There’ll be no tandem post this week, but I understand we’ll have a special guest for next week’s post! Nance has been hard at work redesigning the site; doesn’t it look awesome? I haven’t had a chance to poke around as much as I’d like, so I’m sure it’s even more awesome than I realize!
To tide you over ’til next week, here’s a recipe. I found this recipe for Cannoli cookies somewhere online (I suspect Pinterest), and have made multiple batches since then. In fact, I like them so much that I’ve always got a few in the freezer, because they freeze beautifully and they’re small so they thaw out quickly (not that I always wait for them to thaw out, you understand.)
The taste reminds me very much of Terry’s Chocolate Oranges – they’re orangey and sweet, but not overly so. They aren’t my very favorite cookies – I have a Cooking Light chocolate chip cookie recipe that will forever be my favorite, and a scan through the site shows me that I actually haven’t posted that recipe here, which gives me an excuse to make a batch of them so I can do so – but they’re a very close second.
All-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, softened butter, ricotta (whole-milk, not any of that reduced-fat nonsense), sugar, grated orange zest, vanilla, an egg, and chocolate chips. Sometimes I use mini chocolate chips, and sometimes I use regular sized ones because that’s the kinda wild gal I am.
You know how to make cookies – I KNOW you do! – so this will all seem old hat to you. And it is. There’s nothing confusing or baffling about this recipe.
Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl, until well blended.
With a mixer – whether stand or hand-held, makes no nevermind to me – beat the butter and ricotta on medium speed ’til it’s well-blended and fluffy, 2 – 3 minutes. Add sugar, orange zest, and vanilla, and beat another 3 minutes. Scrape the bowl down, add the egg and beat it. Just beat it.
Add the flour mixture and beat on low so that you don’t end up like this.
When the flour is almost completely blended in, add your chocolate chips and mix for a minute longer so that the chocolate chips are distributed evenly.
Scrape the dough down from the sides, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and then refrigerate ’til the dough is slightly firmer. It takes about half an hour if you’re in a hurry, but I usually leave it for an hour or more.
When the time is up, line your cookie sheets with baking liners or parchment (I always use parchment) and drop the batter by rounded tablespoons about 2 inches apart. I use my handy-dandy cookie scoop. I love that thing.
Okay, listen. If you get hungry and pop one of those little balls of cookie dough right into your face, I’m not telling anyone. And you should, salmonella be damned, because it is SO FREAKIN’ GOOD.
I get around three dozen cookies from each batch.
And as mentioned, they freeze wonderfully. I’ve still got six cookies in the freezer from this batch, which I made at the beginning of January. In fact, they’re calling my name, so SEE YA. I’ve got cookies to thaw out!
Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Mrs. Dooley’s Cookies. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post. This recipe was submitted by reader Alexandra.
Robyn’s Take:
This week’s recipe was submitted by reader Alexandra, who said:
My mom used to make these cookies all the time when I was a kid, and now I make them whenever I feel the need for something other than chocolate chip cookies. I made a couple of batches when super-pregnant this past fall, ate one (batch, that is, not cookie) and took the other to the hospital to give to the staff. I find that the cookies are best after a day or two of “ripening.” They also freeze pretty well.
My mom got the recipe from a college friend who got it from her mother (the “Mrs. Dooley” of the recipe name). My guess is that it may have originally been an Eagle Brand recipe, but I couldn’t find it on their page, so who knows.
Also — no eggs! You can eat all the dough you want!
I’m going to add here that I Googled to the best of my abilities and didn’t find this recipe anywhere, not on the Eagle Brand site, not anywhere on the entire internet. We’re sticklers for giving credit where credit is due, so if you happen to know where the recipe originally came from, let us know. Otherwise, we’re declaring Mrs. Dooley the genius behind this.
First, you’ve gotta melt your chocolate chips and butter together. I do have a double boiler, but if you don’t, then use a bowl (not a plastic one, dummy) over a pot of water. Alexandra says that her mother uses the microwave, 30 seconds at a time, at medium or medium-high power. That sounds like something I’d completely fuck up, so I opted to use my double boiler.
This step takes FOREVER, so I wandered through the house and snuggled sleeping kittens and occasionally returned to the kitchen to give the chocolate chips and butter a stir.
“Tired of your snuggling shit, lady.”
