Monday, December 5, 2016

#InkRipples~Cookies




Wow!  It's hard to believe I've been away from the blog for FOUR MONTHS!!! What have I been doing? Spending lots of time with my family and doing a lot of nothing. Catching up on some TV shows, a little reading, and lots of just hanging around. In other words, I was taking a much needed break.  But, now it's time to get back into the swing of things.

Katie, Kai, and I have been talking about #Inkripples topics for 2017, and I realized how much I've missed posting these last few months. I'm very excited about the upcoming topics, and hope you will be too!

But, before we get there, we have the last 2016 topic to tackle. Cookies.

Cookies are great! In fact, I indulged in two at work today (a wonderful and unexpected gift from a hockey-mom friend). Another great thing about cookies? Recipe swaps. One of the things I always enjoyed on my early twenties was getting the holiday themed romance book collection (3-5 stories in one book) with recipes from the authors. And if the food (cookie or pie or cake) was worked into the story, even better.

While I haven't worked a cookie recipe into a book (although there is a loose mac and cheese recipe in The Boyfriend Project) I thought I'd share a couple of holiday go to's for me.

Buckeyes:
This recipe has been passed down through my family and are a yearly favorite.  You may know them better as Peanut Butter Balls.

1/4 cup margerine
 2 cups confectioner's sugar
 2 cups peanut butter
 2 cups rice crispies
 Almond bark (or chocolate chips and wax), melted

Cream first three ingredients.  Add rice crispies.  Mix well.  Roll into balls.  Refrigerate 2 hours.  Dip in melted chocolate and set on wax paper.  Store in refrigerator. Notes:  When dipping them in the chocolate, we always stab the peanut butter ball in the center with a toothpick and dip it in the chocolate, leaving a small circular area uncovered- it makes it kind of look like an eye (hence the name).

Snickerdoodles
 My son recently mentioned that this is his favorite cookie, so I see a batch of these in the near future! This recipe is from Betty Crocker's Cooky Book.

1 cup shortening (part butter or margarine)          
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 1/2 cups sugar  
1 tsp. baking soda
 2 eggs
1/4 tsp. salt 
2 3/4 cups flour
2 Tbsp. sugar  
2 tsp. cinnamon

Heat oven to 400.  Mix shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, and eggs thoroughly.  Blend flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.  Stir in.  Shape dough in 1" balls.  Roll in mixture of cinnamon and sugar.  Place 2" apart on ungreased baking sheet.  Bake 8-10 minutes.  These cookies puff up at first, then flatten out.  Makes 6 dozen cookies.

 What are your favorite cookie recipes? Share in the comments below!! Be sure to check out Katie and Kai's posts. And stay tuned for the 2017 #Inkripple topics!!




Ripples in the Inkwell is a themed meme hosted bKatie L. CarrollKai Strand, and me, Mary Waibel. We post on the first Monday of every month. If you would like to participate compose your own post regarding the theme of the month, include any of the images displayed on the #InkRipples tab above, and link back to our three blogs. Feel free to post whenever you want during the month, but be sure to include #inkripples when you promote so readers can find you. The idea is that we toss a word or idea into the inkwell and each post is a new ripple. There is no wrong interpretation.