Spritz – Dec 2010 Cookie Challenge - Sara

My knowledge of tradition is limited. I think it’s because I have a short attention span. Regardless, when I was looking through the ol’ Betty Crocker cookbook for inspiration, I read that Spritzes were the quintessential holiday cookie. I didn’t know what the heck a Spritz was. I was determined to find out!

Recipe:

1 cup butter

½ cup sugar

2 ¼ cup flour

½ tsp salt

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla (or almond)

Mix your dough. I had a cookie press on hand because I have a penchant for picking up culinary oddities when they’re on the clearance rack at TJ Maxx. I learned from my mother that my cookie press is called a “spritzer”. Clearly she was holding out on some cookie knowledge. We could have been eating these for years!

Spritz those cookies right onto a cookie sheet. Don’t grease it because they have to stick to the sheet to keep shape. Bake at 400 degrees for 6-9 minutes

Usually they have sprinkles etc on them. The sprinkle suggestion helped me realize I knew these cookies quite well. But, I really wanted a Milano and thought these might fit the bill. So, I melted some chocolate candy coating stuff and piped it onto a cookie.

So, there you have it, a spritzy milanoesque delight!

Spritz – Dec 2010 Cookie Challenge - Sara

My knowledge of tradition is limited. I think it’s because I have a short attention span. Regardless, when I was looking through the ol’ Betty Crocker cookbook for inspiration, I read that Spritzes were the quintessential holiday cookie. I didn’t know what the heck a Spritz was. I was determined to find out!

Recipe:

1 cup butter

½ cup sugar

2 ¼ cup flour

½ tsp salt

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla (or almond)

Mix your dough. I had a cookie press on hand because I have a penchant for picking up culinary oddities when they’re on the clearance rack at TJ Maxx. I learned from my mother that my cookie press is called a “spritzer”. Clearly she was holding out on some cookie knowledge. We could have been eating these for years!

Spritz those cookies right onto a cookie sheet. Don’t grease it because they have to stick to the sheet to keep shape. Bake at 400 degrees for 6-9 minutes

Usually they have sprinkles etc on them. The sprinkle suggestion helped me realize I knew these cookies quite well. But, I really wanted a Milano and thought these might fit the bill. So, I melted some chocolate candy coating stuff and piped it onto a cookie.

So, there you have it, a spritzy milanoesque delight!

Coconut Snowballs for a Snowy Day!!

We were wondering what to do on such a lovely lazy snowy day....... Let's make snowballs!!! Yep - edible kind first then a good round of the throw-able kind this afternoon!!

Here's what our day looks like here.




These are no -bake "cookie kinda candies" - just yummy things and great for kids to make.

You will need just a few basics:



4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup margarine or butter
1/4 cup soy milk or regular milk
1/2 cup candy bits - chocolate chips, crushed candy canes, - here we used Heath bar bits.
1/2 tsp vanilla
Shredded coconut

Let the margarine sit at room temp until soft then beat it up with a whisk.



Slowly add the powdered sugar, about a 1/2 cup at a time and whisk until powdery. I did this step without the kids due to great fear of powdered sugar all over the place!!



It should look like it is still just powdered sugar when you have it all mixed in.

Next add in the milk, vanilla and candy pieces and mix well - work the mixture, switching from the whisk to a spoon or spatula, until you have a uniform smooth "dough". Now call in reinforcements for the making of the snowballs (kids work well for this!!!)



Roll the dough in to nickle sized balls and lay out on wax paper.



Pour the shredded coconut onto a plate and using your hands roll each ball in a good amount of coconut so that it sticks all over.



Then you must get bored with just plain white coconut - so pull out the food coloring and color some coconut red, green or whatever you like. Then roll out some colored snowballs!!!



Then get even more bored with that, and pull out the sprinkles and mix any variety of them into the coconut and then roll out "super duper colored sprinkled snowballs".



Then cleanup all the coconut that ended up all over the floor - Lily sweeping and Neil ready with the dust pan.






