My Misadventures in Baking

Hello Again!
     I've had a busy week, and an even busier weekend ahead of me. Luke and I have really tried to get involved with our church. This weekend is Halloween (obviously! Haha) and we have a Fall Carnival at Gateway. Well, I signed us up to volunteer. :). I also volunteered to baked 3 dozen cookies for them too. Well, this also happens to be the weekend that we're hosting an area wide singing at our church, and we're having a luncheon afterwards. I figured while I was at it, I might as well bake cookies for that too! Haha. Thankfully I've pretty much ironed our all the kinks in my cookie recipes by now. When I first moved down here I had a hankerin for some homemade cookies. I hadn't really experimented with my recipes yet, so the first few batches were horrible! I was using tub butter, and had no idea what a difference stick butter makes. It was my AH HA moment. Lol. So anyway, this is what I started with

The first batch I started with was my white chocolate chip cookies! Mmm! Those are my favorite! This is what you need:

1 cup( 2 sticks) of butter, softened

2 cups of sugar

2 eggs

2 tsps vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup baking cocoa

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups of white chocolate chips

1. Heat your oven to 375

2. Beat butter and sugar in a large butter until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat until light and fluffy. In a seperate bowl, stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Add gradually to butter mixture. Stir in white chips. Then drop by teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet.

3. Bake 8-9 minutes (Do NOT overbake, your cookies will look soft. They will be puffy, but will flatten when cool) Cool slightly, remove to a wire rack to cool completely. This will make roughly 3 1/2 dozen cookies.

I learned the hard way that this batter is very very thick. In fact, I burned my mixer motor trying to stir the silly thing! Luke laughed at me, and agreed to stop and get me a new one. He promised that some day he'll get me a stand mixer. Can you imagine?! Oh, I'd be in baking HEAVEN! Haha. I like my new one, it has a couple different beaters and a cute little compartment below to keep the cord and everything together!

So once I had a mixer, I finally got to start on my M & M cookies! Here's my recipe for those:

2 1/4 cups flour

1tsp. baking soda
1/2tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter
1/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1 - 1 1/2 cups of M & M's

Preheat Oven to 375
In a small mixing bowl, combine the first three ingredients and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugars until fluffy. Add the vanilla and eggs and beat well.
Sift the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture and mix well. Add the m & m chocolate candies and stir them well into the dough .
Take a heaping tablespoon of dough and roll it into a ball. Put it onto an ungreased baking sheet. Repeat for the other cookies allowing 2 inches between them on the baking sheet.
Bake them eight to ten minutes.
Remove the cookies from the oven and cool them on a baking rack.
Makes roughly 3 1/2 dozen cookies.

So 2 days and 7 dozen later..

Haha. I'm glad I did it though! I love the smell of stuff baking in the oven. Makes me really miss home. Hope all is well!