Where it all began...

Apparently I make good cookies. Not just good cookies but awesome cookies. Not my words, the words of my family and friends. Don't get me wrong, I can follow a recipe. But I'm not really sure what makes them so delectible. I almost feel as though I am cheating my family, mostly my husband, out of the tastefulness of life when I make cookies from premade dough or pour them out of a box. They even have their own name: Shari Cookies. These "Shari Cookies" have become the only request of my family as Christmas presents and are a requirement at family parties. It all started Christmas 2005 when I tried to get a cookie exchange going. I made hundreds of cookies in my college apartment all by hand (I didn't yet have a mixer), in an oven that barely fit one pan. My roommate awoke to masses of baked goods covering each and every surface of our living space, save her bedroom and our tiny bathroom. I boxed them all up, well most of them, wrapped them in holiday flare, and placed them under the trees of my unsuspecting family members. With visions of sugar plums fleeing their dreams, they awoke to the sugar spender that has now become the traditional holiday staple. My goal is to get some practice this year. Not that I'm rusty. I absolutely adore baking. However, it seems as though I always go into the holiday cold, without the proper shoes, stretch and warmup. Not this year. This year I plan to outdo all the rest, which will be hard to do, for sure. And so, "The Cookie Project" was born. Each week I plan to make one type of cookie. It must be from scratch and have all the love and tenderness of warm homemade cookies and the subsidial milk, sans the slobber of my husband's spit on the spoon. So, one homemade cookie a week. This can't be good for our waistlines, but he's not complaining...

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Frosting Cookies (Round 2, Week 1)

Frosting Cookies

It is obnoxious how many half used containers of frosting we have in the refrigerator. Seriously. I have used them for various reasons and never got through the entirety of them in the past few months. I only know we had so many of them because of the smell coming out of our freezer. We had to take everything out of the refrigerator and freezer to try to get rid of the dead animal smell eminating from its bowels. (As I am writing this a skunk just sprayed its heavenly scent in our backyard. Our windows are open because of the lovely weather and the smell is remeniscent of our fridge. Sick.) While putting everything back I started piling up the frosting containers. It was ridiculous:
 
I needed to find some way to use them to get them out of my refrigerator! Since I am not a huge fan of using frosting on cookies, I looked up ways to use them in the cookies. I found out there is a huge following of people who use frosting instead of butter in their cookies! Little did I know. Apparently, since you can use frosting, you can also use any flavor and the cookies will taste very similar. I gave my husband his choices and he chose strawberry frosting with chocolate chips. Here's how they turned out:
 
FROSTING COOKIES
Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 3/4 cup any flavor frosting, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1/4 cup sugar
 
Directions: 1. Heat oven to 350 and grease a cookie sheet. I always use foil on the pan so I don't have to do dishes as often! 2. Mix flour, salt and baking soda together. 3. In a separate bowl beat frosting, egg, vanilla and sugar on medium speed until fluffy, about 2 min. 4. Slowly add dry ingredients until combined. 5. Drop cookies by large tablespoonfuls onto cookie sheet. 6. Bake 10-12 mins or until edges are slightly browned.
 

 
They were such a cute pink color which didn't come across very well in the photos. And though I was trying to get rid of the frosting containers, there are still a few spoonfuls of strawberry frosting left. I may need to make a mid week batch of these for the next 12 weeks! They were scrumptious while still warm, though very sweet. By the fourth or fifth day of mingling in the container together they got a little crumbly, but the sweetness was still there! I will try this again with another flavor. Only four containers of frosting left!


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