Cookies

Perfect M&M Cookies

Dear Sis,

Josh baked some Pillsbury M&M cookies a few weeks ago and the kids have requested a repeat occurrence. Naturally, I need a homemade version:)

Perfect M&M Cookies

b
Print Recipe
Course Dessert
Servings 5 dozen

Ingredients
  

  • 2 c unsalted butter, soft
  • 1 1/2 c dark brown sugar, packed
  • 1 1/2 c granulated sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 4 t vanilla extract
  • 2 t baking soda
  • 2 t salt
  • 5 c unbleached flour
  • 1 c mini M&Ms
  • 1 c milk chocolate chips

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 350.
  • Cream together butter and sugars. Beat in eggs, one at a time, vanilla, baking soda, and salt.
  • Stir in flour, 1/2 cup at a time. Fold in candy and chips.
  • Drop rounded tablespoonfuls of dough on ungreased sheets. Bake 9 minutes. Cool on pans until set. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
Keyword chocolate chip cookies, cookies, m&m cookies

Happy Cookie Munching!

Love,

b

Like our recipes? Clicking on an advertisement helps cover the expense of hosting our blog.




Perfect Peanut Butter Cookies

Dear Sis,

My old Cuisinart stand mixer of 10+ years finally bit the dust! After reading and watching numerous reviews, I decided to go with the Bosch. It offered the best work bowl size and motor wattage of any mixer I could find for home use. I briefly considered an industrial mixer but decided it would be too heavy…lol.

The new mixer arrived last week, but the plastic ring on the base of the stainless steal bowl chipped in shipping and we had to wait another week for the replacement to arrive. It arrived yesterday evening, so the kids were very eager to make cookies today!

We’ve made peanut butter cookies a few times in recent months, making changes each time until we achieved perfection:

Perfect Peanut Butter Cookies

Chewy, melt in your mouth cookies.
Print Recipe
Course Dessert

Ingredients
  

  • 1 c dark brown sugar, packed
  • 1 c granulated sugar
  • 1 c creamy peanut butter
  • 1/2 c shortening
  • 1/2 c unsalted butter, soft
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 t vanilla extract
  • 2 t baking soda
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 2 1/4 c flour
  • 1 pkg Reeces peanut butter bking chips

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 350.
  • Cream together sugars, peanut butter, shortening, and butter until light.
  • Beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in vanilla extract. Stir in dry ingredients. Fold in peanut butter chips.
  • Drop spoonfuls of dough onto baking sheets. Bake 11 minutes. Cool on sheet until cookies set, then cool completely on wire racks.
  • Store air tight or freeze for later use.
Keyword peanut butter cookies, cookies

Happy Baking!

Love,

b

Enjoying our content? Clicking an ad helps cover the expense of hosting our blog. Thanks for your support!




Homemade Frosted Soft Sugar Cookies

Dear Sis,

William really likes the soft frosted sugar cookies from the grocery store. He has been asking if we could make some. While hunting down our perfect recipe, I knew I wasn’t willing to spend time rolling out dough and cutting it with a biscuit cutter! I also discovered that this style of cookie is often called “Loft House Cookies.” These cookies actually taste better after the frosted cookies sit overnight. The flavors of the frosting and cookies have time to ooze together and the frosting makes the cookie’s moisture/chewiness even and perfect.

Soft Frosted Sugar Cookies

b
AKA: Loft House Cookies
Print Recipe
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Servings 6 dozen

Ingredients
  

  • 1 c unsalted butter soft
  • 1 c sour cream
  • 1 3/4 c sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 t vanilla
  • 1/2 t almond extract
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 1 t baking soda
  • 1 1/2 t baking powder
  • 6 c flour

Frosting

  • 1 c unsalted butter soft
  • 3 1/2 c powdered sugar
  • 1 t vanilla

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 400.
  • Cream together butter, sour cream, and sugar until smooth. Beat in one egg at a time, then vanilla.
  • Stir in salt, leavening, and flour, 1/2 c at a time.
  • Drop rounded spoonfuls of dough on baking sheets. Press dough with fingers until it is a disk about 1/4 inch thick.
  • Bake 7 minutes. With a very thin turner, removing cookies from baking sheets and cool on wire racks.
  • For frosing, cream sugar and vanilla into butter until smooth. Color frosting if desired. Spread over cooled cookies and top with sprinkles. Store airtight.




Pressing cookies thin enough before baking is important. If not it really changes the shape and texture of the finished cookies. These cookies do not spread like you may expect. Instead they rise like little cakes. The next picture shows cookies that were only pressed to a 1/2 inch before baking at the top and cookies that were pressed to 1/4 inch at the bottom. They cookies at the bottom are what you are trying to duplicate.

Happy Baking!

Love,

b

Clicking on advertisements helps pay for our blog.




Molasses Spice Cookies

Dear Sis,

The kids got used to having cookies about during the holidays. They were particularly fond of gingerbread cookies. Charlotte has been asking for them, but I decided I wanted a drop cookie version with all the same flavors to save me the time of rolling and cutting dough. This recipe is a perfect fit!

Molasses Spice Cookies

b
All the flavors of gingerbread in a soft chewy drop cookie.
Print Recipe
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Servings 4.5 dozen

Ingredients
  

  • 1 1/2 c unsalted butter soft
  • 1 c dark brown sugar packed
  • 1 c sugar
  • 1/2 c molasses
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 t cloves
  • 1 t salt
  • 1 T ginger
  • 4 t baking soda
  • 2 T cinnamon
  • 4 1/2 c flour

Instructions
 

  • Cream together butter and sugar. Stir in molasses and eggs, one at a time.
  • Stir in spices, leavening, and flour. Chill dough for a few hours.
  • Heat oven to 350. Drop tablespoons full of dough onto baking sheets. Bake 11 minutes. Cool on baking sheets 5 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.

