if I failed at least I would be able to eat the best cut out cookies I’ve ever tasted! I got a head start and made it a TWO DAY cookie. Glad I did cause I’m just wrapping up in the nick of time.

I borrowed the Evendough Bands to put on the rolling pin ends to achieve the consistent thickness of dough. A cookie genius invented these! I also borrowed the extra long wooden rolling pin that I fell in love with! So long to my heavy, marble, monstrosity of a rolling pin. The sour cream made the dough super soft (and incredibility delicious). After chilling , a well floured surface allows for this cookie to be easily workable without sticking. I lost some sleep rolling, cutting, and baking my cookies last night. Today, I spent time figuring out icing colors, designs, flubbed a few cookies and then just got down to business icing and painting designs. I really enjoyed turning my ideas into cookies even if they don’t turn out exactly like the beautiful, unachievable, pictures in my head. I am a rookie cake decorator but what kills me is that I never knew cookies could be painted with food coloring. This opens up a world of possibilities for my children’s party treats! I think my sister in law will put these on her bake list. I can’t wait to see what designs she comes up with!

I could have saved a lot of time sticking to just one cookie design but I really wanted to showcase these cookies as much as possible. They are not hard and just take time and patience. The four of us have 10 boys between us so I wanted to make some cookies that they would have fun eating, thus the basketball and football cookies were a given. I also wanted to showcase our blog title and with all these boys I never get to make girly cookies, so that was fun! However, those who know me know how much I LOVE Bon Jovi. I am so excited that they will be entertaining, Detroiters like me, in two days for a live St. Patrick’s Day concert! So I had to make a cookie in their honor. Hope you like it Jon!

This cookie satisfied my creative need. I feel I have conquered my toughest cookie challenge in the book! For those followers who want to bake this cookie, to taste the deliciousness I am speaking of, you can omit the painting stage and just frost them. I’m off to bed to dream of JBJ! Danielle “Phoebe”

Peanut Butter Meltaways

2010-03-15T09:02:00.004-04:00

A day late on blogging this cookie. There's really no excuse for it because they were one of the easiest cookies to make. I planned on blogging after our company left last night but I promised my son I would lie down with him at bedtime...and the next thing you know it's 1:00 a.m. Oh well!

When I say this one was simple, believe me, it was. In fact, I was thinking that I might make them again today since I don't have a single cookie left after packing them up for my girlfriends. Oh, the recipe made enough, but they were so tasty that they just didn't make it through the night. I scolded my husband several times for taking cookies off the tray before I took my picture and packed them up for my friends. Every time I left the room, a few more cookies were missing!

You mix up the ingredients, press it into a pan and bake for 20 minutes (or more, if you're like me and don't read the oven temperature correctly). The hardest part of this recipe is unwrapping 26 carmels. I AM starting to feel a little guilty that my recipes are so easy. Especially since I know that Phoebe has to paint her cookies today. Good luck, Phoebes!

shelly

Les Dames Blanches

2010-03-13T18:49:00.005-05:00

Well my first roll out and cut cookie of my life. I have never had the desire to tackle a sugar cookie with a cookie cutter. This cookie was actually a lot of fun to do. I am sure it helped that I had an expert on hand at my disposal. I asked my girlfriends if they minded my mom coming over and helping me. My mom however said she would only do this if the other girls were allowed to use her expertise also. My mom has always believed you don't do for one and not the other. So there you go girls she is now fair game. I truly believe this would have been torture if not for her help. There are not a lot of ingredients in this cookie, but there are odd things I did not have on hand. Almond flour, cake flour, and raspberry jam. Surprisingly I had a vanilla bean or two because my client Linda went on vacation and brought me some back as a souvenir. The problem was I stored it as per the Internet and it dried out and was unusable. So halfway through mixing our ingredients off to Meijer we went for fresh vanilla beans. Imagine my surprise when they turned out to be $12.00 for two beans. We think the reason for the fresh bean is for the little black specks in the cookie, but as you can see between the powdered sugar and jam you can't see them. If I make this again I will skip the fresh $12.00 beans and use extract. Funny side story when we got home we finished mixing the batter and I was sure I put the flour in before we left. Again thanks for the expert because I did not add the flour yet. she says they would have been so sticky I could not possibly have rolled it. Thanks again mom.

As the picture shows my mom has these awesome cookie cutters so you don't have to try to measure out the center of the heart. At first I was struggling with my dough sticking to my mat and rolling pin. Once I figured out to use smaller balls of dough for rolling and sprinkling it liberally with flour (the dough, the mat, the rolling pin, myself) it went super easy and quick.

The rest was just time intensive waiting for the cookies to cool, sprinkling the tops with powdered sugar, spreading the jam. Just for the record I love raspberry jam so I used almost a whole jar rather than the 1/2 cup called for. While we were waiting for the dough to chill we hopped back in the car so I could do some shopping for packaging my cookies. These are to pretty for sandwich bags. I found the cute buckets and lace doilies and am now ready for delivery. One thing I forgot to mention is my mom bought these very cool bands you put on each end of your rolling pin and they are colored coded. When you roll out your dough it makes it the exact width you need. Very cool. highly recommend this so no rulers needed.

Danielle G.

Pecan Nut Bars

2010-03-12T23:17:00.009-05:00

This Dessert is more like mini pecan pie bits, but with a softer side. My whole family enjoyed them. Their favorite part is the cool whip dollop on top.

This particular recipe is made on a "jelly roll pan". Easy right? Well I thought it was going to be, however apparently there are different versions of a jelly roll pan. A jelly roll pan is described as a pan with four sides. However my filling did not care. As you can see in my picture my pecan nut bars were about to runneth over. Had it not been my quick thinking of, "stop pouring, its not going to fit"mentality, the situation would have been way worse. But then again it did get worse. As you can see it just fit. This was pre- baking and since it had eggs butter and sugar, guess what? It grew more. So over the sides in all directions it went through out my oven. I should have taken a picture so you could have felt my pain. But that was not the worse part, the combination of eggs butter and sugar burnt in the stove had to come out so at intervals I would open the door so the house could be overcome with smoke and take on a new flavor. Lets just say I open all the windows, slider, back door, garage door to diffuse the smell but 6 hours later it is still kickin. The best part is it really did not ruin the Pecan Bars. Yippee

Lesson learned: if you have 4.5 c. of brown sugar, 4 sticks of butter, almost 4 c. of flour, a boat load of eggs, and misc. other items.... make sure your jelly roll pan has higher sides. And definetly do not over fill. Think of it like a cappuccino coffee, fill only 2/3 full.

