Cookies and Treats

[Valka D'Ur]

Never before heared of the ice-cream bread . I thought it would be some kind of icy cold - ice cream bread .... visited a link ...

Btw. Do You guys have some recipes that doesn't require baking I wonder ?

Chocolate haystack cookies don't need baking. The ingredients are heated and mixed on the stove, then the mixture is dropped onto cookie sheets. There are many recipes, but I'll try to remember the one I used. I changed it from the recipe book to eliminate some of the sugar and add more baking cocoa.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Is this the place where I come to brag about downing two boxes of girl scout cookies?

No? Ok I'll take my heartburn and leave.

 

[onejayhawk]

Old joke:

Wife: No GS cookies. You're on a diet.
Husband: I'll only get one box.

FYI: 1 case contains 10 boxes of cookies
1 shipping carton contains 6 cases, ie 60 boxes of cookies

J

 

[Valka D'Ur]

How many cookies in a box? (I've never had Girl Scout cookies)

 

[onejayhawk]

Some stovetop cookies

Breakfast Cereal Cookies

• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup corn syrup
• ½ cup peanut butter
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• 4 cups any kind of unsweetened flakes

Put sugar and corn syrup in a saucepan on medium heat. Stirring, bring to a boil.
Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter then vanilla.
pour over cereal flakes and stir to combine
Spoon out on waxed paper

Haystacks

• 3/4 stick of salted butter (or add pinch of salt)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 cups quick oats

Put butter, sugar, and milk in a saucepan over medium-low heat
Stir to combine and occasionally until bubbles start to form
Stir boiling continuously for 3 minutes (time it)
Remove from heat
Stir in peanut butter until incorporated and then vanilla
Pour over quick oats and stir to combine
Spoon onto waxed paper
For Chocolate Haystacks add 1/2 cup of cocoa at beginning

Skillet Cookies

• 3 Tbsp butter
• 1 1/2 cup chopped dates
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 2 cups rice cereal
• 1/2 cup pecans, chopped
• flake coconut

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat.
Add dates, sugar, and eggs.
Cook stirring until mixture thickens and pulls from the skillet, about 5-8 minutes.
Remove from heat and add cereal and pecans.
Stir cookie dough until well-mixed.
Form into balls and roll in coconut.
Cool about half an hour.

J

 

[hobbsyoyo]

How many cookies in a box? (I've never had Girl Scout cookies)

Depends on the type. 20-40 is typical

 

[MaryKB]

Some very simple chocolate chunk cookies I made to refill my cookie jar. You can use this recipe for any kind of cookie.

You just need basic ingredients ..

You'll want to melt your 1/2 cup of butter first. I do mine by putting my butter in a glass bowl over a pot of steaming water .. that way I can melt it without overheating the butter. But any way you do it will work!

Next you'll mix 1/3 cup of granulated sugar and 1/2 cup of brown sugar in with your butter. Make sure it's all smooth.

Next add 1 teaspoon of vanilla and your egg .. beat your mixture until fully combined. You'll have a paste-like texture.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. If you're using salted butter instead of unsalted, cut your salt you add in half. Mix in well.

Add in 1 and 1/2 cups of all purpose flour and beat into your batter. You'll get a crumbly and not-sticky texture (you should be able to touch it without any coming off on your fingers)

You'll next want to add your toppings .. you can do anything. I'm using Ghirardelli baking chocolate, cut into small squares. 1 and 1/2 cups is best, if you use too much your cookies might not bake right. Mix these in well!

You'll have a nice ball of cookie dough! My recipe should make 32 cookies, and I divide it in half repeatedly until I have little balls.

Put parchment paper on your baking sheet, and put your balls of dough on here so you can chill them. You need to chill your cookies to let your butter reset so they'll bake right. You don't have to worry about spacing, but cover them with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about two hours.

I do mine in two batches, and I press them down a bit so they'll spread nicely. I get more parchment paper ready while my first run is baking, at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes.

When they come out, they'll need to cool for at least 10 minutes .. your chocolate will probably be very gooey, so do be careful!

Cookie jar full! These are very popular and don't last long lol.

 

[Lexicus]

My dad makes the bomb chocolate chip cookies, no idea what the recipe is but they look a lot like those, just with chips rather than chunks

 

[tjs282]

Mary, your cookies look yummy, but out here in NotTheUSA, recipes generally tend to use measured weights, rather than cups — this is especially important for flour, for which a 'cupful' can vary quite widely in weight (depending on whether it's heaped/flat, or loose-/tight-packed; it would be helpful to know how you do it).

A bit of Google-ing found me these:

http://alicemedrich.com/2015/11/08/how-to-convert-recipes-from-cups-to-weights/
https://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/food/cups-to-grams-converter-87833

...which I hope will be of some help to anyone else who (also) wants to try out your recipes (with the caveat that some further tweaking may still be required, so having calculated the quantities needed, it's always better to start with less than that, and gradually add more until the consistency looks right...)

