BUTTERMILK COOKIES

Are you craving a delightful treat for the holidays?  This recipe is one of our family favorites.

Buttermilk cookies

These cookies may become your family favorites too! This recipe makes a ton of cookies, and they are so light and fluffy.

Easy recipe - just allow time for the dough to chill and for baking several batches.  

Good cooks know to set out all the ingredients before you begin to mix so you make sure you have everything you will need.  I use Crisco shortening in this recipe because it always seems to work best. I've tried other brands and the cookies just don't turn out well. I also keep Saco powdered buttermilk on hand because I just don't use up a quart of buttermilk at a time and this recipe only calls for 2 cups.  

Use your mixer to cream the shortening and sugar.  Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well. Add the other ingredients mixing well. After the cookie dough has chilled for an hour, preheat the oven to 350. Drop the dough by rounded teaspoons onto the cookie sheet.   Bake just until they have a tinge of golden brown.  Remove from the cookie sheet and allow them to cool completely before frosting with a simple powdered sugar icing.  

If you have any left over cookies after the first day,  keep these cookies stored in the refrigerator between layers of wax paper.  

If you need any help baking these yummy cookies, let me know! Or if you ask really nice, I'd even bake and mail some to you if you are reluctant to bake them yourself!

Enjoy!

BOOK READING FUN TURNS INTO COOKIES

Me and My Shadow have been enjoying our volunteer time at the middle school.  JoPapa was able to start volunteering weeks ago.  I had been delayed in joining this worthy cause due to my fall from Grace (my pet name for my step ladder).  But now that I’m recovered enough to sit for an hour or so with my foot on the ground, I get to join the fun of listening to these students read to us. Sharon Fairlie from Smithville United Methodist Church asked for volunteers from the church and we accepted the invitation.  That was about the time I fell from Grace. In the past weeks, the volunteers who have been there every day have made believers of the administrators there. The reading tests showed the 6th grade students’ reading skills have improved.  So the program was expanded to also include the 7th grade reading class. 

So here’s where reading turns into cookies. One of  the students I have been reading with did not grasp the significance of the passage in Touching Spirit Bear, the book we were reading.  The parole officer in this story had the adolescent taste flour, salt, soda, molasses, egg, and water.  Each ingredient was not especially tasty but some were even down right bitter tasting. But when combined…a delicious molasses cake resulted.  It was a metaphor for life! We have to take the bitter with the sweet. When I explained it like that, her “light bulb” came on and she comprehended.  Which bitter ingredient should we leave out? Each ingredient is a necessary component to making the end product - even a fall from Grace!

This story  inspired me to make these molasses cookies. 


MOLASSES COOKIES

1/3 cup Crisco
½ cup sugar
1 egg
½ cup molasses
½ cup water
1 tsp. ginger
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. soda
½ tsp. nutmeg
½ tsp. cloves
½ tsp. cinnamon

Beat shortening, sugar, egg, molasses and water. Blend in dry ingredients. Chill for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Drop cookie dough by teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto baking sheet. Bake 8 minutes or until almost no imprint remains when touched with finger.

Almost no imprint remains

Remove from cookie sheet and cool. When cookies are completely cool frost each cookie with:

Butter Cream Frosting

3 Tbl. soft butter
1 ½ cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
about 1 ½ Tbl. milk

Blend powdered sugar and butter. Stir in vanilla and milk. Beat until frosting is smooth.

Cooled cookies with butter cream frosting

I don't think these cookies will ship very well with the frosting, but I could be convinced to ship some sans frosting. Or maybe you'll make some for your family tonight? They are light, cake like, sweet and spicy! 

Enjoy!

Silver Tea and Bake Sale

If you like chocolate, you'll love these!  I'll be bringing these delicious cookies to the Silver Tea and Bake Sale on Saturday, November 10th at the Bolivar United Methodist Church.  Be sure you show up at 1:00 p.m. to purchase these before they sell out.  I'm frosting them with special dark cocoa so they have to be extra loaded with antioxidents! (If you are not a chocolate fan, no worries! We will have fresh bread, dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, cookies and lots of other goodies for you to buy.)

This is a hand-me-down recipe from JoPapa's side of the family.  The title said "Aunt Sally's Cocoa Drops".  I never had the pleasure of meeting Aunt Sally, or even knowing if she was one of this family's aunts, but she must have been a good cook, because these are good cookies! Sometimes I use my large tablespoon-sized cookie scoop instead of the smaller teaspoon size.  The problem with a big chocolate cookie is that it's hard to eat just one.  So I can eat lots more of the little nibble sized cookies!  The other problem I've had when I make the large size cookies is that I make too much frosting! Then, it's like when I eat mashed potatoes and gravy...if there are too many potatoes on my plate I need more gravy. If I get too much gravy (is there really such a thing?), I have to have more potatoes to use up the gravy.  So it goes with left over chocolate frosting...then I need to bake something else to frost!