Girls I am beat delivery will be in the am. Signing off. loving my waist line. A

German Chocolate Cookies

2010-03-11T21:43:00.003-05:00

If you don’t have a cookbook to follow along with us yet, I suggest you get one just for these cookies! They only have four ingredients. One is a cake mix and another is frosting from a can. The best part is that there is only one ingredient that needs to be measured and that means little dishes to clean up too! So I mixed the three ingredients together, rolled the dough into balls, baked 8-10 minutes, cooled and sandwiched together with coconut pecan frosting from a can! I used the large end of a melon baller to get a consistent amount of dough to roll into small balls for bite size cookies. I have way too many interruptions to time myself but it didn’t take long. Waiting the 8-10 minutes for each cookie tray to bake was the longest part in the process because I have a conventional oven.

In the past, I’ve had my children read a recipe and prepare it from start to finish on their own with the exception of the hot oven. This is a great recipe to practice reading and following instructions without a child being overwhelmed.

Since I’ve slaved all day in my kitchen and have so many dishes to clean, I just can’t drag myself to deliver cookies today! Danielle "Phoebe"

Chocolate Oatmeal No Bake Cookies

2010-03-10T14:05:00.004-05:00

I almost feel guilty (but not really!) These cookies were so simple that it took me 40 minutes from start to finish. How do I know that? Well, I called Danielle G. this morning as I pulled out the cookbook. As we talked, I located all of the ingredients and started putting it together. It took only minutes to mix it. By the time we finished our conversation, I had dropped all of the dough into little cookies on my cookie sheets to cool. I looked at the phone as we said goodbye...40 minutes.

If you like chocolate and sugar, this is the recipe for you. In fact, I would bet that most households have the ingredients on hand. It was just peanut butter, butter, sugar, cocoa, oats, vanilla and salt. Quick, easy, DONE! There's really not much more to say.

I tried to jazz up the packaging a little since I got off so easy on the cookies. I used chinese take out containers and pasted scrapbook paper on them to make them pretty. I can't compete with Phoebe's pictures so I did my best to be creative and still capture the cookie.

I plan on saving our planet by waiting to deliver these cookies to my friends tonight when we get together for a movie night. I'm chuckling at this thought because once I was determined to get through the whole summer on $100 of gas. It was the summer that gas spiked to $4.00/gallon. Well, I saw Angie at a 4th of July fireworks party and she asked how it was going. Unfortunately, it was only the 4th of July and I had already blown through the $100. Then I admitted to her that I accidentally locked my keys in the car a few days earlier while the car was running! Oops!

shelly

Five Chip Cookies

2010-03-09T07:32:00.003-05:00

I had decided I was going to get these done before work today. Because of Angie switching on one of her days, I am baking for the first time on a work day. I realized last night when we got home from bowling that not only was it a work day but Lost was on. We have neighbors come over every Tuesday to watch our favorite show. I was sure no one would appreciate me getting up every ten minutes to pull the cookies out and reload my trays. My butter was already out so I thought well midnight is approaching so technically it will be tomorrow when I finish. I knew my girlfriends would never believe I was on Laurie time.

This recipe has a ton of different flavors, most of you have the book so you can see what I am talking about. For those of you that don't, let me just mention a few. Peanut Butter, (which I had to borrow a little bit at 10:30 at night thanks Angela) oats, brown and white sugar, and as the name mentions five chips (thanks mom) . I did not realize there were that many chips. I ate four cookies just while baking them to see if I could find all five of them. They are awesome. I am not sure I want to say light but they almost are. I think it's the peanut butter. Kurt has not asked for a single cookie to take to the guys at work but he did this one so I sent him with some this morning.

I finished at 12:05 this morning and went to bed. It was fun and super easy.

Danielle G.

Belgian Waffle Cookie

2010-03-08T21:25:00.003-05:00

After my last debacle with missing ingredients, I thought for sure this week I would be ready for today. Think again, two small issues, as I was getting ready to make my dough I realized it calls for whiskey! And wouldn't you know we don't have any. So out to the store I go buying my bottle of whiskey at 9:30 in the morning. Thankfully the only curious eye was the cashier but she felt like this was a good idea? huh? Second, just as I get back to my mixing, I thought, "This is the easiest recipe yet". The breaks hit again, did it just say chill over night? Seriously. My theory since it was only 10:30 if I waited to make the waffle part tonight at 8:00 that would be like waiting through the night, so thats what I did. Much to my surprise the dough was hard as a rock. Perfect.

I did take the tip to put the dough towards the back of the press, great idea. That lets the dough spread to all areas, as long as you have the right amount to begin with. Lets just say as soon as I got the hang of it I was out of dough! However that may have been due to the few balls of dough that were never baked and possibly went straight to my thighs.

The kids loved this cookies texture, taste and smell. Thanks again it has been a ball learning how to do things I have never attemped. I can't wait to go back and perfect the things I have learned.

Lesson I'm still learning, always look at your recipe ahead of time.

Orange Tea Cookie

2010-03-07T19:03:00.004-05:00

So I wouldn’t have a red ring around my cookie, last night, I drained & dried the maraschino cherries to make sure they were ready for my cookie day today. My fear was that they were going to disappear overnight to my child who could eat the entire jar of them if I let him. A 6am refrigerator check gave me relief that he didn’t sneak any! I had all my ingredients and made sure to pick up orange extract and oranges earlier in the week. However, I was just shy of the 3 cups flour needed. I probably could have winged that but then I couldn’t double the recipe as I planned. After an early morning hockey game I ran to the store for more flour. With Shelly’s post yesterday and my grocery run today, I think I’m ready for a bulk shopping trip for the standard ingredients so I’m not caught off guard again. I did have whole wheat flour too and wonder if it would have worked out like Shelly’s cookie did?

I thought I’d multitask a little bit. So while I was coaching a Science Olympiad practice at my house I challenged the kids to see who could finish first: me preparing the cookie dough or them taking their test. The time was 16 minutes ~ we both went into overtime!

Everything seemed to go smooth until it was time to roll the dough into balls. The dough was too soft so I just dropped them on the cookie sheet, sprinkled confectioner sugar on top, placed my cherry on that and baked. After they came out of the oven I covered the cherries and dusted again with more confectioner sugar. They taste delicious but didn’t look the pretty, pretty I was trying to achieve like the cookbook picture. Determined to make them look better, I added more flour to the dough but had the same results. However, after several cookie sheets of lopsided ta-tas I decided it was time to try the chill method.

