Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Cookies at any time

I love cookies. Really. I love to bake cookies, and I love to eat cookies! It is better, however, for me to give my cookies away or make them for events, so they don't sit around the house tempting me and my hubbie to overeat. Thankfully, my husband has a great job that lends itself to 'taking cookies to the office'--he is a college professor, and both his students and his coworkers have benefitted from my cookie cooking binges.

But there are times, when I am home in the afternoon, both kids are sleeping, and I just want a cookie. Or when someone comes over at last minute and I want to offer something sweet along with coffee. I don't need 3 dozen cookies--I just need a few. My remedy for this is very simple. I make a batch of cookie dough, roll the dough into balls, place the balls on a cookie sheet and stick the cookie sheet in the freezer. After letting the dough freeze for a couple of hours, I pop the dough balls off the cookie sheet, throw them into a freezer bag and put them in the freezer. Then, on those afternoons that I MUST HAVE cookies, I can pull one or two (or six:-) balls out of the freezer bag and put them in the oven. I find it helpful to separate the balls into smaller freezer bags with a dozen cookies in each bag, and then putting those freezer bags into a larger gallon bag. This works for most types of cookie dough, both homemade and storebought. You could also roll the dough into small logs and freeze the logs. I don't prefer that method, but it would work similarly.

My favorite cookies are Snickerdoodles--in fact, I just made some Snickerdoodle cookie dough today. I will make a couple dozen cookies to take to my husband's work tomorrow, and will freeze the rest. Snickerdoodles are my "trademark" cookie, and one of the few recipes I don't share:-) But in the spirit of generosity, I want to give you the recipe to my second favorite cookie, Molasses Cookies. These delicious cookies also look beautiful, which is a plus:-)

Molasses Cookies
3/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg well beaten
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix together the butter, sugar, and molasses until creamy. Add egg and beat well. Sift together dry ingredients. Slowly add dry ingredients to butter mixture until well blended. Chill dough (can be overnight). Form dough into balls and roll in sugar. Bake at 375 degrees for 6-10 minutes--6 for softer cookies, 10 for crispier cookies. Enjoy!!

For more Works for Me Wednesday ideas, see Rocks In My Dryer.

1 comment:

  1. I love to make cookies, too, and freeze balls of dough for later. However, when the hordes discover the stash in the freezer, the dough disappear at an alarming rate :o I'm glad to have found your blog. I'm going to go look around some more ;)

    ReplyDelete

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