Mint Chocolate Chip Cookie In a Cup

I love chocolate chip cookies....maybe a bit too much. That's why I love all these "in a cup" recipes-portion control. I have very little willpower when it comes to cookies, so I try not to keep them around the house. This recipe fills my cookie craving, and keeps me from eating too many!

What you'll need: 

1 Tablespoon butter

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 Tablespoon brown sugar 

1 egg yolk

a few drops of vanilla

1/4 c flour (add slowly, you might need less)

pinch of salt

pinch of baking soda

pinch of baking powder

1 Tablespoon chocolate chips

1 Tablespoon mint chocolate chips

Melt butter in microwave in coffee cup (if you have one, use a shorter, wider mug). Add everything except flour, egg yolk and chips and mix well. When everything is incorporated, add egg yolk and most of the flour. Mix until dough thickens like a normal chocolate chip cookie dough, adding flour as needed. Since my chickens produce abnormally large eggs, I had to use more than 1/4 c flour, but I'm guessing 1/4 c would work for a standard egg. Last, mix in chips. Microwave on high 45 seconds. If you're using a taller mug, you may need to add more time-about 5 or 10 seconds each time. 

Made From Scratch Tuesday 12/20

Christmas is only days away. That means my kitchen is on overdrive this week!

 I've been making buckeyes

Danish Wedding Cakes

Peppermint Pinwheels (a new addition from last year)

And of course, Peanut Butter Blossoms!

 What holiday goodies are you baking in up your kitchen this week?

Now it's time to link up all of your creations!
Here are the rules:
1. You can link up as many posts as you'd like.
2. The post has to be made from scratch.
3. The post you link up MUST CONTAIN A RECIPE!
4. If you want to put my button somewhere, that'd be cool. You can grab the code for the Made From Scratch Tuesday button on the top right of my sidebar.

Gooseberry Patch #2 Peanut Butter Bars

For our second recipe from Gooseberry Patch, the husband picked Peanut Butter Bars.

 We started out by mixing butter, sugar, brown sugar and peanut butter. Then added an egg and vanilla.

 In another bowl, we mixed together flour, oats, baking soda and salt. Then we slowly mixed that into the wet mixture.

 Then, press it into a 13x9 baking pan and sprinkle with peanut butter and chocolate chips.

 Then we baked it for about 25 minutes....voila! So easy a husband could do it!

Want the full recipe and many others? Stay tuned as I cook my way though 10 recipes in Gooseberry Patch's "What's for Dinner?" After recipe 10, I'll be giving away a copy.

Make sure to visit the fantastic blog parties on my sidebar, and of course, link up all your made from scratch recipes on my Tuesday linky-Made From Scratch Tuesday!

Christmas Cookies

I've been busy this weekend....buckeyes, danish wedding cakes, snickerdoodles, and this year Peppermint Pinwheels. Every year I try to do a new cookie and this one looked good. The Peppermint Pinwheels are probably going to make it to the favorite's list!

What you'll need:

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon mint extract
Red food coloring
 

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with sugar until creamy. Beat in egg yolk and vanilla. In a smaller bowl stir together flour, baking powder and salt. Blend flour mixture into butter mixture to make a smooth dough. If dough is too dry, add water teaspoon at a time. Divide dough into two equal portions. Set aside one half. 

To the other half add the peppermint extract and enough red food coloring to tint the dough a dark pink. Use gel food coloring, or the Wilton's coloring for best results.

Roll out each color dough to a 16x10 inch rectangle, between sheets of wax paper. 

Remove top sheet of wax paper from the pink dough; place dough on top side down on top of plain dough; peel off paper. Roll up dough tightly, jelly-roll fashion. Wrap in wax paper and chill several hours until very firm. Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Unwrap dough and cut into 1/4-inch thick slices with a sharp knife;

place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 10 minutes or until cookies are firm, but not browned.

Remove from cookie sheets to wire racks; cool completely. These are so tasty! Next time, I'm going to split the dough into thirds, and add a layer of chocolate!!

By the way, the stand mixer died yesterday. Well, it works, but only one beater stays in . The other one won't lock in anymore. If Santa were to make a visit to my house with a new stand mixer, I promise to make the "Nice" list every year for the rest of my life ;)

Super Yummy Cookies!

Want the recipe for these guys? Head on over to Indiana's Family of Farmers blog to find it! For you local bloggers, there are weekly giveaways there too!

Cookies and Salsa

I'm going to claim this as a "Jennifer Original", but if it's been done before, I apologize! It wouldn't be the first time I thought I was a genius, only to find out it had been done before. See my brookies/crownies. But here goes!