Much, much better results as the dough easily rolled into balls and finally came out like I hoped. Whoo-whoo! However, I compare confectioner sugar to glitter. It is beautiful and fun to work with but my kitchen & myself look like we bathed in it! It is a dainty, delightful cookie with just a hint of orange that tastes so delicious! I also like how soft it is. What I learned is sometimes a cookie just takes a little practice & persistence to get it just right! Danielle “Phoebe”

P.S. I apologize to Danielle’s family as I sent home the first, imperfect, batch out of the oven.

Cranberry-Caramel Bars

2010-03-06T22:23:00.007-05:00

Remember how motivated I was on Tuesday? I had my cookies baked, packaged and delivered to my friends by 9:00 a.m. Well, that didn't last long! It was such a beautiful day today that I took my kids and my frenchie to Partridge Creek for an outing. I felt confident that I would have enough time to get my baking done later in the day. I looked through the recipe yesterday and I was only missing a few ingredients.

About 6:30 I headed off to Meijer to get what I needed only to find that they do not carry fresh cranberries this time of year. Neither does Kroger. Not even Vince & Joe's. Oops! I started to freak out but then I remembered that I had cherries in my freezer. Cherries are red and round just like cranberries. Hopefully the substitution would work.

At 7:30 p.m. I drank a 5 hour energy drink (need to prepare for a focus group on energy drinks later this week) so I knew I wouldn't be tired before my deadline of midnight! I started pulling out all my ingredients only to realize that I didn't have enough flour! I have gone through more flour in the last month than I have in the last 3 years! I was freaking out as I grabbed my keys and headed out the door for another trip to the store. Then I remembered that I bought a bag of whole wheat flour a few months ago for a muffin recipe. I was already substituting cherries for cranberries so why not substitute whole wheat flour?

Once the ingredients were in front of me, it was very easy to make this recipe. At this point I'm really hoping that it will turn out because several of my friends who follow the blog have mentioned that they are looking forward to trying this cookie. After it was all done, a little taste assured me that they were delicious. I hope my friends think so, too!

I've included a picture of Angie delivering her cookies to me on Friday. She put a smile on my face first thing in the morning! There is also a picture of Roxy, my frenchie, to put a smile on your face! Signing off at 11:40 p.m...wide awake and full of energy!

shelly

Crackletops

2010-03-05T13:20:00.002-05:00

If you like something a little different with a bit of spice this is the cookie for you. After Angie's day yesterday I feel bad saying I had another easy delightful baking day. This recipe was user friendly and very simple. The only issue I had was no ground cloves, so after a frustrating morning at the Dr. with Cameron I very happily put my whole cloves into a baggie and pounded them to dust with my meat mallet. Very therapeutic. This is a very tasty cookie with the molasses and cloves a very nice combination. Anyone who is paying attention to this blog daily will realize I have "staged" my cookies differently today. I have a wonderful client who has been watching this and informed me I had to something different with my pictures. (Thanks Kathy I hope you like this one better:) I don't think she realizes up until now I barely knew how to upload a picture and then download it. So now I have to say I am not just learning the ins and outs of baking but also computer stuff too. Thanks girls for taking away my "box". Danielle G.

Texas Crunch

2010-03-04T23:40:00.004-05:00

Texas Crunch? more like Texas Punch ouch! I almost pulled the white surrender flag on this one.

I usually do not get to discouraged if things don't work out however this one set me back bit today. The one ingredient that sounded like no big deal to find, "Almond Brickle", apparently is! I went to Kroger, no luck- put in my 911 call into the pro-got a tip that it should be by the chocolate chips. So I went back to Kroger just incase but no luck. So I thought Meijer, everyone tells me they have everything and at a good price, so why not? no luck. Then to Vince and Joe's- they had heard of it but felt it may be seasonal? huh! On to Papa Joes and then to Hollywood Market. No luck, after exhausting all my local resources I put in my 2nd 911 call into our Pros to steal from her stock but today was going a muck so I stuck with the closest thing to what the recipe called for, "Heath-Bits 'O Brickle Toffee Bits, (in small print it said it contain almonds). Sounded like almond brickle to me.

On to whipping up the recipe. This part was smooth until the final 4.5 cups of flour that had to be added to my beautiful creamy butter and sugar mixture. This turned into crumbles. Again not going as smooth as my past baking days. Still I needed to roll in sugar then cross press with a fork. Again no luck it all fell apart. Plan B patty like a hamburger dust with sugar put fake fork mark in, bake, take picture , and call it a day.

The dough tasted amazing but as you can see I've run out of time. Tip: Get all ingredients ahead of time!!!!!! Happy Baking Angie

Buckeyes

2010-03-03T08:19:00.004-05:00

Some may think I’m getting off easy with a no-bake cookie today. Well, they’re right! It’s a quickie! It does require some chill time so plan the night before. I mixed the few ingredients, rolled the dough into balls and chilled overnight. The recipe yielded 60 balls and my count was 61! This morning, I dipped the chilled balls into the melted paraffin wax and chocolate. I just had to smooth over the hole where the toothpick was and voila ~ done! I think I should have concentrated more on getting the balls consistently the same size and roundness. As the recipe states, Buckeyes are freezer friendly. I would normally freeze and probably eat them directly out of the freezer but I know they will be gone in a snap!

For those of you who don’t know why I am referred to as Phoebe, I’ll share. Our four families vacation together every summer so two Danielle’s in one house became a little confusing. “Which Danielle?,” was the most asked question on vacation. For our trip, each family plans and brings a meal for the group. Last year, I arrived with an army of bread in every variety to feed 18 people/four days worth of lunches. While us girls were sipping wine and enjoying each others’ company there was always a lot of exclaiming how much I overcompensated in the carb department, “wow, that’s a lot of bread!” A comparison was drawn between me and Phoebe from the sitcom Friends. The particular episode was when Phoebe was put in charge of cups and ice by Monica for Rachel’s surprise party because she didn’t trust her with any other party planning. Well, Phoebe went overboard with the cups and ice as I did with the bread. It was hilarious and that’s why I am affectionately called Phoebe! Just so you know we ate ALL the bread I brought that vacation and ladies there will be decorations at the house this summer! Danielle “Phoebe”

"Fusciardi's" Favorite Oatmeal Cookies

2010-03-02T15:38:00.005-05:00

I feel like I've been on an 8 day vacation since Laurie guest baked for me last week. Her cookies were delicious and I'm very grateful that she took the opportunity to try out one of the cookie recipes because I needed a break! I know what you're thinking...I only made 3 recipes. True, but they were difficult recipes and I'm not a baker! However, I felt rejuvenated and ready to give it another go!

