Raspberry Cream Sandwich Cookies

So two weeks ago I had this brilliant idea to bake chocolate cupcakes with raspberry frosting for Rebecca’s small group. They just looked so adorable! So I did bake them, and they were adorable, only it turns out I honestly just don’t like raspberry. (Which I guess isn’t really a problem, considering they were for Rebecca and her girls, not me.) What was a problem was all the leftover raspberry frosting in my refrigerator.

Chocolate Chip and Toffee Cookies

It seems that nearly every person in the food-blogosphere is, or was at some point, on the quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Me, I’m not so concerned about the holy grail of chocolate chip cookies. Cheesecake, maybe I could get into that (if I had the time… and, let’s be honest, the money– cream cheese is expensive!). But you’d be hard-pressed to find a cookie I didn’t like, so the idea of putting in all the effort to find my perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe holds little appeal. There are so many other wonderful cookies I could be baking!

Brownies in a Hurry!

I don’t care too much for Sandra Lee (her tablescapes really intimidate me, I’m not kidding), but I have to admit: it’s how the average person cooks. I can’t always make everything from scratch; I have neither the time nor the ambition. Today especially, time has been a commodity I just don’t have. By the time I got home from class and discipleship this afternoon, I needed something quick and easy to bake for Rebecca’s small group (their second meeting of the semester). Fortunately I had the forethought… or maybe the lack of will-power…  last week to buy brownie mix (it was on sale buy one get one free at Publix!). But me being me, I couldn’t just follow the directions on the back of the box and send along any ol’ brownies. Oh no, no, no. 

Double Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

So in addition to being a full-time student and part-time employee, I am also the honorary “mother” of my roommate’s freshmen ministry small group. I don’t quite remember how I earned this position, but sometime last semester I decided to send cupcakes with Rebecca to her small group… and the next week I sent cookies… and every week after that I sent her with some baked good or another. (Incidentally, all the girls made me the most adorable thank-you notes towards the end of the semester. You know, with big bubble letters and hearts and everything. It was awesome.)

When I got home from classes around 4:00 this afternoon, I realized that today is the first small group meeting of the semester! Time to throw something together fast. Last week I devised some elaborate plan to make mini-trifles based on my amazing almond-chocolate pudding that I mentioned in passing a few posts ago, but that brilliant plan will have to wait for some other week since I don’t have the necessary ingredients hanging out in the pantry.

Dark Chocolate Cherry Oatmeal Cookies

Friday Pandy and I made two (!) pumpkin pies with my leftover pumpkin puree (and she still ended up taking some of it home… apparently I had a lot more pumpkin than I originally thought). This morning I whipped my remaining whipping cream with a bit of almond extract, then folded it into a prepared chocolate pudding mix. So needless to say, I do not need any other sweet treats around my kitchen.

Well, tell that to Bake or Break’s recipe for Dark Chocolate Chunk and Dried Cherry Oatmeal Cookies.

Chocolate Shortbread

Oh my, another Martha recipe.  I promise we’re not total addicts.  It’s just that Mary gave me Martha Stewart’s Cookies book for Christmas, so I had to try a recipe from it.  I had a lot of extra butter in the fridge from holiday baking, so I decided on a shortbread recipe.  Martha calls them “Chocolate Charms,” but I skipped dusting mine with cocoa powder, which gives me reason enough to rename them (drum roll, please) chocolate shortbread.

Martha’s Chewy Chocolate Ginger Cookies

This morning was a baking sort of morning. Some days are like that. (Okay, most days are like that.) The only problem this morning was I didn’t have any eggs. And how many things can you bake without eggs? Only one recipe I know off the top of my head: Marthat Stewart’s Chewy Chocolate Ginger Cookies. Amanda (who I affectionately call Pandy) and I have made these cookies together twice before, but I was certain that the batch I decided to bake this morning would fail miserably. We’re not too neurotic about following recipes precisely– actually, we rather like to experiment– so surely I couldn’t completely botch these cookies.