Cookie baking equipment

My mom was kind enough to put together a list of her favorite cookie equipment as a compliment to an earlier guest post she did about her cookie sheets here.

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My interpretation of the word gadget is something you can get by without, whereas equipment is something you have to have to perform the task. I love both gadgets and equipment and feel that what is one man’s gadget is another man’s equipment and that you can never have enough of either.



My pride and joy is my Kitchen Aid mixer. When I got it I went all out and got the 6 qt. bowl lift model and I love it. The only thing that would make it better is to take it into an auto body shop and have flames painted down the sides like the one Alton Brown used to use on the Food Network show ‘Good Eats’. Don’t laugh, I’ve seriously considered it!

There are some things to consider if you are thinking about purchasing one of these behemoths. First thing is, do you have the counter space to leave it out? If not, keep in mind that it weighs over 25 pounds and it takes some muscle to lift it out of a cabinet. If you think you have enough counter space to leave it out, make sure you have enough clearance. The 6 qt. bowl lift model is almost 17” tall, I do not have the clearance under my cabinets to store it on my counter. So, I’ve gotten rid of my weight lifting equipment and use my mixer instead.

Another important item is see through canisters. Decorative ceramic canisters are not the place to store flours and sugars. My choice is see though square or rectangular Tupperware or Snapware. Both brands slide in side by side, taking up much less room than round containers, and stack well. Get containers large enough for entire bags of flour or sugar.

For cookie baking I love using serving scoops. I have two of them, a 1 tbsp. and a 2 tbsp. They make very uniform size and shaped cookies that cook consistently and are pretty. I have to admit, I shape every cookie I make after scooping it onto the sheet.

If you’re over the age of 30, you’ve probably used brown paper bags to cool cookies. A couple years ago I graduated to non-stick cooling racks with criss-cross wires and I love them! Anyone who bakes cookies should have two or three of them.

Pot holders, something everyone has, and never has enough of. The little crocheted and knitted ones that your grandmother made for you, or your daughter made for you in Girls Scouts, should be kept only as heirlooms. You will burn yourself for sure, pretty though they are. Last year I found some silicone potholders that I love! They are a little pricey but definitely worth the money.

Measuring equipment, not gadgets mind you, equipment. I cannot get by without two standard sets of measuring cups and measuring spoons. The orange are Tupperware circa 1973, the white ones are also Tupperware, but I’m pretty sure they are less than 15 years old. The white measuring spoons are the best as you can see that they have a flared end and will sit flat on your counter.

I also believe in two and four cup glass measuring cups and have several of the small glass ones for liquid measurement of teaspoons and tablespoons, those are very handy. My next purchase will be a plunge type measuring cup which will be great for peanut butter, shortening, etc.

Spatulas, spoonulas, whatever. You don’t have as many of them as you need. The three I use the most are the narrow one from Food Network, but I am not crazy about wooden handles on anything because gunk can get up in the joint and is hard to clean out; the large one from William’s Sonoma, but it also has a wooden handle and isn’t flexible at all. Ahh, the bright yellow one with no brand name that I bought at a hardware store! It is my go to for everything I do. It’s flexible, there are no crevices to gather goo, and it is absolutely perfect. The only problem is I’ve looked high and low to find more and haven’t had any luck. If I ever find them again I’ll buy one in each size they have and ditch all my others.

Banny's Southern Cream Cookies

Work has picked up again, thankfully my mom has been cooking a lot and has graciously written a guest post for me. I ate like five of these awesome cookies in about two minutes, they are that good.

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When I started my cookie making odyssey a month or so ago I made 18 different kinds, all but just a few were recipes that were new to me. Some weren’t so great (and you’ll never have to hear about those) but I received the most requests for this recipe. I got this recipe from allrecipes.com and absolutely loved it!!

Banny’s Southern Cream Cookies
Source: Allrecipes.com

1 c. shortening
2 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. sour cream
5 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1.5 c. chopped walnuts

3 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350, lightly grease baking sheets.

Cream the shortening w/ 2 cups sugar until light and fluffy, beat in the eggs, vanilla and sour cream mixing well.

Stir in the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda to make a stiff dough. Add the walnuts.