To start out, you need to make your "chips". I use lace cookies, which are traditionally a Christmas cookie. I've seen many versions of these, but I suggest this one.




Now for the salsa! The best part about this is you can make it any way you want it. This started out as a way to use up all the berries I received from my friends with berry patches. Indiana strawberries are probably one of my all time favorite foods. They're not as big as the California berries you generally see at the store, but they are so sweet and delicious. Combine those with some blueberries, raspberries and mangoes, and you have a fantastic fruity salsa.

I went to the Mooresville farmer's market today, but to my dismay, not one single piece of fruit. Fortunately, I still had some friends with some unused berries and Marsh supplied the rest for me. I went all out this time and used strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, plums, mangoes, tangerines, apricots, and nectarines. I'll warn you now, this part is very time consuming. You'll need to cut all the fruit up into tiny pieces. This is very important! Otherwise, you just end up with fruit salad and the juices don't mix together the same way salsa does.

Once you have your cookies and salsa ready, it's time to eat! But wait! There's more!

Feeling extra creative today??
When you take your warm cookies off the parchment paper, drape them over the handle of a wooden spoon to cool. Once they're cool, carefully remove them from the handle and you're left with a "taco"!







Maybe you're a taco salad type of person...lay the warm cookie over a glass bowl turned upside down. Now you have your "bowl" for the shell and you can fill it with salsa to make your salad.



Or, you can make all of them and have a fruity fiesta!



You may have noticed the new button on the right. If you haven't already, check out Simply Sweet Home for lots of great reading.

carrot raisin cookies

here we go with my "one new food a week". i appologize for any spelling issues, but this post had been tediously thumbed on my android!

1 c oats
1 c brown sugar
1/2 c butter softened
1 t vanilla
1 egg
1 c flour
2 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1/8 t cloves
1 c carrots
1/2 c raisins

using a food processor, grind oats until a flour consistency. add carrots to food processor a let run for about 2 minutes until carrots are completely absorbed into oats. set aside. in seperate bowl, mix all other ingredients except raisins. add oats and carrots, mix well. stir in raisins. drop by teaspoonful onto cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 10 minutes.

I Can't Believe It's a Cookie! with apples

Don't have a pic for this one yet, but I'll try to get one up soon!

Ingredients:
1 c creamy peanut butter
1 egg
1 c sugar
1 medium red apple, cored and diced

Mix egg and sugar until completely incorporated. Add peanut butter and stir well.*
Stir in apple pieces and scoop out onto cookie sheet. Gently push down slightly with the back of a spoon. Bake at 350 for 12-14 minutes.

Depending on the apples you use, this dough could be too thin. If it seems thin, add flour, tablespoon at a time until proper consistency.

* At this point, you have the original inspiration for this cookie. If you want a quick and easy peanut butter cookie, stop here and spoon out onto cookie sheet and gently push down with a fork in an overlapping pattern. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.

Caramel Apple Cookies

Ok, so it's been a while, but I've finally posted a new recipe!

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 1/3 cups packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 Grannie Smith Apple, peeled and diced
• 1/2 Red Delicious Apple, peeled and diced
• 3/4 c Caramel baking pieces (look for the small caramel baking bits that you melt to make caramel apples)
• 3/4 t cinnamon
• 1/4 t cloves
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Cream shortening, sugar and egg. Add half of the dry ingredients.
3. Blend in milk and remaining dry ingredients.
4. Stir in apples and caramels
   
5. Drop on greased cookie sheet and bake 13-15 minutes, or until cookies are no longer shiny
   

Peanut Butter Blossoms

PEANUT BUTTER BLOSSOMS

1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup peanut butter

1 tsp baking soda
1 egg

1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp milk

1/2 cup white, gran. sugar
1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening

48 candy kisses, unwrapped

Combine all ingredients except candy kisses on lowest speed of mixer. Beat until dough is firm. Using rounded teaspoon, form dough into balls and roll balls in sugar. Bake on ungreased cookie sheets at 375 for 10-12 mins. Top each warm cookie with a chocolate kiss.

The Crowd Favorite: Danish Wedding Cakes

This seems to be the most requested cookie in my arsenal. I have to admit, it's one of my favorites as well. As this is my signature sweet, I can't give away my tricks. But here's the basic recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup butter (softened)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 c flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and powdered sugar. Add flour half cup at a time until dough is smooth. Form dough into balls about 3/4" in diameter. Using your thumb, make a well into the dough. Bake cookies 10-12 minutes or until bottoms begin to brown. Cool completely and fill wells with icing.

