I think we all can agree that cookies are among the most important food groups for humans.
(The other ones being chocolate, Italian, and au gratin.)
My daughters certainly agree and every Sunday evening as I’m putting the week’s grocery list together, I’m often besieged with requests for things like ginger snaps, oatmeal raisin cookies, and Newman-O’s (the organic version of Oreos).
While I will occasionally indulge the need for Newman-O’s, I am generally of the opinion that cookies are best when homemade. So if my kids want cookies in their lunchboxes or after dinner, we’re going to make them.
I don’t particularly enjoy baking, but I do it because my family eats better that way. No high fructose corn syrup or other hard-to-pronounce ingredients. I tend to make cookies that don’t need to be rolled out and that can be simply dropped onto the cookie sheets. When I mix up a batch, I freeze half of the dough for a later time — we don’t need four dozen cookies in one sitting and it’s nice to have some already-made dough in the freezer for those times when my daughters’ friends swarm the house.
Most of my recipes either come from The Joy of Cooking or the backs of bags of Nestle chocolate chips. Cookies don’t need to be fancy or complicated, so I suggest that you stick with the tried-and-true recipes that have been around for decades. Also, any recipe that is touted as being lower in fat or sugar is probably going to taste terrible, so don’t waste your time. Just make the real thing and savor it.
One thing that has been the Holy Grail of cookies for my kids is Nilla Wafers because I refuse to buy them — in my opinion, they’re not all that good unless they’re mixed into banana pudding, not to mention the ingredients turn me off. A couple weeks ago, I was at Whole Foods and I saw that they sold Vanilla Wafers. I don’t know why I broke the “no store-bought cookies” rule, but I did. My girls loved them. They raved so much, in fact, that I tried one too. Oh my word, those things were GOOD. Crispy and buttery and very vanilla-y. Then I got to wondering if homemade Vanilla Wafers might be even better.
I went online and found several recipes and tried this one the other day. The recipe was so simple that my nine-year-old daughter did almost all of the work in mixing things up and plopping the cookies on the baking sheet. The results were quite good, although now I’m curious about some of the other recipes I found online and how they might differ, so I think we’ll try out others this summer.
So the next time you have a hankering for some milk and cookies, don’t buy pre-packaged crap-laden ones — whip up a batch of the real thing.
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We bake a lot of cookies, and I don’t know why it never occurred to me to freeze half the dough. (D’oh) That would solve the problem of too many cookies at once, or the annoyance of making two smaller batches a week apart. I give a lot of cookies at Christmas as gifts for teachers, school bus drivers and neighbours. I’ve always started baking in November and frozen the cookies, but I never thought about freezing the dough. Do you freeze the dough in wax paper or in plastic containers? How long does it take to thaw?
Rae’s fave are ginger molasses cookies, while Leah likes chocolate chip, but only if I use the milk chocolate chips. Both girls like peanut butter cookies, but they can’t go into school lunches, so they don’t get made as often.
Alison, I freeze the cookie dough in plastic containers. How long it takes to thaw depends on if I put the dough in the fridge the night before or set it on the counter. If the latter, I can usually work with the batter after an hour or two.