Snickerdoodles, when make correctly, are the best cookie ever. Soft, warm, cinnamin deliciousness. I can’t make it through the mall without buying one, and the homemade version is even better.

I, without shame, stole this recipe from Allrecipes.com

Snickerdoodles

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, the eggs and the vanilla. Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.
Mix the 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon. Roll balls of dough in mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until set but not too hard. Remove immediately from baking sheets.

Make dough, blah, blah. Roll balls in cinnamon/sugar mix. Lick fingers. Repeat.

Drop on parchment lined cookie sheet.  Space about 2 inches apart. Really, don’t smoosh them all close. Nothing is worse than cookies that mush together.

I make mine a nice ice-cream scoop size and only bake 8 minutes. Seriously, don’t mess around. 8 minutes, that is it. They won’t look done, but they will be.

It’s almost the end of the month which means my pantry is very, very bare. I still need to feed the kids though, so today I committed a mortal sin. You guessed it, I made cookies with shortening.

ACK! I know, I know.

Shockingly, they didn’t suck. I did make the mistake of tasting the batter after creaming the not-butter with the sugars. I might have to scrub my tongue soon.

Chewy Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups AP flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 cups old-fashioned oats
2 cups peanut butter chips

Preheat to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper. Cream sugars and shortening, add eggs and vanilla, mix well. Add flour, baking soda, salt, mix well. Add oats and peanut butter chips, mix well.

Drop by rounded spoonfuls (I use an ice-cream scoop, it’s about a  big tablespoon) onto cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly browned. Cool before transferring to wire rack.

Dough is safe to sample at this point. Do not taste prior to adding the flour. No really, don’t. It isn’t a little reward for your tongue like creamed butter and sugar is. It’s a punishment for not using real butter.

If, for some really weird reason, you don’t like peanut butter chips, feel free to use raisins, dried cranberries, chocolate chips or nuts.

Did I mention this dough is thick? Don’t use your favorite wood spoon.

Switch to sturdier spoon. This is what the mixed dough should look like, after removing wood shards.

Two inches apart. Don’t chill the dough or they won’t spread correctly. Ask me how I know that.

Quick, easy and a good way to use up shortening that you don’t know why you bought.

Some days you just need chocolate. Quickly. No bake cookies have been around since the beginning of time, and that’s about as long as I’ve been making them. One pan, 20 minutes, no fuss, no effort. Chocolaty goodness. What more can a girl ask for?

There are about a thousand recipes for no bakes, but my favorite os from Ezra Pound Cake. I think it’s my favorite simply because the description is so fun to read.

No-Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

1/2 cup butter
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
4 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 to 3 1/2 cups dry quick-cooking oats
2 teaspoons vanilla

Add the first four ingredients into a 4-quart saucepan.

Bring to a rolling boil and hold for 1 minute.

Remove from heat.

Stir in the next 3 ingredients and drop by tablespoons onto wax paper.

Let cool until set.

Feel free to eat these before they cool, I do. Heck, feel free to eat ‘em with a spoon straight from the pan.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Normally I don’t actually eat much of  what I bake. I sample to make sure I’m not about to poison anyone, but other than that I’m pretty hands off. And then there are the Gigantical chewy chocolate toffee cookies that make me forget how to blink.

Pretend the best brownie ever had an affair with a cookie and they made little toffee studded babies. This cookie is that baby.

They’re even better the next day when the toffee has a chance to make itself known. I can seriously devour these cookies. The trick is to watch them closely in the oven. You want the edges to set but the middle to stay soft. As soon as the cracks appear on top, whip those babies out of the oven. Prepare to party. Keep an ice cold glass of milk near by for the full Nirvana effect.

Chocolate Toffee Chewy Bliss
(adapted from Epicurious)

1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 pound bittersweet (not unsweetened)or semisweet chocolate, chopped

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 3/4 cups (packed) brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 bag of Heath toffee bits (12 or 16 ounces)

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in small bowl; whisk to blend. Stir chocolate and butter in top of double boiler set over simmering water until melted and smooth. Remove from over water. Cool mixture to lukewarm.

Using electric mixer, beat sugar and eggs in bowl until thick, about 5 minutes. Beat in chocolate mixture and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture, then toffee and nuts. Chill batter until firm, about 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment or waxed paper. Drop batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto sheets, spacing 2 1/2 inches apart. Bake just until tops are dry and cracked but cookies are still soft to touch, about 15 minutes. Cool on sheets.

