I have a couple that are very good (a double chocolate cookie and an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe), but I’d like to expand my repertoire. The cookies can have any ingredients at all in them (there is nothing we’re allergic to or won’t eat), but I’m looking for fairly simple, easy recipes.
I will post my two recipes, but I don’t have them handy at the moment.
ANZAC biscuits. Topical, too - it was ANZAC Day yesterday. Think thin, chewy “cookies” with coconut and oats. Mmm!
We made them for a kids’ program several summers ago, and about 80% of the kids gave them two thumbs up.
I’m looking for a drop cookie recipe too. My babysitter back during the 80s used to make a kind of drop cookie, kind of vanilla-y, that was a little ball and somehow it was firm even though it was fully cooked. I’ve looked at a lot of recipes, but none seem to form a cookie like this. Any ideas?
That sounds good - your link isn’t working for me, but I found this, and I think I’ll give them a try.
Could that maybe be a thimble cookie, elfkin?
My aunt gave us a tin of World’s Best Cookies as we were leaving after a visit. I’d never had them before but the three of us made quick work of the tin and I called her as soon as we got home to get the recipe.
Only drop cookies? There are a few “roll dough into 1” balls" recipes worth the effort including a snickerdoodle recipe I found that doesn’t even need to chill before you roll it.
I was looking for the link!
Make these. You won’t be sorry, unless you don’t want to have to keep making them for friends and relatives.
I always need to make at least a double batch of these, even though one batch makes plenty. They disappear immediately.
These are cake-like drop cookies with one extra step because they have a glaze. But that extra step is SO worth it. Everyone I’ve ever made these for has loved them.
Pumpkin Cookies with Caramel Glaze
2 c. shortning
2 c. sugar
2 c. canned pumpkin
2 eggs
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
4 c. flour
1 1/2 c. raisins
Cream shortening, sugar, pumpkin. Add eggs. Combine dry ingredients, mix into wet, add raisins.
Drop onto lightly greased sheets, bake 8-10 minutes at 350.
Glaze
6 tbsp. butter
8 tbsp. milk
1 c. brown sugar
Combine above over low heat until sugar dissolves. Cool completely and add
2 c. powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
and whisk smooth.
Spread on warm cookies, then stuff your face.
Okay, here are my two go-to recipes:
DOUBLE CHOCOLATE COOKIES
350ºF - bake 12 min.
INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup soft butter
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder (3 heaping tablespoons)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
METHOD
Cream softened butter and sugar, add egg, mix.
Add dry ingredients, mix well, drop on cookie sheet, bake.
Finally found one I’d been looking for:
Super Chocolate Cherry Mounds (from Good Housekeeping, December 2004):
Makes 2 dozen large or 6 dozen small cookies
2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 ounces semisweet chocolate
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks, 6 ounces) butter or margarine, softened
3/4 c packed brown sugar
3/4 c granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 c dried tart cherries (don’t use Bing cherries, they’re not tart
enough; I used one 8 ounce bag tart montmorency cherries from Trader
Joe’s)
1 1/2 c. white chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 F. On waxed paper, combine flour, cocoa, baking microwave-safe small bowl, melt semisweet chocolate on High 1 minute, stirring once halfway through heating.
In large bowl, with mixer at medium speed, beat butter and sugars until creamy, occasionally scraping bowl with rubber spatula. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, then melted chocolate and vanilla. At low speed, gradually add flour mixture; beat just until blended, occasionally scraping bowl. Stir in cherries and white chocolate chips.
Drop cookies by scant 1/4 cups, 2 inches apart, on ungreased large cookie sheet. Or, for smaller cookies, drop by measuring tablespoons, about 1 inch apart. Bake large cookies 15 minutes 9small cookies 8 to 10 minutes) or until tops are just firm. Transfer cookies to wire rack to cool. Repeat with remaining dough. Store in tightly covered container at room temperature up to 1 week or in freezer up to 3 months.
My comments:
No clue why they say to mix flour etc. on waxed paper. That seems intentionally messy. I used a bowl. I’ve since heard that this is to help with pouring the ingredients into the mixer without getting in the way of the mixer head?
If you double the recipe, it won’t fit in the bowl of a 4.5 qt Kitchenaid mixer. Maybe the larger industrial-strength mixer… The second time I doubled this, I just measured everything in parallel (dirtying every bowl I own) but the mixer did a better job.
Watch baking time carefully. My cookies wound up being between the 2 sizes given and I overbaked the first few traysful. They were still tasty but not nearly as good as when I got them out of the oven earlier. The next trays, I wound up removing one cookie at 8 minutes, testing that while the rest baked another minute, etc. - finally decided that for the size I made, 10 minutes was utterly perfect.
I want to make these later today - should be interesting working it out with my new convection oven!!
Huh - correct that to read “on waxed paper, combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. In microwave-safe small bowl…”.
I made the cookies last night and with a dough scoop (not sure the size, but the recipe made right about 36) they took 12 minutes on convection, with the oven auto-adjusting the temperature down 25 degrees. I had to flatten them slightly as the scoop makes rather tall hemispheres of dough.
Okay, first on my list is ANZAC biscuits - it’s almost time to make more cookies, so I’ll report back soon. 
Update: The Anzac biscuits are deee-licious! They’re different than your usual drop cookie - much more crispy. They have a very nice flavour, though.
These are very nice cookies - they have a pleasant, sublime flavour. That’s a LOT of fat in one recipe, though - a cup of butter and a cup of oil!
I alternately call these cookies Seattle Communion Wafers or rabbit-punch cookies (because if you eat too much, they’re like a blow to the kidneys*).
So here’s what you do.
Get some coffee beans and grind them really fine. If your machine has a Turkish coffee setting, put it on that. You want the grounds to be just a smidge grittier than cocoa.
Get out your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Reduce the flour by about 1/4 cup (assuming ~2 cups flour), and replace it with about 1/3 cup coffee grounds.
Make the cookies as usual the rest of the way. For nuts, pecans and hazelnuts are especially tasty.
The cookies come out very strongly coffee-scented and flavored, and there’s a definite caffeine kick to them. One recipient described them as providing a spiritual experience.
Heh - I like the sounds of those cookies, Left Hand, but unfortunately I don’t ingest caffeine.
A question for you cookie-lovers - I had a home-made cookie the other day that was, without a doubt, the worst cookie I have ever tasted. I had one bite and threw the rest away - it was baking-soda flavoured evil. Would you tell someone that their cookies are that bad, or just not ever eat anything they make again?
My brother once threw a Blasphemy party on Good Friday. I brought some Zima and labeled it “Saliva of Christ”, got an Easter card on which I wrote the world’s most insincere wish that my brother might continue to learn and grow in Christ, and a plate of Seattle Communion Wafers.
Around midnight, after folks had been scarfing them all night, I told them that I’d made the cookies with decaf coffee. Figured they ought to know what it felt like to be blasphemed against :).
Anyway, they taste fine with decaf, even if they lack the kick.
This was a huge recipe so I brought a bunch of cookies to work - they were a universal hit.
Next up - ultimate ginger snaps!
