Wednesday, August 14, 2013

One Day Postponement on Those Cookies

I thought I had all the ingredients yesterday, but the eggs turned out to be too old. They wouldn't float.

Shopping this morning, baking this afternoon. I'll take photos.

In the old days, when I could eat cookies and they didn't immediately attach to my waistline, I baked cookies all year round. And at Christmas, I went wild. I baked enough cookies to feed my family, my neighbors, and still have enough to mail to out of town relatives.

I love chocolate chip cookies, Snickerdoodles, peanut butter cookies, Mexican wedding cakes, oatmeal cookies (not so fond of raisins, but those dried cranberries or cherries are fine), and plain old chocolate cookies with lots of chopped English walnuts. I had a cookie press for cute shapes, rolled pink and white dough into strips to form candy canes, and collected cookie cutters shaped like Christmas trees, Santas, and reindeer. I even had a recipe that molded well around little fillings of chocolate chips or nuts.

My all-time favorite cookie recipe is a sour cream sugar cookie. It's soft inside but firm enough outside for frosting if plain old sugar on top is not enough. It's the only cookie recipe I haven't tried with at least half of the white flour replaced with whole wheat flour.

I fiddle around with most recipes, cutting the sugar and oil a little, changing out part of the flour for whole wheat, substituting a little yogurt or baby prunes or applesauce for some of the shortening. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but somehow the cookies never seem to make it into the trash can. Our minds ignore the odd shape or color. We smell the aroma, think COOKIE! and eat it.

That's all I have to say today about cookies.

What's your favorite homemade cookie?

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pat - I have to be careful how many cookies I eat. They have a way now of adding to my pants size within seconds of eating them *sigh.* But I do love 'em. My top choice? White chocolate macadamia cookies - yummmmmmmm!!!!!! Oh, and that sour cream cookie recipe sounds really good.

Patricia Stoltey said...

Margot, I know exactly what you mean. If I ate cookies now like I did when my kids were little....well, I'll just say it would take less than a week to grow out of all my clothes.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I like peanut butter cookies, but chocolate chip will do!
Sorry about your eggs.

Kenneth W Harmon said...

Hard to beat homemade chocolate chip cookies. I like mine with pecan pieces. Yum. Unfortunately, I'm at the point where I gain weight just thinking about cookies...dang it...I just added two pounds!

Unknown said...

You inspired me. I just finished baking a batch of chocolate/peanut butter chip cookies. Now to resist eating too many!

Kenneth W Harmon said...

Pat, I want your sour cream sugar cookie recipe!

Patricia Stoltey said...

Alex, I have plenty of cookies left over. Shall I send you some?

Ken, I didn't put any nuts in this batch, but I do like pecans or English walnuts in cookies.

Julie, I'm now on a sugar high and probably won't be able to sleep tonight. It was worth it though.

I'll dig it out, Ken. It's really good.

liz young said...

If by "cookies" you mean any individual cake-type treat, my favourite is probably flapjack, which is a mixture of butter, golden syrup and rolled oats. I like brownies too. Don't get me started - I'm diabetic!

Jan Morrison said...

oh chocolate chips - either fancied up with dried cranberries and pecans or just nice and plain like the recipe on the bag of choc. chips!
I've been baking a lot too - wild! I made seven pies in two days for a big community lobster dinner. They need 80 of them! Gah! I made blueberry, blueberry and strawberry, peach, peach and blueberry and apple!

Anonymous said...

oatmeal cookies -- follow the recipe on the box, but cut the sugar in half (really!) and replace half the butter with a half cup of applesauce. They turn out a little more cake-like, but oh, so good. My co-workers love them. I prefer pecans in them to walnuts.

Patricia Stoltey said...

Lizy, yes, most anything like that qualifies as a cookie in my book. Brownies are wonderful. Never tried flapjack, but it sounds interesting and tasty.

Hi Jan -- The dried cranberries are so good. But all those pies. That was a lot of work.

Susan, that's a great suggestion on the oatmeal cookie recipe fix. I like cake-like cookies so that would be even better.

Pat Tillett said...

My favorite cookies look exactly like the ones in your post tomorrow. I am not a time traveler, just catching up! Chocolate Chip...