Now show off the finished plate full of snowballs and try a white one, a red one, a green one, a red one with sprinkles and finally a green one with sprinkles. Wait for the full effect of the mighty sugar buzz that will ensue and then run them outside to make real snowballs!!!

Enjoy and have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!

Coconut Snowballs for a Snowy Day!!

We were wondering what to do on such a lovely lazy snowy day....... Let's make snowballs!!! Yep - edible kind first then a good round of the throw-able kind this afternoon!!

Here's what our day looks like here.




These are no -bake "cookie kinda candies" - just yummy things and great for kids to make.

You will need just a few basics:



4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup margarine or butter
1/4 cup soy milk or regular milk
1/2 cup candy bits - chocolate chips, crushed candy canes, - here we used Heath bar bits.
1/2 tsp vanilla
Shredded coconut

Let the margarine sit at room temp until soft then beat it up with a whisk.



Slowly add the powdered sugar, about a 1/2 cup at a time and whisk until powdery. I did this step without the kids due to great fear of powdered sugar all over the place!!



It should look like it is still just powdered sugar when you have it all mixed in.

Next add in the milk, vanilla and candy pieces and mix well - work the mixture, switching from the whisk to a spoon or spatula, until you have a uniform smooth "dough". Now call in reinforcements for the making of the snowballs (kids work well for this!!!)



Roll the dough in to nickle sized balls and lay out on wax paper.



Pour the shredded coconut onto a plate and using your hands roll each ball in a good amount of coconut so that it sticks all over.



Then you must get bored with just plain white coconut - so pull out the food coloring and color some coconut red, green or whatever you like. Then roll out some colored snowballs!!!



Then get even more bored with that, and pull out the sprinkles and mix any variety of them into the coconut and then roll out "super duper colored sprinkled snowballs".



Then cleanup all the coconut that ended up all over the floor - Lily sweeping and Neil ready with the dust pan.






Now show off the finished plate full of snowballs and try a white one, a red one, a green one, a red one with sprinkles and finally a green one with sprinkles. Wait for the full effect of the mighty sugar buzz that will ensue and then run them outside to make real snowballs!!!

Enjoy and have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!

Lazy Bake Cookies

This is my first* Cooking Challenge post. What could be easier and more approachable to the masses than a Christmas Cookie challenge? What kind of degenerate doesn't make some Christmas cookies or candy during the holidays? I'm mean, seriously, it's un-American to not have a specialty that has your friends, neighbors, hair dresser, etc. salivating at the flip of the calendar to December. So call me un-American, I guess. I've never found my Holiday baking rhythm. (Ok, well, not never. I make a mean Easter bread. But I'm not thinking that's relevant here. I'm using Holiday as a euphemism, you know.)

Enter the Lazy Bake Oven, gift to my five-year old daughter at Early Christmas, aka Grandparents' Holiday Marathon.

To initiative the oven, The Girl baked a cake. I wish you could have seen our family of five sitting around the kitchen table for the first round of Lazy-Baking. Each of us had a (large) plate with a nearly microscopic morsel of lovingly created chocolate cake + icing, straight from the powder mixes. Yum!

So, as I've been contemplating my Cooking Challenge entry due to the promise of PRIZES, I've had the BEST intentions to do it up. But as Dec. 23rd arrived and I'd yet to find the time for this task, I'm thinking my chances of winning have faded with the month. Enter The Girl. When she asked to Pretty Please bake Santa's cookies in HER oven, I had a stroke of GENIUS! Technically, I actually had no part in the process. Please refrain from calling Child Labor watchdogs on me.  But darn it, I want to WIN!

So, with the acumen of a seasoned baker, The Girl poured the powder into the mixing bowl. I'm told. You'll have to use your imagination, since I forgot to photograph that. (Disclosure: I wasn't even in the room.) Here, though, is my re-creation of the ingredients: LazyBake cookie pack and 2/3 teaspoon water.