Then there are a few steps I completely didn’t take pictures of. Once the chocolate chips and butter are melted together, you remove it from the heat. I put it in a big bowl, dumped the sweetened, condensed milk in, and stirred it all together really well. AND THEN added the flour and vanilla, alternating. Basically I added half the flour, mixed it well, then half the vanilla, mixed it well, the rest of the flour, mixed it well, and the last of the vanilla. I did this all by hand, but I think a mixer would have been okay.
Then it’s got to sit for 15 minutes to let the dough “toughen.”
Grease your cookie sheets OR (this is what I did) line them with parchment paper. Parchment paper is THE BOMB, and makes cleanup so so easy. I always have a ton of the precut sheets on hand.
They don’t spread much at all. This is what they look like when they’re done.
Fred happened to arrive home from work just as I pulled the last pan of cookies from the oven. I opened my mouth to tell him that we were going to let them “age” for a couple of days, but before I could he ate one, declared it “really good” and then ate another. I gave one a try, and he was right – it was good! They’re fudgy and chewy and pretty small, so you can eat 75 of them without feeling guilty (ha, as if I ever feel guilty about eating FOOD).
This recipe makes a lot of cookies (I got 5 1/2 dozen, and I was generous with shoving uncooked dough in my face as I was making the cookies), so we were able to check them the next day and then the day after that. They start out good and they only improve with age. We still had so many left after two days that I put the rest in the freezer.
I do think that a sprinkle of sea salt across the top (do I sound all pretentious like Amanda? I hope not!) or a sprinkle of toasted pecans might be a nice addition. I’m definitely adding this recipe to the recipe box and will be making them again. A++, thanks for submitting, Alexandra!
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Have a recipe you want us to make? Check out our new page (there’s also a link to that page up there under the banner) and follow the instructions to submit a recipe!
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Nance’s Take:
My week was horrific (Maddy lost her battle with renal failure) and it never got any better by the time I had to make these cookies. My mother had surgery, Trey’s car blew a head-gasket, our riding lawn mower shit the bed, Rick had to go out of town for work, and we found out that the powder room toilet had been leaking. Leaking so bad that it went through the carpeting and soaked the wooden sub-floor beneath it.
I had been convinced that Felina was stealth-peeing on my mother’s bedroom carpeting (right outside the powder room). You don’t even want to know how many times I scrubbed that carpet, bitching the entire time about that googley-eyed ugly dog, while the real culprit was silently destroying my life not 3 feet away.
So yeah. It was the week from hell and all I have to show for it is a broke down Buick in the driveway and a toilet sitting on my back porch. It’s just a matter of time until I’m the star of a reality show called My White Trash Life. Be jealous.
You can probably figure out from reading the above that I was in absolutely no mood to bake fucking cookies, right? But I couldn’t let Robyn down so I busted out my fancy pans and went to work. This is my double boiler. I have never bothered to buy a real double boiler because this bowl/pan combo has always worked out for me.
Well, it works out for me until I get a steam burn when I’m trying to stir something. Maybe I should just break down and buy a damn double boiler. That’s a good name for a band. The Damn Double Boilers. Okay, maybe it’s not a good name for a band. How about The Scalded Skins? Somebody trademark that shit.
You’re welcome.
I pulled this out of the refrigerator. Can you even imagine what was going on with this butter that it is twist-wrapped on both ends? Who twist-wraps butter? And why would you be using both ends of a butter stick? Someone in my family is a weirdo. And no, it’s not me (shut-up).
This bag of Hershey’s chocolate chips had 2 cups in it and we need 3 cups for the recipe. Ugh, math.
I figured I would use 1 cup of these mini morsels that I had in my freezer for some reason. I honestly think they’re from the time we made some kind of diet cannoli/graham cracker frozen treat. Yes, I know I can search the site. But eh, too lazy. Just know that I’m assuming DCEP is the reason I have mini morsels in my freezer because I would never buy them on my own.
This is what happens when you try and balance chocolate chips on Sadie’s head and the damn cat gets directly in her face.
Too bad we don’t have Scratch ‘N Sniff because this melted chocolate smelled fabulous.
