Snicker Doodles and Helpful Tips

One of my all time favorite types of cookies are Snickerdoodles, these divide, sugary cookies are perfect for anytime of day or event. Butter is a main ingredient in all cookies and cakes is butter. Butter can be a pain, it tends to have specific instrucitons for how it is to be added to the batter. In this case you were supposed to add the softened butter as the first ingredient. Of course I had forgotten to remove the butter from the fridge before I started baking. You can't use un-softened butter in this case because it needs to whipped. To slove this issue I use a trick that I discovered.

Rather than trying to get the butter perfectly softened all the way through in the microwave, I put the butter on top of the toaster oven and turn it on for about 5 minutes. Then I rotate it every few minutes to make sure it doesn't melt.

You could also do this with a regular toaster by setting it across the top of the toaster with a shorter amount of time.

After I made the dough and allowed it to chill for just over an hour, I rolled it into perfect balls then dipped them in the sugar mixture. To make the balls perfectly round I take an 1" by 1" chunk of dough and roll it between my hands life playdough. This makes the end result of perfectly round cookies.













The cook book says to "[Bake] for 10-11 minutes or till edges are golden. Cool cookies on wire rack"(119). While I was making them the edges became golden brown but the middle didn't really seem done, so I kept baking them. Bad idea. What I should have done is bake them for about 10 minutes and then allow them to cool first on the baking sheet and then the wire rack. If I had done this it would have made the snickerdoodles light and fluffy rather than light and hard.

Recipie:
1/2 cup margine or butter
1 1/2 cups all- purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Better Homes and Gardens: New Cook Book. Des Moines: Merdith, 1989. Print.

Chocolate Dipped Shortbread Cookies

Generally if you want to make a super quick and easy cookie, your go-to is shortbread. There are three ingredients, and they can be made into rounds, stips, cut-outs, anything really. Don't be decived by this, they are a pain. To begin you mix the flour and sugar, praying it doesn't fly out of the bowl. Then add the stick of butter. Easy right? Not really, for this to work you must make sure the butter is softened but not runny. If it is too soft the dough won't stick, if it is too cold the dough will crumble. One of the most important steps that I neglected (by acident!) was "Cut[ing] in the butter till mixture resembles fine crumbs and starts to cling" (120). I found out soon enough that this was one of the msot important steps. If you just put the butter straight into the bowl it does not cling to all of the mixture resulting in your dough not clumping together.

This only becomes a major problem if you want to make the cookies into shapes,  this was my orginal plan but because I missed a step I resulted to using a greased pan. After kneading the dough for about 10 minutes I firmly pressed the dough into a pan and poped it into the oven.

Shortbread cookies plain, are well, plain. So I decided to make them dipped in chocolate. To do this I made fudge but didn't allow it to heat all the way. This keeps the fugde from hardening so it makes a perfect dip. The leftover chocolate can later be used for chocolate over icecream, simply heat it in a microwave for 30-40 seconds.

After dipping the shortbreads in chocolate and letting them chill overnight they were ready to eat and quite delicious!

Recipie:
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup butter

Better Homes and Gardens: New Cook Book. Des Moines: Merdith, 1989. Print.

Christmas Sugar Cookie Cutouts

Around the holidays one of my favorite things todo is bake and bake and bake. I would make every recipie from the book if I had the time. One that recipie that I make every year is the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book sugar cookie recipie.

Recipie:
1/3 cupe margine or butter (I use butter)
1/3 cup shortening
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 egg
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
dash of salt
powdered sugar icing (optional - I used this and some left over cream cheese frosting)

When making these cookies I found that the dough was very sticky. It was on my fingers and spatulas, along with refusing to leave the sides of the bowl. When this happens the best thing to do is to chill the dough before rolling the cookies. Personally, I hate to wait for the dough to chill, it takes too long and sometimes I forget about it... But if you don't chill the dough it stays sticky and doesn't roll out nicely. Causing your cut-outs to stick and become deformed.

One way to avoid this is to "chill the dough before rolling it, or freeze it just until it's firm enough to roll" (Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book 104). If you freeze the dough it can cut your chilling time down from 3 hours, as the recipie calls for, to as little as half an hour. The only downside of freezing the dough is that if you forget about it you then have to wait even longer for the dough to defrost.

Overall, the end result is worth the time and sticky fingers. But be for warned, it makes a mess frosting...

Better Homes and Gardens: New Cook Book. Des Moines: Merdith, 1989. Print.

The Winter Wonderland Effect

Chocolate Chip Cookies are always an easy go-to cookie. Almost everyone likes them and they are usually simple to make.  Chocolate Chip is perfect "for any occasion, from after-school snacks to holiday-dinner deserts" (Better Home and Gardens New Cook Book 104). Normally I would use an old for family recipie but for this assignment I used my IRP book.

One thing that all Chocolate Chip recipies have in common is the amount of flour used - lots. When baking with lots of flour something I call the 'Winter Wonderland Effect' usually occurs. This is when you put all the flour in the mixer, turn it on, and poof! The flour is no longer in mixing bowl, it is all over the counter, floor and everything inbetween.

To solve this problem there are many options, one being buying a fancy sheild thing that attactches to the mixing bowl. I find this bulky and they never seem to work properly. The best way to keep the flour from turning your kitchen into a 'Winter Wonderland' is to take a medium size dish towel and drape it over the mixer and bowl.

This keeps the flour in the bowl while minimizing the amount of dishes you have to wash when you're finished.

Recipie:
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter or margarine (I always use butter)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 12-ounce package of chocolate pieces (I used chocolate chips)
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

After trying these cookies, it was determined by my many taste testers that old family recipes are always the best, but this was a good and fun alternative.

Better Homes and Gardens: New Cook Book. Des Moines: Merdith, 1989. Print.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Baking breads can be a stressful task, having to wait for the dough to rise and baking for hours but making sure they don't burn. One bread that isn't nearly as hard to make is banana bread. I love to make banana bread for my family becuase it is one of the quick and easy "mouth-watering breads that doesn't require a lot of time" (Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book 56).

One trick I learned while making this specific recipie for banana bread is that you should wait till the bread is completly cool to take it out of the pan rather than going straight from teh pan to a wire rack. This lessened the amount of bread that stuck to the pan. Another trick that is mentioned in the book is to "Pour [the] batter into a greased 8x4x2-inch loaf pan" (56). This was very helpful not only when I took the bread out of the oven but it also helped the batter slide into the pan smoothly. 

The recipie I used called for chopped nuts, I decided to substitute in chocolate chips because of my allergy towards nuts. 

The Recipie:

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

2/3 cup sugar 

2 teaspoons baking powder 

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 seaspoon salt 

1 cup mashed ripe banana (2-3 medium bananas)

1/3 cup shortening 

2 tablespoons milk 

2 eggs

1/4 cup chocolate chips 

Better Homes and Gardens: New Cook Book. Des Moines: Merdith, 1989. Print.

Better Homes and Gardens: New Cook Book

My quarter 2 IRP activity is baking, the book I will be using is called: Better Homes and Gardens: New Cook Book. I have selected a cook book that includes things I already know how to make along with many recipies that I have always wanted to try. The book also includes tips and tricks to help perfect your baking skills.

Better Homes and Gardens: New Cook Book. Des Moines: Merdith, 1989. Print.