Finally, the 12th Cookies of Christmas. As I had mentioned earlier, life has been a bit of a whirlwind since the Wednesday before Christmas.
Jeff's parents moved in with us this past August and have an in-law apartment in the back of our house. On Wednesday the 22nd, Jeff's mom fell and broke her hip. After spending two days at Good Samaritan Hospital in Brockton and six days at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Althea is resting comfortably at the Harrington House (Rehabilitation Center). We expect her home next week.
This put much of my cooking as well as blogging into a tailspin. Between hospital visits and caring for Jeff's dad, dinners (and desserts) were scarce at best. We are finally moving into a more normal pace and blogging will resume at two days a week.
As I tried to figure which would be the twelveth (12th) cookie, I went back and forth between chocolate and fruit. Chocolate won out but in a fun way. (Did you think it wouldn't?) I found one of my favorite recipes and decided to mix it up with vanilla and chocolate. These sandwich cookies are very easy to make with simple ingredients and delicious results. They look like little whoopie pies, but taste better...a little sweeter.
I found this recipe on the side of a Pillsbury's Dark Chocolate Cake box. This is a semi-home made recipe which allows you to make them quickly. It starts with the cake mix and ends with you deciding whether you would like to make your own filling or use purchased frosting.
Ingredients:
1 box of Pillsbury Dark Chocolate Cake Mix (for the vanilla cookies, use yellow cake mix)
1/2 cup of butter, melted
1 egg, slightly beaten
Preparation:
Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Mix all three ingredients until they are well combined, forming a ball. Using a tablespoon of dough, roll each ball into a 1-1/2 inch ball. Place on a cookies sheet 2 inches apart. This will yield about 30 balls. Bake for 8-10 minutes until puffed and slightly cracked.
Cool on cookie racks.
Frosting Ingredients:
2 cups of confectioner's sugar
1/4 cup of shortening (crisco)
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
1 egg white
(if you would like to make chocolate frosting, add 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder to one cup of vanilla frosting)
Preparation:
Place egg white, vanilla and shortening in a bowl and beat until slightly lumpy and frothy. Add confectioner's sugar one cup at a time, getting a blended consistency. The frosting is sweet so you may want to add the second cup in intervals, tasting in between.
Once the cookies have cooled, add a tablespoon of frosting to each cookie or more if you like filling. This recipe yields about 15 cookies. If you don't want to make the frosting a prepared frosting will do.
Making both flavors was fun, along with mixing up the chocolate and vanilla frostings. This recipe pleased every taste. Make some for your next celebrating!
The list of all Cookies of Christmas for 2010 are:
6. Re-vamping Andria's Chocolate Chip Cookies
7. Real Simple's Raspberry-Walnut Crumble Bars
9. Peanut Butter Chocolate Coconut Bars
10. Bread & Chocolate's Cranberry Orange Pistachio Biscotti
11. Martha Stewart's Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies
12. Chocolate and Vanilla Sandwich Cookies
