I successfully made cookies for the first time last week. Every other attempt failed miserably, to the point where I’d given up. Cookies are supposed to be easy, but apparently not for me. I’d been invited to an event where cookies were expected, so I gave it a go.
I found this recipe in an old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook called Cookies for Kids
. It has photos of kids aged 5 to 10 years old making cookies in it. I figured this would be hard for me to screw up.
I doubled the recipe from the book though. I think it worked out better because there was more stuff for the mixer to work with and so it all got mixed better. Directions below are how I did it, not a copy from the book.
Equipment
Stuff I need to make sure I have cleaned and available.
- large mixing bowl
- medium mixing bowl
- small saucepan
- hand mixer
- 2 cookie sheets
- parchment paper
- storage bins for finished cookies
- bowl for drained cherries
- cup to hold cherry
juice
Ingredients
- butter, 2 sticks, room temperature
- sugar, 2 cups
- eggs, 2
- vanilla extract, 3 teaspoons
- all purpose flour, 3 cups
- unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 cup
- baking soda, ½ teaspoon
- baking powder, ½ teaspoon
- salt, ½ teaspoon
- maraschino cherries, 2 jars (this was overkill, but I used more than 1 jar worth)
- semisweet chocolate chips, 12 ounce package
- sweetened condensed milk, 1 cup
Instructions
- Add butter and sugar to a mixing bowl
- Beat with a hand mixer until fluffy and thoroughly mixed
- Add eggs and vanilla
- Beat well
- In another mixing bowl, stir together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt
- Add part of flour mixture to butter mixture
- Beat until well mixed
- Repeat last two steps until all of the flour is combined with the butter
- Shape the dough into 1 inch balls, placing each on parchment paper on a cookie sheet about 2 inches apart (made enough to fill about 2½ sheets)
- Press thumb into the middle of each cookie, squashing them down
- Drain cherries, reserving the
juice
in a cup - Put a cherry in the indentation in each cookie
- Combine chocolate chips and condensed milk in a saucepan
- Melt over low heat, stirring occasionally
- Stir in enough cherry
juice
to make the chocolate spoonable - Spoon a dollop of chocolate over each cookie, enough to cover the cherry
- Bake at 350° til edges of the cookies are firm (was about 13 minutes for me, book said 10)
- Transfer cookies to a cool surface to cool
Gallery of photos at most steps taken below. Forgot to take photos of the finished cookies, which were tasty, by the way.