It's actually quite shocking that we got this far into the post without bits of The Girl poking in. She's such a camera hog, normally no one can have a camera out without her flashing a grin / hamming it up / flipping her hair. I digress...

(The above photo proves I had no actual responsibility in the cooking process. See, The Dad is the actual "Fun with the Kids" parent. I merely observe, if you can call it that, from the other room. Everyone knows this.)


The directions say the LazyBake packet makes 4 cookies. Ya, right.  This is the "pre-oven" pic, with two small-to-medium cookies. Because The Girl's flour-covered hands are hidden behind her back, you can't tell how hard she worked to get to this point. I know because The Dad told me.

So now is when the real work is displayed:

Put powdered cookie mix + water on Lazy Bake pan into the oven. 

Heat with 100 watt light bulb for 10 min. Repeat.

Removing the pan is a careful process. The top of the Lazy Bake oven says in no uncertain terms to not touch the top: It is HOT. So, there is no relying on the machine for leverage in the extraction process. It really takes skills. I promise.

 

The Girl managed it with aplomb! 

I'd like to clarify in fear that some of you might have a hard time following the complex process.
Let's recap.Step One: Open package & pour in a bowl,
Step Two: Mix in the not-quite-a teaspoon of water.
Step Three: Roll into ball with floured hands,
Step Four: Place lovingly in LazyBake pans.
Step Five: Heat under lightbulb for 10 minutes.
Step Six: Decorate!

Step Six started with The Girl and her Older Brother each schmearing a respectable layer of vanilla icing on the sugar cookie. The use of a butter knife was cause for excitement!

 

Step Six is done with verve at our house.  If you look closely, you will notice the the cookie pan is veritably overwhelmed with clear sprinkles. Swimming in sprinkles. Drowning in sprinkles.
 The Girl would have no less.

The Girl oh-so-graciously allowed her Older Brother to decorate one of the cookies.  Such generosity is laudable when there are only two cookies to work with. I mean, what if a mistake is made? Therefore the only option here is success.  And B O Y did they succeed. Have you ever seen such beautiful sugar cookies?

If only you could more easily see the plethora of white sprinkles on The Girl's cookie on the right. Older Brother's cookie - on the left-  displays much more restraint . We would expect no less from him.
Christmas cookies as a microcosm of real life.

So that is all. I wish I could tell you how they taste, but since they were left for Santa no one in our house knows how they taste. Santa mentioned (He came a day early at our house. I'll explain later) that they were moist and almost spongy but retained their cookie texture. The amount of sprinkles made for a surprising CRUNCH when taking a bite. That's what Santa told me. When he was at our house. I know you wanted to know. Please message me if you'd like to know how to apply for him to come a day early at your house too. It's fairly easy, but you need to apply early to be part of the trial run on the 23rd.

Chewy, crunchy and festive. I think it's a winner!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good "I HOPE I WIN!"




*Although I made a lasagna for November's Challenge and took copious amount of pictures of the process, I've never actually participated. Since a post with said photos was never developed, I've officially never taken up the mantle of the Challenge.

Lazy Bake Cookies

This is my first* Cooking Challenge post. What could be easier and more approachable to the masses than a Christmas Cookie challenge? What kind of degenerate doesn't make some Christmas cookies or candy during the holidays? I'm mean, seriously, it's un-American to not have a specialty that has your friends, neighbors, hair dresser, etc. salivating at the flip of the calendar to December. So call me un-American, I guess. I've never found my Holiday baking rhythm. (Ok, well, not never. I make a mean Easter bread. But I'm not thinking that's relevant here. I'm using Holiday as a euphemism, you know.)

Enter the Lazy Bake Oven, gift to my five-year old daughter at Early Christmas, aka Grandparents' Holiday Marathon.

To initiative the oven, The Girl baked a cake. I wish you could have seen our family of five sitting around the kitchen table for the first round of Lazy-Baking. Each of us had a (large) plate with a nearly microscopic morsel of lovingly created chocolate cake + icing, straight from the powder mixes. Yum!

