Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Monster Cookies and Ornaments!

Sorry for posting rather sporadically!

I seriously mean to post at least once a week but then it never seems to happen - really I will get better....I promise.......hopefully.......lol.

Today was a great day! I had the day off, the kids and I made my favorite cookies of all time, and we made some homemade salt dough ornaments! Plus I got half of the house cleaned.......I chose season 4 of Cake Boss (that is now on Netflix YAY!) over cleaning the rest of the house. Oh, well :)



We had so much fun! The salt dough ornaments were SO easy to make! Here's the recipe in case you have never made them before.....

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup salt
1/2 cup water

* Mix all together and knead to form a dough
* Roll out the dough to desired thickness and use cookie cutters to cut shapes out
* Or if desired shape dough into desired shapes
* Place tin foil down on a baking sheet so your creations do not stick to the pan
* Bake at 250 degrees for 2 hours


All baked and ready to be decorated this weekend - gotta load up on paint and glitter! This recipe yielded about 2 dozen ornaments for us.

Now onto my favorite part of the day!

Cookies!!! 

Not just any cookies either, these are my favorite cookies in the whole wide world :) They have everything good in them....oatmeal, peanut butter (or in our case soybutter) M&Ms (my favorite candy) and chocolate chips, all melted and baked together into a giant cookie :)

These are a family tradition and a family favorite. My mom bakes them up every year around Christmas time (and sometimes throughout the year too) and always gives us a bag of them to take home. This recipe yields 4-5 dozen! My favorite way to eat them (if they last the night.....lol) is to put the bag in the freezer and let them get crumbly then put it over ice cream :) Serious goodness!

When you make them be sure not to make them too small - they are called monster cookies for a reason! If you make them too small, they will just end up hard and flat (and while I will still eat them that way, it is definitely not the best!) They recommend using an ice cream scoop instead of a spoon to get the right size :) Also don't bake them too long - take them out just before they look done!


Monster Cookies

Ingredients

3 eggs
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon corn syrup
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups peanut butter (or soy butter for nut free)
4 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup candy-coated milk chocolate pieces

Directions

* Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
* In a very large bowl, beat the eggs. Very large.....this seriously makes a lot!
* Add the remaining ingredients in order, mixing well.
* Use an ice cream scoop to put on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. I took them out at 13 minutes and they turned out perfect!

This recipe is halved very easily - for the eggs use 2 and the rest just cut in half!


Enjoy!




Check out my bakery website here!  www.eatcakebakery.weebly.com