I was going for the shock effect this morning as I delivered my cookies to my friends at 9:00 a.m. Yes, that's right, 9:00 a.m. I have been on "Laurie" time this week (so what if it's only Tuesday!) getting up early and trying to get a lot done before the craziness of the day starts. This was the perfect recipe to try and squeeze in early because it was very simple. I had everything set out last night ready to go so it only took me an hour from start to finish. I made an executive decision and left out the walnuts so that Laurie's son could have another cookie to try. Also, I had to cut down the baking time from 9 minutes to 8 minutes in my new oven because the bottom of my cookies were burning. I love baking on parchment paper-those cookies slip right off and no clean up! I used a melon baller to measure out the portion of my cookies so that they would be a consistent size. I got close to the 5 dozen the recipe states.

I packaged up my cookies in pretty little treat bags for my friends. So, I wonder if Laurie takes a nap in the middle of the day??

shelly

Marko's Unbelievably Good Chocolate Chunk Cookie

2010-03-01T14:00:00.002-05:00

This cookie is exactly as described. Wow!! What a difference a Ghiardelli chocolate can make. This was a very easy, user friendly recipe to make. It's a basic chocolate chip cookie with a little extra pizazz. The only snafu I came across was a room temperature egg and chilling my dough for an hour. Once all of that was done it was as easy as one, two, three. The recipe called for a three inch cookie to make 22 in a batch. I opted for a smaller cookie so I could have more to share. I used my small melon baller and produced about forty cookies. I have to say I am loving all of this baking and sharing with my friends. My family feels like they have hit the cookie jackpot. Who else gets fresh cookies delivered daily to their house. The boys look so forward to the deliveries. I wasn't sure how they would be with this since they have had most of the cookies on my moms side of the book. I think they usually have so many choices when she bakes they always go for their favorites and don't try much else. Now they have the opportunity to try them all and they love it. We are going to have to do an exercise blog when this is all done though because I can already feel the cookies settling in. Danielle G.

Louise's Crackled Sugar Cookies

2010-02-28T14:26:00.003-05:00

Vanilla, Lemon and Orange Extract, have you ever heard of a cookie with all those flavors? Jack is amazed on how the sides are crisp but with a soft crackled puffy center. He loves them.

Wilson was my apprentice today- his job was mixing the butter & sugar and rolling the ball of dough in sugar. He said this was his favorite part.

The easiest part of the recipe was the cookie dough assembly. As I was cruising along getting ready to drop them onto the pan, I notice in bold letters "Put no more than 6 on a cookie sheet". A big screech in the fast department. That is 14 min per pan, then cool, then re- set. Thankfully I have 3 Silpats and 3 pans to make this a turn key operation. I still might be here all day. But I can say these are worth the wait. So you may see me later for a delivery or you may not....

My tip for the day:

Get a convection oven, to eliminate the one sheet baking method.

Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies

2010-02-27T14:34:00.017-05:00

In my pjs and apron, I completed my Peanut Butter Blossoms before the pitter patter of feet hit the floor. This is my first recipe that requires shortening! I’m now in the butter & shortening club! However, I am out of almonds and almond extract – LOL. This cookie was simply easy to make and really cute! Why does it seem to be the simple things that sometimes go array? It is a straight forward recipe, standard ingredients and easy to follow instructions. However, when I was ready to roll my dough into balls I noticed that I forgot to add THREE ingredients. Not one…three! And important ones, eggs, vanilla and milk! Go figure that would happen to me ‘cause I thought I’d be on easy street this morning. Well, batch number 2 went perfect as I was paying close attention. The batter was much different with the eggs – ha! They turned out what I hoped for but has anyone else noticed that they look a little like ta tas? Maybe that will be my nickname for the PBB.

That reminds me of a funny story about nicknames. I brought ham roll ups to Sharon’s house when we made our beautiful caramel apples. Shelly asked me what appetizer I brought and I said, “Ham roll ups.” She asked me again and I repeated myself. Later when she tried one she asked what was in my “Hammerlips.” We laughed for so long thus ham roll ups are now always referred to as hammerlips! Apparently, I got the nickname thing going on. Perhaps, in my next post I will share why they call me Phoebe.

Back to cookies, I didn’t want the imperfect batch to go to waste so my family experimented and baked them. My oldest child’s hypothesis is that it didn’t matter if mom added the ingredients out of order, the cookies will bake & taste the same. I predict he is going to be wrong. Our conclusion is that is DOES NOT matter if mom added the ingredients out of order (at least for this recipe). The cookies turned out practically the same and they will not go to waste. Good to know!

This cookbook has given me new hope for the holidays. I always bake my standard goodies but seem to lose steam when it comes to cookies. I attribute it to not really having many “wow” recipes and always revert to the traditional cut out sugar cookies that look like children made them. Now I have so many cookies to choose from and we are just beginning! These especially are perfect ones to bake for company.

And if you haven’t figured out yet, I’m all about the presentation. I’m getting a bit razzed about my pretty packaging and raising the bar. I’m hearing rumors that it’s cause for a kick out –LOL! So girls how do you like your deliveries today? Danielle "Phoebe"

Grandma Ginny's Molasses Cookies

2010-02-26T14:36:00.005-05:00

Since completing my first spot as guest baker, I can confidently say it’s not about the cookies…it’s about the friendship. Everyone expected these cookies to be baked, completed, and tackled on Laurie time, which would be about 4am. To their surprise my baking began at midnight and wrapped up at 2AM. So I was actually ahead of schedule without cheating. I did manage to sleep from 2-5:30ish, but had to forgo my morning exercise. All in the name of friendship:)

The recipe was very easy to follow. It was not complicated and the cookies turned out like the picture and tasted delicious!! My husband ate 5 before they were even cool. The best part of this recipe is that it is Matt friendly and he LOVES them!:) Matt is my son who has severe milk and peanut allergies and there are not many tasty cookies that he can have. This recipe is a blessing for him! I owe Shelly a thank you because she was kind enough to include me in the baking adventure and realizing that the recipe was ok for Matt. If it wasn’t for Shelly sacrificing her baking day I would never have known this would be so perfect for Matt.

When I heard what my friends were undertaking I was so grateful that I was not included in the baking rotation:) However, it does make me smile daily to read about their baking. I'm so glad that I was able to join them as a guest baker!

Laurie

Sharon's Egg Yolk Cookies

2010-02-25T11:15:00.002-05:00

I have to say that my new apron, that Danielle showed off 2 posts ago, brought me a new sense of calm. I was able to fold my towel over the waist band, allowing me quick access to a clean hand. Thank you again, I love it!

For this recipe I made one trip to the grocery store for lemon extract. One item to purchase? This is a good sign that I am beginning to have more and more basics in my cupboard. While I was there, I grabbed more butter and anise extract thinking I may need it in the future ( I thought anise was a powder). Who knew? I was eyeing the orange extract but didn't want to get too "Extract Happy". Little did I know my next recipe would call for "orange extract". The other thing I do now is buy 'pure' not imitation extract. Thanks for the tip, it does make a difference.

