Pumpkin Cookies!

Bake up a batch of these, it's easy, quick and the kids love 'em! I have seen a few recipes for pumpkin cookies, but decided to use Marilyn Moon's recipe since it has been tried and tested through a few generations!  

Follow the directions on her card, above, as I did!  I made a simple butter frosting and frosted half of the cookies.

Sift flour, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.  Cream sugar, crisco and eggs.  Add vanilla and pumpkin.  

Add flour mixture a bit at a time.  Mix well.  You can add chocolate chips (baby or regular size) at this point if desired.

Drop spoonfuls on greased cookie sheet.  We used a tablespoon amount of dough.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes.

We doubled the recipe and made enough to fill a large and a small tin.  Freeze what you don't plan to use within a day or two- it keeps the cookies fresh.  I iced half of them with the following simple butter frosting recipe:

1/3 cup butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pound (3 1/2 cups) sifted confectioners sugar
3 to 4 tablespoons milk  

Frost after cookies have cooled completely. Let the cookies sit on the counter for a few minutes until frosting hardens.

Happy Thanksgiving...and the eggs.

Baking for Passover

This has been a busy week, and next week promises to be busier. If I had the luxury of time, I would make three of my mother's Passover recipes for you. Since I don't have time, I am going to give you the recipes. The recipes conform to Ashkenazic dietary laws for Pesach. They're tried and tested, delicious Passover foods. From a Nice Jewish Girl.

Passover Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup margarine
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup cake meal
2 tablespoons matzo meal
1 small package chocolate chips

Cream together shortening and sugar. Add eggs 1 at a time. Add cake meal and matzo meal. Fold in one package chocolate chips. Refrigerate for at least one hour. Drop on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes.


Blueberry Pesach Muffins

1/2 cup shortening
1 scant cup sugar
1/2 cup cake meal
3 eggs
1/4 cup potato starch
1 cup blueberries
1/4 teaspoon salt

Beat shortening. Add sugar. Beat well. Add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla. Add dry ingredients mixed together (cake meal, potato starch and salt). Lightly grease muffin tins (regular size tins). Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.


Pesach Fruit Pudding

8 medium eggs (add 1 at a time)
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil (vegetable)
1/2 cup matzo meal
can of crushed pineapple & fruit (medium sized can)
3 sliced apples
1x 12 ounce box cut up prunes
1/2 lb. dried apricots

Beat eggs, sugar, add oil, matzo meal, canned fruits with juice and last 3 fruits. Bake in 350 degree oven for 45 minutes or until top is light brown.

My mother has been famous in each community where we lived growing up for her baking skills, and she did not disappoint at Passover. My personal favorite is the fruit pudding- it's one of those unexpected culinary surprises.

Enjoy your seders and Happy Passover to everyone. If you try any of these, my mother and I would love to hear how they turn out. She'll probably make them- but I will have to live vicariously through you...and the eggs.

Old Fashioned Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

In December, I donated a large tin of cookies per month for one year to my firm's United Way Silent Auction. This month, the selected recipe was Old Fashioned Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, from Cook's Illustrated.

2 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
3 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups raisins (optional)

Adjust oven racks to low and middle. Preheat oven to 350. In bowl of electric mixer, beat butter until creamy. Add sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time. Mix flour, salt, baking powder and nutmeg together, then stir them into butter-sugar mixture with wooden spoon or large rubber spatula.



Stir in oats and optional raisins. Form dough into 2" balls and place on parchment paper covered cookie sheets.





The parchment paper is not mandatory, but makes the job much easier. If you do not use the parchment, make sure you let the cookies cool for at least 2 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack. Bake 22-25 minutes, until edges of cookie is golden brown. The rest of the cookie will still be very light in color. Halfway during baking, turn cookie sheets from front to back and also switch them from top to bottom. Let cool for 30 minutes before serving.



They are crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle, and big! I made a double batch since they're TLMM's favorite cookies, and she said they were the best she has ever tasted. Her mom and dad also love these cookies and if you are a frequent reader you know that they are the cookie gurus!

So the next time you get a hankerin' for some old-fashioned oatmeal goodness, this recipe is easy and rewarding- and your family will love 'em...and the eggs.

Aunt Ruthie's Black-Bottom Cupcakes

My grandmother's sisters had biblical names- Esther, Miriam, Ruth, Naomi -- you get the idea. Did you ever have one older relative who was the most fun of them all? My Aunt Ruthie was my favorite. In the late 1970's, she got me hooked on General Hospital. She took me to the swimming pool games on July 4th when none of the other grown-ups would. She could bake like nobody's business.



Aunt Ruthie's Black-Bottom Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt (scant 1/2 t)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon vinegar

Sift together flour, sugar, cocoa, salt and baking soda.



Add oil, water, vanilla and vinegar. Fill small muffin cups (you can use small paper cup liners) 1/3 full with chocolate mixture.





