Lifehack for Shipping Cookies in the Mail

June 16, 2014 by

After I posted my S’mores Cookies on Facebook, an old high school friend of mine commented about how yummy they looked. When I found out Nicole was having a rough week, I decided to ship some cookies her way. After all, I can’t be expected to eat everything I bake all by myself, and chocolate makes other people happy, so it’s a win-win.

I decided to be resourceful with the packaging materials I already had on hand, and I ended up stumbling onto an easy, cheap life-hack for shipping cookies: the pint berry container. I had just finished a pint of strawberries, and the plastic, lidded berry container was the perfect size to fit a dozen small cookies.

Here’s how you can easily pack your cookies with (nearly) free materials to keep them fresh and whole in the mail.
1. Once the cookies are completely cool, stack them in stacks of 3 or 4 and wrap each stack in plastic wrap.
2. Seal the stacks of cookies inside a quart-sized Ziploc bag,
3. Cushion the inside of a clean, dry plastic pint container with bubble wrap (or more plastic wrap), then nestle the bag of cookies inside. Wrap the bubble wrap around the cookies and snap the lid shut.
4. These containers are even the right size to stick a recipe card on top!

The result? My S’mores Cookies survived the trip through the postal service, and made it out whole across the state line in Indiana. Nicole posted this beautiful picture of the cookies she received (and devoured).

Want to make someone’s day? Send cookies their way!

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S’mores Cookies Recipes

June 10, 2014 by

If summer had a flavor, it wouldn’t be lemonade or BBQ or even ice cream. Believe me, I eat ice cream all year long. Summer tastes distinctively like a s’more – melted chocolate and gooey toasted marshmallow sandwiched between a crumbly crunch of graham cracker, eaten as you stand over a cracking fire, turning away from the glow just enough that the dribbles of chocolate and marshmallow on your chin are hidden in the shadows.

I enjoy the whole experience of camping – the dirt, the making-do, the campfire cooking, the sunshine and breeze, the stars and the trees – but I love s’mores. So much that I have a whole board on Pinterest devoted to the s’mores trio of ingredients. Though I already kicked off camping season over Memorial Day weekend, devouring more s’mores than I probably should have, I was craving that gooey comfort food again last week.
After digging through the best s’mores recipes Pinterest had to tempt me with, I landed on these S’mores Cookies from Two Peas and Their Pod. I needed to use up some graham crackers left open from the camping trip, as well as some mini marshmallows that were starting to stick together. I even had an open bag of mini chocolate chips for Maria’s cute mini approach to this recipe.
Who needs the whole campfire? Bake the goodness of summer inside with these nostalgic S’mores Cookies.
Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Graham Cracker Smores Cookies Recipe
S’mores Cookies Recipe:
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temp
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup Jet Puffed Mallow Bits
extra graham cracker crumbs
Substitutions/Ingredient Notes:
  • Graham cracker crumbs: Even though I had a box of ground graham cracker crumbs, I hand crushed crackers that were left open from a camping trip and needed to be enjoyed before they went stale. I left some courser chunks but most of it ended up finely ground. It took less than one sleeve of graham crackers crushed to make one cup of crumbs.
  • Whole wheat flour: As always, I subbed in a little whole wheat flour for all white flour. In this recipe, I used one cup of regular flour and 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour. Keep in mind that a lot of graham cracker dust becomes more dry ingredient, so the dough will be crumbly.
  • Eggless: With only enough eggs left for one more breakfast tomorrow morning, I wanted to substitute eggs with an alternative in my cookie recipe. Instead of an egg, I mashed a little more than 1/2 a banana into a 1/4 cup measure. The dough still seemed really crumbly after adding the banana and vanilla so I added a couple scoops of peanut butter made with honey. Because what’s even better than the trinity of chocolate, marshmallow and graham cracker? Throwing peanut butter in the mix – like by swapping out Hershey’s for Reese’s in a traditional s’more. Or add a peanut buttery binder to a crumbly s’more cookie dough.
  • Mini marshmallows: Not sure what exactly Mallow Bits are, but I used good ol’ mini marshmallows that needed to be used up.
  • In the original recipe, she presses Hershey chocolate bars, graham cracker pieces and Mallow Bits onto the balls of cookie dough before baking. I skipped this step. Actually, I tried stuffing a few cookies by forming balls of dough around extra marshmallows, but most of them popped open in the oven and made a sticky, carmelized mess.

Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Graham Cracker Smores Cookies Recipe

Directions to Make S’mores Cookies:
  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silicon mat or parchment paper, or use a baking stone like I did. Also, because my ancient oven runs so hot, I turned the temp down to about 325.
  2. In one bowl, whisk together graham cracker crumbs, flour, baking soda and salt.
  3. In another mixing bowl, beat butter and sugars about 3 minutes till creamy and smooth. This is where you would mix in egg and vanilla, but I substituted mashed banana and a bit of peanut butter to get the consistency without the eggs.
  4. Slowly add the dry ingredients from Step 2 into the mixing bowl from Step 3. Mix until just combined.
  5. Stir in the marshmallow bits and mini chocolate chips.
  6. Roll teaspoonfuls of cookie dough into a ball, and try not to eat more than you put on the pan. I rolled each ball in a dish of extra graham cracker crumbs for a little dusting.
  7. Place the dough balls on a cookie sheet about an inch apart. I baked these about 5 minutes then pressed them down a bit with the bottom of a small glass dipped in graham cracker crumbs before baking a final minute or two. Let them cool and set on the baking sheet for a couple minutes before transferring. These cookies were so gooey they fell apart on a wire wrack, so I had to coat it with wax paper.
Warning: These cookies are very hot out of the oven and the melted marshmallows will burn your mouth. You may be able to eat real s’mores immediately, and I know we all love fresh cookies right out of the oven, but please learn from my mistakes, and give these a few minutes to cool before you try to touch or eat them! They’ll be just as gooey after cooling, and they’ll still taste just as much like the classic s’more you’re craving.
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“Double Treat” Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