Action shot! I had already stirred the hell out of the melted chocolate and sweetened condensed milk. Adding the flour just meant lots more stirring. If you have old lady hands like me, it’s a good idea to have someone around to help you out. Between arthritis and carpal tunnel I was ready for a heating pad by the time I was done with this recipe. No lie.
This is what it looked like after I let it sit for 15 minutes like the recipe said to do. You can tell I was done with all the stirring just by looking at the sides of the bowl. Normally I would have had a spatula out and made sure the sides were scraped clean. I was so over it by the time I was done stirring that I had, as they say on the Internet, no more shits to give.
I used parchment paper and dropped the dough on it with tablespoons. Julie was unimpressed with the outcome.
When I was growing up there was no way in hell I would have gotten away with sniffing my food. That was a serious rule at our house. No sniffing your food and absolutely no licking your butter knife!
I went back and rolled the dough into balls and then flattened them slightly with my fingers. As you can see, it made for a much prettier cookie.
The cookies ended up tasting great! Imagine a cookie with a brownie flavor and texture because that’s exactly what these were like. They were even better the next day. After all my bitching it turned out that these are definitely a keeper!
Mrs. Dooley's Cookies - Nance and Robyn make the same recipe
Cuisine: Mrs. Dooley's gotta be Irish. Or maybe Scottish? They have sweetened condensed milk in Ireland?
Serves: 66
Ingredients
3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
4 Tbsp butter
2 14 oz cans sweetened condensed milk (Eagle Brand or not. Doesn't matter!)
2 cups flour
2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 325ºF
Melt the chocolate chips and butter together in a double boiler. If you don't have a double boiler, use a heatproof bowl over a pan of water. You could try microwaving it in 30-second bursts at medium or medium-high heat. But don't come crying to me if you mess it up!)
Remove the chocolate mixture from the heat when it's completely melted and add the sweetened, condensed milk. Mix well. (I transferred the chocolate mixture to a big bowl before this step, as my double boiler isn't that big.)
Mix in the flour and vanilla, alternating between the two.
Let the dough sit for 15 minutes to "toughen."
Grease cookie pans or line with parchment paper.
Drop dough onto cookie sheets by heaping tablespoons.
Bake for 10 minutes. (Since there are no eggs in the dough you don't need to be too worried about undercooking them, but you don't want to overcook them; I baked mine for exactly 10 minutes, and that turned out to be the perfect time.)
Remove to a wire rack to cool.
(Cookies are good when they're freshly baked, but even better after aging for a couple of days. They freeze well, too!)
Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Classic Ice Cream Sandwiches, found over at Smitten Kitchen. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post.
Robyn’s Take:
When Nance suggested this recipe, I was COMPLETELY on board. I love a good ice cream sandwich, and since the weather turned brain-meltingly hot, I’ve been eating Mayfield ice cream sandwiches because they are gooooood. But the day I made this recipe, I started off in a rotten mood because it was MOTHERFUCKING HOT AS SHIT and I didn’t want to do anything but lay on the couch under the ceiling fan. But I’d been a slack-ass slacker, putting off making them all week because that’s just how I am, and I needed to get them done. I suspected they were going to be awesome, but before you can eat the finished product you’ve got to MAKE the finished product, and I didn’t wanna. But I did. See? I do and do for you people!
The recipe, as written, has you make the cookie part of the recipe and then while they’re baking, you’re meant to spread your softened ice cream into a baking dish and putting it in the freezer to re-freeze. I opted to do the ice cream part first because I had other shit to do (somehow, the world doesn’t stop turning and kittens don’t stop screaming to be kissed just ’cause I’ve got baking to do.), and I figured that was going to be a pain in the ass, and wanted to get it over with.
So anyway, let your half gallon of ice cream sit on the counter for, oh, half an hour or so? I think I set it out and then vacuumed the house, so maybe more like 45 minutes. Then line a 9 x 13 baking pan with parchment paper, dump the ice cream in the baking pan, smooth it out, and put it into the freezer to harden.
By the way, I used Publix vanilla ice cream because (1) it’s damn good, and (2) a lot of the name-brand ice creams have quietly reduced the amount of ice cream in their “half gallon” container so that it’s less than a half gallon. The recipe called for a half gallon, I wanted a damn half gallon.
I forgot to get a picture of the part where I dumped the softened ice cream in and smoothed it out. You’ll have to use your imagination. I used a plastic spatula.
