Another recipe from the White River. Doug's mom used to make these and Myra passed the recipe along to me when I was wrangling horses for them.

Molasses Sugar Cookies

Doug Vaden on the White River

Cream Together:

1 1/2 Cup Shortening

2 cups sugar

1/2 Cup molasses

2 eggs

Sift together and add to above:

4      Cups flour

4      Teaspoons baking soda

2 Teaspoons cinnamon

1 Teaspoon ground cloves

1 Teaspoon ginger

1 Teaspoon salt

Mix well

Form into 1 inch balls and flatten with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar or roll out and use cookie cutters. 

Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes

Half recipe:

3/4 Cup Shortening

1 cup sugar

1/4 Cup molasses

1 egg

Sift together and add to above:

2   cups flour

2 Teaspoons baking soda

1 Teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 Teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 Teaspoon ginger

1/2 Teaspoon salt

We like to cut out bears and decorate them. We've also made house fronts and little houses with this dough and decorated them. We all love this cookie. One thing, when we do use cutters, we don't reuse the rolled dough. We just bake off the little bits and eat them. Too much flour added, like you need when you re-roll the dough, makes it tough and not quite as tasty.

This cookie will keep for ages in a zip-locked bag or airtight canister. They are really yummy dunked in coffee.

Easy Butter Shortbread

The Christmas baking has begun. Bethany needed several large cookies for gifts for the second year radiography class. They've been very helpful to the first years. These are really easy...and so good! I've had this recipe for years. Can't even remember where we got it.

Easy Butter Shortbread

1 cup butter

2/3 cup powdered sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

2-2 1/4 cup flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

PREHEAT oven to 350 degrees.  In a medium mixing bowl CREAM butter, sugar and vanilla.  ADD two cups flour and salt and MIX until dough is smooth.  If dough feels sticky ADD additional 1/4 cup flour as needed.  Dough should be soft but not sticky.  ROLL into 1" balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet.  BRUSH cookie press lightly with vegetable oil.  PRESS dough with desired cookie presses.  BAKE 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.  COOL 5 minutes on sheet, COOL completely on rack.

Makes 2-3 dozen…and I ALWAYS make a double batch!

After you oil the press, be sure and dip it in sugar to keep it from sticking to the cookie dough. You can use plain white sugar or colored crystals.

When we double the recipe, we use 1 Tbl Vanilla and 1 tsp Almond flavoring

When we made them today, I rolled short logs that were about 1.5 inches thick by about 8 inches long in wax paper. Then Bethany and I rolled the logs in multi-colored sprinkles. We then sliced them into 1/2 inch discs. THEN we squished them with an assortment of cookie presses. They were quite colorful! You can see the sliced discs, along with the presses, here:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Brittle

Our family loves chocolate chip cookies. It's probably the first recipe that my children ever really helped me with. And who can blame them? They snuck chocolate chips as we mixed and spooned the dough out.

With all the White Texas Sheet Cake, Meringues, and BREAD that I've been making lately, hubs has felt like we've been missing out on one of the main food groups: CHOCOLATE.

So today I'm giving CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE BRITTLE a shot. I was surprised at how easy the recipe was. No eggs, either! I was surprised that there wasn't any brown sugar, but then decided that when I make it again I'll substitute BROWN SUGAR for the white. Yep,  haven't met a recipe that I can't tweak!

Now, Nestle has a recipe for this one. You can find it here.  I've omitted the nuts (see? TWEAKING!) because I'm the only one in the family that really likes nuts in anything besides Baklava. You could add nuts if you like. You could also use any flavor of chips you prefer, or you could mix them up! This is easy...and fun.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Brittle

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 15x9 cookie sheet with parchment paper.

1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup sugar (I'm using BROWN next time!)

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups flour

1 1/4 cups chocolate chips (I think that I'd use mini choc chips next time)

 

Mix the butter and vanilla

Add in the flour, sugar, salt and chocolate chips, using your hands, until combined 

 

The dough is pretty dry and crumbly

 

Place the dough onto lined cookie sheet

 

Using your hands, press it into a thin layer (I read one recipe that said to press it BETWEEN two sheets of parchment paper, and ROLL it thin. I'll be doing THAT next time)

 

The thinner you press it, the more brittle like it will be  

 

Bake for 20 minutes; check it at 15, see if the edges are lightly brown and center is set. You don't want to overcook it, although I'm quite fond of really DARK cookies. The rest of the family prefers them to be less crunchy.

 

 

Cool completely

 

Break into pieces to serve and enjoy!

 

Family Rating: