We all love Girl Scout cookies, right? I try to stay away from them or I'll a whole box at a time, but I love them all the same. Well so does one scout from Michigan, who actually broke sales records.
Jennifer Sharpe sold, I kid you not, 17, 328 boxes of cookies. That's a lot of Samoa's! I can't imagine selling even a fraction of that. Apparently, though, all that selling really helped Jennifer get over being shy. Not only that, the cookie sales (about $21,000) is paying for her troop to go to Europe this winter.
Just think about that next time you buy a box of Girl Scout cookies!
Finally, there's dessert. A few years ago, I made these sugar drop cookies from the Joy of Cooking and they went over really, really well. The dough is easy to mix up, and the kids (ages 4-5) loved rolling and sugaring the balls before they were put into the oven. It's really easy to do and a lot of fun without too much mess.
Sugar Drop Cookies Yields about 6 dozen cookies
2 1/2 cups flour 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 3/4 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 cup sugar 3/4 cup cooking oil 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
In one medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
In another, beat together the sugar and oil until blended. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition. Add the vanilla and beat until well combined.
Add the flour mixture to the oil mixture and mix well.
Now here comes the fun part.
In one or two small bowls (depending on the number of mini cooks in the kitchen), pour some granulated sugar or sprinkles. Take a small amount of the dough and roll it back and forth between your palms to get a 1/2" ball. When it's shaped, dip it into the sugar, cover all sides, then place the balls about 1" apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Try not to lick your fingers before grabbing batter for the next ball.
Bake until the cookies stop looking sticky -- approximately 10-12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack and then devour.
We love food on sticks, and in the summer months, there's nothing better than a popsicle. However, when it's still a little too chill outside for frozen treats, make cake-sicles! Heck, even during the summer months, cake-sicles won't melt into a runny mess.
The Norpro Non-stick Cake-sicle Pan makes eight big popsicle shaped cookies in which you can stick popsicle sticks once the cookies come out of the pan. I'm thinking that a nice dip in melted chocolate after the cookies are cooled would be a fantastic idea.
When I start to run low on inspiration for this post, or the choices become overwhelming in their deliciousness, I nearly always default to featuring a picture of a dessert. I don't know why exactly that it, although I do know that when all other fail to tempt my appetite, I can always be stirred by the presence of a nice piece of cake or a perfectly baked cookie.
These particular cookies called out to me in all their imprecise, frosted and sprinkled glory. I can imagine that eating one of these would never fail to brighten your spirits, if even just a little. Thanks to Caryn74 for adding them to our Flickr Pool.
I pulled out my cookie tome yesterday - Carole Walter'sGreat Cookies: Secrets to Sensational Sweets - and went for the aptly-named Carole's Really Great Chocolate Chip Cookies. (I know, the name sounds like a cop-out - until you realize that these are in addition to the "Soft and Chewy Choc. Chip Cookies," the "Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies," the "Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter..." - Well, you get the point. After awhile, you run out of names.
No matter: I felt good about these babies. Of course, it was not until I walked the ten blocks home that I realized I'd forgotten the light corn syrup that the recipe called for. So, out came the laptop, in a frantic search for the proper ratio of sugar-to-liquid to make DIY corn syrup. (It's one cup granulated sugar to 1/4 cup water, cooked til thickened).
The cookies are made with 1/2 cup of 1-minute oatmeal to prevent them from spreading out too much while in the oven. It definitely seemed to help, although my first batch was a bit underdone (I cooked them for 12 minutes), and my second batch - at 14 minutes - was slightly crunchy. Although, I have to say, dipped in my coffee this morning, the latter batch was absolutely perfect. Perhaps I should have turned the cookie sheet halfway through, like Carole suggests, or gone with real corn syrup instead of my cheap-o substitute. No matter - despite my flops, they were still amazing. (Oh- and forgive the grainy laptop camera shot).
Purim, the springtime Jewish holiday commemorating the Jews' escape from being destroyed by the evil Haman, is a favorite festival for Jewish kids everywhere. The day frequently involves costume parades, carnivals and feasts, with much eating, drinking and merry-making all around.
When I was seven I came down with chicken pox the morning of our temple's Purim carnival. I was devastated. No dressing up as good Queen Esther in a paper Burger King crown and frosted pink Bonnie Bell Lip Smacker. No waving my noisemaker to blot out the name of the evil Haman. Worst of all, no hamantaschen. I cried for hours.
Hamantaschen, or Haman's pockets, are triangular cookies traditionally filled with fruit, prune or poppy seed centers. Less traditional, though still delicious, are chocolate chip and peanut butter hamantaschen. When made right, they're delicious - crumbly rich dough with a sticky, not-too-sweet center. But when made badly, as commercial hamantaschen often are, they can be dense and depressingly bland. Try this great recipe from Jewish cooking maven Joan Nathan.
Oh, the sugar frenzy of Easter. There's nothing better than the gluttonous orgy of sweets and baked goods that happens around this time of year. I know that other holidays also worth at the foot of the sugar god, but I feel like every year, Easter is first in line to pay its respects. I feel like the cookies in this image (by Flickr user ebachetti) are a great example of the this lovely seasonal indulgence.
Martha Stewart has gone and done it again. She has created one of the most impressively terrific cookie cookbooks I've seen in a very long time. It's hard to believe that there was even room in the world for another comprehensive book of cookie recipes, but thanks to Martha, I am now convinced that there is another book in the world that I need to own.
It's one of those books that reaches out and grabs you from the very first page. That effect is mostly due to the fact that the first several pages are filled with row upon row of cookie images, row upon row of them on a white background. They are reduced in size from their real-life counterparts, however what they've lost in size they did not lose in detail, so what you get are pages of appealing, drool-inducing thumbnail images of cookies. And if you just buy the book, they all can be yours. That Martha is such a smart marketer.
While I haven't had an opportunity to try any of these recipes, my experience with the Martha Stewart Everyday Magazine leads me to believe that these recipes have been well-tested and will prove themselves to be reliable.
"Cookie Week" continues on Martha Stewart's TV show with these Brown-Butter Toffee Blondies. I wonder if these are more brownie than cookie, only cut into cookie-sized pieces?
Funny, the recipe says to cut the blondies into 3 inch squares, but the picture shows them as diamonds and hearts.
This week, Martha Stewart is doing a "Cookie Week" on her show. We recently did an entire Cookie Month, but I guess that's harder to do on a syndicated TV show without taking up too much time.
I'll post the recipes for each day's cookies (I thought she was originally supposed to start the week of recipes yesterday but it actually started today). First up, these Lime Meltaways.
The Girl Scouts of America have a new cookie baker for some parts of the country and, in a business move stupider than New Coke, have renamed some of their best-sellers (Though, as some of our readers kindly point out , other parts of the country have the "new" names for ages).
In my neck of the woods, Samoas are now "Caramel DeLites," which sounds like the name of a dietetic candy old ladies buy at the Dollar Tree. Tagalongs are now "Peanut Butter Patties, Do-Si-Dohs are "Peanut Butter Sandwiches" and Trefoils are "Shortbread," names which suggest either a wildly subversive anti-consumerist campaign a la No Logo (Declare Independence from Corporate Cookie! We Don't Need No Name-Brand Baked Goods!) or a newly minted Robotic Cookie Namer down at Girl Scout HQ. All-Abouts (which was a weird name, I admit) are now "Thanks-a-Lots." Try saying that un-sarcastically.
In honor of my favorite GS cookie, I created this Samoa Cake - layers of génoise cake brushed with caramel simple syrup and spread them with alternating layers of chocolate caramel ganache frosting and soft salty caramel, then iced with more chocolate caramel ganache blanketed in toasted coconut flakes. It's tall, rich and incredibly sweet, half-cake, half-candy bar. Take that, Caramel DeLite!
We love food on sticks, and in the summer months, there's nothing better than a popsicle. However, when it's still a little too chill outside for frozen treats, make cake-sicles! Heck, even during the summer months, cake-sicles won't melt into a runny mess.
"Cookie Week" continues on Martha Stewart's TV show with these 
This week, Martha Stewart is doing a "Cookie Week" on her show. We recently did an entire Cookie Month, but I guess that's harder to do on a syndicated TV show without taking up too much time. 
May is National BBQ Month and National Hamburger Month
Cupcakes, not for dessert (unless beef is your idea of a treat)
Because eating French Fries in the car is so tough
