This was my first attempt at making any kind of shortbread. They were… okay. I’ve been calling them “marginally successful”. Comparing mine to the ones in the source picture, I’m going to go ahead and say that I let a bit too much of the juice from the maraschino cherries into the cookies. I also probably underbaked them by a bit. They still tasted decent though! Also problematic was the dark chocolate chips that I used were awfully wide at the base which made it difficult to make clean slices in order to put them in the oven.

I really don’t have much else to say about these… I wouldn’t discourage you from making them, but I would recommend making sure your chocolate chips are either smaller, or chop them up, and to make sure you drain the maraschino cherries. I’ll likely try these again at some point.

Cherry Dark Chocolate Chip Shortbread
Source: Closet Cooking

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup maraschino cherries, chopped
1/2 cup white and/or dark chocolate chips
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
8 ounces white and/or dark chocolate, chopped (optional)

Cream the butter and the sugar.
Mix the flour and the salt.
Mix the dry ingredients into the wet until it starts forming larger clumps.
Mix in the maraschino cherries, white chocolate and vanilla extract.
Form the dough into the shape that you want, wrap it in plastic and let it chill in the fridge for at least an hour. (I did a rectangular log but you could also do a circular log.)
Cut the log into 1/4 inch thick slices and place them on a parchment lined baking pan with one inch of space between them.
Bake in a preheated 325F oven until they just start to turn lightly golden brown on top, about 10-15 minutes.
Let cool completely.

After the end of our roller derby season, we had a couple weeks off of practice– the long awaited “derby break.” I took the opportunity to use some vacation time at work and get the heck out of town! To be more specific, I drove 800 miles away to see my dad for the first time since he moved last summer.

While I was there, he mentioned (more than once) a recipe that he’d come across with cookies, marshmallow fluff and vanilla frosting. We never made them, but when I stumbled across the recipe after I got home, I knew it had to have been exactly what he was talking about. I decided that it would be the perfect thing to post on my blog for Father’s Day!

The ingredients are simple enough: Rainbow chip cookies, marshmallow fluff, vanilla frosting.

You mix up the marshmallow fluff and frosting and then sandwich it between two cookies.

At first it looked promising…

But then it became clear that they weren’t going to look anything like the ones in the recipe photo. Hmm…

They are in the freezer right now, so we’ll see what they taste like later. The recipe calls for wrapping them individually in plastic wrap… maybe if I’d wrapped them each as soon as I put them together they wouldn’t have had time to leak out everywhere?

Happy Father’s Day, Dad! If you make these, I hope they turn out better than mine did.

Edited to add: While they are incredibly messy, they tasted delicious! Let me know if you make them, especially if you have any tips for making them less of a sticky mess than mine were!

Frozen Whoopie Pies
Source: Keebler
1 cup marshmallow creme
1/2 cup canned vanilla frosting*
20 Keebler® Chips Deluxe® Rainbow™ Chocolate Chip cookies (divided)

1. In medium bowl fold together marshmallow crème and frosting. Spread about 2 tablespoons on the bottoms of 10 of the KEEBLER CHIPS DELUXE Rainbow Chocolate Chip cookies.
2. Top with the remaining 10 cookies, bottom sides down, gently pressing together to make sandwiches. Individually wrap in plastic wrap. Place on baking sheet. Freeze about 2 hours or until firm. Store in freezer for up to 1 month.
*NOTE: If desired, substitute another 1/2 cup marshmallow crème for the canned frosting.

Well, yesterday was Halloween, so I was headed to my grandma’s to have dinner with her, and my mom and her husband. I was supposed to bring the pie. Yes, supposed to. If you inferred from that that I, in fact, did NOT bring the pie, you would be absolutely correct. But not for lack of trying.

It was a Turtle Pumpkin Pie, and it looked amazing. I went out and got all the ingredients on Tuesday night, and made my pie… and it didn’t set up. It was one of those deals where you mix it up, and let it set up in the fridge for an hour before finishing it off. I couldn’t figure out where I went wrong. I knew it didn’t look good from the beginning… once all mixed up, the pie filling completely overflowed the pie crust– and that was without the additional cool whip, caramel and pecans!

So yesterday, after I got home, I was scanning the recipe, trying to figure out if I’d made a mistake. Pumpkin, coolwhip, milk, instant pudding mix, cinnamon… it was all there. So I was cleaning up the last things on the kitchen counter when I came across one of the empty pudding boxes, and went to throw it away.

Wait. What does that say??

“Cook and serve.”

Damn! A pie does not set up if you do not use instant pudding mix… cook and serve pudding does not set up if it is merely mixed with cold milk. Oh well… don’t know how I managed to get cook and serve instead of instant in the first place, but that was the problem. I think it was the problem anyways! I’ll have to try my pie again at some point. I’ll just need a new pie crust, cool whip and pudding mixes. Instant this time, I swear.