Peanut Butter Scotchies

p. 58

This looked like a yummy recipe, and I happened to have all of the ingredients in my pantry. It was so easy to mix these cookies up in my KitchenAide Mixer (which was the best present I ever bought myself!).  If you love peanut butter and butterscotch like I do, then you'll love these cookies!

1 roll refrigerated sugar cookie dough

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

3 Tblsp packed dark brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup butterscotch morsels

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray cookie sheet.

Break up cookie dough in bowl, let stand for 10-15 minutes to soften.

Add peanut butter, brown sugar, vanilla, and butterscotch morsels; mix well.

Drop by teaspoonfuls on prepared cookie sheets.

Bake for 10-13 minutes or until golden at edges. 

Transfer cookies to wire racks and cool completely.

What I did:

I pretty much did everything that the recipe said, and the cookies turned out great! I ended up cooking mine for 10 minutes, and that worked perfectly for my oven. It really works to use the teaspoon to doll out cookie dough, because it makes a nice bite-sized cookie to eat.

Enjoy!

Remember, buy the book for even more yummy recipes!

Caramel-Loaded Chocolate-Chocolate-Chip Cookies

I can't seem to contain myself as I look through the recipes in this book! So, instead of going straight through each recipe as I had originally planned, I'm going to flip around and just make the recipes that sound good to me at that moment (or what I can make with what is in my pantry!).

On page 13, there is a recipe for caramel-loaded chocolate-chocolate chip cookies (say that 5 times fast!), and it just sounded delicious! Here goes:

1 C quartered chocolate-covered  caramel candies (e.g. rolos)

1 (18.25 oz) package yellow or chocolate cake mix

1/3 C vegetable oil

2 large eggs

1 C semisweet or milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray the cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray. Toss caramel candies in 2 Tbls cake mix (to prevent sticking). Place half of the cake mix in a large bowl with the oil and eggs and blend with an electric mixer for 1-2 minutes. Stir in the remaining cake mix, flour-coated candies, and chocolate chips with a wooden spoon until all ingredients are moistened. Drop by teaspoonfuls on cookie sheet. Bake for 9-12 minutes or until set at edges and just barely set at the center. Cool for 1 minute and transfer to wire racks to cool.

Ok, here's what I did:

I followed the directions above, except for a few things. I couldn't find rolos, so I substituted mini baking m&m's (I know it's nothing with caramel, but it's what I had!). Of course, after I had added the m&m's and chocolate chips, I found some caramels in the pantry, and had to add them too! So this cookie kind of ended up being an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink kind of cookie for me (but oh so yummy!).

I didn't mix it with an electric mixer (am I that lazy?!), because I only wanted to dirty one spoon, but it still seemed to work.

The dough seemed a little dry to me, so I added a few more drops of vegetable oil to thin it out.

Using the teaspoon to drop the cookies onto the sheet worked really well, although it made some tiny cookies. I guess it makes it easier to eat several cookies if you rationalize it as 2 small cookies = 1 large cookie, right?!

I ended up baking them for 11 minutes in my oven to get them just right.

All in all, this is a very yummy recipe! Enjoy!

You can always get this recipe and more by buying the book to enjoy for yourself!

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog! I am the Mother of a 21 month old son, and a one week old daughter. I love to bake, but don't always seem to have the time I need to bake as well as I'd like. When my Mom gave me this amazing cookbook, entitled The Ultimate Shortcake Cookie Book (Saulsbury, C. (2009). The ultimate shortcut cookie book. Naperville, IL; Cumberland House.), I jumped at the chance to try something new. I also love to blog, and I thought that I'd combine these two hobbies into one and blog about my experience using this cookbook. I will go through the recipes and write down any tips or tricks that I learn while baking each recipe. You can buy the book for yourself to have the entire book at your fingertips and jump ahead if it takes me too long to get to each recipe. I am excited about trying each recipe myself, because they look delicious and sound easy.

I am a little nervous to have all of these delicious looking cookies around my house, but my husband is a teacher and I figure I can send these yummy bites to the teacher's lounge if it gets to be too much for my figure!

Enjoy!