from Tracey G.

Gingersnaps from King Arthur Flour

These cookies kind of found me this week. I went to the KAF website to find my recipe for the week, fully intending to search for some recipes with specific ingredients as this past week of being stuck home during snow storms and Polar Vortexes really hit my pantry hard, and no real chance to stock up – so I was low on butter and sugar. I knew whatever recipe I found would have to have very little butter or rely on shortening. And it also had to use a very small amount of granulated sugar or an alternative, like brown sugar.

When I started my cookie search, this recipe popped right up, before I even had a chance to recipe-search using specific ingredients! It was meant to be! It really must have been – as it relied on vegetable shortening and only one cup of sugar, I found my recipe first shot, and didn’t search any further.

These are super-duper easy to make, and that’s not an exaggeration one bit. The ingredient list is simple as well:

COOKIES

• vegetable shortening*
• sugar
• salt
• baking soda
• egg
• molasses
• King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• ground ginger
• ground cloves
• ground cinnamon

*Can you substitute butter for the vegetable shortening? Yes; but the cookies will be soft, not crisp.

COATING

• sugar
• ground cinnamon

The making of the dough is really fast as well, I had these done in no time at all!

You start by beating the shortening, sugar, salt and baking soda together. After that’s blended well, you add the egg and the molasses. Next is the flour and spices, and, I whisked my spices right into my flour so it would be a bit easier – one step in the adding of them to the mixing bowl.

Once you get it all mixed up, mix your additional sugar and cinnamon in a shallow bowl (I use a small cake pan so I can shake/roll the dough balls easily and fairly neatly too), this will be what you coat your dough balls in. Form the dough into about 1″ balls, and then coat with the cinnamon-sugar mixture. I used a teaspoon cookie scoop and this phase went really quick! Scooped and plopped into the sugar mixture and then onto the parchment lined cookie sheet.

These are baked at 375° F, and you have your choice as to how long to bake, depending on how you want your final cookie to be – 11 min for crisp edges, slightly chewy center, or 13 minutes for a fully crisp cookie. I did both and love both!

That’s it. The hardest part about these cookies was making sure there were still enough left by the time I needed to get my photos taken! Some never even made it off the cookie sheet, Jeremy and I couldn’t stay away from them!

I am most certainly adding these to my cookie recipes, they are so fast and easy and taste wonderful, a perfect combination in my opinion! Easy to whip up if you need some cookies FAST for anything from bake sales to holiday gifts/treats!

If you like spice cookies, do give these a try!

from Kris B.

No-Bake Energy Bites

I’m not going to lie, one of my favorite weeks of baking for Sifted Together is when cookies roll back around in the rotation.  That furry blue monster on Sesame Street and I are most certainly soul mates, though I have a hard time getting behind his new philosophy that “cookies are a sometimes food.”  Well, not really…cookies are definitely should be a sometimes food; for me, they are a weak spot and may be the number one reason that I needed to join Weight Watchers.  Like Cookie Monster, I have learned to moderate my consumption.  But…I do still love a good cookie!

As I searched for a recipe, I was sort of looking for a healthy cookie recipe.  What that means, I’m not exactly sure.  I was considering those recipes that used oats, applesauce instead of fat, whole grains, fruit…and then I stumbled upon these – No-Bake Energy Bites.  They are energy bites, not cookies, despite showing up in my search for cookies, so they must be healthy!  Mind games are a wonderful past-timer! 🙂

Whatever…they use ingredients that I love and that I had on hand.  It was a win-win.

BASIC DOUGH

• nut butter (peanut, almond, sunflower)
• rolled oats, old-fashioned or quick
• honey
• dried whole milk
• vanilla extract

All of these are pantry staples, making this a recipe that can be whipped up on the spur of the moment, especially since it is also no-bake!

Once the basic dough is mixed, then the real fun begins!  To this dough, you stir in “add-ins” of your choice – mini chocolate chips, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, cookie crumbs – really, the possibilities are endless.  A total of two cups of add-ins are used in the recipe.  You can choose as few or as many as you like, in any proportion, as they as they total two cups.

I added mini chocolate chips, graham cracker crumbs, coconut, and pecan pieces in equal amounts.  Once the dough and add-ins are mixed together, the energy bites are scooped out onto a parchment lined baking sheet using a TBS scoop.  It helps to place them in the refrigerator to allow them to firm up and hold together.

Oh my goodness!  These things are fantastic!  They are the perfect pick-me-up mid-morning or afternoon snack.  And unlike cookies, at least for me, one of them is plenty.  My sweet tooth is satisfied.  Because there is so much packed into these little bites, I’m not even tempted by a second one.

As I said, the combinations of add-ins that one could use are endless.  I think that cereal pieces or pretzels would be good in addition to those things mentioned in the recipe.  The sky…well maybe the contents of your pantry…is the limit.

As I said, I am thrilled to have found this recipe.  These No-Bake Energy Bites may themselves become a staple item at my house!  The recipe makes two dozen bites and they can be stored in the fridge for up to two weeks.

If you give these a try, please share your add-in combos with us.

Happy baking…or no-baking, as the case may be!