Mmmm Mmmm Monday: Gingerbread Softies

My newest obsession for finding recipes is on Pinterest. There is so much cool stuff on there besides recipes! Be warned though...it is super addicting!

Anyway, when I was wandering around over there a couple weeks ago I came across this recipe from Dana Made It and it was the perfect Christmas baking recipe to try out. I love gingerbread cookies but don't like hard, crunchy cookies so right off the bat the name intrigued me.

I made a batch of the dough and baked them up...HEAVEN. The recipe says to make 1" round balls but I used my Pampered Chef medium scoop for the balls and it yielded 4.5 dozen cookies!! Imagine if how many you'd get with 1" balls! A TON!!

Here's what you need:
2 cups sugar
1.5 cups shortening
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses
4 cups flour
4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp giner
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp salt

Cream together suger & shortening. Add eggs and beat until thick. Add molasses and stir until combined.
Sift together flour baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves & salt. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir until just blended. (If the dough is very soft, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze for 30 min).
Shape dough into 1" balls and roll in granulated sugar. Place on greased cookie sheets and bake at 350* for 7-10 minutes or until just set, but not browned. Cool on a wire rack.

**I use my PC stoneware bar pan for baking cookies, and I needed to bake for about 11-12 minutes. Ten minutes on the stoneware made the cookies just a bit too soft.**

One bite takes me back.

Today while at the commissary on my grocery shopping trip, I ran across something I hadn't seen in years. Voortman's Windmill Cookies. I had to buy a sleeve and as soon as I got home and put the rest of the groceries away I ripped open the package. To my surprise they'd changed the design of the cookie, and I admit- I was a little disappointed. But when I bit into the snack, I was instantly transported back to my gramma's kitchen in Wyoming, Michigan. I was once again a carefree, eight-year-old little girl sitting at the 50's era kitchen table with it's plastic tablecloth, Bible and "Our Daily Bread" devotional sitting next to the napkins and salt & pepper. I was flooded with memories of my sweet grandparents and how much fun we had with them...whether it was at their house up north or down at our house in Florida where they'd spent about a month every winter. Then I thought about how I wish I'd have asked more questions and really taken in all their stories. My grandma was one of 15 kids born to farmers in Marne, Michigan. Her parents were marriedi n 1900 and both came from "the old country" of the Netherlands. My grandpa grew up in Chicago during the mobster era...I remember one story he told (very vaguely of course because my sisters & I were young and impressionable) about seeing a mob hit go down while he was walking home from school. My grandparents survived the Great Depression and World War 2. I remember them speaking Dutch around us when they didn't want us to hear what they were talking about. They taught us a couple of little rhymes and finger plays in Dutch, but unfortunately I only remember little snippets. They both passed away in 2003 and were as much in love then as they had ever been. I miss them every day, but especially when I look at my kids and think "Man- they'd sure get a kick out of them!" We were fortunate enough for them to both meet Noah when he was a baby, but they never got to meet Jonah or Sophia. Jonah was the first great-grandchild born after they both passed, and we derived Jonah's name from my grandpa, John. Isn't it amazing how one little bite of a simple ginger cookie can bring back such memories?

Mmmm Mmmm Monday Revisited: Cake Mix Cookies

This is a repost from last February but these are such a big hit in our house that I had to revisit them. Cake mix cookies are so easy to make. And if you're like me and love love love those frosted sugar cookies from Walmart, then you'll love these. The hubby & kids tell me that they like them even better than the Wally World version!

Cake Mix Cookies

1 pkg cake mix

1/3 cup oil

2 eggs

Heat oven to 375*. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, oil, and eggs and mix until thoroughly moistened. Shape dough into 1" balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Gently flatten the dough ball with your fingers to about 1/4 of an inch thickness. Bake for 6-8 minutes or until edges are a light golden brown. Cool one minute, remove from cookie sheet.

Now here's the fun part! If you want to frost these tasty bites, let the cookies cool completely, and then use your favorite frosting on top and decorate with sprinkles or anything you'd like. I let mine sit out overnight to harden the frosting a bit. I sent these special Valentine's funfetti cookies with the boys for school and they were so excited to have them in their lunches!

You've got a little bit of something on your nose...

My little sous-chef and I made some cookies today. I think she enjoyed being the taste-tester more than anything.

Sometimes you just have to shake your head and walk away.

Note to moms: Never mix two kinds of cookies in one jar. Because if you have a son like my Jonah, you will find this after he's been trying to get the oreos from the bottom:

Those USED to be my delicious Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies. Now they're a big wad of crumbs.

*SIGH*

Mmmm Mmmm Monday: Cake Mix Cookies

Yes, I realize that it's taken me a week to get back to you with a recipe. It's been crazy. Anyway, here's one of my favorite cookie recipes. Super easy and sooo tasty!

Cake Mix Cookies
1 package cake mix
1/3 cup oil
2 eggs
flour, sugar or cocoa

Heat oven to 375*. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, oil, and eggs; stir with a spoon until thoroughly moistened.

Shape dough into 1 inch balls; place about 2" apart on ungreased cookie sheets. With the bottom of a glass dipped in flour (use sugar or cocoa if using chocolate cake mix) flatten down to about 1/4 ".

Bake for 6-8 minutes or until edges are light golden brown. Cool 1 minute and remove from cookie sheet.

(This recipe came from my church cookbook, but there's a note that it was originally from Pillsbury)

Mmmm Mmmm Monday: Autumn Leaves

A few years ago I got a great cookbook called "Classroom Treats". There are tons of fun, kid friendly things to make in it and this cookie recipe is one of our fall staples.

Autumn Leaves
1 and 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
3 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cloves
2 tbsps unsweetened cocoa powder
yellow, orange & red food coloring
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Beat butter, brown sugar and vanilla in large bowin with elecric mixer at medium speed until light & fluffy. Add flour, cinnamon, salt, ginger and cloves; beat at low speed until well blended.

Divide dough into 5 equal sections. Stir cocoa into one section until well blended (if dough is too dry and will not stick together, add 1 tsp water and beat until dough forms a ball). Stir yellow food coloring into another section. Repeat with two more section, using red food coloring for one, and orange for the other. Leave the last section plain.

Preheat oven to 350*. Lightly grease cookie sheets. Working with half of each dough color, press colors togther lightly. Roll dough on lightly floured surface to 1/4" thickness. Cut dough with leaf-shaped cookie cutters. Place cutouts 2 inches apart on cookie sheets. Repeat with remainging dough sections and scraps.

Bake 10-15 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Remove to wire racks and cool completely.

Place chocolate chips in a ziploc bag and seal. Microwave at high for 1 minute; knead bag lighly. Microwave at high for additional 30 second intervals until completly melted, kneading after each interval. Cut off a tiny coner of the bag and pipe chocolate onto cookies to make the veins for each leaf.

Makes 2 dozen cookies.