Root Beer Cookies

A recipe for a cakey, root beer flavored cookie with luscious root beer icing.

Yield: 5-6 dozen

Source: A neighbor, Angela Jeo, who tells me she got it from the LDS Jordan River Temple.

I've been anxious to try this recipe since my friend Angela sent it to me over Facebook a few weeks ago. Once again, I can tell you that I have never found a cookie recipe with buttermilk in it that I didn't love, and this is no exception.

The recipe is pretty simple, but if you don't keep root beer concentrate in your pantry, you will have to plan ahead.

1 cup butter, softened

2 cups sugar

1 cup buttermilk

1 1/2 tsp. root beer concentrate

2 large eggs

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

4 cups flour

1 1/2 cups chopped nuts

Icing:

1/2 cup butter

2 tsp. root beer concentrate

3 T. water

2-3 cups powdered sugar

Mix the ingredients together into a soft dough. Drop onto cookie sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

Let me share a couple pieces of advice, if I may.

First, drop the dough onto a cool cookie sheet. I made the mistake of loading up a warm sheet with dough before I was ready to bake them, and met with disaster. Well, not epic disaster, just mild disaster. When the dough melts and gets a bit liquid, then it bakes into something very crunchy, and incidentally, hard to remove from the pan. Which is no fun for anyone.

Second, baking time is key here. I forgot to set my timer, and underbaked the first pan-full. They turned out kind of gooey, and not so great. I baked the second pan-full for 12 minutes, which turned out to be a bit long. They were quite brown, and crispy around the edges. Third pan-full baked for closer to 10 minutes, which was the sweet spot, if you ask me.

Third, make them small. They just turned out better when they were small.

Fourth, don't stack the cookies until they are completely cooled. Yes, I learned this one the hard way.

The frosting, (as usual) takes the cookies from good to phenomenal. The recipe I had actually called for 3/4 cup of butter, but it sounded like it would make a lot of frosting, so I reduced it to 1/2 cup. I was glad I did, because I still had plenty of frosting, even for the nearly 70 cookies this recipe made. This icing is a touch thin, and I think that's a good thing. You'll definitely want to let them sit awhile before stacking the cookies between layers of wax paper.

UPDATE: I actually didn't have enough frosting. I never frosted the dozen and a half underbaked, gooey cookies from my first pan-full. If you want to frost them all, use 3/4 cup butter and 3 cups powdered sugar in the frosting recipe.

It is unusual to bite into a cookie and taste root beer, but it's the kind of unusual I could get used to!

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Maple Frosted Cookies

Yield: 3-4 dozen

Source: Food Network .com, link below. Recipe provided by Dennis Brady, and apparently part of Emeril's cookie contest show.

It has been years since I have experienced such an epic failure in cookie making. It was quite disheartening, to tell you the truth. But I have decided to learn from my mistakes, and share my *ahem* wisdom with you.

Honestly, these Maple Cookies sounded great when I first saw the recipe on Food Network. I love those maple donuts, so maple cookies sounded like a natural choice. Plus, it is a little unusual, something you don't have everyday. I kind of like standing out, so it totally appealed to me.

Okay, let me start with the recipe, then I will tell you a little more specifically of my experience.

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. maple extract

1/4 cup maple syrup

1/2 tsp. salt

2 1/2 tsp. baking powder

4 cups flour

It all went well until I put in the flour. Maybe it's because I'm not big on sifting. But, I prefer to think that I just didn't follow my instincts. 4 cups of flour sounds like a lot, because it is a lot. Too much, in fact. This dough turned out seriously dry, as you can see in the picture. The thing is, I have never made this recipe before, nor do I know anyone who has made this recipe, so I had no frame of reference at all. Am I sounding too defensive here? I'd like to tell you that I didn't know it was too dry, but I did. It looked like it was going to be a problem.

The next step is to wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill it for at least 4 hours, until firm. My dough got very seriously firm. The directions call for you to roll out the dough to a 1/4" thickness, and cut out circles. (To see what that 1/4" looks like, see my post about Soft Sugar Cookies.) When I rolled it out, it practically fell apart.

I ended up with something resembling a chain of small islands, rather than nice soft cookie dough.

Anyway, they did look very pretty on the baking sheet. I baked them at 375 degrees for about 8 minutes. They came out all lovely and cakey. The super heavy dough meant that the cookies didn't spread or change shape at all. Not even a little bit. It was almost creepy.

