Muffin cookies: Mmmm, yummy
I have been trying, off and on, over the past six months to make a muffin-style cookie similar to a certain Chunky Monkey cookie at a neighborhood foodie joint. Until this afternoon, I hadn't succeeded with anything that tasted remotely good. I modified a recipe from a kids cookbook from some library somewhere (could be the school or the public) and here's what they came out like:
Satisfyingly moist and thick and soft, no crunchy edges and enough bananas to give you a real monkey sense of goodness. Oh, and chocolate chips to make the perfect snack.
1/2 cup of butter
3/4 cup of agave and maple syrup, mixed in whatever ratio you want
1 egg
2 cups of fruit (the original said pumpkin, I used banana)
1 tsp of vanilla
2 cups of flour (I used half AP and half whole wheat)
3/4 tsp BS
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup of chocolate chips
1. Cream the butter, syrups and egg together. Add fruit and vanilla. Mix dry separately and add to wet, mixing just enough to combine.
2. Drop onto parchment or greased sheet, very wet dough, you will need a second spoon to push it off. Bake for 18 minutes at 350 or until golden.

Making cookies en masse
Here's a tip that I picked up from our neighbor who is a chef. He makes batches of cookie dough and divides out enough for a dozen cookies, shapes it into a long rectangle on plastic wrap, wraps it up and freezes it. Then he pulls it out of the freezer, slices the dough up and bakes it from frozen. I think you need to add a couple of minutes to the overall bake time to make up for the freezing but they taste great. I tried this with wax paper and I wouldn't recommend wax paper because it tears too easily. Also, you need to make sure that the plastic wrap isn't embedded in the dough somehow otherwise when you take it off, it will be frozen 'in' the dough and you might not get it out without having to thaw the whole batch of dough. Here are the ones I made last night (chocolate chip cranberry almond cookies) and, as you can see, I wasn't sure how much dough would make a dozen cookies.

Leftover Oatmeal Cookies
Pippa loves oatmeal but we often have leftover (especially on the mornings when I'm not fully awake and mis-measure and end up making oatmeal for 6). A couple of weeks ago, I went hunting for a recipe that would use up the leftover oatmeal because it was so wasteful to throw it away, but no one wanted to eat cold, gummy oatmeal.
This cookie recipe turned out really well, with my usual modifications. (original is from Mrs. Fields Cookie Book)

2.25 cups of flour (I used all-purpose this time because we were out of whole wheat but would probably use half-half normally)
1/2 cup of wheat bran
1/2 tsp BS
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup of cooked oatmeal (generous)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup of marg/butter
2 tbsp honey
2 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs
1.5 cups golden raisins
3/4 cup of chocolate chips (substitute nuts if you prefer)

Mix the oatmeal, sugars, butter, honey, vanilla and eggs together. Measure out dry ingredients (I dump it into the mixer bowl but you can measure it into a separate bowl if you prefer) and mix together. Fold in raisins and chocolate chips. Drop onto parchment paper, bake at 300 for 22 minutes. Cool and store.

Fresh Apple Cookies
So soft, so moist, so tasty. And good for you too, with apples and whole wheat flour! From The Best of Bridge.

Preheat oven to 375.
Mix 2 cups of flour (your preference, I use half whole wheat half all-purpose) with 1 tsp baking soda. Cream together 1/2 cup of butter, 1 cup of brown sugar, packed, 1 tsp each cinnamon & cloves, 1/2 tsp each nutmeg and salt and 1 egg, beaten. Add 1/2 flour mixture to butter mixture and mix. Add 1/4 cup of milk and mix. Add 1 cup chopped apples, 1/2 cup of nuts (I like slivered almonds) and 1 cup of raisins to remaining flour mixture and combine with butter mixture. Mix until combined and drop spoonfuls onto a greased sheet (or parchment paper). Bake for 10 minutes.
Glaze while warm with 1 cup icing sugar mixed with 1 tbsp butter, 1/4 tsp vanilla, 1/4 tsp salt and 1 1/2 tbsp milk.

Lassy Mogs
When we first moved back to Canada, I bought some President's Choice Lassy Mogs and was so addicted to them that I could put away an entire bag. In one sitting, no joke. So, I decided to look for a recipe but couldn't find anything that was clearly a Lassy Mog. However, I did find a comparable recipe and, with a couple of modifications and translation (it was in french), here's what I now call Lassy Mogs.

1 cup butter/marg
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup molasses
1 tsp vanilla
3 1/3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt, nutmeg
1 cup raisins
1 cup dates, cut up
2/3 cup coconut

Cream butter, sugar and eggs. Stir in molasses and vanilla. Mix dry in separate bowl and add to wet. Stir in fruit and coconut. Mixture will be very stiff. Loosely shape into balls on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake 10-11 minutes at 375˚ F.