Because this cookie is called the egg yolk cookie, you can imagine that I would have a few egg whites left over, so I decided to hold onto them and will make a healthy omelette in the a.m. I hoping this will offset some of the taste testing I've enjoyed.

The only thing I would have altered was my flattening technique. Apparently you do not need to flatten these out so much before cooking because due to the butter and shortening it will release on its own. This is why my cookies look a little more like cookie crisps. I tried to alter my pressure on the third dozen but to no avail I love smooshing with the glass a little to much. I did yield 4 dozen cookies but had left over chocolate and almonds.

Easy cookie to make, this time I even timed myself. From getting out my first ingredient to putting my last cookie sheet in the oven, was at about 1hr. and 10 minutes. I then had to let the last cookies cool, spread with chocolate, and top with almonds. In total 2 hr. including clean up. Not bad.

My tip today,"Allow enough time to bake so you can enjoy the process", today was that day...thanks to Danielle G.

I am now off to find packaging and label my cookies...Angie

Angel Cookies

2010-02-24T14:21:00.003-05:00

Angel Cookies.

If you are following our endeavor closely you will realize that we are out of rotation today. The reason for this is that Angie our baker for today has another birthday. Her first baking day fell on one of her boys birthdays and now another one has. I work all day tomorrow and have a meeting for science Olympiad in the evening so I was thrilled when she asked if we could switch.

These cookies were a cinch to make. I wasn't sure how well they were going to turn out because I got distracted when mixing my ingredients and put the baking soda with the sugar!!( I have always wondered why you have to mix the ingredients separately) Thankfully the baking gods were good to me and it didn't ruin the cookies at all. They are delicious. This is another recipe for those of you that want something not to challenging.

I had a thought the other day about my mom and baking. When I was younger my mother used to always do my nails for me any time I asked. At the age of twenty I started an apprenticeship with her to learn to do nails. Once I began said apprenticeship she told me she would no longer do my nails until I could make right hand look as good as my left (with acrylic). Anyone that has ever filed or polished their own nails knows that this is a huge challenge. I will have you know I finally got to the point that I could do my own nails very respectfully. So my thought is this: Will my mom still make me cookies, because I don't think I will ever get to her caliber in this:)

Danielle G.

Amaretti Cookies

2010-02-23T20:17:00.004-05:00

Beginning this venture I knew we’d have a lot of fun experiences but I didn’t realize how emotional it would be at times. Today was one of those emotional days as I received my own beautifully embroidered, “It’s all about friends..and the cookies,” apron from Sharon. I love, love love it! It is super cute and I was taken back with her heartfelt generosity! Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness and know it will be worn with admiration for the both of you! I think we need a new group picture with our matching aprons! Ashamed to admit that I have been gifted a beautiful food processor, for my wedding 13 years ago, and never have used it. This recipe called for processing part of the ingredients and well it was certainly time to get it out of the basement. I got a few “how to” processing tips from Danielle (thanks for saving me)! I’m going to be a pro at blanching almonds, round two for me, but this time 3 cups. It took a few minutes longer but no biggie with help from an eager child. While the almonds were roasting, I whipped my egg whites into stiff peaks. It’s been a long time since I did that but remembered from Danielle that it took a bit for this process to peak. I processed my almonds with the rest of the ingredients. Folded that into my egg whites and ended up with an interesting cookie dough texture. I had to taste test the dough and let me tell you that they barely made it into the oven (yum). I dropped the cookie dough onto the pan with an ice cream scoop as suggested and baked. I like this recipe a lot because it has very few ingredients and there is something about the texture of this cookie that I really love. It is, so far, my favorite cookie! I have never made anything like it before and it does melt in your mouth! Yeah, we had ordered out tonight cause I baked…that’s ok ‘cause the cookies were worth it! Packaged and delivered to the girls! Danielle "Phoebe"

Danish Almond Shortbread

2010-02-22T22:08:00.006-05:00

I finished my cookies with only 2 hours left in the day but I got them done! I was supposed to make the cookie dough last night but it took forever for my butter to get to room temperature (it was one of those one pound blocks.) I didn't want to have another failure so I waited until morning to start. Once I made the dough and put it in the refrigerator to cool "overnight" I went outside to shovel my first ton of snow. In total I think I shoveled about 3 tons. So needless to say, after a long day I was pretty tired. Thank goodness these cookies were a piece of cake! Although the chocolate and walnuts make the cookies very pretty, they are delicious without it! In fact, I think they are the most delicious cookies yet! How could they not be? Butter, butter and more butter, sugar, and almond! Yum!

I want to take a minute to thank Sharon and Theresa for always graciously answering the questions in my first two blogs, even though the answers could be found in the first few pages of their recipe book. Leave it to my friends to point that fact out to me on several occasions! (They're just jealous that I asked all the anticipated questions!) So now you know that I didn't read the beginning of the book but just jumped right into my recipes. That's really how I do things in general. However, I sat down Sunday and read the beginning of the recipe book. Not only was it informative but very sweet and charming as well. It's obvious that Sharon and Theresa put a lot of thought into their tips and nailed those anticipated questions!

Well, I'm coming off a successful baking day and enjoying the whole process. I have invited my friend, Laurie, to bake my next recipe, Grandma Ginny's Molasses Cookies. I want to spread the joy!

shelly

Snickerdoodles

2010-02-21T12:12:00.005-05:00

Well I have to say that I feel like

I cheated in some way. For the record I did not, I just got off easy on this one. These had to be the easiest cookies to make, I highly recommend anyone who is not a baker tackling this recipe. I put my butter out last night so it would be room temp. When I awoke this morning thought I was ready to go. I figured I'd have cookies delivered by 10:00 a.m. The reason this did not happen was that you have to chill the dough a few hours so I must not have thoroughly read my recipe last night as intended. For the record I only did two hours because I wanted to get baking. I did everything the recipe said, it was not clear if you leave the cookies in a ball shape or flatten them so as you can see by my picture I went with the flattening. Baked them for 10 minutes and that was that. Ready to deliver.