So then I made the cookie part. These are the ingredients:
All-purpose flour, special dark Dutch-processed cocoa powder, softened unsalted butter, granulated sugar, salt, egg yolks, and vanilla extract.
Sift the cocoa and flour together into a bowl.
Then realize that you weren’t supposed to sift it into your mixing bowl, and be all like “Motherfucker!”, and get out another bowl and dump the sifted stuff into that.
Then toss the butter, sugar, and salt into the mixing bowl and beat it all together ’til it’s light and fluffy.
Add yolks and vanilla, beat some more, then add the flour mixture a bit at a time and mix until combined.
Transfer the dough to a floured surface, and divide it into two equal pieces. Now, first of all, I SUCK when it comes to dividing dough into two equal pieces, and then also I knew that I was going to have to roll that shit out and EXCUSE ME NANCE. What the fuck with the using the damn rolling pin all the damn time all of a sudden? First the crackers, now this? This aggression will not stand!
So I divided the dough and I think I did a somewhat decent job of making two equal pieces.
It’s a really stiff dough, by the way, and apparently if it’s too soft to work with, you should stick it in the fridge for a bit. If you’re under a time crunch, this might not be the recipe for you – on the other hand, you can make the whole thing ahead of time so, you know. Whatever works for you.
Then I had to roll out the dough (NANCE), and while the instructions say to roll each batch into an approximate 10 x 8 inch rectangle, you will see that I clearly said “Fuck this, that looks good enough to me.”
And then, since I cannot cut a straight line to save my life, I used my round biscuit cutter to cut out the cookies. I think it worked pretty well.
But THEN, my friends, that is not all. The horror doesn’t end there with the rolling out of the dough and the cutting of the cookies. Then, you’ve gotta poke FUCKING holes in the cookies for some probably scientific reason that makes perfect sense, but I do not know what that reason is. I started out using a toothpick and being careful about spacing the holes equally, but after about cookie #2 I lost what little patience I had, and I went to using an oral syringe (we have a million of them around here for medicating kittens. It worked perfectly.) and just kind of jabbing holes in the cookies.
So I get the first pan of cookies into the oven, and then what happens? I’ll be damned but the friggin’ INSPECTOR showed up to inspect my damn kitchen.
“Sink full of dishes? Inspector Stompers give you ten demerits for that.”
“Inspector Stompers think you a slob. Why you never do dishes? That’s horrifying.”
“Tomatoes on the same counter near where you make cookies? Twenty-three demerits! That’s just wrong.”
“Inspector Stompers disapprove of the “Smitten Kitchen” business. It supposed to be smitten KITTEN, and Stompers not appreciate the play on words. That’s IT. You close this operation down!”
I paid the inspector off with crunchies and packed him off to his room for a nap, and continued with what I was doing.
The cookies were ready to come out of the oven after 16 minutes, and I put the second pan of cookies into the oven to bake, then put all of them on wire racks to cool.
When the cookies were completely cool (I will neither confirm nor deny the allegation that I took a nap while they were cooling.) I got out the ice cream, lifted it out of the baking pan, and started cutting it with my biscuit cutter. It was relatively simple to do, and I got the ice cream put between the cookies (you know how to make a sandwich, I trust – two cookies, one slab of ice cream, put ’em together) pretty quickly. But let me reiterate, it was FUCKING hot, and the ice cream started melting immediately.
I wrapped each sandwich in plastic wrap, and stuck them in the oven freezer.
And the verdict? I didn’t like them. The cookies were too hard, and the layer of ice cream was too thick. I tried one bite, the cookies broke, the ice cream started to squirt out, and that was it as far as I was concerned. When I can get a tasty box of chemical-filled ice cream sandwiches with only the effort of tossing them in the cart, I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend the time to make them from scratch.
On the other hand, after they sat in the freezer overnight, Fred liked them quite a bit. He agreed that the cookies were too hard (I’m thinking I cooked them too long) and that the layer of ice cream was too thick, but he told me he thought they were really really good, so there you go. I’d be willing to try making them again just for him because I am a good subservient wife (HA HA HA), but he said they weren’t so good he wanted to listen to me bitch about the annoyance of having to roll out the dough. Ha.