The plain cookies are really plain. The flavor was bland, almost non-existent. I had high hopes that some maple icing would resurrect these cookies.

And, that was when I noticed it. The thing I missed when I read the recipe too quickly the first time. Maple Sugar. What is that? Who buys that? And no, it's not brown sugar. Brown sugar is made with molasses, which comes from sugar cane, not maple, which comes from trees.

4 T. butter

1 tsp. maple extract

1 cup powdered sugar

1/4 cup maple sugar

I have a hard and fast rule about making cookies. It might be a little snobby, but I am not willing to give it up. I never use ingredients from specialty stores. I refuse to make cookies that require a trip to anything other than my local grocery store. Sorry, but rules are rules. (Well, actually, I'm not sorry, but that is a post for another day.)

I decided to make do. I just left the maple sugar out, and let the maple extract do all the talking. It did fine, by the way. The frosting actually turned out great, with a wonderful mapley flavor. It totally did remind me of the maple donuts. Once the cookies were frosted, they tasted much better. However, you will definitely need a glass of water or milk with this cookie, it dries out the mouth something fierce.

In the end, I threw away about half the dough because I had such a hard time rolling it out. And, the frosting wasn't nearly enough for an entire batch. My husband's comment was that I should never make these cookies again. I might have to disagree with him though. I committed to only posting great cookies on this blog, and this post seems to have gone against that directive. However, I think I may try them again, because I believe they have potential. If/when I make them again, I will certainly use less flour. I think these will taste much better if they are soft and pliable. I may increase the amount of maple syrup and maple extract in the cookie dough, to make the actual cookie more flavorful. But I will keep that wonderful maple frosting as-is!

By the way, if you decide to attempt this recipe yourself, I beg you to e-mail me and tell me about your experience. I'm always looking for compatriots!

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Chocolate - Chocolate Chip

Yield: about 3 dozen

Source: Food Network .com, creator unknown, link below.

I found this recipe just recently on the Food Network website. I was pretty excited because they look pretty darn chocolaty, and frankly, that always makes me happy.

I read the ingredients before I went to the store, but frankly, I was a little depressed when I started making the cookies and realized I had messed up. I am way too sick of quick grocery store trips to make another one, so I made do. But more on that later.

The recipe is as follows:

1 stick butter

6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

1 cup brown sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

1 1/4 cups flour

6 oz. chocolate chips

6 oz. white chocolate chips

The first step here is to finely chop the chocolate. Once I started doing this, I realized I had bought a 4 oz. bar, and the recipe calls for 6 oz. It was then that I decided that 4 oz. was plenty of chocolate for 1 small batch of cookies, and that was all I used. As it turns out, when I made my family taste the cookies and give me feedback, they all told me it was really chocolaty, so feel free to use this trick yourself, if you want. (Incidentally, my family gives this cookie an 8 or 9 out of 10.)

Start by melting the butter, and adding the chopped chocolate to the hot butter. Let it sit for a few minutes to let the chocolate melt. Meanwhile, mix together the eggs and yolk, brown sugar, and vanilla. Then slowly whisk in the melted chocolate mixture. Add the dry ingredients, and mix just until everything is incorporated. Do not overwork the dough. Fold in the chips. Cover in plastic and refrigerate for 2 hours or so.

I was a little concerned about the cloves in this recipe. It is a bit unusual for a chocolate cookie, but it does make it stand out a bit, and gives it a quality that can be noticed. My husband really liked the cloves in it, and I think he liked it more once I pointed it out.

I actually made these cookies quite small, as is my habit lately. The recipe calls for baking for 13-15 minutes at 350 degrees, but since mine were smaller, I baked for only 9-10 minutes. It is best to let these sit on the cookie sheet for a couple minutes before moving them to a cooling rack. These should be moist in the center, and a little crackly on the outside. Honestly, mine turned out a little too soft, I think. They could probably have used another minute to bake.

If you want to have a really fun time, make your family guess the mystery ingredient (cloves) that makes this cookie so different, and see what they come up with.

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Coconut Crispies

Yield: about 4 dozen

Source: My husband's family has been making these for a long time.

This is another unusual recipe I inherited when I married my husband. His family has made this cookie for decades, and I have never seen anything like it anywhere else. I mean, it's not every day you come across a cookie with corn flakes in it, right?

