"Black Cat" Cookies 2

I still had a lot of baking coco and flour around, so I decided to remake the chocolate cookies I made last Halloween.

My notes from the first time I made this dish.

I made a few adjustments to the recipes. I used 1 cup 50% splendor + 1 cup sugar, and substituted 1 cup Crisco for the cup of butter.

The dry ingredients, unmixed and mixed.

The dough turned out super crumbly. I wondered if I added 4 cups of flour instead of 3... but the cookies came out so well in the end that I don't think it was a problem if I did.

The dough.

The balls of dough - before pressing

The balls of dough - after pressing with a glass dipped in sugar.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Recipe

In part of my quest to use up my pantry ingredients, I am trying to avoid buying cereal for breakfast. I decided to turn some plain oatmeal into cookies. I started off with a "Oatmeal Raisin Cookies I" recipe (of which there are many), but decided to tweak the recipe slightly.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Ingredients

• 3/4 cup Crisco
• 1/3 Cup Splenda Sugar Blend for Cooking
• 2.5 cups Shaws brand Quick Oats
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup raisins

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Cream together Crisco, sugars until smooth, then add eggs and vanilla.
3. Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl (flour, salt, cinnamon and baking soda) and slowly mix into the wet mixture.
4. Stir in oats and raisins.
5. Drop large spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. Bake 15-20 minutes* or until browned. (*Because the cookies are so thick)
   

Makes 18 large cookies.

The cookies didn't flatten that much. Maybe next time I make them I'll press the cookies to get a flatter, disk-like shape.

They’re thick and warm and delicious. Maybe I needed a bit more liquid because they didn't seem to be spreading out too much and stayed very thick. That being said, they made great breakfast bars!

We ate a few as they came out of the oven, so I couldn't get a picture of them all!

8x-stuffed Oreo

We all know about double stuffed oreos, and how awesome the filling is. But have you ever combined two double stuffed oreos to make a 4x oreo? I present to you... an 8X-stuffed oreo! (Created by Keith.)

My Birthday Cocktail Parties

I love to host cocktail parties on my birthday. I find it only fitting to celebrate my half birthday by sharing pictures of highlights from past parties.

For the longest time, the only cookie cutters I owned were heart shaped. This meant that I created a lot of Valentine's Day cookies for every occasion!


The only layer cake pans I owned were also Heat Shape. Keith is the king of making layer cakes.

Can you have a fancy cocktail party without chocolate covered strawberries?

I made chocolate covered peanut butter eyeballs last Halloween and they were a hit. I made simple chocolate covered for the holiday party.

Sometimes store bought cookies (in this case macaroons) make it into the mix.

Peanut butter kisses, banana bread, mocha chocolate crinkle cookies and my grandmother's famous pinwheel cookies.

After I covered all of the strawberries, I used the remaining chocolate to cover some pretzels.

I've shown you the sweet, here is some savory.

I'm going to end with something that wasn't part of the cocktail party, exactly. Keith made me a chocolate souffle for my birthday while I prepped for the party!

Cookie Press Shapes

Earlier today I shared with you my first experience with a cookie press. In this post, I am going to share the shapes of the disks from the Crate and Barrel Cookie Press. Other cookie presses contain similar shapes, so this could be a handy reference for other presses.

Some of my friends thought these looked like trilobites.


This is the one shape I cannot really figure out. The shape is too small to make a nice shape, the tiny stars are cute, but too much dough comes out in one click to make them.


Christmas Tree Cookie Press Shape


This shape would look really cool decorated with frosting.


When baked, my friends think that turned to the side, the pumpkin shape could also resemble Santa.


I didn't expect this shape to create a heart, but I love what came out of it!


Is this supposed to be a 4 leaf clover?


I'm not a huge fan of the candy cane shape, I think that too much dough comes out in a click to create a good shape. I would just roll candy canes by hand.


The best shape for filling with jam.


This flower shape is super pretty. If you added a face it could look like a lion


I love this shape, although the size of it does seem to vary a bit each time. I need more practice before I get a good consistent shape.


Another flower shape


I don't know what this shape is supposed to portray, but the design is super cool


Another flower shape. In baking it will fuse together.

First Use of the Cookie Press

I have wanted a cookie press for years so I could create interesting cookie shapes. I used the vanilla spritz cookie recipe that came with the press from Crate and Barrel. I'm going to have to go to Crate and Barrel and leave a 5 star review review. I'm not sure why people are complaining about this gun, but they must not let their dough be soft enough. I let the butter soften until it's SUPER soft before I used it, and had no issues. The only time the top popped off was when I forgot to screw it in properly!

Since this batch created so many cookies, I wanted to try some different decorating techniques. Dipping the cookies in sprinkles didn't work very well, but they are cute when dipped in powdered sugar after removal from the oven.

I then decided to make some jam filled cookies. I made a piping bag out of a zip lock sandwich bag, and added strawberry jam to the center of flower shaped cookies. If I've learned anything, I can add a little more Jam to the center of each cookie, they all came off of the cookie sheet easily.

Closeup view of piping jam into the center of the cookies.

Jam filled spritz cookies are ready to go into the oven

I had read somewhere that when you dip these freshly baked jam filled cookies in powdered sugar, that the sugar would melt into the Jam. As you can see from the picture below, this did not seem to be the case. However they look, these cookies were small, delightful little treats.

The biggest issue I had over the cookie press was not knowing what shape disk lead to what shape of cookie. Stay tuned for a post where I will share all of the shapes from my cookie press (later today).

Spritz Cookies

These recipe for the Spritz Cookie batter could be easily adapted to fit any holiday. The recipe talks about making them sandwich cookies with white chocolate, but I decided to dip them in semi-sweet chocolate and then holiday themed sprinkles. (Melted in the microwave: 1/8 tsp vegetable oil per 0.5 cup of chocolate chips. Stir frequently.)

To achieve the orange color in the batter, I used 8 drops of red food coloring and 16 drops of yellow food coloring.

The cookies before decoration

At the time when I was making these cookies, I did not have a cookie press. Therefore I used a ziplock bag with a hole cut out of the end to create the shape of these cookies.

My "Cookie Press" used for these cookies. Now I own a real one so next time the shapes might be a little more interesting!

Halloween sprinkles made the perfect final touch to these cookies. I used all (with the exception of the eyeball sprinkles, those I used for another baking project.)

These cookies have a light and delicate flavor. Keith found the taste a bit boring, but I personally LOVED the taste. Will you try this Halloween cookie recipe out?