May 27, 2012 by
I don’t need bookmarks in my cookbooks. They naturally fall open to the most oft-used pages, guided by oil stains and batter splatters and clouds of flour.
The page where this Double Treat Cookie recipe is located is one of these.
  
These come from the one and only Church Cookbook: the blue-covered “Brethren Favorites From Yellow Creek” compiled by members of Yellow Creek Church of the Brethren in Goshen, Indiana. I received my own copy of it (at last!) on my 23rd birthday by my mom.
It didn’t happen right away, but over the years, page 85 has become stained with grease and splotches of dough from various stages of mixing.  (You’re probably beginning to understand, now, why my sister doesn’t like me baking in her kitchen – or, at least, leaving behind the aftermath of my baking.)
I think my go-to chocolate chip cookies are still the chocolate chip pudding cookies (four pages before this recipe in the same cookbook), but I think the pudding mix starts to bring back bad memories of overabundant Amish Friendship Bread starters….More recently, my common chocolate chip cookie craving is accompanied by a peanut butter hunger. And those times call for these cookies.

Double Treat Cookies

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup shortening (2 sticks butter)
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup peanut butter
1 package (12 oz) chocolate chips
1 cup chopped peanuts, optional (I’ll pass, thanks.)
Beat together shortening, sugars, eggs and vanilla until fluffy.
Blend in peanut butter. Add dry ingredients.
Add chocolate chips (and peanuts, if you wish.)
Shape dough into small balls. Place on ungreased baking sheet (of course, I always use a silicone baking mat.) Flatten with the bottom of a glass that’s been dipped in sugar. Bake at 325 degrees for 8 minutes.
Makes about 4 dozen.

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Christmas Cookies: The Rest

December 24, 2011 by

After several trips to the grocery store to supplement decreasing supply and a baking flurry that filled all the flat surfaces in my small kitchen, my Christmas baking is done.

At least for now.

The grand total was well over 100 cookies. Here’s the run down:

1. Aunt Leora’s cut-out cookies

3. Rolo Cookies (New recipe this year, made of very simple dough wrapped around a Rolo candy, which melts into a caramel filling.)
4. Rolo Candies (since I already had the Rolos and pecans. Note: Make tons more of these next year, because no one can have just one.)
5. Peppermint Shortbread Cookies (another new recipe – not as sweet or gooey as I like my cookies to be, but you can’t knock peppermint, especially this time of year.)
And when their forces combine…
Merry Christmas to all! May the food only comprise part of the memories you make this holiday season.

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Christmas Cookies: Round 1

December 18, 2011 by

It started with Great Aunt Leora’s recipe for Cut-Out Cookies. Next, Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies from the old church cookbook — possibly my favorite cookie of all time. And one batch just didn’t seem like enough, so I made a second.

Here’s what they look like out of the oven:

And the finished product:

OK, so I gave away part of the secret. You would never know by looking at these gorgeous cookies that there’s a marshmallow hidden aside…well, aside from the name of the cookie. If you didn’t know what it was called and you were just looking at it, you would never know there was a marshmallow inside.

And the best news: I’ve only eaten one.

So far.

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Molasses Crinkles

October 28, 2011 by

For nine weeks of nothing but book writing, I had to ignore the urge to bake. People at work started to ask when the cookies were coming back. I finally had a free night, with Halloween just around the corner, and pumpkin cookies would be perfect.

Unfortunately, it’s one of those weeks where I’ve already been to the grocery store twice for necessities, and pumpkin must have slipped the mind. My favorite seasonal baking ingredient must wait. What’s just as autumnal for the mouth? Cloves, cinnamon and ginger. Therefore: Molasses Crinkles.

My recipe is the same as this one on AllRecipes.com:

Molasses Crinkles Cookie Recipe - Allrecipes_com

Into the pan goes 3/4 cup butter, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 egg, 1/4 cup molasses. And then the flour…where’s the flour? There’s always extra in the fridge…there’s none in the fridge. How in the world did I, the baker, run out of flour without realizing it? Probably because I haven’t been able to bake for months.

So, a trip to the grocery story the next day after work. Flour and pumpkin both, and more brown sugar.

Back to the kitchen. Now, the 2 1/4 cup flour, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon cloves, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 1 teaspoon ginger.

These are the kind of cookies you roll into a ball and dip in sugar before baking (for 10 minutes at 375 degrees.) So you know they’re going to turn out nice and thick — hearty cookies you can sink your sweet tooth into.

And, with the spicy flavor, these were the perfect snack during the decoration of the Haunted Hall. Every year, several of us at the office help the nonprofit organization down the street put together its annual Halloween party for the disabled children it provides services for. The cookies were gone long before any of the kids arrived.

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