If I were going to make them again, I’d cook them for less time (I’d start checking them at 12 minutes), and I’d make the layer of ice cream thinner, maybe by using a larger pan to spread the ice cream into.
The pigs each got one as a special Saturday night treat.
I freaking love ice cream sandwiches! LOVE THEM. So when I saw this recipe I was all over it and I had faith that Robyn would be right there with me. This is why I tolerate having to make things like the roasted chickpeas (barf) recipe that Robyn suggested.
True Confession Time: Rick (my husband) is out of the country and I’ve been having a helluva time dealing with how different it is without him here. Between the time difference (he’s 6 hours ahead of me) and our co-dependent marriage (only when he’s away, hee) neither one of us is getting much sleep. Another thing that happens when Rick goes out of the country is that this family shuts.the.hell.down. It takes us 3-4 days to get enough dishes in the dishwasher to run a full load and it’s mostly just coffee cups and glasses. We don’t eat, we just graze and pick at whatever might be available. I have pretty much existed on cheese, saltine crackers and Hershey kisses because none of us can be arsed to make or bake anything. Why am I telling you all this? Because I felt the need to explain why I was so late posting this entry and hell yeah, I’m trying to get some sympathy!
As excited as I was to try out these ice cream sandwiches, I definitely put it off until (much later than) the last minute. My friend, Regan was over visiting yesterday and she was so disgusted with my lackadaisical attitude that she took matters into her own hands.
I was allowed to take pictures.
I really wish Regan’s mother (Hi, Pat!) would talk to her about this whoreina fingernail situation. I see the bright red tips and I can’t help but wonder if my soccer-mom friend is fixin’ to start a new career that involves dancing with a pole.*
My favorite food group. Pulled fresh from the freezer and trying to soften. Hey, I already warned you that I was unprepared (see big word above: lackadaisical).
I need to tell you about a small personality quirk (please note: I did not say FLAW) that I have. I am a control freak and I may be a little bit obsessive compulsive. I want (need!) order in my life when it comes to anything that I do. Especially cooking. The picture above does so many things to my head that I feel faint every time that I look at it. I believe that is butter on the lid of my Hershey Cocoa can. Good Lord.
As I was trying to gain some control over the situation and get a grip on my OCD, I pulled an apron out of the drawer and handed it to Regan. The next time I looked over at her I saw this.** I’m also ashamed to say that my very good friend has a Jorts*** situation going on. She says they are comfortable. There are no words. But it does give me an insight into why she’s not offended by my mother’s tube-top/pajama bottom combo. Can you say fashion victims?
She’s using the wrong bowl and making a mess! Ugh! I probably should have just went and laid down right then and there. But somebody had to take the pictures so I soldiered on. I do want to mention that Regan did clean up her mess. Wearing that goddamn apron around her neck the entire time.
All I can see is that flour/cocoa on the top of the paddle that will not get mixed in correctly. I may have developed a twitch.
This is what it looked like rolled out. Regan made the executive decision (before she tried to roll that shit) that we would roll out and bake 2 giant cookies. Then we would slather the softened ice cream in between them and throw the whole thing in the freezer. After the ice cream firmed back up we would cut them into individual sandwiches. I agreed with her because it made sense to me too. Do you know what this means? It means that Regan and I are both dumber than dirt.
Regan allowed me to help out by having me poke holes in the whole mess. Can you see my hidden message? We giggled like 12 year-old girls. After the cookie part was baked Regan went home and left me to figure out the rest of it. How rude! Okay, she does have a family to tend to, but still. LEFT ME HIGH AND DRY.
Turned out that the cookies were still a bit too fragile. I grabbed the parchment paper underneath the cookies to put them on my counter (for the slathering of ice cream) and it all went to shit. It started cracking and I had to stand there pressing it back together. It was time for me to pick up my son from work so I left the cookies on the counter thinking that maybe they needed to cool more. By the time I came back they were hard. Real hard.
We did manage to get one put together for a photo and I forced my kid to try it. He said, “Oh, gross. It’s too sweet. I can’t eat this.”
Proof that he tried it. Heh.
I put another one together for my mom and she said that they weren’t very good and maybe I baked them too long. I thought the cookie part was pretty good when I was munching the broken pieces, but it was not anything like the ice cream sandwiches that I remember.
