Happy Things #8

Three things that made me happy today:

·        Getting the right amount of caramel extract to make my cocoa taste perfect. The dash of heavy whipping cream helped, too. :-)

·        Beef stew for supper. It’s become one of my favorite dishes in recent years, and it’s great on chilly nights.

·        Making gingerbread cookie batter. Some of my earliest childhood memories involve making gingerbread cookies—following Betty Crocker’s “Stone Jar Molasses Cookies” recipe, watching Mom melt the butter and molasses together (and later doing it myself when I was old enough), chilling and rolling out (and sampling!) the dough, cutting out fun shapes, decorating them with special candies. Ahh…memories. *Cue nostalgic music* Yes, sir, stirring that sticky-hot molasses and butter brought back a tiny bit of my childhood.

Until next time, Gentle Readers,

God bless,

~“Tom”~

Recipe: Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cookies

Now that the weather has turned cooler (alas!), and people are beginning to think of roaring fires, comfy sweaters and hot baked dishes, what better way to kick off Fall than with something sweet and chocolatey to go with them? 

For years I made cookies that all came out runny and baked up paper-thin and crunchy. Bah! Then one day the idea popped into my head to put rolled oats in my chocolate chip cookies, tweak a few proportions, and voila! Suddenly they were soft and rounded, and chewy with a little crunch to them—just the way we like them. Hurrah! The oatmeal helps tone down the sweetness, too (but it was Mom's idea to add baking powder, an ingredient not called for in the original recipe). Below is a double recipe, which makes enough to keep your family in cookies for quite some time. I'm ashamed to say I never counted to see how many dozen it makes, but we usually fill two 24x18” cookie sheets (four down and three across) twice, plus one extra sheet. One final note: Creaming the butter and sugar first may seem like an extra step—and I'll admit I didn't do it until just recently—but it really does make a smoother batter. No more butter-lumps making the mixer jump and splatter flour everywhere!

~Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cookies~

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Cream these ingredients together in mixer bowl:

½ cup butter

½ cup oil*

¾ – 1 cup sugar

¾ – 1 cup brown sugar

Add slowly while beater is still running:

3 eggs*

3 ¼ – 3 ½ cups flour

3 cups rolled oats

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

4 tsp vanilla

Mix until smooth. If batter is too thick, add ¼ cup milk and mix until blended into batter. Next add:

2 cups chocolate chips

~OR~

1 cup each chocolate chips and raisins

Drop by tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheets, about two inches apart, and bake for 10-15 minutes, or until no longer gooey in the middle. Allow to cool before refrigerating.

Enjoy with a cold glass of milk!

* If using a single recipe, omit oil and use ½ cup butter and 2 eggs. I only use three eggs in a double recipe because of allergies—too many eggs, and it doesn't do down well. Feel free to tinker with the recipe as you feel the need or inspiration. That's half the fun of cookery, anyhow, wot? ;-)

Happy baking, Gentle Readers!

God bless,

~"Tom"~