THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 14, 1995 TAG: 9511140027
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: MOM, I'M BORED
SOURCE: Sherrie Boyer
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
FALL BLEW IN and we promptly turned on the oven: bread, cookies, bean stew. Our neighbor brought over apple pie. Three doors down there were hot cinnamon rolls. It's definitely the season to bake.
And children love to cook. Our favorite recipes are easy, mixing-bowl treats. Personally, I prefer things that pour out into loaf pans or muffin tins. Endless trays waiting for spoonfuls of cookie dough wear me out. We do those, but with a twist: we make refrigerator dough cookies, freeze the dough in waxed paper rolls, and then bake a tray or two at a time whenever the cookie panic strikes.
One other thing we'll do this month is make Oreo turkeys. These you can make without turning on the oven, and they're a must for the Thanksgiving table.
The recipes that follow are gifts from friends and family. I don't know their origins. They are some of our favorites. But just about any easy cookie recipe can become a refrigerator cookie.
Just roll the dough into logs, wrap in waxed paper and refrigerate or freeze in airtight bags. To bake, slice frozen with a sharp knife. Roll the log every other slice if it seems to flatten.
Children can help fully with every stage of this, although you may want to handle the slicing and the oven parts yourself. Our children enjoy arranging the unbaked cookies on the tray; I can't slice enough to satisfy them.
Oreo Turkeys: Open an Oreo carefully so that all or most of the white creme filling stays on one side. The filling is now ``snow.'' Paint the remaining plain side with chocolate frosting.
Stand it, wedged delicately into the edge of the snow, facing you. Dip a malted milk ball in the frosting and stand it in the center of the snow, but near the frosted cookie.
Onto the frosted cookie, arrange six candy corns, pointing in toward the milk ball, so that the colorful corns appear as feathers sticking out from the turkey's body. Dip a red hot in the frosting and drop it onto the milk ball.
Step back and look at your cookie. You'll see a turkey, with brilliant feathers and that flappy red thing, sitting in the snow. Make a bunch and use them as place cards, writing a name on paper to place by the turkey's body.
Chocolate Crinkles: Melt 4 squares unsweetened chocolate with 1/2 cup margarine in microwave. Beat in 2 cups sugar. Then, one at a time, beat in 4 eggs. Add 2 teaspoons vanilla.
Combine 2 1/2 cups flour with 2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Beat in, blending well.
Cover and chill overnight. Remove half of the dough from refrigerator, and taking bits (so as not to warm too much at a time) round the dough into teaspoon-size balls. Roll them in confectioner's sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Cookies will spread and be very soft from the oven. You may want to sprinkle more confectioner's sugar on top. Once cookies harden, they can be stacked in a tin without sticking together. Recipe makes 4 dozen.
Chocolate Pinwheels or Checkerboards: We use this recipe from Doubleday. It's the same for either type of cookie, only the design is different. Our children seem to like the pinwheels best.
Cream together 1/2 cup butter or margarine with 1 egg, 1 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla until fluffy. Combine 2 cups flour with 1/2 teaspoon each salt and baking soda; add slowly to creamed mixture. Divide dough in half. Into one half, add a 1-ounce envelope of no-melt semisweet chocolate. Mix well.
To make pinwheels, flatten the chocolate dough into a large rectangle (12 by 9 by 1/4 inch) on waxed paper. Flatten the vanilla dough the same way on another piece of waxed paper. Then carefully flip the vanilla onto the chocolate, matching the edges as best you can. Peel off the waxed paper and roll the dough up like a jelly roll. Wrap in waxed paper and refrigerator overnight.
To make the checkerboard, divide the dough again and roll each into a skinny rope. On waxed paper, lay one vanilla and one chocolate, touching, side-by-side. Lay the remaining two ropes on top, reversing the order. Press together gently, wrap and refrigerator.
To bake either, slice thin, about 1/8 inch if possible, and bake 8-10 minutes at 400 degrees.
Makes 6 dozen.
The recipe below we refrigerate only because it makes even more than endless trays of cookies. This gives us two days to bake them all in.
Nana's Sugar Cookies: In the mixing bowl, all at once, combine 2 cups sugar, 1 cup each shortening and milk, 3 eggs, 5 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda mixed in a teaspoon of milk. Beat well. Drop onto lightly greased sheets. Sprinkle with colored or plain sugar. Bake at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
Enjoy. by CNB