Mix the following topping:

1 Eight ounce cream cheese
1 unbeaten egg
1/3 cup sugar
1 Six ounce portion chocolate chips (regular or mini)





Doubling the cream cheese topping mixture is a good idea. I doubled it on the advice of my mother, and it was necessary to have enough. Cream the cream cheese, egg and sugar together. Fold in the chocolate chips. Spoon over chocolate mixture by heaping teaspoons. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes (just very slightly brown on top).

If you're in the mood for something rich and chocolatey, this is the perfect sweet. They're like mini cheesecakes. They freeze well and defrost in minutes, so you can make them ahead of time.

If there are recipes in your family that haven't been written down, take a few minutes to talk to the old folks. Ask them what their parents and grandparents cooked. You might be surprised at how much they remember, and learn some new old family favorites...and the eggs.

Merry Peanut Butter Cookies!

This year, Santa's favorite cookies were just plain old peanut butter cookies.

1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar (packed)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg

Sift together flour, salt and baking powder and set aside. Cream shortening, peanut butter and sugars. Beat in vanilla and egg. Stir in flour mixture, blending well. Shape into 3/4" balls and place on greased baking sheets. Dip a fork in flour to make criss-cross design on top of cookie. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

These cookies are delicious because they are not extra sweet- and the texture is perfect. Not too hard and not too soft.

I have some real treats headed your way soon. My mom is here visiting and brought some family recipes, namely Aunt Ruthie's Black-Bottom Cupcakes. You won't believe them, they are rich, but, somehow you find a way to eat several (they're miniatures)! Inside is cream cheese, cocoa, chocolate bits ...and the eggs.

Marilyn Moon's Ginger Cookies!!

Nothing makes the house smell quite as nice as baking ginger cookies, especially at this time of year!

Marilyn Moon's Ginger Cookies:

3/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt



Melt shortening and let cool. Mix sugar, molasses and egg. Beat well. Add cooled shortening. Sift together flour, baking soda, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, salt. Add to sugar mixure. Mix well. Chill dough. Make 1 inch balls. Roll in sugar and place 2" apart on cookie sheet.



Bake at 375 degrees for 8 minutes. Bring Beth some.

That's the recipe- word for word! I doubled it and had plenty for a crowd. You will really start to smell the spices when you sift them in with the flour.

The smell of the cloves triggered a vivid memory for me. As a child, we would celebrate Havdahlah (a tiny short service marking the end of the Jewish Sabbath) on the beach in Padre Island, Texas. As part of that service, a spice box is passed around, and everyone smells it and thinks about the week to come. Now, all these years later, I realize that my father put cloves in the spice box. Until today, I always thought that the havdahlah spices were magical, mystical in some way. Not that there's anything wrong with cloves!



The other funny thing about that memory is that I remembered it as I was making Christmas cookies, but that's a story for either another blog or for my psychoanalyst...and the eggs.

Tassies, Chocolate White Chocolate Chip Cookies and Cut-out Cookies!

If you like pecan pie, you will loooove tassies. They are like little bites of heaven, and not as hard to make as they look! To see the recipe from my December 14th post, click here. My advice is to double the recipe- I did, and it made almost 3 dozen. Mix the filling separately:



Mix up the dough and push a small bit into mini-cupcake tins. The dough shouldn't be too thick, but should come up the sides of the tins like this:



Put some crushed pecans into the bottom of each shell.



Pour filling into each shell. Top with some more crushed pecans. That's it. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes (mine took only 20). They pop out easily when you coax with a round knife.

On to the cut-outs. I mixed the dough the day before and let it chill in the fridge for 24 hours, but it only has to chill for an hour.

1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla (or substitute almond)
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg and extract. Mix flour, baking powder and salt and add to butter mixture 1 cup at a time.

Roll dough to desired thickness. We had some cookie cutters which needed thicker dough to show the detail; we did those last. Place on ungreased cookie sheets and bake 6-7 minutes at 400 degrees. Done.



Don't they look naked?? Dress 'em up any way you want. Along with the little decorating icings I bought that you squeeze, I used a frosting recipe from The Joy of Cooking- 4 cups confectioner's sugar and 2 tablespoons water. Add more water or sugar until you get your desired consistency. I used about 1 1/4 more tablespoons of water because I wanted more of a glaze than a frosting. Divide into small cups and add a few drops of food coloring to each. Leave some white, too.



TLMM's Santa is so cute!! When they're all decorated, you and your friends and children will be covered in sprinkles and icing- but that's half the fun!



For the last recipe of the day, I decided what I wanted and then invented the recipe myself.

Chocolate White Chocolate Chip Cookies:

1 1/2 sticks butter softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
4 squares of unsweetened baking chocolate
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 2/3 cups white chocolate chips

If you have unsweetned cocoa powder, substitute 3/4 a cup of that for the squares of baking chocolate, and add 1/2 a stick of butter.

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Stir in vanilla. Combine flour, cocoa (if using cocoa powder), baking soda and salt, stir into creamed mixture. If using baking chocolate, melt squares in microwave, stopping to stir every 30 seconds until they're melted. Mix into the creamed mixture. Fold in white chocolate chips. I found these white chocolate chips at Target, and they inspired the whole recipe.



Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets, and bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Allow them to cool for 5 minutes on the cookie sheets before transferring onto a cooling rack.



These are rich and chocolatey- which is exactly what I was looking for. Your favorite chocolate lover will thank you for them!

It was a successful day of baking. Everything went into tins and into the freezer, and will only need to sit out for a couple of hours to defrost. There are still so many holiday sweets I want to make, but this was a good start. I am taking a short break from the kitchen to enjoy my company, but am planning to make ginger cookies and gingerbread men during the week.

If any of you have any traditional holiday dessert favorites in your family, I would love to hear about them. My own mother makes fantastic sand tarts, aka Italian Wedding Cookies and mini cheesecake brownies to die for! Maybe I can talk her into doing some baking while she's here- what do you think, ma? ...and the eggs.

Peanut Blossoms and Spritz Cookies!

It makes me just as happy today!! But also makes me miss my sister (hi Jilly).

Marilyn and I got to work early, making a double batch of peanut blossoms and a lot of spritz cookies. We made the peanut butter cookies according to the recipe, so I'll post that here:





A silver top is a Hershey's Kiss (in Philly the old timers called them Wilbur Buds) and when we put them back in the oven, we left them in for 3 minutes. They were done perfectly.



They were just as good as they look!! We filled tins with them and moved on to the spritz cookies.

1 cup soft butter
2/3 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or almond extract
2 1/2 cups sifted flour (not self-rising)

We divided the dough into two halves and put food coloring in each half, so we had red and green.

We filled the cookie gun with dough and shot!

They're cute and easy to decorate. We used the tree pattern, the wreath pattern and a couple of flower patterns.

We also prepared the dough for the roll-out sugar cookies, and refrigerated it overnight to use tomorrow. We're making tassies tomorrow, too. So many cookies, so little time...and the eggs.

Tassies, Cut-outs, Raisin filled and More!

This weekend will be a cookie baking frenzy! My mother-in-law, Marilyn, arrived yesterday, armed with cookie cutters (including a gingerbread man and the entire cast of Peanuts) and many recipes, including this one!!



Having mentioned Marilyn's tassie-making in a previous post, I received requests for her recipe. Here it is. We're all stocked up on every possible cookie ingredient I could think of, so we are all set. Check back for photos and results later this weekend...and the eggs.

Chocolate Chip Cookies!

I can't make my first impression with only one kind of cookie, so I also asked my mother for her chocolate chip cookie recipe. I have never had another chocolate chip cookie with this exact taste, and want to impress my new co-workers (see last post, below).

1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt (I used a little less)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Beat shortening and butter for 30 seconds on medium to high speed. Add brown and granulated sugar, baking soda and salt and beat until combined. Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much as the flour as you can with the mixer, and stir in the rest with a wooden spoon. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls 2" apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for 8-10 minutes until lightly golden on top.

These cookies are fantastic. You can taste the brown sugar in the dough and the dark chocolate chips add extra decadence.

You might find it corny or just plain pathetic that I am going to such lengths to make friends at work. This is a good time for a story.

My brother is the Media Relations Director for a professional basketball team. About 10 years ago, his team played in the city where my mother lives, and she went to the game with bags laden with tins of cookies. At some point during the game, she sent the cookies back for the staff, the team and the coaches. I thought my brother would die of embarrassment, but if he did, he never told me about it. The next day, everyone knew the "new guy's" name, thanks to "Jon's mom". It has become a tradition, and each year my mother shows up at that game with cookies in hand. They love her cookies. They look forward to that game because they know cookies are coming. It worked for him, and I hope it works for me...and the eggs.

Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies!

More Pittsburgh to come. In the meantime, I tried my hand at baking.

If you ever want to win friends and influence people, make up a couple of batches of these cookies. I start a new job on Tuesday- sort of. It's a lateral move and I'm just going to a different department- Labor and Employment law. I'm moving to a new office on a new floor, and want to start things off right.

2/3 cup margarine, softened
2/3 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats (can be fast cooking but not instant)
1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt (I used a little less)
1 1/4 cup craisins (the organic packs are good if you can find them)
2/3 cup white chocolate chips or chunks

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Beat butter and brown sugar until well combined. Add eggs. In a separate mixing bowl, combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt- mixing by hand. Add that to the butter mixture in several additions, mixing well after each addition. Stir in crasins and chocolate. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet 10-12 minutes until golden brown.

Cool on cooling rack for 15 minutes, and pack into containers. My mother buys white tins from The Container Store, and layers the cookies in batches in between wax paper. I did the same, but they'll taste just as good no matter how you store them.

They're oaty, fruity and the white chocolate chips add just the right amount of sweetness. This is my mother's recipe, and it's the first time I tried it. I am very proud of myself today- these taste just like moms! The true test will come Tuesday so wish me luck...and the eggs.