I think if you have the time and patience to babysit this recipe (hell, just to read it because whoa, WORDY) and you’re one of those people that wants homemade treats then give this recipe a shot. But if you’re like me and just want a tasty ice cream sandwich go buy a box at the grocery store and save yourself the mess.
* JOKING!
** Nutbags Magee wore that apron around her neck the entire time. I couldn’t even look at her.
*** Jorts = jean shorts. A huge fashion no-no. Don’t kill the messenger.
Classic Ice Cream Sandwiches (Nance & Robyn make the same recipe)
⅔ cup plus ¼ cup (75 grams) extra dark or Dutch-processed unsweetened cocoa powder
1¼ cups (2½ sticks or 285 grams) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
¾ teaspoon table salt
2 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Filling:
½ gallon (8 cups or approximately 1050 grams) ice cream, your choice of flavor, softened
Instructions
Line the bottom of a 9x13-inch pan with parchment paper, allowing it to overhang on two sides so it will act as a sling. Spread the softened ice cream into the pan, smooth the top, and freeze until firm - 1 hour or longer.
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Sift the flour and cocoa together into a bowl that is NOT the mixing bowl you're about to cream the sugar and butter together in.
In the bowl of a standing mixer with a paddle attachment beat butter, sugar, and salt together until light and fluffy.
Add egg yolks and vanilla and mix until combined.
Add flour mixture a little at a time and mix until combined.
Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and divide into two equal pieces. (If the dough is too soft to handle, wrap and chill in the fridge for no longer than 30 minutes.)
Roll each batch into a ¼-inch thick rectangle, about 10x8 inches. Cut into 2x4-inch rectangles or use your favorite cookie/ biscuit cutter.
Reroll the scraps of dough and create more triangles if that floats your boat.
Transfer rectangles to the prepared sheets, leaving only an inch of space between them. Use the tip of a thermometer, toothpick, oral syringes, whatever is close at hand, to poke the cookies with holes. Smitten Kitchen recommends more than 14 holes per cookie.
Bake the cookies for 16 - 18 minutes or until they stay firm when tapped in the center. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Repeat with remaining cookie dough, rerolling scraps as needed (or not).
Remove your pan full of ice cream from the freezer and run a knife along the exposed sides of the pan to loosen the ice cream.
Lift ice cream out of the pan and onto the work surface. Using one of the cookies as a template (or using cookie cutter again), cut ice cream into bars (the number of cookie pairs your batch yielded.)
Assemble sandwiches (one cookie, ice cream on top, second cookie on top of that), wrap in plastic wrap, and stick in the freezer.
Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Oatmeal Cream Pies, found over at Blooming on Bainbridge. The printable version of the recipe is at the bottom of this page.
Robyn’s take:
It was my turn to choose this week’s recipe, and after the past few weeks of dinner-type recipes, I was wanting to choose a dessert or an appetizer or a snack. But none of the recipes in my huge and ever-growing stack appealed to me. I was at a loss. And then came Twitter. I stumbled across an exchange between Erica and Mrs. Irritation that led me to the above-linked recipe for oatmeal cream pies.
Now, anyone out there who hasn’t had a Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie, I feel sorry for you because they are awesome and amazing and always a favorite around here. As soon as I saw the recipe, I knew I was going to make them, with or without Nance joining in. Luckily, she was up for it.
What I liked the most about the recipe is that everything that it called for, I had in the pantry or the fridge. Recipes that don’t require me to go out to the grocery store are always the best.
Ingredients:
These are the ingredients for the cookie part of the recipe – if you hadn’t guessed, first you make the cookies, then you make the filling, then you slap it all together and shove it in your face. So the cookies consist of butter, brown sugar, white sugar, flour, oats, an egg (not pictured), vanilla, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
After you start your oven to preheating and line your cookie sheets with parchment paper (or I guess those silicone pan liners would work, too), you’re going to cream your sugars and your butter together ’til it’s creamy.
Mmmm, creamy.
Then add your egg and vanilla, and keep on mixing.
While that’s mixing, run over to the other end of your counter, and spoon your flour into a measuring cup and then level it with a knife. Dump your flour into a bowl, add baking soda, salt and cinnamon, and stir it together. Add the oats and then mix it all together well.
See? Mixed together well.
Then add your dry ingredients to your wet, and mix well.