So, as I've been contemplating my Cooking Challenge entry due to the promise of PRIZES, I've had the BEST intentions to do it up. But as Dec. 23rd arrived and I'd yet to find the time for this task, I'm thinking my chances of winning have faded with the month. Enter The Girl. When she asked to Pretty Please bake Santa's cookies in HER oven, I had a stroke of GENIUS! Technically, I actually had no part in the process. Please refrain from calling Child Labor watchdogs on me.  But darn it, I want to WIN!

So, with the acumen of a seasoned baker, The Girl poured the powder into the mixing bowl. I'm told. You'll have to use your imagination, since I forgot to photograph that. (Disclosure: I wasn't even in the room.) Here, though, is my re-creation of the ingredients: LazyBake cookie pack and 2/3 teaspoon water.

It's actually quite shocking that we got this far into the post without bits of The Girl poking in. She's such a camera hog, normally no one can have a camera out without her flashing a grin / hamming it up / flipping her hair. I digress...

(The above photo proves I had no actual responsibility in the cooking process. See, The Dad is the actual "Fun with the Kids" parent. I merely observe, if you can call it that, from the other room. Everyone knows this.)


The directions say the LazyBake packet makes 4 cookies. Ya, right.  This is the "pre-oven" pic, with two small-to-medium cookies. Because The Girl's flour-covered hands are hidden behind her back, you can't tell how hard she worked to get to this point. I know because The Dad told me.

So now is when the real work is displayed:

Put powdered cookie mix + water on Lazy Bake pan into the oven. 

Heat with 100 watt light bulb for 10 min. Repeat.

Removing the pan is a careful process. The top of the Lazy Bake oven says in no uncertain terms to not touch the top: It is HOT. So, there is no relying on the machine for leverage in the extraction process. It really takes skills. I promise.

 

The Girl managed it with aplomb! 

I'd like to clarify in fear that some of you might have a hard time following the complex process.
Let's recap.Step One: Open package & pour in a bowl,
Step Two: Mix in the not-quite-a teaspoon of water.
Step Three: Roll into ball with floured hands,
Step Four: Place lovingly in LazyBake pans.
Step Five: Heat under lightbulb for 10 minutes.
Step Six: Decorate!

Step Six started with The Girl and her Older Brother each schmearing a respectable layer of vanilla icing on the sugar cookie. The use of a butter knife was cause for excitement!

 

Step Six is done with verve at our house.  If you look closely, you will notice the the cookie pan is veritably overwhelmed with clear sprinkles. Swimming in sprinkles. Drowning in sprinkles.
 The Girl would have no less.

The Girl oh-so-graciously allowed her Older Brother to decorate one of the cookies.  Such generosity is laudable when there are only two cookies to work with. I mean, what if a mistake is made? Therefore the only option here is success.  And B O Y did they succeed. Have you ever seen such beautiful sugar cookies?

If only you could more easily see the plethora of white sprinkles on The Girl's cookie on the right. Older Brother's cookie - on the left-  displays much more restraint . We would expect no less from him.
Christmas cookies as a microcosm of real life.

So that is all. I wish I could tell you how they taste, but since they were left for Santa no one in our house knows how they taste. Santa mentioned (He came a day early at our house. I'll explain later) that they were moist and almost spongy but retained their cookie texture. The amount of sprinkles made for a surprising CRUNCH when taking a bite. That's what Santa told me. When he was at our house. I know you wanted to know. Please message me if you'd like to know how to apply for him to come a day early at your house too. It's fairly easy, but you need to apply early to be part of the trial run on the 23rd.

Chewy, crunchy and festive. I think it's a winner!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good "I HOPE I WIN!"




*Although I made a lasagna for November's Challenge and took copious amount of pictures of the process, I've never actually participated. Since a post with said photos was never developed, I've officially never taken up the mantle of the Challenge.