I feel like I should have some entertainment for you guys so I will share a funny story. The Boys and I went to run some errands last week when we had a snow day. We went to the library and the grocery store (Hollywood market at auburn and dequindre.) We had our very large black lab, German shepherd mix dog with us.....he loves car rides. We were in the store about 10 minutes when there was an announcement "will the owner of a black caravan with a beautiful black dog inside please come to the front of the store." I have to say I am always afraid someone will call the police when we have Cisco with us thinking I am being an irresponsible pet owner, so my first thought was that had happened. I left the cart with the boys and went racing up front to see what the problem was. The manager of the store very calmly informed me my dog was o.k.......He had just been IN the store!! I wanted to die. The manager told me he told him to sit and he sat on command (good boy.) When he came around to check his tags Cisco ran out of the store. He followed him and watched him hop right back into my opened van door. We discovered when I went to check on him and close the door that the seat belt was stuck in the door so when my son hit the button it opened right back up. By that time we were in the store. So we will now always make sure all doors are closed and locked before we walk away from the car.

Bit of Heaven

2010-02-20T13:47:00.004-05:00

Woke up early and inspired to get baking. Knowing that I needed my butter to be at room temp. this is where I started. Has anyone timed, how long it takes to get butter to room temperature? Well now I know, at the minimum 2 hours. even then its not perfectly soft. On to the bigger issue the filling, after Shelly's concern I was ready for a battle...... however it came together without much issue. It could have been due to my stove that does not work very well. By the time my stovetop became warm, the half & half and sugar mixture was already dissolved. My question is, Do I then call it a day with the heating? For security I kept in on a little longer. I put it aside and moved on to the cookie part, that way it would have plenty of time to cool. When I did add it I listen and only put a little at a time so as to not over saturate the blending. As far as the cookie part---yummy I was a little unsure of how big the finely cubed bananas should be cut so I took a picture so you can see what I did? I also used a cookie dropper which probably resulted in the mounding middle. I should have dropped them with a kitchen teaspoon, like the recipe called for but I didn't think it would make a difference. (It does) By the end of this I think we will take all the obvious and hidden words of wisdom to heart not learning the hard way. But it probably wouldn't be quite the same if we didn't learn by our mistakes. What I learned today... patience- don't rush the small things. Cookies are out for delivery via Jack... Angie

Biscotti "Bisoni"

2010-02-19T16:49:00.002-05:00

I knew that I couldn’t pull this recipe off and make it all today unless I pulled “Laurie” time. Laurie is another one of our girlfriends who regularly starts her days at 4:45am and I refer to rising before the roosters “Laurie” time. The recipe calls for a 2 hour chill time and I didn’t have that kind of time unless I canceled plans. I wasn’t waking with Laurie so I prepared the recipe last night and let it chill overnight with the best hopes that it didn’t matter. Is that cheating? This recipe calls for blanching almonds, so I thought I better get to reading all the pages in the front of the cookbook if my recipe was going to be a success. You should read this ~ good stuff in there! If I would have read it before my last recipe I would have already known about the lovely Grandma Zaccari. Sharon politely reiterated her background for me but ITS IN THE BOOK! Best lesson learned, not only read the entire recipe through, read the beginning of the cookbook too! I have a bit of an advantage with Biscotti “Bisioni” because Shelly led us with the first biscotti recipe! Surprisingly, blanching almonds went very well and was easier than anticipated. It was actually fun to slip the skins off and roast them, really! Great snack too! Good, good directions IN THE FRONT OF THE BOOK! Of course, I knew what almonds were but before this venture I didn’t know what “blanched” almonds were. The authors are teaching me a ton! I think my mother in law would be proud of me with this step as she normally chops her nuts by hand for her recipes but wonder if she has ever blanched almonds? Almond paste was a first for me. Yummy smell with a very interesting texture, perhaps comparable to play-doh or sugar cookie dough. It was easy to work with. I bought it in a can from Kroger. Sharon where do you get yours? This recipe also calls for some lemon zest. The authors also explain how much zest you can expect from a lemon or an orange IN THE FRONT OF THE BOOK. I am delighted to use my new zester thanks to my Sur La Table personal shopper extraordinaire, Angie! I owe you one! It was fun to zest. I zested the whole lemon just for kicks. Shelly shared with me lots of ways she uses her zester. Don’t let her fool you she can cook really well! Apparently, I have been living a deprived life without this miraculous kitchen tool and eating bland tasting food! I prepared the rest of the dough and chilled it overnight. This morning, following the directions, I prepared my two logs on my stoneware and baked accordingly. They turned out great. While they were cooling we went ice skating to work off all of my extra taste testing. This afternoon, I melted my chocolate in a double broiler and drizzled over the tops of the biscotti after slicing. What a delectable dessert! Can’t wait to share with my husband!

Waffle Iron Chocolate Brownies

2010-02-18T15:23:00.004-05:00

Again I surprise myself by shopping for my needed ingredients ahead of time. If only I would take this approach on all aspects of my life! I actually read through the directions of the recipe before I went shopping and I'm glad I did. I chose to buy the cocoa powder for baking over the chocolate baking squares because it saved me a step in the recipe (I didn't have to melt the chocolate). I'm always looking for a short cut! Kids are playing at Danielle B.'s house today so there is plenty of time to make these cookies without any distractions. I put the brownie ingredients together and plugged in my waffle iron. Hey, is it bad when brown sugar is clumped up into hard little balls that will not crumble apart no matter how hard you try? Is it like honey, still good but needs to be brought back to the right consistency? Lucky for me I had an unopened bag in the pantry so I didn't have to use the hard little balls-but you know that I would have if I had to! I used a melon baller to measure out the same size cookie every time. I think they are bigger than the cookies that Sharon makes because there was no way that I was going to get 48 cookies out of that dough. I could only fit four balls of dough on my small waffle iron per cycle (that's only 2 cookies) so after about forty minutes, I finally had enough made to give to each of my girlfriends. I was exhausted at this point so I decided to go with plan B...I divided the remaining batter in half and made 2 full size waffles. What's the difference? It will still taste the same. Don't hate me for being lazy! Cookies done. Time to move onto filling. I mixed half and half and sugar in a pot and put it on the stove to simmer. Sharon has "do not boil" underlined in her book so that must be important. Well, I turned my head for ONE second and the next thing I know the mixture is boiling over the sides of my pot. Ooops! I immediately took it off the heat, added vanilla extract and let it cool. It was tasty. However, when I went to mix it with the shortening, it would not incorporate very well at all. I figured it was because I boiled it so I started over again. This time, I stood at the stove and DID NOT BOIL. Once it cooled, I tried to mix it in with the shortening and again with no luck. I was even using a whisk attachment (which I didn't even know I had!) I tasted it because if it tasted good I was going to use it whether it looked fluffy or not. However, it tasted like shortening with a little bit of sugar added. Yuck! Now you can only imagine how mentally exhausted I am at this point! In desperation, I pulled a tub of Cool Whip out of the freezer, thawed it and added sugar and vanilla and made the cookie sandwiches. Now I need a nap! shelly

