Overloaded Oatmeal Cookies

Overloaded Oatmeal!

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1 cup butter

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla

2 cups flour

1 1/2 cups oatmeal (quick or old fashioned)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup coconut

1 cup craisins (or raisins, or both)

1 cup snipped dried apricots

1 cup nuts (I used pecans)

1 cup mini chocolate chips.

Preheat oven to 350

Line baking sheets with parchment

Cream butter, add sugars, egg and vanilla. Beat till well blended. 

In a separate bowl, combine flour, oats, baking soda and salt. Mix into butter mixture till well combined

Add the coconut, fruits, nuts and chocolate. You can also add more stuff if you want! Mixed fruit bits would be good too. 

I used the bigger medium scoop to drop them onto the prepared sheets

Bake 12 to 15 minutes until edges are browned.

Cool on wire racks

Makes 5 dozen

Brown Sugar Pecan Bites

Brown Sugar Pecan Bites

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup chopped pecans

Powdered sugar for dusting, this is optional and I did not do it this time.

Cream butter, add brown sugar and vanilla. Mix well.  In a separate bowl, sift flour and salt together. Add to creamed mixture. Stir in pecans.

Chill for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350

Take out the dough while the oven is heating up, so it is slightly easier to work  with. Using the medium scoop, scoop out balls of dough and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until lightly browned on the edges.

Cool on a wire rack. To make them fancier, dust with powdered sugar.



Sort of Swedish Ginger Cookies

Sort of Swedish Ginger Cookies

3/4 cup of butter

1 cup of sugar

1 large egg

1/4 cup molasses

2 1/4 cups flour (you can make it 3 cups if you want a softer, less chewy cookie)

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

1/2 cup crystallized ginger bits

1/2 cup candied orange peel

In the bowl of the mixer, cream butter and sugar, until smooth. Add the egg and molasses, blend till creamy.

In another bowl, mix 2 cups of the flour, baking soda, salt and spices.  

In small bowl, mix the candied peel and the  1/4 cup of flour. Add in the ginger bits to the peel mix, blend together.

Add the flour to the creamed mixture, when well blended add the peel and ginger bits.

Chill for at least one hour

Preheat oven to 350

Line baking sheets with parchment.  Use the medium scoop and drop dough onto prepared sheets.

I put a little bit of sprinkles on top of the dough balls to make them sparkly.

Bake fro 8 to 10 minutes.

The cookies will be very puffy when they come out of the oven

Let them cool on the sheet for several minutes. Mine took about 6 minutes to get cool enough to remove from the pan to the rack.  They will also flatten out and not be so puffy.

Makes 2 1/2 dozen.

When I was searching for ideas for these cookies -- I needed to use up the ginger bits-- there was a ginger cookie with orange extract in it and they called them Swedish Ginger cookies, since I used candied peel, I called them sort of Swedish ginger cookies.

Grandmother's Orange Cookies

Grandmother's Orange Cookies

My Grandmother made these for my wedding shower! She mailed them to me in Alaska, so they ship very well. Soft little pillows of cakey cookies with a wonderful buttercream

2/3 cup shortening

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1/2 cup orange juice

2 tablespoons grated orange rind

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

FROSTING:

2 1/2 tablespoons soft butter

1 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons orange juice

3/4 teaspoon orange rind

Preheat oven to 400

Mix shortening, sugar and egg.

In a separate small bowl, mix orange juice and rind

In another separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add flour to shortening mixture alternately with the orange juice.

I used the large-ish medium scoop to drop them onto a parchment lined baking sheet. You don't have to use parchment, they don't stick.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until browned around the edges.

Makes 1 1/2 dozen.

For Frosting:

Mix all ingredients for the frosting and frost when the cookies are cool



Bonus! Ninja Sugar Men

I got a request to make sugar cookie Ninjas for a birthday boy.  SO much fun

FarmHouse Sugar Cookies (made into Ninjas!)
This sugar cookie comes from the Farm Journal. We have used this one as our go to sugar cookie forever.   It is good with royal icing, or buttercream.

1 1/4 cups soft butter (2 1/2 sticks)
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
5 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 375. I only lined the baking sheets with parchment to make clean up easy. They don't stick to an ungreased pan

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time and beat until fluffy.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.

Add alternately with the milk to the creamed mixture. Begin and end with the flour.  If the dough is sticky, add more flour till dough is smooth and no longer sticky.  Use only 1/2 cup at a time of flour.

Roll out 1/4 inch thick on a lightly floured board. Use your favorite cookie cutter to cut out what ever shapes make you happy

Place cookies on baking sheet. Add any decorations you want to have baked on now.



 Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until just very lightly brown.

Makes about 5 to 6 dozen cookies. I made 3 1/2 dozen ninjas, and froze about 1/3 of the dough in disks to use later.

I decorated the cookies with Paula Deen's Edible Paint Recipe. It is wonderful to work with. LOVE it!

Paula Deen's Edible Paint

1/4 cup cold water (I add 1/4 teaspoon of any flavoring I am going to use to the water)

3 tablespoons meringue powder (I used Wilton brand)

2 cups sifted powdered sugar

any color you are going to use.

Combine water (flavored or not) with the meringue powder. Whisk till foamy.  Whisk in powdered sugar.

USE ASAP. This hardens up fairly quickly.



I found a new to me color to make real red and beautiful blacks.  AmeriColor. The stuff works great! 

Turtle Cookies

Yes, turtle candy in cookie form!

This cookie has been tripled to make 6 dozen cookies, so you can take it back down to the  one dozen size. I will put the smaller list of ingredients in parenthesis.

Turtle Cookies

 1 1/2 cups cake flour (1/2)

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (1/4)

3/4 teaspoon baking soda (1/4)

12 ounces (2 cups) milk chocolate chips  (4 ounces)

12 tablespoons cold butter (4 ounces)

1 1/2 cups sugar (1/2)

3 large eggs (1)

3 teaspoons vanilla (1)

1 1/2 cups pecans (1/2)

1 1/2 cups caramel bits (1/2)*

*Caramel Bits are wonderful little things from Kraft.  They are small round bits of caramel that are unwrapped and perfect for putting in cookies.  If you can not find these little pearls, take a regular size caramel and cut it into quarters. 

Sift together cake flour, cocoa, and baking soda in a large bowl, set aside.

In a small sauce pan, over super low heat, melt 1/2 the chocolate chips and the butter together. Watch it carefully so it does not burn. Stir often.   Remove from heat, allow to cool a little.  Add sugar and vanilla. Stir well, it might look a little grainy and that is okay.  Add eggs, one at a time.

Pour chocolate mixture into flour mixture. It will take some arm work to mix it all together.  I think next time I will use a hand mixer or the regular mixer to make it easier. 

Add in the caramel bits and pecans.

Chill at least one hour.

Preheat oven to 350

 Put parchment paper on to baking sheets. The caramel will leak a little and parchment will help!

Use the medium scoop, drop onto the prepared sheets.

Chill the dough balls for 15 minutes. To make my life a little easier. I made the dough balls, and put them on a plate and kept that in the fridge until I needed them. My cookie sheets are big and hard to put in the fridge.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes.  Let cool on sheet for about 6 minutes or until firm enough to move off the sheet. 

Makes 6 dozen