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto prepared sheet. Mix the 3 Tbsp. sugar with the 1 tsp. cinnamon. Grease the bottom of a small glass and dip it into the cinnamon and sugar and gently press the cookies to flatten the balls slightly.

Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until centers are done.

These are amazing, delicate, not overly sweet and very yummy. The recipe actually calls for black walnuts but I couldn’t find any so I just used regular chopped walnuts. Also, I did not grease my cookie sheets, I have good non-stick pans. These barely spread out so you can crowd the pan. I used my small scoop and baked them for 11 minutes.

Booger Cookies

Thank you again, Mom, for a cookie recipe contribution. My blog is now beginning to resemble a healthy wheel of life, all spokes in proper alignment, all portions harmonious with one another. Except I realize the 'baby' section is beginning to make my circle a little unbalanced, but welcome to my real life. Right now there are only two spokes on my wheel, Caleb and work, which makes my car of life ride a little bumpy. Sorry Brent, your turn will come back around soon enough.

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I love all of the old standard cookie recipes, making a few twists and additions practically every time I make them. For one thing, I never use raisins, I don’t like raisins, and lots of other people don’t either. I use dried cranberries instead and keep them on hand at all times. I almost always use dark chocolate chips rather than semi-sweet and I like to use flaked coconut rather than shredded.

But sometimes you just want something totally different and one evening I was snooping around on betterrecipes.com and found these, the name intrigued me so I had to take a look.

You need to try these, they are very good!!

Booger Cookies

Source: Better Recipes.com

2 1/4 c flour
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1 c butter
1 c coconut
1 c mini-chocolate chips
1 small box instant pistachio pudding

Melt butter and let it cool down then mix with both sugars until smooth. Mix in eggs, soda, vanilla and pudding mix. Slowly add the flour. Stir in coconut and chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoon onto baking sheet and bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

I used my small one tablespoon scoop for one batch, they took about 9 minutes and yielded 4.5 dozen. When I used my large two tablespoon scoop it took about 14 minutes and I got two dozen.

See the batter? Now you know where the name comes from...I'm just sayin'.

No Bake Cookies - Two Ways

This week has been crazy for me. I am in the middle of busy time at work, plus my baby has been sick with a cough, requiring breathing treatments with a nebulizer. On top of all that, Brent's grandfather passed away and his funeral was two days ago. For obvious reasons, cooking and blogging has had to take a back seat and for that I apologize.

My mom is great, though, and volunteered to contribute another cookie post for me since I have no material of my own. Thank you mom!

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For those of you who read my last cookie post which was meant to be an ‘America’s Test Kitchen’ type test between my new Baker’s Secret cookie sheet and my trusty AirBake cookie sheet, you know that didn’t turn out so well. You really have to pay attention to what temp you set your oven.

So, for this post I decided I’d be safe and do no-bake cookies. I was very surprised to learn the other day that a friend of mine who is 50+ years of age had never had no- bake cookies! I will cut her some slack, she was raised in Canada. :-P

My no-bake recipe is in my handwriting from when I was about ten, my family refers to them as ‘Thig-a-Ma-Jigs’. As a kid, the first time I heard someone refer to no-bake cookies I didn’t even know what they were talking about.

Thig-a-Ma-Jigs

2 c sugar
1 stick oleo
1/4 c Dutch Process Cocoa
1/2 c milk
1/2 c peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 c Quick Oats

Place sugar, oleo, cocoa and milk in a large sauce pan and bring to a good rolling boil and boil for one minute. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla, peanut butter and oatmeal and drop on waxed paper.

How easy is that!?!

Those of you who are a little younger may not even recognize the word ‘oleo’, which is what we called margarine in the old days. I’ve made this recipe with butter and I do believe margarine works better, the cookies set up a little better and are a little firmer. The other thing I can’t emphasize enough is to use Dutch Process Cocoa, it is so much richer and darker and makes a much better cookie.

No-Bake Peanut Butter Cookies

3 c sugar
3/4 c butter
3/4 c milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c peanut butter
4 1/2 c quick oats

Combine sugar, butter and milk in a saucepan. Bring to a rapid boil for one minute. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and peanut butter then mix in the oats, stirring until the mixture begins to cool. Drop on waxed paper to cool and set.