Once everything is mixed together well, get out your handy-dandy 1-Tablespoon scoop – I have this one, I SUPPOSE you could use an actual tablespoon – then scoop up your dough and drop it 2″ apart on your parchment-lined baking sheets.
Why yes, my baking sheets DO need a good scrubbing. They’re not DIRTY, they’re just stained, and did I ask your opinion on the matter? I did not. Go over there and stand with the cinnamon and baking soda, which is also being judgmental. Y’all can mock the cleanliness of my kitchen together.
The next step is very important if you want to be stupid like me: set the timer for 10 minutes and then wander off to do something. Do not allow it to enter your mind that perhaps you should check the cookies a few minutes earlier just in case they cook more quickly than expected. In the 10 minutes after I put the first cookie sheet in the oven, I think I actually forgot that I was making something. I was folding towels when the timer went off, and I was momentarily puzzled, all “?”
Ten minutes is too long in my oven; your mileage may vary.
The next pan I took out at nine minutes, and the third pan cooked for eight and a half. Eight and a half seems to be the perfect amount of time in my oven – at least, this time. Next time could be different.
Bottom rack was ten minutes, middle rack nine, and top rack eight and a half.
It is entirely possible that the cookies got so well-done at ten minutes because I wasn’t using quite enough dough – I ended with 44 cookies instead of the 36 the recipe said I’d get, so there’s that. I probably should have gone with more of a heaping scoop-full rather than an even scoop-full.
While the cookies were cooling, I made the filling. I didn’t get a picture of the filling ingredients, but I think y’all know what butter, vanilla, powdered sugar, and whipping cream look like, don’t you?
I made a double batch of the filling, because I’m pretty sure that you can never have too much filling.
So I put the softened butter into the mixing bowl, sifted the powdered sugar on top of that, and then added the vanilla.
Someone really needs to declutter the counter. It looks like everything in the kitchen came to life and stomped over to see what the hell was going on.
Because I had so much powdered sugar in the bowl, I turned it on low and then moved to put my hands at the top of the bowl so as to minimize the amount of powder that came flooping out of the bowl.
Only.
Guess who’s a clumsy asshole? I hit the speed lever thingy with my big stupid klutzy hand and voi-fucking-la:
There was a crapload of it on the floor, too. Thank god for my Dyson handheld vacuum. I thought about tossing everything in a container for the chickens (chickens adore anything powdery. If it’s sweet, so much the better) and starting over with the filling. But I opted instead to keep going, and just add half a cup of powdered sugar and hope for the best. Once the sugar, butter and vanilla was combined, I added four tablespoons of whipping cream and then turned it on high for a couple of minutes.
Luckily, it turned out just fine.
You might call this “cream filling.” I’d call it buttercream frosting, myself.
I took no pictures of the process, but basically I used the same 1-tablespoon scoop to scoop up the filling and put it between two cookies, which is simple enough, and there you go.
The verdict? OMG SO GOOD. We gave the crunchy, overcooked cookies to the chickens, but the ones that I cooked for eight and a half minutes? PERFECT. SO tasty.
(Though as Fred said, you could put buttercream frosting between two pieces of cardboard, and it’d still taste good.)
I don’t know that I agree that they’re like the Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies – I mean, they are similar, but there’s a difference in the consistency of the cookies. They are certainly really, really good, and homemade always trumps the chemical bombs you can buy in the store. Fred liked them even more than I did, so I’ll definitely be making these again.
Ever since I said no to seafood for this site (meaning we will never tandem test a seafood recipe – Robyn can put up as many seafood recipes as she wants here) I have felt obligated (say that with a drawn out sigh, hee) to okay every single thing that Robyn sends my way. It’s like Catholic guilt, minus the Catholic. I have no idea why I make ridiculous rules like this for myself, but it does give me something to bitch about and having something to bitch about pretty much makes my world go ’round in case you haven’t noticed. And boy, I did some bitching when it came to this recipe. I’ll be honest here…when I first saw the site I was instantly judgmental over all that pink business. I was rolling my eyes hard and wondered where in the hell Robyn found this crackpot site. And then I started reading the site because I am a certified nebshit* and found that I liked it. She’s totally not my thing with all that pink and whatnot, but damn she’s so FREAKING HAPPY that you kinda have to like her. So I definitely recommend this site if you’re one of those people that is completely over reading the boo-hoo, woe is me blogs (who ‘dat?). So yeah, Nance has a heart after all. Small and mostly black, but it’s there enough to say okay to a blog that’s perky and pink!
