Category Archives: Cookies

February 3, 2016 · 1:41 pm

Stop the Rumors!

Legendary Cookies

 

Long before the Internet or social media, an urban legend circulated about a woman charged $250 when she asked Neiman Marcus Cafe for its cookie recipe. Her revenge was to circulate the recipe worldwide. Neiman Marcus is innocent of gouging anyone for a recipe and now prints it online for all to enjoy, but this urban legend persists. You’ll find it in Facebook posts and emails. In fact, I saw it again today on Facebook. 
Stop the rumors! Share this post with your friends.

The cookie recipe is a good one, although I reserve baking these cookies for the holidays. Too rich with calories for me! The first time I baked these, I took them to a covered dish Christmas party at our church. They disappeared quickly, and I had numerous requests for my secret recipe.

Here it is typed from my tattered Xerox copy I got in my Atlanta office in 1991. A tin of these cookies makes a terrific gift.

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups butter 
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 cups brown sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 tsp. vanilla 
  • 4 cups flour
  • 5 cups oatmeal (blended to a fine powder)
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 2 tsp. baking soda
  • 24 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 8 oz.-Hershey chocolate bar, grated
  • 3 cups chopped pecans (or walnuts)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 375°.
  2. Cream butter and both sugars.
  3. Add eggs and vanilla.
  4. Mix in flour, blended oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.
  5. Fold in chocolate chips, Hershey bar, and nuts. 
  6. Roll into balls (approximately 3/4″ diameter) and arrange two inches apart on a cookie sheet.
  7. Bake for 10 minutes.

Yield: 100+ cookies

 

Note: This recipe is neither hasty nor healthful, but it sure is tasty!

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December 23, 2012 · 8:06 am

HASTY TASTY HOLIDAY COOKIES

All you need!

All you need!

I’m not a great baker, so I’m a fan of cake mixes. I seldom make cakes, but the mixes make good cookies, muffins, etc. During the busy holiday season, I whip up these cookies in half an hour, which qualifies them as “hasty tasty” treats. They’re simple and as reasonably healthful as cookies can be because I use coconut oil. Coconut oil is a good choice for cookies because it is solid at room temperature like Crisco or butter but without the trans fats. Coconut oil is monounsaturated fat. Still, it’s fat and 120 calories per serving, so it isn’t a free pass. Hey, it’s cookies and it’s the holidays. Live a little!

RECIPE

Cake Mix Cookies

Ingredients:
1 standard box cake mix
½ cup coconut oil
1 egg

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375°.
Combine the oil and the egg (I soften the coconut oil about 15 seconds in the microwave, but no more. You don’t want scrambled egg!).
Add the mix and stir to combine. You can use a pastry blender, but I use my hands. The heat from my hands helps soften the coconut oil.
Press or roll out the dough and cut out cookies (or you may drop rounded teaspoons of dough onto the cookie sheet).
Bake cookies on an ungreased baking sheet for 8-10 minutes, just until they start to brown at the edges.
Remove cookies immediately to a cooling rack.
Enjoy!

holiday2

Hasty Tasty Holiday Cookies

(Makes approximately 3 dozen, depending on how large your cookies. One-inch diameter cookies yield about 3½ dozen)

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January 28, 2011 · 11:00 pm

A Blonde’s Blondies

My friend Sue (Writer Susan R. Sweet) made us blond brownies for Christmas, and they were awesome! Rich, buttery taste with brown sugar and pecans in the background. Yum. Wickedly delicious. I asked for her recipe, and she generously gave it to me, but I’m no baker. Too much measuring, too many ingredients…a bit too scientific for my once-blond head.

I figured I could make a close facsimile of Sue’s blondies–not as good, but good enough. So I experimented and developed my Hasty Tasty Meals version of blondies. Still naughty and high calorie, but lightened a bit.

RECIPE

BLONDIES

Ingredients:

1/2 stick butter
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup egg substitute (Or 2 eggs)
1 box Butter Pecan cake mix (510 g)
1 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Spray a 9″ x 13″ bar pan or jelly roll pan with nonstick cooking spray.

With the mixer on its lowest setting, mix butter, oil, and egg substitute into the cake mix. Batter will be stiff. Add a tablespoon of water if too stiff. Add the pecans and mix just until incorporated into the batter.

Spread the batter into the bar pan and bake 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick tests clean. Remove and let cool 5-10 minutes. Cut into squares, and enjoy.

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February 4, 2009 · 5:33 pm

Happy Valentine’s Day

heartlineWant to bake your sweetie something for Valentine’s Day but nothing too unhealthful?  Try my valentine heart cookies. Although I use refined flour and sugar, there’s no cholesterol, no high fructose corn syrup, and only good fats. If you don’t overindulge, a couple of these cookies won’t ruin your diet.  In the spirit of hasty tasty meals, this one skips the measuring of dry ingredients and the mess of food coloring by using red velvet cake mix.  It’s a trick I use for Christmas cookies, too.  Enjoy!

RECIPE

Valentine Heart Cookies
(Makes 3-4 dozen medium cookies)

Ingredients

1 18.25 oz. box of Red Velvet cake mix
½ cup canola oil
¼ cup egg substitute

Directions

Mix together into a stiff batter (If too stiff, add a tablesp0on of water) and roll out for cookie dough (approximately ¼” thick).  Using a heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut out cookies and arrange on an ungreased stainless steel cookie sheet about ½” apart.

Bake cookies at 375°F for about ten minutes or until barely brown around the edges.  To avoid overcooking, remove the cookie sheet from the oven but leave the cookies for about 5 minutes.  They will continue to cook on the residual heat of the cookie sheet.  Then using a spatula, move each cookie to a rack to cool.

Serve cookies on paper heart-shaped doilies.

If you’ve followed my newsletter and blog, you know that I advocate a reasonable approach to diet. I’m hardly a health nut. But I do steer clear of a few bad ingredients, i.e. trans fats, added growth hormones, and high fructose corn syrup by carefully reading all labels. I drink organic skim milk and avoid unhealthful fats as much as possible. Lately, though, I’ve seen television ads defending high fructose corn syrup. Lest you be confused, let’s ask the food industry an important question: If high fructose corn syrup is nothing but corn syrup, why does it appear on labels listed separately and in addition to corn syrup? Sorry, but I’m unconvinced of its wholesomeness.

To add to my wariness, I read in EATING WELL magazine a report that according to two studies, HFCS is contaminated with Mercury. Ouch! That’s not appetizing.  If you’re interested in your sweetheart’s health, don’t buy him or her products containing HFCS.  Play it safe.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

“Chef Cheri”

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