Thin Mints

I made these tonight and they turned out great! I love the real chocolate wafers compared with many of the ritz cracker versions out there.  Super delicious!

Prep: 25 minutes

Yield: 3 dozen cookies

Thin Mint Cookies

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar.
• 1/2 cup of cocoa powder 
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup of flour 
• 2 cups chocolate chips
• 1 teaspoon mint extract
•  coconut oil

 

Directions

1. With a hand mixer, cream the butter. Add the sugar, and continue to cream. Add the cocoa powder, salt and vanilla and mix until well combined.  Chill 30 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
3. Roll dough and cut into circles about 1/8" thick and place on cookie sheet.  Or, if you are lazy like me, roll the dough into small balls (a little larger than a marble) and smoosh them flat on a cookie sheet.  Bake for 10 minutes.
4. Remove from oven and carefully move cookies to cooling racks
5. Place the chocolate chips, mint extract and coconut oil in a heavy bottomed pan or double boiler and carefully melt together until liquid and well blended.
6. Put parchment on the now-cooled cookie sheets.
7. Carefully drop each cookie into the melted chocolate and spoon chocolate over the top of each cookie. Use a fork to fish it out and gently shake the fork to remove excess chocolate. Place on parchment paper. Repeat until all of the cookies are covered.  Chill cookies in refrigerator another 30 minutes or until set.

Lactation Cookies: For increasing milk supply.

Eat 4 or more cookies daily to bump up your milk production.  This is a modification of Noell Trujillo's popular recipe.  This one uses whole wheat flour and has half the added sugar.

Ingredients:

Yield: 4.5 dozen

1 cup butter

½ cup sugar

½ cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 mashed banana

 4 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons flax seed meal  (no substitutions, do not omit.)

 2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

3 cups oats

 1 cup chocolate chips

2 -4 tablespoons brewer's yeast  (no substitutions, do not omit or use any other type of yeast.)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.

Mix the flaxseed meal and water and let sit for 3-5 minutes.

 Beat butter,  sugar, and brown sugar well.

 Add banana and eggs and mix well.

Add flaxseed mix and vanilla, beat well.

 Sift together flour, brewers yeast, baking soda, and salt.

 Add dry ingredients to butter mix.

 Stir in oats and chips.

Scoop onto baking sheet.   Bake for 12 minutes.

Easiest Granola Bars Ever!

My kids love these, so I count them as healthy cookie-bars!

Prep: 10 minutes, plus 1 hour to set


10 oz marshmallows
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups rolled oats
2 cups honey bunches of oats with almonds cereal
2 cups crisped rice cereal
1/2 cup ground flax seed
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup chocolate chips

Melt marshmallows, butter and vanilla together on stove top or microwave.  Stir in remaining ingredients except chocolate chips.  Let cool slightly and then stir in chocolate chips.  Press into greased cookie sheet and let set for an hour.

Cranberry White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

This year's Christmas Cookies:

Yield: About 4 dozen cookies

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 large eggs or 1/2 cup egg beaters
1 teaspoon vanilla (I allways put a little more in)
3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup sweetened dried cranberries
1 cup white chocolate chips

Combine flour and baking powder and set aside

in a mixing bowl mix butter and sugars until fluffy, add eggs and vanilla mix until well blended add flour and stir until combined stir in oats cranberries and white chocolate chips

Bake at 350 for 12 - 14 minutes until edges are golden brown and center is still soft

Gooey Butter Cake

I found this recipe on cooks.com and its perfect for cooking with children. This cake is somewhere between a coffee cake and a bar cookie. It's fast, easy, and has lots of steps children can do to help out through the whole process. Older children could probably handle this recipe on their own. Best of all? Kids love to eat these yummy cookies!

Prep: 10 minutes
Yield: 24 servings

1 pkg. yellow cake mix
1/2 c. butter
1 egg

GOOEY BUTTER:

1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
1 lb. box confectioners' sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix together cake mix (just the mix, not the other ingredients called for on the box) with butter and 1 egg. Pat into an ungreased 9 x 13 inch cake pan. Cream together cream cheese, 2 eggs, powdered sugar and vanilla. Pour over cake mixture. Spreading to the edges. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

How Kids Can Help:
Kids can unwrap butter & cream cheese, crack eggs, blend crust ingredients, and press dough into cake pan.

Tips & Tricks:
This recipe works equally well with softened as with melted butter.

Heydey Bars

Yield: 20-25 cookies


14 oz. bag of Caramels
9 oz. package of vanilla sugar wafers
1/4 cup of water
3or4 cups of chopped peanuts
8 oz. Hersheys Chocolate Bar, Milk or Dark


Separate the Sugar Wafers with a knife,carefully removing the filling,so that all you have left are the wafers themselves.Stack the empty wafers in stacks of 3.On a sheet of wax paper,take one(1)wafer from each stack,and lay them out on the wax paper.Put the caramels in a microwave safe bowl and add the water to them.Microwave them on high for 5 minutes,stopping after each minute to stir them.When they are completely melted,use a spoon to drizzle the caramel on each wafer,doing on 5 at a time,then put a second wafer from the stack on each when you finish.Drizzle caramel on all the remaining wafers on the wax paper the same way,5 at a time.Now drizzle caramel on all the ones you just finished,and add the third wafer to each of them.You should end up with between 20 and 25 completed cookies with three wafers each with caramel in between.Put the chopped peanuts in a bowl.Using a pair of tongs,dip each cookie in the melted caramel,drain off the excess caramel,then roll in the peanuts,completely covering the cookie,and set on wax paper.Finish all the remaining cookies the same way.After letting them sit for ten minutes to set,break up the chocolate bar in a microwave safe bowl,and microwave on high 30 seconds at a time,stirring after each time,until its completely melted.Using a spoon,drizzle the chocolate in stripes over the cookies.Let the cookies rest until completely set.

Makes 20-25 cookies.

Tips & Tricks:
3-4 cups of nuts is way too much. Use about 2 or 2 1/2. I ran short on caramel and had to melt more--so use about 50% more than the recipe calls for. I used bulk milk chocolate coating instead of Hershey bars. Be sure to buy extra wafers because some will break while you try to remove the filling.