Zucchini Cookies

Adapted fom the Taste of Home recipe for Frosted Zucchini Cookies


Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 C. butter, softened
1 C. sugar
1 egg
2 C. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4-1/2 tsp. ground cloves, optional
1 C. shredded zucchini
1 C. raisins, chocolate chips, or nuts


Frosting: (optional)
1/4 C. butter, softened
3 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 tsp. vanilla
2 C. powdered sugar

In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar until light anf fluffy. Add in the egg. Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Add to the creamed mixture alternately with the shredded zucchini, beating well after each addition. Stir in raisins, or chocolate chips, or nuts. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours, or overnight.

Drop by rounded Tbsp. onto lightly greased baking sheet or a silpat lined sheet. Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned. Move to wire rack to cool completely.

For frosting: Combine the butter and cream cheese and mix until fluffy. Add the vanilla and powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Frost cooled cookies.

Peanut Butter M&M cookies

We almost always have M&M's in our house.  My girls love their M&M's.  I found a recipe for Rolo Stuffed Peanut butter cookies but figured I should probably try and make my way through our current candy stash before I buy more.  So peanut butter M&M cookies it was.  I have a friend who makes these and stuffs the cookies with snickers.  Oh, the possibilities with peanut butter and chocolate are endless and delicious.  The peanut butter cookie recipe comes from Crazy for Crust, which she slightly adapted from a Crisco recipe.   

This recipe makes about 2 dozen cookies.  You'll need:

• ½ cup softened butter
• ¾ cup peanut butter 
• 1 ¼ cups firmly packed brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 egg
• 2 cups flour
• ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• 
  
• A heaping cup of M&M's, or about 24 Rolo candies or bite size snickers, your choice (unwrapped of course)

1. Preheat oven to 350°. 
2. Mix the butter, peanut butter, brown sugar, milk, and vanilla  until just blended. 
3. Then add the egg and beat until incorporated.
4. Combine and whisk the baking soda and flour together in a medium bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just blended.
5. If using M&M's stir them in now and skip to step 5.  If you want to stuff the cookies create a dough ball (roughly the 2 tablespoons worth of dough). Place a candy in the center of each and roll so that the candy is in the center of the dough and does not show. 
6. Place the dough 2 inches apart on a baking sheet. You can make a crisscross patterns on each dough ball if you are stuffing the cookies.
7. Bake the cookies for about 8-9 minutes or just until set. Bottoms will be lightly browned and centers may look a little under baked. Cool the cookies on the sheet for about 2 minutes and then move the to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Indian Corn Cookies

We have lots and lots of leftover Halloween candy. I found this idea on pinterest and knew my girls would love it. They love m&m's. I let the girls help by sorting through the m&m's, finding me the fall colored ones and devouring the rest. I used Erika's sugar cookie recipe she posted on this blog (it's under cookies and it's yummy) some frosting, m&m's and fruit roll ups. I cut the fruit roll ups into their shape with my kitchen scissors. Easy peasy and now we're excited for thanksgiving.

Banana Pudding Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've seen lots of cookie recipes lately that use instant pudding to jazz up an ordinary cookie. On Two Peas and Their Pod I read a vanilla pudding chocolate chip cookie recipe and it sounded good. I thought I had some vanilla pudding but it turned out to be banana cream. I decided to give it a try and I liked the way they turned out. They have just a hint of banana and I'll be making them again, or I may try another flavor pudding next time.

Banana Pudding Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3.4 oz. package banana instant pudding mix
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Beat together butter and sugars until creamy. Add in pudding mix, eggs, and vanilla extract. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

3. Drop cookie dough by rounded tablespoons onto baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until slight golden and set. Remove cookies from oven and let cool on baking sheet for two minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Grandma Nila's Sugar Cookies

These are so yummy they will ruin your diet, trust me I know. I made these on Sunday thinking I had enough will power to resist, but I didn't! They are super moist and have the perfect texture for a sugar cookie. They are wonderful on their own, but even better with frosting.