 

[civvver]

How many cookies in a box? (I've never had Girl Scout cookies)

Whatever it is it used to be more. They wanted to keep the prices the same so a few years ago they reduced the size of all the boxes.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Mary, your cookies look yummy, but out here in NotTheUSA, recipes generally tend to use measured weights, rather than cups — this is especially important for flour, for which a 'cupful' can vary quite widely in weight (depending on whether it's heaped/flat, or loose-/tight-packed; it would be helpful to know how you do it).

A bit of Google-ing found me these:

http://alicemedrich.com/2015/11/08/how-to-convert-recipes-from-cups-to-weights/
https://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/food/cups-to-grams-converter-87833

...which I hope will be of some help to anyone else who (also) wants to try out your recipes (with the caveat that some further tweaking may still be required, so having calculated the quantities needed, it's always better to start with less than that, and gradually add more until the consistency looks right...)

I genuinely will not use any baking recipe if it doesn't use metric measurements. measuring flour in cups is asinine. it simply will not produce repeatable, uniform results and it's highly inaccurate, which is a killer when a few grams of flour can make a huge difference. also I feel the temperature system is not very intuitive at all.

 

[tjs282]

measuring flour in cups is asinine. it simply will not produce repeatable, uniform results and it's highly inaccurate, which is a killer when a few grams of flour can make a huge difference.

Agreed. I'm guessing that US 'tradition' dates back to the westward expansion days, when accurate sets of scales/ weights might not necessarily have been easy to find in the boondocks, but everyone would at least have had a cup in their kitchen. Does seem kinda ludicrous that it still persists in cookbooks today, though -- legacy tech, eh? Even pounds and ounces would be an improvement...

I feel the temperature system is not very intuitive at all.

If you know the formula, °F to °C is almost easy enough to convert in your head:

°F = (°C * 9/5) + 32

or

°C = 5 * (°F - 32) / 9

In both @MaryKB's cookie recipes above, "350 degrees" has got to be Fahrenheit, so it's 175-180°C (give or take). We still don't know for sure if that's for a conventional or a fan-oven, but I'm guessing the latter. (I once worked in a cafe, where we baked pre-made frozen cookie-dough balls in a bench-top conventional oven at about 220°C; and fan-oven temp.-settings can be 10-15% lower than conventional for the same results).

 

[onejayhawk]

What do you mean "almost"?

J

 

[Valka D'Ur]

For those objecting to measurements in cups, you can buy standard measuring cups for both dry ingredients and liquid ingredients. You don't have to guess whether your teacup or coffee cup is too much or too little.

 

[MaryKB]

I use measuring cups, I have different ones for my liquid and dry ingredients. I understand using a kitchen scale can be more precise, but I've never found it to make much of a difference, I find it's really easy to tell if you have enough flour in your mixture just be looking at it and mixing it, and rarely do I need to add any additional. I'm pretty sure you can find websites to convert volume measurements to weights I'm too used to how I've always done it to change lol.

 

[Lexicus]

I am also not really into precise measurements because I learn how to do things by experimenting rather than rigorously following a plan.

 

[tjs282]

What do you mean "almost"?

5/9 = 0.55555555555555....

Sure, multiplying out a fraction that is effectively a recurring decimal can be done mentally, but it's kind of a PITA if you want accuracy -- which itself can get kinda messy: e.g. technically, 350°F = 176.66666666666666.....°C, hence my approximation...

Converting °C to °F is a lot easier, but there's not much call for doing that on this side of the Pond, where we already use measurement-units that make (somewhat) more logical sense...

 

[MaryKB]

Fahrenheit makes more logical sense if you're measuring air temperature, Celsius isn't really useful if you're outside a laboratory (where it's definitely way better!)

But you can convert easily if you remember each degree in C increase is 1.8 in F. So you can start at -40 where both are the same, and then let's say your C is 0 degrees. Well you take 40 (change from -40 to 0) and multiply that by 1.8, which is 72, and then add that to where you started, so you get 32 F

 

[Lexicus]

I have a rough idea of F and C conversions within the normal range of temperatures that I experience where I live. For example I know that 22 C is around 71 F, and 0C is of course 32 F. I can usually make a pretty good guess on the conversions. When we get outside that range of "normal" temperatures things start to break down, for example I know that -40 C = -40 F but I forget what the functions do after that. And I guess I remember that 212 F = 100 C (I think?) but that isn't really useful in everyday life.

 

[Hrothbern]

The Celcius scale is 0 C when ice forms or melts and 100 C when water boils.
That's both practical for Real Life... will we have ice, slippery roads today ?... as highly simple and precise for scientists as calibration before bigger accuracy was needed.