My Mom's Lemon Meringue Tarts

2010-02-17T15:26:00.001-05:00

"My Moms Lemon Meringue Tarts" How did this happen? I have never been a baker. I enjoy making toll house cookies, brownies from a box, and cupcakes. My mother has always baked so I grew up around it, I just wasn't interested. When my mom and her friend wrote a cookie cookbook I thought "great lots of cookies for us while they are writing their recipes," and that did happen. I invited my friends to her cookbook launch knowing they would enjoy it. While I was helping with the demos and filling more plates with cookies they were hatching this plan. I should give some background on this. We all rent a house together in Mackinaw in the summer. We bring ten boys, four husbands, and enough food to feed ten families (which always seems to get eaten.) This past summer we had a rain day and decided to go to the movies. Our wonderful husbands took all ten boys to one show and we saw something else. "Julie and Julia". We were hooked and talked about how inspiring the movie was, so now we are doing our own version. My recipe is "My moms lemon meringue tarts" (my grandma actually) My grandma was not much of a cookie baker but she could crank out some awesome pies. This is a recipe I believe my mom adapted from Grandma's favorite pie. I found some of the instructions confusing, like needing aluminum foil and dried beans and what exactly is cream of tartar? (I actually had this in my pantry but is was expired.) Come to find out the foil and beans is to put in your dough to hold it down so it does not puff up when you bake it. Genius. Cream of tartar is a mix of baking soda and powder. The boys and I had no trouble with the recipe for the pie crusts or the lemon pie filling. It was the meringue that was troublesome. We whipped our egg whites with the whipper on the electric mixer and then added the other ingredients as instructed. After seven minutes and no peaks I called my mother. She said we were supposed to whip it on high. So I did that for ten more minutes and it got thicker. I spooned this mixture onto my tarts and baked them. When they came out most of it had slid off of the tarts and onto my sil pad. It looked really pretty so I scraped it off and tried to put it back on the tarts. My son says they look nothing like Grandmas but they are delicious!! This is going to be a very fun experience and if my kids will stay in the kitchen with me to help it's going to be awesome. Thanks girls for all of the cookies. We did it. Our first recipes are done. I am lookin forward to the next batch. Danielle G

Grandma Zaccari's Chocolate Almond Cookies

2010-02-16T22:42:00.000-05:00

Baking is fun when you have time to enjoy it... The pressure is on to find the time.

My recipe called for something to be zested, chopped, and a cookie sheet to be lined. What are the chances that I just so happened to ask for all 3 items for Christmas and got them!

Today I learned a few things that I have not done before. First off (Crisco), growing up in the 70's my mother had a container or 2 of crisco and as I remember used it for everything. Being a wife of 13 years I think I might have only purchased at the most maybe 2. Anyway my recipe called for it and was easy to use however I 'm still not sure what it is or what it really might do to my arteries. The second was zesting, I have never done this but always thought it would be fun. I have seen Giada on her cooking show use it effortlessly and it seems to make everything just that much better! I agree. The third is chopping my own almonds in lieu of purchasing them from the store. Thanks to the nutty tip on page 13, I was well on my way to the perfect finely chopped almond or so I thought. I pulled out my new processor and decided to hit the pulse button a few times so as not to over chop, inadvertently making almond puree. This went well for the first 10 pulses or so then I started to worry. I see finely chopped almonds in the processor but I also see a large amount of stubborn just chopped almonds not wanting to become finely chopped. I had to intervene. I took out my serrated ladle and started to sift them apart. As you can see in the picture there is a significance difference. Issue averted.

My favorite part of this recipe book is the easy to follow ingredients guide. Go straight down the list and read to the right. You really can not mess up unless the phone rings, your kids interrupt you 10x or more, the door bells rings, or you just second guess what you put in even if you were not interrupted. Or lastly you do have to go to the store because a standard item is just not where you thought it was.

On to assembly, everything was going smoothly until I started to roll out the dough into long ropes. See pict. what does it look like? My thoughts exactly. The major difference is that the taste by far out ways the rolled up humor I got from it. Once I cut the pieces into 2" lengths then I wondered do I pat them to give them a flatter look or just let it roll. I tried the pat method and it did help.

Glazing the cookie? I ended up using the basting brush because my first 2 dozen took almost 4 hours to dry, apparently I took the coating concept in the bowl a little to far. Even after hours of drying time my cookies were sticky is this normal? I need the professional inside tip whether or not I should have worried about this.

My photo is not like the pros but for the first time and not much insight on the correct techniques I think they came out pretty okay. As for Fat Tues... Jack my husband, would rather enjoy many of Grandma Zaccari's Chocolate Almond Cookies than paczki.

Thanks for sharing this recipe....

