Making cookies

What to do on a blustery, snowy evening? Well, how about making cookies!!

I decided to make two different kinds of cookies. This first kind is called Molasses Crinkles. The description reads:

The zing of ginger and the sweetness of molasses combine in perfect proportions in this cookie, sent to us by Jane Booth Vollers of Chester, Connecticut. Her grandmother, Helen Dougherty, made batches and batches of them every holiday season.

Hmm, it sounded yummy and it reminded me of the cookies my mum used to make. So I had to give it a go. Here it is in Freda's pink (yes, pink!) mixer, just before adding the flour.

The second kind of cookie I thought I would try was Macadamia Butter Cookies with Dried Cranberries. These sounded yummy too! The description for this one read:

We love these thick, satisfying cookies as humble as peanut butter cookies but not as crumbly. Dried cranberries provide a slightly tart counterpoint to the macadamia nuts' richness.

This was after mixing up the dough, and adding the chopped cranberries, but before they were mixed in (yah, so obvious, I know!!).


Here they are after they came out of the oven. The molasses crinkles are all done, and the first tray of the macadamia cookies just came out.

I left Freda to take the last tray of the macadamia cookies out of the oven while I went out to snowblow the driveway. That wasn't too much fun because there was a fierce wind blowing...

Sometime later...

As the photos on the store-bought cookies say, "enlarged to show texture". This looks almost good enough to eat, doesn't it? Actually, they are very yummy, although they are crisper than my mum's cookies.

I had a difficult time finding the coarse sugar (also called 'sanding sugar') that the cookies were dipped in. Stores just don't seem to carry it. Strangely enough, I had a difficult time finding caster sugar, or extra-fine sugar, that is used to make meringue. Some stores had that, but they called it 'instant dissolving sugar'.

This is the one of the macadamia butter with cranberries cookies. The recipe said to dip them in regular granulated sugar, but since I had extra of the sanding sugar in the bowl, I just used that. I like the look of the extra texture that it gives.

Guess what? The cookies were all awesome!!! In fact, we decided that we needed to freeze some of the cookies otherwise they would all disappear far too rapidly! :)