OMGSNAX!

an OMGSNAX! special edition

when i was a little kid — i’m talking little, like before kindergarten little — my best friend was a girl who lived in our neighborhood named emily. we spent a lot of time playing together & generally being weird; we made up songs about spelling, including our favorite word: “that’s B-U-T-T BUTT!”

emily’s mom passed this recipe along to my mom around this time, & it’s been a christmas cookie staple in my family ever since. my initial plan was to make these thursday night after my family’s thanksgiving dinner so i could bring them to daniel’s grandparents’ house when i left town first thing friday morning — but now he’s staying here, & i was really feeling the need for some quality baking time with cookie impresario valeriebee, so the plan changed.

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
48 maraschino cherries (1 10-oz jar)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
4 teaspoons cherry juice

DIRECTIONS
preheat oven to 350 degrees. in a small bowl, combine flour & cocoa powder. set aside. in a large mixing bowl, cream butter & sugar. add baking soda, baking powder, & salt. beat in egg & vanilla. gradually add remaining dry ingredients.

shape dough into balls & place about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. make an indentation in the center of each ball with your thumb, & place a cherry in the indentation.

for the icing, combine chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk, & cherry juice in a small saucepan over low heat, & then spoon over the top of each cherry. bake for 8 to 10 minutes. yield: 48 cookies.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
val did most of the work on these while i washed the dinner dishes, so i can’t say for sure that there weren’t any deviations — & the dough was slightly drier than usual which was a little suspicious — but they turned out just fine so who’s complaining? they weren’t as pretty as usual (my fault — i’m used to applying the icing with a small spatula instead of a soup spoon, which is what was available in daniel’s kitchen, so the icing ran a little), but they tasted the same as they always do!

 

 

 

“Chocolate Cherry Cookies” from joanne nilges.

i decided to give peanut butter cookies another try, even though i was less than impressed with my previous attempt. i want to believe that i never really developed a taste for peanut butter cookies as my mom never made them (what with my sister’s food allergies & all), but secretly i know that that doesn’t really hold water — there are a lot of things my mom never made that i absolutely LOVE (eg: pad thai, chana masala, pierogi, strawberry smoothies) — so i’m not sure WHERE my distaste for peanut butter cookies comes from. in theory, i should like them: i love peanut butter, after all, & i love cookies. in practice, though, they just seem so DRY.

INGREDIENTS
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk
40 miniature chocolate covered peanut butter cups, unwrapped

METHOD
preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

sift together the flour, salt, & baking soda; set aside.

cream together the butter, sugar, peanut butter, & brown sugar until fluffy. beat in the egg, vanilla, & milk. add the flour mixture; mix well.

shape into 40 balls & place each into an ungreased mini muffin pan.

bake at 375 degrees for about 8 minutes. remove from oven & immediately press a mini peanut butter cup into each ball. cool & carefully remove from pan.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
so in transferring this recipe from internet to paper, i didn’t note that the muffin pan needed to be ungreased. the first batch, therefore, was greased, & the difference was pretty obvious. oops.

ready to bake

other than that, we had no real difficulties in making these cookies — especially b/c daniel did most of the work!

sugars

compared to the peanut butter cookies i made in the spring, these were a thousand times more delicious — & with a better texture to boot! there’s been some debate as to whether hershey’s kisses would work better than peanut butter cups, as the cups were a little bit overwhelming when the cookies were warm (though they tasted just fine after we’d refrigerated them).

cooling

waiting

all in all, though, i would most definitely make these again — they were easy & cute & very well-received!

 

 

“Peanut Butter Cup Cookies” from allrecipes.com.

so we’re in the midst of the days of awe (aka the high holy days (aka the ten days between rosh hashanah & yom kippur, inclusive)), & tradition dictates that, at this time of year — rosh hashanah, anyway, as yk is a fasting holiday — we consume apples & honey (tapuach v’dever) for a sweet new year.

my mom used to make this apple cake all the time when i was in grade school & junior high; we’d eat the leftovers for breakfast. (it’s fruit, of course it’s healthy!) she got the recipe from my sister’s 2nd grade class — each of them brought an apple-related recipe in, & they made little laminated apple-shaped cookbooks. this particular recipe was from my sister’s best friend’s family.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups finely chopped cooking apples
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts

METHOD
preheat oven to 350 F.

combine flour, soda, salt, & cinnamon. set aside. combine sugar, oil, egg, & vanilla. add apples. add dry ingredients. add walnuts. bake for 40 to 45 minutes in a greased 8×8 pan.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
cooking apples, according to my mom, are jonathan or granny smith. jonathan happened to be on sale at the grocery store, so although they were tiny (baseball-sized!), i bought a bag & peeled & chopped my little heart out. (yes, i peeled the apples. even though the recipe didn’t call for it, i seemed to remember my mom peeling them when i was a kid.)

scrap pile

apples, sweetened

i think maybe it was a little undercooked — or maybe i should’ve cooled it on a rack instead of in the pan — b/c it was a tad bit mushy, but it tasted great (especially warmed up with some ice cream!) so there were no complaints. daniel even said — as he ate his third piece — that he’d let the nut infraction slide.

delicious apple cake

 

 

“Harvest Apple Cake” from my sister’s 2nd grade class’ apple cookbook