We are introduced, at an early age, to the sweet wondernous of a cookie. From teething cookies to soothe the swollen aching gums of incoming incisors, onto animal crackers purchased in rectangular-shaped boxes bearing a string handle for easy toting by little fingers. Deciding which part of the animal should be eaten first-the trunk of the elephant or the tail of a lion-depended on how hungry one was. Savor each and every one or simply gobble them down as fast as possible.

My next cookie memory would be the ever famous, possibly all-time favorite, the chocolate chip cookie. There is nothing better than to bite into a round circle of baked dough sprinkled with gooey melt-in-your-mouth chocolate. A chocolate chip cookie can dry tears, heal broken hearts, mend scraped knees and elbows and solve sibling arguments. Most of the problems in the world could likely be solved by a properly baked, right out of the oven, chocolate chip cookie. The power of a cookie is underestimated.

I will attempt in the next 365 days to prepare and comment on a year’s worth of different cookies-one for each day. My goal is to share with others my extreme love of cookies-baking them and especially eating them! Feel free to send me your favorite recipe, your earliest cookie memories, or how cookies may have influenced your life. Cookies Rule!


Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Cookie Recipe #74 - Vanilla Shamrocks


Happy St. Patrick's Day - may the cookies you eat bring happiness to your life!
Today's shamrocks are a vanilla refrigerator cookie. The dough is formed into a long roll-rolled in sugar-then wrapped and refrigerated for a few hours. Once hardened, each roll is cut into thin slices and formed into shamrocks. Shamrocks never tasted so good (not that I've eaten any real ones).
Ingredients: 1 cup granulated sugar, 1 cup butter, softened, 2 eggs, 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, 3 cups all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, green-tinted sugar, green food coloring.
Instructions: Measure 1/2 cup granulated sugar in small bowl; add a few drops of green food coloring and combine until sugar is evenly green and no big clumps remain; set aside. Mix sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla together in large mixing bowl. Stir in flour, salt, and baking soda; combine well. Add a few drops of food coloring to dough and mix until dye is completely incorporated. Divide into 4 equal parts. Shape each part into an 1 inch diameter roll. Sprinkle dyed sugar on surface (reserving some sugar for sprinkling on top); roll each cookie roll in the sugar until well coated. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 4 hours but no longer than 6 weeks.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove a roll from refrigerator and cut into 1/8 inch slices. For each cookie, place 3 slices, with sides touching, on ungreased baking sheet; press sides together forming a shamrock; attach stem cut from another slice. Sprinkle tops of each cookie with remaining green sugar. Repeat with other rolls.
Bake 6-7 minutes and immediately remove from baking sheet to cooling racks.
Note: This is a good recipe to make up just as a vanilla cookie roll (not green shamrocks) and pull out of the refrigerator as you like to slice up and bake when a friend stops in or you get that cookie craving. Keep a few rolls on hand for whatever occasion arises.
"Betty Crocker's Cookie Book", published by Golden Press, New York, in 1981.
Cookies Rule!!!

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