Sugar Cookies
2 Cups butter, or lard
4 cups white sugar
4 eggs, beaten
2 cups cream (sweet or sour)
2 tsp. vanilla
(I added 1 tsp. almond extract too because I like it in the cookies as well as the frosting)

Mix these ingredients together and then add:
6 tsp. baking powder (sweet cream)
or 4 tsp. baking powder, & 2 tsp. baking soda (sour cream) and 4 cups flour.

Mix together slightly then add 4 more cups of sifted flour. (You may need more flour if dough is still pretty sticky) Roll into a ball and cover with plastic wrap. Put in fridge for 1 hour or freezer for 30 minutes. Don't skip this step because the dough needs to firm up again to roll out nicely. If you skip it the dough will stick and become a big mess.

once chilled, roll out to about 1/2 in thick and cut out. Put on a parchment lined or silicone mat lined baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes or until edges are slightly browned. Cool for about 3 minutes on pan before moving to a wire rack. Cool completely before frosting. Makes a lot of cookies

Grandma's Pink Frosting
1 cube butter, room temp
4 oz cream cheese, room temp
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. almond extract
2 lbs. powdered sugar
1-2 tbsp. milk
Mix until your desired consistency and tint color of your choice (my grandma always did pink). Spread on cooled cookies.

Rollo Cookies

These cookies are so good and always a crowd pleaser! I hope you like them as much as my family does. :)

1 cup butter

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cp. peanut butter

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 bag of Rollo Candy

Cream together the first 6 ingredients. Add the remaining dry ingredients. Wrap dough around the Rollo candy and place on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

Cookies

Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups quick-cooking or regular rolled oats, uncooked
• 1-3/4 cups (11-oz. pkg.) HERSHEY'S Butterscotch Chips(or 1/2 butterscotch 1/2 milk chocolate)
  

Directions: 1. Heat oven to 375°F.

2. Beat butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar in large bowl until well blended. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well.

3. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating until well blended. Stir in oats and butterscotch chips; mix well. Drop by heaping teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet.

4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. About 4 dozen cookies.

Spider Cookies

I used the Double Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe for the cookies

2 C. all-purpose flour
2/3 C. cocoa powder
3/4 tsp. Baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 c. (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 1/2 C. sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 C. Milk Chocolate Chips

Heat oven to 350 degress. Stir together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In a mixer cream together the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. When that mixture is light and fluffy gradually add in the cooca mixture, beating well. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by spoonful onto an ungreased pan. (I use a Silpat they come off perfectly!) Bake 8-10 minutes (I went 12 because I wanted them a little more firm). Cool slightly then remove from pan to a wire rack. Cool completely. About 4 1/2 dozen small. (I got 3 dozen big cookies)

After the cookies cooled completely I frosted them with Milk Chocolate Frosting (from the can :( ) and then I separated 1 can of vanilla frosting into 5 sections. I made white the biggest section because it is neeeded the most for the webs. Then I made, pink, green, blue, and purple to match what was going to be used as the spiders body. On Bakerella she used Trix cereal. I couldn't fnd Trix so I used Captain Crunch with Berries and used the berries for the spiders bodies. After separating the frosting. I put the frosting into ziploc baggies and snipped the very tip off to make it into a piping bag. I then piped 3 circles onto each frosted cookie. Using a toothpick I drug the frosting from the center outward to create a web. Then I piped 8 little legs out of the colored frosting and placed 1 crunch berry in the center for the body and presto!! The cookies are finished!! Enjoy!! Erika

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

I got this recipe from the Hershey's Choclate website and I absolutely love it when I am in the mood for a lot of chocolate!! Enjoy!! Erika

2 C. all-purpose flour
2/3 C. cocoa powder
3/4 tsp. Baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 c. (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 1/2 C. sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 C. Milk Chocolate Chips

Heat oven to 350 degress. Stir together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In a mixer cream together the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. When that mixture is light and fluffy gradually add in the cooca mixture, beating well. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by spoonful onto an ungreased pan. (I use a Silpat they come off perfectly!) Bake 8-10 minutes (I went 12 because I wanted them a little more firm). Cool slightly then remove from pan to a wire rack. Cool completely. About 4 1/2 dozen small. (I for 3 dozen big cookies)