I'm a cheater :D

Just stealing some "mommy time" & trying to play catch up. It's been a few months! I'll have to dig through my photos to see what I have been up to.

So why am I a cheater? I volunteered to make cookies for our family day coming up this weekend. Turns out I need to make 99 cookies. 33 packages of 3. I'm 29 weeks pregnant now & chasing after 2 wild little ones. I'm hoping it's just the full moon tonight. Either way, I am exhausted. I have several other items to cook & bake for various events this weekend. So I cheated a little with the cookies. Easy way to fancy-up Oreos. Dip them in chocolate. I used white. Before they harden, sprinkle them. Let them dry.

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

1 cup unbleached or all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup butter or margarine
2 egg whites
2 tbsp 1% milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 package (6 oz) semisweet chocolate pieces or morsels (Ghirardelli dark chocolate, mmmmmmmmmmm!!)

Preheat oven to 375, coat 2 baking sheets with nonstick spray
In large bowl combine unbleached or all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour,oats, baking soda, & salt.
In another large bowl, combine sugar, brown sugar, butter or margarine, egg whites, milk & vanilla extract. Add flour mixture & stir just until moistened. Stir in chocolate pieces.
Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls, 2" apart, on the prepared baking sheets. Bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. Cool. Makes 48.

Cake Mix cookies

I did 2 different versions with multiple varieties for this recipe.

What you need...
- 1 box of cake mix, your choice
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup oil

What you do...
- mix all ingredients well
- cook at 350 degrees F. for 8 to 10 minutes.

Variation #1

I used a white cake mix. I 13 Christmas trees, 1 Ginger Bread Man, 1 Snowflake, & 13 peppermints out of 1 box of mix. The trees, man & snowflake all cooked for 8 minutes. The peppermint cookie cooked for 10 minutes. For the peppermint cookies I just crushed some peppermint cookies in a bag. I cooked the cookies (plain) for 5 minutes. I took them out & sprinkled the crushed peppermints. Gently pat them in & put back into the oven for another 5 minutes. I iced & sprinkled the cut-outs.

Variation #2

I used a chocolate cake mix. I'm still cooking these, but I think in the end I might have 18 Ginger Bread Men, and I will probably do the rest of the dough with the crushed peppermint. Again, cook the men for 8 minutes. I used sugar sprinkles on the men. Like the peppermint, I put the sprinkles on half way through cooking (4 minutes, sprinkle, pat, 4 minutes).

Lemon Snowflake cookies

What you need...
- 1 package of lemon cake mix with pudding (18 oz)
- 2 1/4 cups frozen whip topping, thawed
- 1 egg
- powder sugar

What you do... In a mixing bowl, combine cake mix, whipped topping and egg.
- Beat with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Batter will be VERY sticky!!
- Drop by teaspoonfuls into powder sugar; roll lightly to coat.
- Place on ungreased cookie sheets.
- Bake at 350F for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned on edges.

The stickiness makes it a pain to get onto the cookie sheet, but the end product is worth it!! You can probably get about 3, maybe 4, dozen out of the mixture. I'm still making them. I only have 1 dozen made, but there is still a lot of the dough left.