Love,

b

Earth Day Book Club

Dear Sis,

Book

Earth! My First 4.54 Billion Years by Stacy McAnulty

Craft

We began with a small ball of red Play Doh, which represents earth’s inner core. Layer two, earth’s outer core, was a slightly larger portion of orange Play Doh rolled into a ball, flattened, and wrapped around the red, inner core layer. The third layer, earth’s mantel, was created with yellow Play Doh and the same: ball, flatten, wrap process. The forth layer, earth’s crust is made with tan Play Doh. The fifth layer, is a surface view of the crust using blue Play Doh to depict water and green Play Doh to depict water. Upon completion, we used sting to create a cross section of our model earth, but wrapping string around the ball and pulling each end to slice through the dough without distorting it’s roundness.

Game

I found an inflatable globe at Dollar Tree and came up with a simple game to play with the kiddos. Begin with all players standing up, shout out the name of a landform or body of water, and passes the ball to another player.  Anyone who repeats a term that was already used, or can’t think of a word on their turn, sits down. The final person standing wins.  

Songs

FREE Earth Day Songs Lyric Sheet by Tag Sis, You’re It!

Snack

We used Wilton food color paste to dye the our Sugar Cookie dough and roughly kneaded the two colors together a bit before using a cookie dough scoop to portion the dough before hand rolling it to assure that each cookie would be a perfect circle.

Happy Earth Day!

Love,

b

Classroom Easter Gifts

Dear Sis,

William and I made treats for his preschool classmates and teachers today! He is very excited to eat some “bunny tails!”

Bunny Tail, Printable Bag Toppers by Tag Sis, You’re It!

You Will Need

  • Bunny Tail, Bag Toppers, printed on card stock
  • snack size, zip top bags
  • powdered sugar doughnut holes (we got about 8 bags per box)
  • stapler and scissors

Assembly

  1. Fill snack bags with 4 doughnut holes and press to seal, extracting as much air as possible.
  2. Cut out bag toppers, fold on fold-line, slide to cover as much bag as possible, and stable in place.

Easter Egg Hunt Cookie Mix, Instruction Printable by Tag Sis, You’re It!

Easter Egg Hunt Cookie Mix

b
Print Recipe
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Servings 40 cookies

Ingredients
  

  • 1 quart canning jar, ring, and band
  • 3/4 c dark brown sugar
  • 1/4 c granulated sugar
  • 1 (3.4) oz box instant vanilla pudding mix
  • 1 t baking soda
  • 2 1/4 c unbleached flour
  • 1 pint canning jar, ring, and band
  • 1 c milk chocolate chips
  • 1 c milk chocolate M&Ms, pastel colors

Instructions
 

  • Wash and dry jars, rings, and bands.
  • Place dry ingredients in quart jar, in the order they appear, tapping to level the jar between each addition.
  • Place candy in pint jar, in the order they appear, tapping to level the jar between additions.
  • Print instructions and secure to quart jar, decorate as desired, and gift.
Keyword cookie mix, cookies, easter

Happy Gifting!

Love,

b

Forth Night of Hannukah 2020

Dear Sis,

William got a good old fashioned metal top I found a Menards. It took him the better part of the day to master it, but he thinks it is great! Much easier than our dreidel:)

Charlotte got a Montessori horizontal dowel, but we quickly discovered she isn’t quite ready for it yet.

Linda, the mother of my best friend, Cindy, dating all the way back to middle school, sent William some holiday stickers. He made this skating scene and decided to mail it to Gran:)

William and I started making cookies during nap time and it took the ENTIRE rest of the day to complete! Plus them had to dry over night. Royal icing is tricky, and I still haven’t practiced enough, so they aren’t perfect… lol.

For anyone else who dreads a messy menorah, I recommend beeswax candles, they are a bit more pricy, but they do drip much less. Also, I finally learned to put one of my silicone baking mats underneath. The wax just flakes off over the trash easily!

Book of the Night

All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkah By Emily Jenkins

Based on the All-of-a-Kind Family book series by Sydney Taylor

This book is set at the turn of the century, so a bit of history is mixed into a very relatable family story. William really related to the youngest daughter, who is also four. 

Happy Hanukkah!

Love,

b

Perfect Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Dear Sis,

I’ve been hunting for the perfect Oatmeal Raisin Cookie recipe for a long time. Today, I found it!!!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Margin Making Mom
Print Recipe
Servings 3 dozen

Ingredients
  

  • 1 cup unsalted butter soft
  • 1 c dark brown sugar
  • 1/2 c sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 2 t vanilla extract
  • 3/4 t salt
  • 1 t baking powder
  • 1 t baking soda
  • 1 t cinnamon
  • 1 c old fashion oats
  • 2 c unbleached flour
  • 2 c raisins

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 350.
  • Cream together butter and sugars. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
  • Stir in dry ingredients. Fold in raisins.
  • Drop spoonful onto cookie sheets and bake 10 minutes. Cool on sheets a few minutes before cooling completely on wire racks.

Josh was hesitant to try them. He loves oatmeal raisin cookies, but historically not mine! He wasn’t sure if he could take the pain of another disappointment:) I’m so glad to have another kind of cookie in the bag!

Love,

b

Other Perfect Cookies

Butter Cookies (Cut-outs)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Gingerbread Cookies (Cut-outs)

Sugar Cookies/Snickerdoodles