As always, I can be convinced to ship these yummy cookies to you!  Let me know if you want large or small cookies then make me an offer I can't refuse!  Or, you can come purchase them at the Silver Tea and Bake Sale on Saturday, November 10th at the Bolivar United Methodist Church!  Come and get them!!

ANUT SALLY'S COCOA DROPS

COCOA DROPS
½ cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
¾ cup buttermilk
1 tsp. Vanilla
2 cups flour
½ tsp. Soda
½ tsp. salt
½ cup cocoa
1 cup chopped pecans
　
Mix shortening, sugar and egg. Stir in milk and vanilla. Stir in dry ingredients. Add nuts. Chill one hour. Drop from teaspoon, 2" apart onto lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake 8 – 10 minutes at 400 degrees. Cool. Frost with chocolate icing

Dayna's Favorite Cookies

It was so much fun to have Dayna and Travis here. Exciting because she tried on wedding dresses, found just the right one, had it altered and we took it home the next day! That's great service! Her bridesmaid fit into her dress like it was made jsut for her - no alterations needed. Just beautiful! Then the boys took us to the shooting range to destroy a box full of clay targets and do some target practice. Dayna was craving her favorite cookies so we got to mix up a batch. This recipe came with a Valentine card she gave me many years ago.
 1 cup butter
1 ½ cups sugar
2 ¾ cups flour
2 tsp. cream of tartar
2 eggs
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
Coating: mix together: 2 tbls sugar and 2 tsp. cinnamon
Mix together butter, sugar, and eggs. Stir in flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt. Chill dough for 1 hour. Roll dough into walnut-size balls. Roll balls in coating. Place balls 2" apart on ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for 8 – 10 minutes.

The hardest part is waiting for an hour to pass so we could bake them! I use a cookie scoop to dish these onto the cookie sheets which is so much easier than the old way I used to make them - using two spoons to dip and scrape them onto the cookie sheet. Using the cookie scoop, they are a consistent size. So that makes them bake up nicely.

These didn't last long. Fresh from the oven and covered in cinnamon, they are hard to resist! But...if you'd like your own dozen or more, that can be arranged! For a small fee, plus shipping and handling.

SNICKERDOODLES

Favorite Cookies

I always enjoy making these Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.  I can pretend they are a health food because of the oats and raisins.  My mom used to try and convince me to let the kids eat these cookies for breakfast.  She did weigh 200 to 300 pounds most of her life and thought this was a good idea, but I didn't. God bless her! She did know how to enjoy life! I enjoy a good breakfast and a mid-morning snack and that's when I prefer to enjoy these cookies.  My friend Ann at KYOO asked me for these cookies - while she was on the air doing Swap Shop.  It's hard to refuse a request like that.  So...since I had baked these yesterday for the Polk County Bike Club (PCBC) meeting and had cleverly bagged up a dozen just in case, I took off in my car and delivered her cookies. She threw her head back and laughed and laughed! I enjoy shipping my treats or in this case delivering them so that I can share the bounty which I've been blessed to have. If you need cookies, you can bake them yourself, or for a small fee, will send some to you too!

OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES
¾ cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
1 egg
¼ cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon cloves
¼ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon soda
1 cup raisins
3 cups oats
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix thoroughly shortening, sugars, egg, water, and vanilla. Stir in remaining ingredients.
Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls 1 inch apart onto greased baking sheet. Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until almost no imprint remains when touched with finger. Immediately remove from baking sheet. Store in tightly covered container.
Makes about 5 dozen cookies – 74 calories each.

How do you handle agitation?

We had so much fun at Youth Group on Sunday night talking about agitation and shaking jars of heavy cream. It took about 45 minutes of agitating to make butter. We had plenty of time to talk about things in life that agitate us and how we need to ask for the Lord’s help in dealing with those things. But if you think of it, bliss follows agitation like a rainbow follows rain. So for a bit of bliss…we ate fresh baked bread with butter, honey and/or jam. Also, as a result of making butter from cream, I was left with a bit more than 2 cups of buttermilk. I shouldn’t have been surprised that using real buttermilk versus the powdered version (I keep powdered on hand for this recipe) made for fluffier, tastier cookies. Nothing like the real thing for real goodness! Enjoy! I can make and ship these to you – for a fee of course. J

BUTTERMILK COOKIES

1 cup shortening 4 ½ cups flour
2 cups sugar 1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs 2 tsp. baking powder
2 cups buttermilk with 1 tsp. soda mixed in
Beat shortening and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat well. Add other ingredients and mix well. Chill 1 hour. Drop on lightly greased or non-stick cookie sheet. Bake 12-15 minutes at 350º. Cool and frost with powdered sugar icing.