It’s All About Desserts… MckLinky Blog Hop 7.21.09

For those who know me, I absolutely WILL NOT bake anything from a mix.  Now, that doesn’t mean I won’t eat anything that someone else made from a mix – but I will never bake that way.  I LOVE baking and trying new recipes – it fascinates me.  If only they would pass for dinner, that would be great since I DESPISE cooking.  Interesting, huh?

Here are 3 of my favorite recipes.  Hard to choose from hundreds, but these are good so PLEASE try them and tell me what you think.  These always get rave reviews from everyone who eats them.  In my opinion, you can’t go wrong with these.  I will have to say that using quality ingredients can make all the difference in the world with the taste.  I use REAL butter when I cook and bittersweet chocolate and unbleached flour – so the taste is different from those who may use margarine (yuck) and chocolate chips that don’t have any chocolate in them – you know, stuff like that.  REAL vanilla extract can also make a big difference in the taste.  It costs more, but it tastes better. 

Here we go…….

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Brownies

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup REAL butter
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 12 tbsp cocoa with 4 tbsp of  oil (mix well) (I use cold-pressed olive oil)
• 1 cup flour (I use half unbleached and half whole wheat or pastry flour)
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp baking powder
• 1 ½ tsp vanilla
• chocolate chips of your choice

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Grease and flour a 13" x 9" cake pan.
Mix all ingredients well.
Pour into pan and sprinkle chocolate chips
over the batter (or mix them into the batter if you fancy that way better.) Bake for 35 minutes.  Let cool before cutting – they will be messy if you don’t!  ENJOY!

 
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Chocolate Yum Yums 
- No bake chocolate/oatmeal drops

MIX TOGETHER IN A SAUCE PAN:

• ½ cup cocoa
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

ADD AND BRING TO A BOIL FOR 1 MINUTE:

• ½ cup butter
• ½ cup milk

REMOVE FROM HEAT FOR 3 MINUTES AND ADD:

• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 4 - 4 1/2 cups quick oats - 1 cup at a time

DROP ONTO WAXED PAPER ON A
COOKIE SHEET AND REFRIGERATE.

 

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Mom's Sugar Cookies

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup melted lard
• 2 lightly beaten eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp salt
• 5-6 cups flour

Mix all ingredients together. Chill at least one hour.  Roll and cut with cookie cutters
Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

I frost with Royal Frosting, but any frosting is good. The Royal Icing dried hard which is nice since we make these and give them to people, so you can stack easily without making a mess. 

Note:  I realize Lard is NOT healthy, but it makes the cookies soft they way they should be.  If you don’t make these daily, your intake of Lard is probably not too much, so you can splurge a bit.  Using butter in this recipe will harden the cookies.  I prefer the soft.  THESE COOKIES ARE AMAZING!

Royal Frosting

• 4 egg whites
• 4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon lemon extract
• 1 tsp. glycerin (optional)

Beat egg whites in clean, large bowl with mixer at high speed until foamy (use only grade A clean, uncracked eggs). Gradually add sugar and lemon extract. Beat at high speed until thickened. NOTE: When dry, Royal Icing is very hard and resistant to damage that can occur during shipping/handling.

 This is my daughter and her friend decorating sugar cookies and using the royal icing.  Didn’t get a close up, but you can see the fun they were having.

I found this photo online of the royal icing…Don’t know who took it, so I can’t give anyone credit. 

 

Let me know if you try these and let me know how they turn out!