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Chocolate Chip cookies have been the bane of my baking life since the beginning of time. Well, those and pie crust. But finally I have mastered them. Bwahahaha. The pie crust is still winning. Argh. Chocolate chip cookies require a few things in order for me to love them. They must be soft. No crunch, not ever. They have to be rich, which is why I prefer all dark brown sugar. They have to be huge and they have to be easy. After a ridiculously frustrating 14 year hunt, I finally found a recipe that worked for me at Smells Like Dessert. I’ve made a few adjustments to the original recipe (more chocolate, way more chocolate). My husband has officially pronounced these the best chocolate chip cookies ever. Sweet, maybe he’ll buy me shoes. Anyhow.. NANEENANEEBOOBOO I win!!!!

First things first, melt all that fat-free butter (we can pretend, right?) and hand mix it in a bowl with the sugars. At no point during these cookies will you plug in a mixer. Don’t try to cream the butter and sugar either, the melting is where the magic happens, baby. Ignore the chipped nail polish on the sous chef. She’s 11.

Once the butter and sugars start to resemble something my darling children made in their diapers, add the egg yolks, whole eggs and vanilla. Give it a quick stir to make to make it all happy. Ignore the gross white egg stuff, I always do.

Once the wet ingredients have made nice with each other, dump in the bowl of flour, salt, and baking soda. This recipe is obviously very high-tech and difficult. Hang in there, I know you can do it! Stir until just mixed, we don’t want tough cookies. We have 5 of those in the house already. Prepare yourself for the massive chocolate insertion coming next. Massive, massive amounts of chocolate. I used a mix of chunks and chips, cause I’m making them and I can be a rebel. OK, it’s because that’s all I had in the house. Soldier Boy (aka the husband) likes really, really chocolaty cookies. That’s why I married him. Cover and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 325. Lick the spoon clean. Spend the next 17 minutes trying not to eat the dough. I pretend to put ingredients away while stealing dough. It reduces the guilt.Drop a 1/4 cup of dough onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. Did I mention these cookies are ginormous? Yeah, baby. DO NOT go all health conscious and try to reduce the size. Sometimes in life, size does matter, and this is one of those times. You’ll thank me later. This first batch of dough seems a bit soft so I popped the bowl into the freezer for the next round. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes (I usually call it a draw and go for 16). The cookies will not look done, don’t let them fool you. Chewy is key here, and these are oh so so soft and chewy and beautiful and gooey and … sigh. Hurry up oven.

Remove from oven. Try not to burn tongue as you woof one down that’s way too hot. I mentioned these were huge, right? Transfer to a cooling rack, dust a little flour on your nose to make it look like you worked really hard and wait for the cheers and gifts. MMMmmmm, cookies.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Smells Like Dessert
Makes 36 cookies.

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated white sugar
2 cups dark brown sugar
1 1/2 cups butter, melted
2 egg
2 egg yolk
2 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 to 4 cups chocolate chunks (depending on what I have on hand, I prefer the chunks though)

** Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. **

1. In small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.
2. In large bowl, combine sugars. Add butter and stir with wooden spoon for a few seconds until well blended.
3. Stir in egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. Be sure that all ingredients are incorporated.
4. Add dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
5. Gently stir in chocolate chips.
6. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least 20 minutes.
7. Drop dough by 1/4 cupfuls onto a greased baking sheet (9 cookies on the sheet, about half the dough).
8. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, until the cookies are just beginning to brown around the edges–don’t even let them set in the middle.
9. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes to allow cookies to firm up.
10. Place cookies on wire rack to cool, and repeat with remaining dough.

Few things make me as happy as a sugar cookie. Not the grocery store kind though, those are an abomination of sugar and blech. I’m sure when the world ends all we’ll be left with is Pamela Anderson’s boobs and grocery store sugar cookies.

I found this recipe at Baking Beauties and it is sugar cookie heaven. I have been proposed to over these cookies. Granted, he was 12, but still a proposal is a proposal right?

Cracked Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 vanilla bean, scraped (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• course sugar to roll the cookies in, any colour

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease 2 cookie sheets.
2. Cream together sugar and butter. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla.
3. Add flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar. Stir.
4. Form dough into walnut size balls, roll in course sugar, and place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet. Don’t flatten. Bake 10 to 11 minutes, until tops are cracked and just turning colour.