Grandma Zaccari's Pizzelles & Cannoli Filling

2010-02-15T14:13:00.001-05:00

I am not a risk taker in life nor in baking so this venture is going to be a growing experience for me. I always stick to my few tried and true recipes that usually contain cream cheese such as those Cream Cheese Bars that everyone asks for the recipe and has trouble duplicating. So I have some hope and look forward to “baking” out of my box – ha ha. I am a creative person and really don’t get a chance to satisfy that need as a stay at home mom so I look forward to the blogging and ‘posing’ my goodies for pictures – darn wish I had a fancy camera! Someday, I will pursue my photography dream. My family looks forward to the sweets but I know that they secretly are wondering how all four of us are going to pull this off with busy schedules and unforeseeable circumstances. Heaven forbid my crew of three boys and a husband forgo a homemade dinner cause it’s my turn to bake. I predict that I will be the one losing the most sleep over baking and blogging. I look forward to the challenge and best part is I get to go through it with three amazing women who have taught me so much over the years. I suspect I will benefit from their baking successes and mishaps but hoping in the end we all will gain more than what we expect. Just think when our boys look back at 2010 they might say, “do you remember when our moms baked their way through the cookie cookbook?” Unknowingly, we are inspiring them to do something they desire to do someday just like Sharon & Theresa inspired us! Previewing my 19 recipes, I quickly realized that I will be using ingredients that I never worked with before and will be purchasing a few new baking essentials ~ always wanted a zester but never had a use for it and apparently a silpat is a must! Unlike Julie, she never had the privilege of asking Julia about her recipes but you bet I will be asking our expert bakers & authors where I can find Five Roses Flour, Magic Baking Powder and gold & silver edible powders. Keep in mind, our first 8 recipes are being accomplished while our children are on a week long winter break so our schedules might be more flexible, our patience might have to be exercised more and two of us have our children’s birthdays this week – phew! Shelly thanks for being a good sport and kicking off Day 1! So here goes day 2… First off, I didn’t have a pizzelle maker to even begin this recipe and only a serious baker would (or the daughter of a serious baker). Danielle G. graciously offered me hers to use. I expected a metal maker a little more modern than the one in the picture but this one is more like an electric waffle maker. Sharon did use one to demonstrate with but I still didn’t think this was what I was borrowing. Secondly, I had to make a Kroger run, like Shelly, cause I too didn’t have Anise oil extract. Making the cookie batter was simple and quick. I never really mastered the perfect amount of dough to put in the pizzelle maker. Either had too much or too little but they still came out so pretty and it didn’t affect the results. I didn’t have a cannoli tube to form the pizzelle around but I improvised. I tried a few kitchen items but the pizzelles were too small to stay formed. The pizzelle maker produces two at a time so I ended up rolling the pizzelle around the handle of a melon baller and stuck the second one inside a round biscuit cutter. We ended up with about 60 formed pizzelles. They are not perfect but I am totally impressed. The best part is that my oldest son wanted to be involved and made the last half on his own; however, you have to have fingers of steel, like Sharon, to get them off and rolled so that part is not recommended for kids. Easy to make with impressive results! You too can whoo your friends with these. The filling was easy to make too. Never thought ricotta cheese would be an ingredient, maybe cream cheese. I only have used ricotta cheese in lasagna before. I needed 3 lbs of ricotta cheese and how frustrating that it is not sold in 16oz tubs. You can find 15 oz tubs or 1lb 14 oz tubs! I am 3 ounces short but what the heck! I ended up buying roasted & salted pistachio nuts in the shell cause I was desperate and couldn’t find regular pistachio nuts. I de-shelled them, chopped them and I wondered if I really am supposed to be doing this? They are salty and look green. Wishing about now that my grocery store actually carried chopped pistachio nuts. I put the filling in a ziplock baggie, cut the end and filled a few pizzelles kind of like a real pastry chef! I could have used a pastry bag but it was quicker finding my ziplocks! My chocolate morsels weren’t small enough so I chopped them in my nut chopper and dipped each end into the chopped chocolate (I omitted the nuts for my kids) ~ viola! I think they look impressive and they taste delicious! I have a sentimental side that is really wondering more about the history of the recipe and Grandma Zaccari. I would love to know more about this amazing baker, her legacy, etc. I now have to switch gears and make a birthday cake for my son. I get to be creative with decorating it into a Detroit Tiger jersey (mind you I just finished a USA hockey jersey cake for my other son’s birthday on Friday) and hope I can endure more baking than I would ever do in one day/week! A final thought from “Pheobe” ~ I nor anyone in my household will be giving up sweets for Lent!!!!! Danielle B. “Pheobe”

Grandma Zaccari's Biscotti

2010-02-14T14:59:00.000-05:00

Cookie Day 1

Grandma Zaccari's Biscotti

I'm not a baker. I will bake birthday cakes and cupcakes (from a box) for my kids birthdays because I love them. I have a tub of cookie dough in the freezer that I bought at the school fund raiser two years ago that I haven't used because it seems like too much work. Now my friends want me to bake a cookie from scratch every fourth day?? Why did I agree to this? That's exactly what I asked myself all day today. Finally around 9:30 p.m. I dragged my butt to the kitchen because I love my friends and with me it's "All About the Friends." (That's Angie's tag line so I had to slip it in here!). Also, I figured that quicker we got this whole thing in motion, the quicker it would be over.

After the book signing party yesterday, I drove Danielle B. home and went straight to Kroger's to buy Anise oil, the only ingredient that I didn't already have in my pantry that I needed for the biscotti. I'm glad I did because if I would have had to run to Kroger at 9:30 p.m. on a Sunday night...let's just say that I'm glad I bought it yesterday.

What can I tell you about my experience? I think I need to start working out my arms because mixing 6 cups of flour into that batter by hand sure got tiresome. I don't know if I was supposed to mix by hand but when I tried to use my electric mixer, flour dust went flying everywhere. If there's one thing I don't like more than baking, it's cleaning! At the demonstration, Sharon said that the batter would be sticky and she was right. Her tip on getting your hands wet really did work. I didn't use a ruler or a grid to measure out the exact size of my loaves, but they all looked about the same. I fit two loaves on a stone and put the other two loaves on a silicone pad on my metal baking sheet just so I could stick them into the oven at the same time (to move the process along.) Even though Sharon recommends the baking stone for a more even cook, I found that the biscotti stuck to it when it was baked. It absolutely did not stick to the silicone sheet.

Do the cookies look like Sharon's picture? Well, no because I didn't brush them with egg whites and put sprinkles on them. I'm not going to lie, I stuck them in the oven before I read to the bottom of the paragraph that said, "brush with egg whites and sprinkle on candies." By then the loaves were already in the oven for 2 minutes and I figured that the important thing is for them to TASTE good, not look good. Also, I noticed 'after the fact' that the recipe called for blanced almonds. How do you blanch almonds? I wonder if Sharon would be able to tell that my almonds are not blanched. Oh well! The biscotti are baked and my husband tried one and loved it. And, honestly, it wasn't as much work as I thought it would be.

The cookies are bagged and ready to be delivered to my friends tomorrow!

shelly

How it Started

2010-02-13T11:04:00.001-05:00

On Febuary 13th, at Trevarrow's in Auburn Hills, we were invited by our dear friend to the unveiling of her Mother and Friends', "Its all about the Cookies" cook book.

After sampling many different types of cookies, we were treated by the authors to a few cooking tips and strategies. This was not only inspiring but it stimulated our conversation regarding actually baking the cookies in the book we had all just purchased. I am not sure about you, but I have at least 20 cookbooks that have only taken up space in my cupboard and have left me uninspired to try something new. Today was a new day.

Our Game Plan:

Four friends cooking our way through each cookie recipe in a systematic way. The rotation will start with Shelly, followed by Danielle B.(a.k.a. Phoebe), Angie, and lastly our dear friend Danielle G. (whom brought us here). We have added the rotation and recipe calendar under Pages.

As original as our plan sounds, apparently this has been done before through a little known national best seller and movie, "Julie and Julia". However this is very different, it is cookies, baked with love and admiration between four friends that could only do it with the support and supply base from the authors!!!! Seriously, only serious bakers will have some of the tools needed to accomplish these recipes.

So we take our hats off to the two ladies that started baking as friends and have created a lifetime of memories in a little known best seller to us.... "It's All About The Cookies", by Sharon Bisoni and Theresa Grzadzinski.

To order this book please email:

sbisoni@wideopenwest.com or

terriandgerry@aol.com