Icing:

Melt 1/2 stick butter with 1/4 cup milk or half and half. Beat in powdered sugar until proper consistency. Add 1 tsp. vanilla and food coloring if desired. *OPTIONAL: add a few drops of mint, orange, cherry, or any other flavoring in place of vanilla*

It's That Time of Year Again....

This is my favorite time of year to bake. I get so excited! This will be my first installment of my Christmas Goodies series. Today's selection:

Corn Flake Holly

Ingredients:

1 Large bag of jumbo marshmallows
Corn Flakes (you'll use about 2/3 of a large box)
1 Stick Butter
1 Small Bottle Green Food Coloring
Red Hots (optional)




In a large pot, melt butter on medium heat. Add food coloring and marshmallows. Stir constantly until marshmallows are completely melted. Remove from heat and stir in corn flakes. Quickly drop on to wax paper.
*Optional: Add red hots in clusters to make "holly berries"*

I thought I was a genius...turns our Betty Crocker beat me to it

Crownies...or Brookies

So I thought I was being totally original. Take two of the best things on the planet, cookies and brownies, and combine them. What a great idea, right? I made these a while back and they turned out great. The next time I was at the store, guess what I saw?
I was so disappointed. But, to be quite honest, my semi-homemade version turned out soooo much better!

Preheat oven to 350.

Brownies:
3/4 c sugar
6 T crisco butter flavored baking sticks
1 T brewed coffee
1 egg
1 t vanilla
2/3 c flour
1/2 c cocoa
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1 c peanut butter chips (optional)

Combine sugar, crisco stick, and coffee. Stir in egg and vanilla. Slowly stir in flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. When mixed thoroughly, stir in peanut butter chips. Spread into 8x8 pan.

Cookies:

1 1/4 c flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/2 c crisco baking sticks, melted
1/3 c sugar
1/3 c brown sugar
1/2 t vanilla
1 egg
1 c chocolate chips

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix in baking sticks, sugars, vanilla and egg. When mixed thoroughly, add chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoonful onto brownie batter, making sure to drop evenly around brownies. Slightly press cookie dough into brownie batter. Bake 30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Best served hot with a scoop of ice cream on top. Yum!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Many of you already have my pumpkin cookie recipe, but I have been fiddling with it and have made some adjustments.
Tips for this recipe:
Invest in a cookie scoop. I suggest Pampered Chef's scoop.
Use parchment paper, not aluminum foil. And by all means, NEVER spray the cookie sheets! Quit being cheap and spring for the parchment paper.




1 1/2 cup canned pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup applesauce (if using cinnamon flavored applesauce, cut cinnamon below in half)
2 cups flour
1 egg
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 teaspoon milk
2 cups chocolate chips (can substitute white chocolate chips or use a mixture of both)
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat over to 365 degrees. Mix all ingredients together. Batter will be slightly stiff. Drop cookies onto PARCHMENT PAPER lined cookie sheet. These cookies don't spread much when baking, so I suggest lifting the cookie sheet about 4 inches from the counter and dropping it. That will slightly flatten the cookies, but will still leave that smooth, gooey center. Bake cookies for 12-14 minutes. They're done when you can touch the top of the cookie and your finger doesn't sink in. Let cool about 5 minutes then transfer to wire rack to finish cookies. Store them in the refrigerator. They're great served chilled!

Pina Colada Cookies

Here's my recipe that I entered in the Morgan County fair. I only got second place, but that's because my name isn't "Margaret" or "Betty Sue" and I'm not old enough to be a member of AARP. Nevertheless, these are some awesome cookies! My only tip is to make sure you use REAL butter. No margarine in these cookies.

Piña Colada Cookies

Cookie:

½ c Soft Butter

3/8 c Powdered Sugar

¼ c Shredded Coconut

1/3 c Diced Fresh Pineapple

1 c Flour

Topping:

2 c Diced Fresh Pineapple

¼ c Sugar

2 Shots Pineapple Rum

Cream butter and sugar. Add coconut and pineapple until completely incorporated. Add flour ¼ c at a time. Form dough into small balls and place on cookie sheet. Press thumb into each cookie forming a well. Bake at 350 degrees 11-13 minutes until bottoms begin to brown. Take out of oven and allow to cool 2 minutes on cookie sheet, then immediately transfer to wire cooling rack.

While cookies are baking, add all topping ingredients to small saucepan. Bring to boil at medium-high heat. Allow to boil until liquid is cooked out (about 30 minutes), stirring frequently. Spoon onto each cooled cookie while topping is still hot.