Let me start with the recipe, it's a pretty straightforward one.

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1-2 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

3 1/4 cups flour

2 cups coconut

2 cups corn flakes

I will tell you that there is no need to crush the corn flakes up. Just leave them whole and dump them in. Mix the ingredients in order, and drop them onto the cookie sheet.

Honestly, I have had trouble getting these just right. When my mother-in-law makes them, they tend to turn out kind of flat, but mine never come out that way. So this time, I did some experimenting.

What I am going to recommend is that you first start with very small piles of dough. Then use a fork to smash the cookies down before baking. I baked mine for close to 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

You can just bake them up without the smashing, and they will turn out all puffy and pretty. However, you may need to increase baking time just a bit, because they have a tendency to be a little underdone in the center.

I really liked how they turned out when I smashed them first. They not only have that nice fork pattern (reminds me of peanut butter cookies) but they also come out quite chewy. They should be a little crispy on the outside, but much chewier than say, a chocolate chip cookie.

This is a nice cookie if you are looking for a change of pace. It's not as sweet as some other cookies, it doesn't include chocolate, or peanut butter, or nuts. Plus, if you take this to a get-together, you will be assured that no one else is bringing the same thing!

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Graham Cracker Pudding

Yield: 2 logs

Source: My husband's grandmother used to make this every Christmas. It seems no one in the family has any idea where she got the recipe. It is the most unique dessert I have ever come across! It is not too sweet, which is sometimes a nice change from the ordinary.

This is my favorite inherited recipe from my husband's family. I like to think it describes them perfectly. They are the Norwegian-Wyoming-Lutheran-Farmer types, for whom life requires a lot of hard work, and is never too sweet. On the bright side, this recipe requires no baking, so you can eat it as soon as it chills a bit.

If you have ever eaten this before, or even heard of it, I beg you to drop me a line. I would love to know what you know about it, even if it is next to nothing.

So, here are the ingredients:

2 lb. graham crackers

1 bag small marshmallows

1 8 oz. can crushed pineapple

1 cup chopped dates

1 cup chopped walnuts

(dates and walnuts are optional)

You will also need a flour sack towel, or preferably two

You start by emptying the entire bag of marshmallows into a bowl. Then open the pineapple, DO NOT DRAIN THE JUICE, and pour it over the marshmallows. Stir them together a little, and let it sit for a few minutes while you crush the graham crackers. The marshmallows need to soak up the juice.

I like to use the food processor to crush up the graham crackers, and yes, you will be using the entire box. When you pour the crumbs into the bowl with the marshmallows and start mixing, you quickly realize that there is something very wrong here. The entire two-pound box of crackers and only one tiny little can of pineapple to moisten it? Yes. It's true. It will be very, very dry.
Do your best to mix everything together, and don't be surprised if your mixing muscle gets sore. This is also the point at which you should add the dates and nuts. Personally, I prefer it to have both, but I usually make one log with nuts and one without, because I have a family that is afraid of nuts. Wimps.

At this point, you should take a clean flour sack towel and get it wet. Wring most of the water out, but don't squeeze it to the point of dryness. Lay the towel out on the counter, and scoop about half of the mixture onto the towel, arranging it into a long string. (Later you should repeat this process with the other half, giving you two long logs of frozen yumminess.)
Wrap the wet towel around the mixture and start squeezing. When you do this, you will easily see why we say this recipe is a two-man job. It just goes better with two. You have to really work on this, squeezing hard to get everything to stick together, and arranging it into a long log.
Don't be surprised if you open the towel, and the log just falls apart. I know it's frustrating. I'm on your side. You can add a little water to the towel if needed, but usually you just have to keep squeezing. Get someone stronger than you to work on it if you come to the end of your rope, so to speak!
It looks gross in the picture, right? The people watching me create this post have used words like "manure" and "puke" to describe how it looks. Don't be deterred by the pictures, though. It is worth the wait.

Once it's all put together, unwrap it from the towel, which is probably now ruined, or at least very dirty and stained, and roll it carefully onto some wax paper. I actually like to put aluminum foil down with wax paper on top of it. Roll it up, fold the ends in, mark which log has nuts, and put it in the freezer.

When you are ready to serve, just use a sharp knife to cut off some slices. Place them on a plate and cover them with a big dollop of whipped cream. Yum!! Eat with your fork, or with your fingers, either way is fine with me.