Cookies, Muffins, and Pies, Oh My!

I have been incredibly busy this week, but am enjoying myself. You see, I have been a baking maniac, and if there's one thing I love to do, it's bake. The regular baking lady at the local Farmer's Market is having her knee replaced and my husband mentioned to her that I am a good baker. She told me all of her prices, what she usually bakes, and gave me her blessing.

Thus far, I have baked 5 varieties of cookies in quadruple batches. Do you know that I used to hate creaming butter and sugar? Now, it's calming, meditative. And using my great grandmother's pastry tool, which prepared many a pie crust (though I am told that they were as heavy as bricks) makes the act even more special. Today is muffin baking day, and try as I might, I could not find large muffin cups, so it's going to be regular sized muffins this week (apple streudel, blueberry, and banana nut, maybe chocolate chip). And then there's pies. She usually bakes 25 pies the day before, small, large, sugar free and high test, apple, peach, blueberry, cherry, etc. That intimidates me, but I CAN DO IT!

Unfortunately, this may all be for naught, as it's been raining all week and may rain all weekend. Thankfully we have a large freezer and baked goods freeze well. And I have a family with a sweet tooth. So I may not have to freeze a thing, as it will all be eaten up and my family will be found in a sugar coma by the neighbors!

I found the most Ah-Mazing Snickerdoodle recipe. Mrs. Sigg's Snickerdoodles are absolutely, bar none, the best snickerdoodles I have ever eaten. They are like chewy Spritz cookies (German butter cookies) with cinnamon and sugar on them. I did learn that they have to be pressed down before baking or they will be very thick, but you might like them that way. Give them a try, but I'm going to warn you, it's hard to stop at just one. Smitten Kitchen's oatmeal cookie recipe is also divine, but unless you make minuscule cookies you will only get 1 dozen cookies from a batch. And that batch might not last long once you taste them!

Super Delicious S'mores Bars

Before we went camping over Labor Day weekend I whipped up a batch of these super delicious cookie bars. They are really easy to make and use only a few ingredients. You might just melt into a pool of mush when you try them. They are best eaten just a little hot (or with a spoon right out of the oven, if you just can't wait).

You will need:

11 full sized graham crackers, made into crumbs in a food processor
1-1/2 cups melted butter
2 eggs
8 regular sized Hershey bars
A bag of mini marshmallows

Here's how you make them.

1. Pre-heat oven to 350F.
2. Combine melted butter, 3 cups of the graham cracker crumbs, and eggs in a large bowl. Mix well.
3. Spread mixture evenly into the bottom of a 9x13 pan.
4. Place whole chocolate bars in a single layer over the graham cracker mixture. Cover from edge to edge.
5. Spread bag of mini marshmallows evenly over chocolate.
6. Sprinkle remaining graham cracker crumbs over marshmallows.
7. Bake for about 15 minutes, check at 10. Bake until marshmallows are as brown as you would like them to be.
8. Let cool considerably, or at least until chocolate is cool enough that it wont burn your mouth to a pulp, and then eat lots of amazing s'mores bars!

Delectable Danish Wedding Cookies

Do you remember those delectable Danish Wedding Cookies that Pillsbury (I think) used to make? They came in a pink bag and my mom used to buy a bag of them for me every time I got really sick. They quit making them and I have been mourning their loss every since.

THEN . . . I looked up the recipe on Recipezaar, and lo and behold KittyKitty, one of the great recipezaar contributors, posted "I Love Danish Wedding Cookies" and my life became a little more complete.

The only thing that I did differently with the recipe was that I toasted the pecans. I will even admit that a few of them got burnt, but I used them anyway, and they tasted AMAZING! Oh, and I always add about 3 times the amount of vanilla. I love the vanilla.



This is my little antique nut chopper that I found when I was a kid at an antique store. I always use it instead of my food processor because it works so much better and it's just so darn cute.



The dough is then shaped into balls (that are supposed to be littler than these; as usual, I ended up with less than 1/3 of the cookies that I was supposed to get from the batch). Do you see the pastry tool in the background? That was my great grandmother's. When I got it after my grandparents died, I really wasn't sure what it was. But I use it all the time now - it helps me make pie crusts that are to die for! I think it's all those years of German pastry love that have infused into it.



The cookies are then cooled a little and then rolled in powdered sugar. I love that if the cookies are a little too hot, the powdered sugar melts all over the cookies and my fingers (Yum!). Adds that extra little bit of sugary amazingness.

So now I can delight in Danish Wedding Cookies again. I also made a tiny batch of chocolate chip and a bigger batch of peanut butter cookies. I'd also like to make some thumb print cookies and we have some gingerbread mix, too. We'll see if I can get to all of this. I might be in sugar shock from the Danish Wedding cookies, so I'm not making any promises!