Holiday Cooking!

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Holiday cooking has kept our kiddie chef (as well as the editor of Kiddie Cuisine), hoppin' busy. Twenty-four dozen (288) cookies were made yesterday, and today we're more than doubling that. We hope to get back to blogging soon....we have some GREAT recipes coming up, so don't give up on us, okay?

Did you ever wonder???

As we made peanut butter kiss cookies the other night, Mindy's question was, "Why are they called kisses?"

Check out this link for the answer, and see some other fun facts as well...

http://http://www.hersheys.com/kisses/about/funfacts.asp

And here's a link that will take you to a video tour of the Hershey's factory...I thought it was pretty neat to watch!
http://www.hersheys.com/discover/tour_video.asp

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

Ingredients:
48 Chocolate Kisses
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup Creamy Peanut Butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Granulated sugar

Tools:

• Electric beaters
• Spatula
• Cookie pan
• Mixing bowl
• Medium bowl
• Wire cooling rack

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 375°F. Remove wrappers from chocolates.

2. Beat shortening and peanut butter in large bowl until well blended. Add 1/3 cup granulated sugar and brown sugar; beat until fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture.

3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in granulated sugar; place on ungreased cookie sheet.

4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Immediately press a chocolate into center of each cookie; cookie will crack around edges. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. Yield: About 4 dozen cookies.

Chocolate Turtles

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1 recipe in 5 easy steps!

Items Needed:

• Cookie sheet
• Margarine
• Pecans
• Kraft Caramels
• Hershey's chocolate bar

1. Grease cookie sheet with margarine.
2. Arrange chopped or whole pecans in little stacks (may use any kind of nuts).
3. Top each stack with a Kraft caramel.
4. Bake 10 minutes at 350 or until caramel is soft.
5. Remove from oven and top each with 1 square of regular chocolate bar.

We used chocolate chips on ours, but I do believe that following the recipe and using Hershey's bars would be less messy. :-)

We'll be out of town for the Thanksgiving Holiday!

Be back in a couple weeks!

Did you ever wonder???

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Almost everyone likes some kind of cookie. Have you ever wondered where cookies came from? .There are thousands of cookie recipes in the world, let's learn a little bit about them...

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In America, a cookie is described as a thin, sweet, usually small cake. By definition, a cookie can be any of a variety of hand-held, flour-based sweet cakes, either crisp or soft.

Each country has its own word for "cookie." ---------------------------
What we know as cookies are called biscuits in England and Australia, in Spain they're galletas, Germans call them keks or Plätzchen for Christmas cookies, and in Italy there are several names to identify various forms of cookies including amaretti and biscotti, (bee-SKAWT-tee.) The word biscotto is derived from bis (twice) and cotto (cooked).
The name cookie is derived from the Dutch word koekje, meaning "small or little cake."

Biscuit comes from the Latin word bis coctum, which means, "twice baked."

According to culinary historians, the first historic record of cookies was their use as test cakes. A small amount of cake batter was baked to test the oven temperature.

Kissable Candies Thumbprint Cookies

-Here's a recipe that if you're like kiddie chef, Mindy, you'll sneak some of the special ingredient while you're waiting for the cookies to finish baking.

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
1-1/3 cups granulated sugar
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup Cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
Powdered sugar
1 can (16 oz.) vanilla frosting
Additional powdered sugar
1 cup (8-oz. pkg.) Hershey's Kissables Chocolate Candies

Tools:

• Mixing bowl
• Electric beaters
• Medium bowl
• Cookie sheet
• Wire cooling rack
• Heavy-duty plastic food storage bag
• Rubber spatula
• Cookie spatula

Directions:

1. Beat butter, granulated sugar, egg yolks, milk and vanilla until fluffy. Combine flour, cocoa and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating until well blended. Cover; refrigerate dough about 2 hours or until firm enough to handle.

2. Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease cookie sheet. Shape dough into 1-1/8-inch balls. Roll in powdered sugar; place on prepared cookie sheet. Press thumb in center of each cookie.

3. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack; cool completely.

4. Spoon frosting into heavy-duty resealable plastic food storage bag. Cut off corner of bag about 1/4 inch from point; pipe frosting into thumbprint indentations. Sift additional powdered sugar over filled cookies, if desired. Gently press 3 to 4 candies into each filled cookie.

Yield: About 3-1/2 dozen cookies.

Vanilla Variation: Increase flour to 2-3/4 cups; omit cocoa.