But I still had my issues. Like where is the freaking recipe so I can print it? Wait. What? The recipe is a picture? You have got to be kidding me. I may have ended up thinking she has a cute site, but I still think she should (in the interest of her readers because sometimes they matter too) have typed up the recipe in a printable format. Lucky for you, Robyn typed that bitch up down below so you’ll be good to go. She’s a smart one, our Robyn.
As most of you know, I had weight loss surgery a gazillion years ago. The reason that I bring this up is because one of the side effects of the surgery is a thing called dumping syndrome. Not to be confused with the dumps because ohhellno, would I have a surgery that made me shit my pants if I ate the wrong thing. My version of dumping syndrome means that I instantly start sweating and do not feel well at all. And by not feeling well I mean I have to go lay down somewhere. And then when it’s over my blood sugar bottoms out so bad that I need to take two glucose tablets. Everyone has a different version of this syndrome and some people don’t get it at all. I’m not going to mention any names but there are certain people who do not fear the wrath of too much sugar intake (cough:robyn:cough) As soon as I looked at this recipe I knew I was done for. The frosting alone would kill me – 2 cups of confectioners sugar mixed with a stick of butter? This was not going to end well. Sigh.
Hey, guess who didn’t have her butter softened in time? I had this shit in the freezer.
I chopped it up and threw it in the microwave for a bit. I’m not going to give you a time on this because everybody’s microwave is different. That makes me nervous when people give out the time to microwave something. It may take me 10 seconds on high and someone else’s microwave could take a whole minute. I always chop it first because if you throw a solid stick in there sometimes it looks like it’s softened, but the inside is liquid. Oops!
Action shot because I get bored and every fat fatty knows that this is the absolutely best part of the cookie making process. Butter and brown sugar, ftw. I really get annoyed with taking pictures while I cook so you have to endure my action shots. It’s required by law. And also, Robyn is a COPYCAT because I see her up there taking action shots. Hmph.
This looks kinda strange to me, but I can’t figure out why.
I actually busted out with the cookie scoop to do these. And I used the silicone whatever the hell it’s called to make the cookies rather than parchment paper. I treat parchment paper like it’s the rarest thing on the planet because it’s so freaking expensive. I know it’s pathetic. I know.
You gotta love a man who will do your dishes for you. And also, my mom. I cannot tell you how freaking wonderful it is to have those two knuckleheads help me out with clean-up when I’m creating/destroying in the kitchen.
My cookies did not look like the ones on the recipe website. AT ALL. And then it dawned on me that I forgot to add the additional quarter cup of butter. I had thawed two sticks (1 cup of butter) and was planning on using a quarter cup from my butter dish and completely forgot. Ugh, I’m such a dumb-ass (shut-up, Jane)! So we added the extra butter by hand. The next batch flattened out a wee little bit. So we tried it with parchment paper and they flattened out more, but not as much as the website and not as much as Robyn’s. I have no idea where I screwed them up.
The family verdict: They were good, but don’t bother making them again. The frosting was too sweet for everyone so I ended up throwing it away and we’re just eating them as regular ol’ oatmeal cookies. I may have overcooked them a bit because they were pretty hard. And today they are really hard (as in, I’m not risking tooth breakage). But I can honestly say that this is not a bad cookie at all (if you make it right) and you can always tweak the frosting to your liking.
*Pittsburgh speak meaning a nosy person. Not to be confused with noisy. I’m pretty quiet for the most part.
Robyn & Nance Try the Same Recipe - Oatmeal Cream Pies
Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups and level with the flat edge of a knife. Combine flour, soda, salt & cinnamon in a bowl; stir. Add oats and mix well.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter mix and mix well.
Drop by rounded tablespoons 2" apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
Bake at 375 for 8 - 10 minutes. Leave on pan to cool for 2 minutes.
Remove to wire rack to finish cooling.
Spread 1 T cream filling between 2 cookies.
For cream filling:
Cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla together on low. When it's well mixed, add whipping cream and beat on medium - high for about 2 minutes, until light & fluffy.