This is another recipe where I feel margarine is better than butter.

All kinds of Cookies

A few years ago at my dad's urging, my mom treated herself to a professional Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Since then, she has used it to create about four billion batches of amazing cookies. I myself am not much of a cookie maker so I asked her to contribute some posts of her favorite cookie recipes. Thanks mom! This blog is top heavy on Mexican recipes and recipes containing cheese...it definitely needed some balancing out!

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This morning I decided to make a batch of the best chocolate chip cookie’s ever. This is from allrecipes.albertsons.com, one of the sites I like to peruse whenever I have a chance.

Yesterday I bought a Baker’s Secret cookie sheet. I feel almost as if I’m betraying my 20+ year old air bake cookie sheets, but, hey, we don’t owe each other. My sous chef Cookie and I baked the first batch on my new Baker’s Secret sheet. I set the timer for 15 minutes and went on about with some other things I needed to do and before I knew it I could smell them burning, I couldn’t believe it, at ten minutes they were ruined!!!!

So, here I was, banging around and cussing the ten bucks I dropped on that new cookie sheet and am praising my antique air bake sheets, which I pull out for the next batch. I set them for 14 minutes, go about cleaning up the kitchen, and at about ten minutes I could smell them burning!!!

OMG! What is wrong in the universe today? Have I gone crazy? I’ve made these cookies dozens of times and they are always perfect!!! Finally, I figured out that I'd set the temp at 400 rather than 325!!! I can’t believe I did that, I cannot imagine what possessed me, and of all the stupid mistakes I’ve made that’s never been one of them, but, it won’t ever happen again.

I’ve made this recipe using dark chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate and Andes Crème De Menth chips, and they are all wonderful. I use my large scoop and get 20 to 22 cookies. Another reason I particularly love this recipe is you can bake them the minute you decide to without having to wait for the butter to soften to room temperature.

Best Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie

Source: Albertsons.com

Ingredients:

2 c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 c packed brown sugar
1/2 c white sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325. Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

Sift together flour, baking soda and salt and set aside.

Cream the melted butter and two sugars until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in chips with a spoon.

Tip: chilling the dough about a half hour before baking makes the cookies spread out nice and round with fewer jagged edges.

Drop by 1/4 cup about 3” apart and bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until edges are lightly toasted.

Pretty in Pink Bon Bon Cookies

In internet years, two weeks is an eternity. Yet I've been guilty of neglecting this blog for at least that long. And considering that I just celebrated my one month blog-iversary, this delay is beyond unacceptable. But please don't abandon me, I am very busy at work and I just haven't been able to find a way to exist on less than 6.5 hours sleep. Something's gotta give, and so far that something has been a social life and blogging. I am still cooking, and I have made some wonderful things, but by the time the kitchen is clean, I am too tired to come up with clever words. Hopefully soon I can spend an afternoon catching up on all my tardy posts.

I made a meal for my husband and his parents last Sunday and wanted to try something new for a sweet finish. I saw these cookies on Cakespy and fell in love. To make them right I bought myself a new little kitchen tool at Target, a small cookie scoop. Little gadgets like this are so fun to me! Plus, they made these yummies the perfect round shape I wanted.

Bon Bon Cookies

Courtesy of Cakespy:

For the Cookies:

1/2 c. soft butter
3/4 c. sifted confectioners sugar
1 Tbsp. vanilla
food coloring if desired
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/8 tsp. salt

Fillings: I made mine with marischino cherries which I liked because of the pink cookies. Next time I'm going to try to make a great purple color so who knows what filling I'll try.

For the Icing:

Mix 1 cup sifted confectioners' sugar, 2 tbsp cream, 1 tsp vanilla, and food coloring (if desired).

Heat oven to 350.

Mix butter, sugar, vanilla and food coloring, thoroughly. Sift flour with the salt and add to the sugar mixture. If dough is dry, add 1 to 2 Tbsp. cream. Using a small cookie scoop, partially fill with dough, add your filling, then finish with more cookie dough. Place 1" apart on un-greased cookie sheet. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, then cool on a cooling rack. Dip the tops of the cookies in frosting and decorate.

Makes 20-25 cookies.