Cinnamon Caramel Cookies

52 Weeks of Cookies:  Week 31

The smell of the cookie dough while mixing these reminded me of cinnamon buns... sadly, the taste did not.  You can find the recipe for these here

I'm not sure where I went wrong with these ones (next week I think I'll have to make some kind of classic cookie to make up for my attempts at all these different ones) but part of the problem may have been that I only do half a recipe.  This means for these cookies I used half a box of cake mix,  One would think that I would probably measure the whole box of cake mix out and then divide in half but... I aint got time for that (apparently).  So instead, I take the bag of cake mix out of the box and dump what I guess to be half of it into a bowl.  It usually works.

It could have also been that I don't think we have Milky Way Chocolate bars in Canada?  Or if we do they weren't at the grocery store when I went or the Dollar Store.  But I did look up what a Milky Way was and the very reliable Wikipedia told me that it was similar to a Mars... mostly caramel and milk chocolate.  So I cut some caramels in half and added a couple chocolate chips and then attempted to fold the cookie batter over it all.

I cut the caramels length wise so that they would be flatter... I'm glad I did!

Speaking of folding the cookie batter over the caramel and chocolate... what a disaster!  It was way too gooey.  I had a lot of it on my hands... getting it to fold around that caramel was nearly impossible.  You can see my progression of them looking like they are turning out to not at all.  Was it way too gooey because I didn't use enough cake mix?  Possibly!

Doesn't that cookie front and center look decent and the ones in the back... well... not so decently rolled?

Anyways, they turned out edible.  Very soft and flat but definitely edible.  

Cinnamon Caramel Cookies

Do I love them?  

I do not.

But I've had worse.

So I'm going to give these 6/10

Maybe if you just follow the recipe you'll have better success!

Last week I made some Chocolate Coffee Cookies

Life Lately

I've been doing more than just making cookies... 

Just over a week ago one of the local centers was having a family day with free admission!  The temperatures were somewhere between -30 - -40 which kept most families away... but John and I and my sister and brother in law ignored all weather warnings and took to the great outdoors for some snow shoeing, cross country skiing, and sledding.

first time on snow shoes!

Don't we look thrilled to be outside!!?

On Saturday the weather warmed up to a balmy 3 degrees (yes, just 7 days after our minus 30 degree weather we moved into the pluses).  So my friend and I went for a skate at one of the local parks.  The river trail also finally opened up (for a very short skate) but we decided everyone and their mom would be there... and we may have been right because there were very few people at the park we choose to go to.

I finally was able to wear my new blanket scarf that I got for Christmas!

This was the non skating rink side of the building... it was a perfect winter day (with some snow gently falling too!)

On top of all the outdoorsy stuff I've been busy reading the book I got for Christmas (Krista, I'm nearly finished it), taking down Christmas, and working every single day for the last 2 weeks.

This coming Sunday I'm making some Mennonite comfort food for a friend... meat buns, soup, and jam jam cookies... is there anything else I need to include?

Chocolate Coffee Cookies

52 Weeks of Cookies:  Week 30

Only 22 more weeks to go folks!

For this weeks cookies I strayed from my plan because I came home from work on Friday thinking that coffee cookies would be a good idea.  So I stuck it into Google and came out with these from Becel.

Chocolate Coffee Cookies

What did I change?  Well, I didn't use Becel fake butter or whatever it is they are suggesting... in fact I never use butter when it calls for it because I always have those margarine squares in my fridge that I use.  My brown sugar has gone slightly hard.  I have no idea how I don't manage to go through brown sugar quicker but this one is fairly dried out even with one of those stones in it to keep it soft.  My brown sugar could be impacting my cookies for weeks now!  I also left the dough in the fridge overnight... which I'm wondering if because the dough was chilled it impacted the way the icing sugar looks on top?  I don't know... I'm no expert!

In the end despite them not looking too great they taste relatively fine.  I wish they were a little more chewy though (but I also wish the icing sugar was nice on top... so we can't have everything we wish for!... clearly).  I'm giving these an 8/10.  They are good.... but not great.

Last week I made some Carrot Cheesecake Cookies that you should also check out.

Carrot Cheesecake Cookies

52 Weeks of Cookies:  Week 29

I found this recipe on Show Me The Yummy

The only thing I changed in this recipe was that I didn't use a Duncan Hines cake mix... instead I used a generic store brand because it was cheaper... and also I didn't think the kind would matter.  BUT, maybe it kind of does because I didn't have a separate package of carrots and raisins... my carrot bits were already mixed into the cake mix.

My opinion?  WAY TOO MUCH ICING!  I just really don't know what people are thinking when they put more icing than cookie on these things.  It could also be a problem that the icing is cream cheese which isn't exactly my favourite.  I also find there to be way too many flavours going on in my mouth when I eat these.  There is coconut, cream cheese, white chocolate chips, and everything that goes along with that carrot cake mix.  It's just a lot to take in.

So, I'm going to give these a 5/10.  They aren't terrible... and at least they don't taste like medicine BUT... I don't think I'll choose to make these again.

carrot cheesecake cookies

Sidenote:  Since I'm only doing half recipes I used the rest of the cake mix to make carrot muffins.  I decided to use coconut oil instead of regular cooking oil to make them and they taste great!  So, I think carrot and coconut does go well together... it's probably the cream cheese's fault!

Last week I made some Snickerdoodles for the first time ever.  If you have a hankering for some mini doughnuts these are a great idea!