Dutch Windmill Cookies

Seriously, I have no idea how the name of these cookies got changed to "Windmill Cookies." I think it is completely irrelevant to the cookies entirely. For example, today I cut them out in the shape of a maple leaf because I wanted to be fancy and crazy. I have no idea how I got to the subject of this, but anyway, they aren't windmill cookies.

I started by creaming butter with, I'm sorry, crisco.

Then, I added white sugar...

And brown sugar.

Then I creamed them with the butter,

And added an egg.

While I let that mix,

I started taking out my dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt, oatmeal, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, oatmeal, and almonds.

I started with the flour, which I decided to tone down from two cups to one and a half. Then I put in the soda and salt.

I next put in the spices, 

cloves,

nutmeg,

cinnamon 

I finished off the measuring by dumping in the oatmeal and almonds,

And the spicy rubbish turned into cookie dough!

I decided to be fancy and crazy as I previously said, and I cut out the cookie dough into the shape of a maple leaf. Because I doubled the recipe and I ended up making 8 dozen, this took hours. (It didn't help that I was juggling making spaghetti also)

But, after intense labor, I had the joy of seeing perfect maple-almond-oatmeal-anything but windmill, cookies.

Yum!

Dutch Windmill Cookie:

From: Grandma Lam

You will need:

• 1 cup butter 
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp. nutmeg
• 1 tsp. cloves
• 1 cup oatmeal
• 1 cup slivered or sliced almonds

In a large mixing bowl, combine butter,sugar, and egg. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Fold in almonds. Shape dough into small balls and place on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees fir 10 to 12 minutes. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Enjoy!

P.S I'm sorry to post this late, but my mom was busy researching the house of a relative of Corrie Ten Boom, and she got engrossed in her research on "my blogging computer."

Cream of Wheat and It's Uses

I know I said yesterday that I would post Abe singing along with a song, but I was wrong and now I am inclined to tell you about what to do if your stranded on a dessert island and you need to make cream of wheat.

Cream of Wheat, or trader Joe's Enriched Farina Hot Wheat Cereal, I'm pretty sure is made of wheat and all you add is milk or water, and optionally salt.

You mix the previous together and put it in the microwave stirring every half a minute or minute or so. Then it is done and you can try not to burn your tongue on the nastiness that I think it is without a strong dose of some sort of sweetener.

I'm sorry that you had the misfortune of reading about Cream of Wheat instead of hearing Abe sing, but it might be important if you are stranded on a desert island and you have a box of Cream of Wheat with no instructions.  

"Gourmet Fast-Food"

Tonight, my mom was browsing on one of her favorite websites, The Pioneer Woman, and she was searching under "chicken." Then, she spotted a chicken strips recipe. Great! I thought, but we didn't have buttermilk, and so we could not make them. But, the page had given us inspiration, and we searched the web for chicken strips not requiring buttermilk, and after searching, (my mom did all the work,) we found the recipe.

To go along with the strips, we founds a recipe for egg noodles with cheese and butter. I made these, while my mom prepared the strips. All I did was make the noodles, stir in butter and spices, and finally add the grated parmesan cheese, but my did something fun: the strips.

She rolled them in flour and spices, then she rolled them in egg, and then she rolled them in breadcrumbs. after that, she baked them in the oven and soon they were golden brown.

For dinner, we ate this, along with a veggie salad. For dessert we had sundaes made with homemade fudge sauce, homemade toffee bars, and ice cream.

This food can be found in fast-food places, but you have to admit that this is gourmet fast food.

The Delicacies above are from:

(This is the recipe with buttermilk)

I Bake! Again

Today I came home from school and I immediately wanted to bake. My mom was working, Ella and Abe were busy, and Sadie was at tennis: this was one of the rare times in my life that was ideal for baking. I got permission from my mom and soon I was looking through every cookbook I own, trying to find a recipe that was quick, easy, and most importantly, delicious. As I have done many times before, I fell to using one of my favorite cookbooks, The Big Book of Cupcakes, which my dear friend Anna gave me for my birthday. I looked through it, trying to find a recipe without frosting that tasted good and that was super quick. I quickly found the perfect recipe, Fudgie Babies, and I can tell you that they turned out very well.

I started by melting the chocolate and the butter in the microwave. 

• Confession #1: Instead of putting the chocolate and butter in a bowl and putting the bowl over a pot of boiling water to melt it, I simply melted it in the microwave.
• Confession #2: I used 3/4 cups of chocolate chips instead of chocolate baking squares

While I let this cool, in as large mixing bowl I mixed flour, sugar, and eggs together. 

I sadly say goodbye to to the cleanliness of this white bowl as I prepare to start mixing.

Then I added the chocolate mixture to the flour-egg-sugar mixture.

I made lots of mistakes,

As you can see, I accidentally mixed a little too energetically.

When I was pouring the chocolate mixture into the flour-egg-sugar mixture, I accidentally dropped the chocolate mixture into the other ingredients.

I made lots of other mistakes, (I didn't even bother to take a picture of my sleeve) but they got into the oven without any serious mishap,

And soon they were out of the oven, and in my mouth!

Tonight, our dinner was provide by my mom's dear friend who has been praying for us and who got us flowers along with dinner. We all are now enjoying our delicious meal!

Fudgy Baby Cakes

From: The Big Book of Cupcakes Cookbook

You will need:

• 6 (1-oz.) semisweet chocolate baking squares 
• 1 cup butter
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose soft-wheat flour
• 4 large eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• paper baking cups
• vegetable cooking spray
• powdered sugar

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

2. Pour water to a depth of 1 inch into the bottom of a double boiler over medium heat; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer; place chocolate and butter on top of double boiler over simmering water. Cook, stirring occasionally, 5 to 6 minutes or until melted. Remove mixture from heat, and cool ten minutes. 

3. Whisk together sugar, flour, and eggs in a large bowl; add chocolate mixture, stirring until combined. Stir in vanilla and salt.

4. Place paper baking cups in 2 (12 cups) muffin pans, and coat with cooking spray; spoon batter into cups, filling 2/3 full.

5. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Be careful not to over bake; they should be gooey. (They will crack and sink in the middle;  this is normal). Cool in pans on wire rack 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks, and cool completely.

6. Sift powdered sugar over the top of each  cupcake.

Tips: Please Read

• If you don't have chocolate baking squares, just use 3/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips. Mine turned out fine.
• For #2 , it is easier to simply melt the chocolate and butter in a saucepan or in your microwave. 

Enjoy them!

-Mia Susan