Chocolate Waffle Pillows

This treat was the most anticipated recipe from the Mrs Fields book.  I think that is because my kids KNOW waffles.  We make waffles almost every week.  We use our waffles as sandwich bread almost every day.  Cavell calls them "Goggles."  By 'them' I am referring to the waffles AND the sandwiches.  I have recently convinced him that the meal is called lunch, NOT waffles.  Just yesterday while playing with Alayna, he named the puppet he was characterizing, Goggles . . . I mean Waffles.  The kids were extremely excited for Chocolate Waffle Pillows.

Chocolate Waffle Pillows
(adapted from Mrs. Fields Best Ever Cookie Book!)
yield 2 dozen

Ingredients
2/3 cup Rice Flour
3 Tbls Potato Starch
2 Tbls Tapioca Starch
1/2 tsp Xanthum Gum
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 cup Cocoa Powder
1/2 tsp salt (because I use unsalted butter)
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened
1 cup Sugar
2-1/2 Eggs*
1 tsp Vanilla

Directions

• Combine flours, xanthum gum, baking powder, cocoa and salt.  Set aside.
• Cream butter and sugar.  Beat in eggs and vanilla.  Slowly add flour mixture until just combined.
• Drop by rounded Tablespoons onto each section of a hot, greased waffle iron.  Cook approximately 1 minute (or more) and carefully transfer to a cooling rack.
• Serve with any yummy topping(s), like powdered sugar, cocoa powder, raspberries, or whipped cream.  We used chocolate syrup.

Notes/Verdict
Because I halved the recipe I needed 2-1/2 eggs.  I beat 5 eggs together, weighed them and used half for the waffles and half for an omelet in the morning.  I don't think they need as much xanthum gum as I used; they might even work with none.  I liked these better off of our small squared waffle iron than from our larger/deeper, not quite Belgian, waffle iron.

These were easy to make.  I feel bad that it took as long as it did to get around to making them.  The kids LOVED them.  Paul did not like them.  I thought they were fine.  I would describe them as a brownie that is almost on the fudge-y side, but isn't cake-y  This might be because they were thin.  They were a bit better as a warm dessert than as "cookies" in the cookie jar.  If the kids think to ask for these again I would be willing make them, but I would suggest other treats instead.  I might try "baking" a few other types of cookies this way, just to experiment.

Weekend Treats

Saturdays are our Treat Day!  Throughout the week I like to think about and plan what our treat will be.  There are multiple conversations about said thoughts and plans.  Although, the word "conversation" implies two people participated.  It is probably more correct to say I talk to Paul about the weekend's treat, and get the kids excited about it.

We have actually been thinking about this weekend's treat for awhile.  Paul even participated in some of this thinking.  Key Lime Pie.  Except, the family can't have gluten, so we needed a different crust.  I am avoiding dairy (for Lex), so we needed to avoid the sweetened condensed milk, and I didn't feel like using tofu.

Key Lime Pie

After a little searching we pieced together an idea for Coconut Milk Key Lime Pie with a Coconut Crust and Coconut Meringue Topping.  Say it with me.  Mmmmmmm, coconut goodness!  This treat needed to be made Friday night so that it could set overnight.

Doesn't it look delish?!

Except, it didn't work out quite that way.  I'll start with the crust.  It disintegrated.  The filling . . . did not set.  The meringue . . . deflated.  Was this treat a total failure?  No, it was still yummy.  Totally consumed by the end of the day.  Cavell stole a piece while it was still cooling on the counter Friday.  I admit to a spoonful that night to check if it was firming up.  For breakfast, Paul "evened out" the pan where our bites where missing.  And there was just enough left for the four of us to each have a small bowl for dessert Saturday night.  We did need to give it a different name.  Key Lime Pudding with Coconut and Whipped topping.  It provided a definite spike to the family's insulin levels.  It did NOT fulfill Paul's desire for a pie.  We will have to come up with a different pie treat for a different Saturday.

Alayna has been asking to make Snowy White Chocolate Crescents from the Mrs. Fields book.  Every.  Day.  It was her choice on the MUST MAKE list.  It turns out, she only wanted to help with the rolling and shaping of the cookies.

Instead, she took pictures of Cavell helping to make them.  When the dough was made I dutifully scooped out "level tablespoons" of the dough for the children to shape.  They both did very well making dough snakes and then bending them into crescent shapes.

Except, these cookies did not keep their shape and looked nothing like the pretty, 3-dimensional cookies in the book's picture.  Instead they became flat C-shaped cookies.  There was no way we would able to roll the cookies in the powdered sugar (the other step Alayna wanted to help with) we could only dust them.

The cookies tasted okay; the whole batch has been eaten.  Even Alayna agrees, these cookies are really NOT worth making again.  Overall, a somewhat disappointing Treat Day.  I still hold out hope that some of the other cookies we have lined up to make from this book WILL be a good find.  But, we will have to wait until our next Treat Day to find out.

Cookies You Can Make With Your Eyes Closed . . .

. . . if you are 3 and have an adult to do the actual baking.  This recipe is also from Mrs. Fields' book with only a minor adaptation for gluten free.



Lacy Oatmeal Cookies
yield 8 dozen (according to the book, 5½ dozen for us)

Ingredients:
1 cup quick oats
1/8 cup rice flour
1/8 cup tapioca starch
1/2 tsp salt
1-1/2 tsp baking powder

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter, softened
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325*
Combine oats, flours, salt and baking powder and set aside.
Beat sugar and butter to a grainy paste.  Add egg and vanilla, beating until smooth.
Add flour mixture and blend just to combine.
Drop dough by teaspoons onto lined cookie sheets, 2-1/2 inches apart.
Bake 9-12 minutes, until edges begin to turn golden.  Cool and remove.

Ours do not look like the picture in the book.  Probably because we used old fashioned oats.  Possibly because I looked for more of a "creamed" look before adding the flour mixture.  I don't know the why of not creaming the sugar and butter and then adding the egg and vanilla, do you?  The book's cookies looked lacy.  They actually said to "peel off" the cookies from the baking sheet. Ours had a little lace-ness to them, but also had a little poof.  Either way they tasted really good.

Brown Buttercrunch Cookies

I checked out Mrs. Fields Best Ever Cookie Book! from the library.


Alayna and I went thru and marked all of the cookies and treats we wanted to try (that weren't just a chocolate chip cookie base with alternate mix-ins). Then I determined which had ingredients most likely to be on hand. From those, I had to guess which ones might be adaptable for Gluten Free flour substitutions. 200 recipes were ultimately narrowed down to 5 MUST MAKE treats before we need to return the book. Brown Buttercrunch Cookies was the first.

Brown Buttercrunch Cookies
yield: 2-1/2 dozen cookies

Ingredients
Cookies:
1 stick (1/2 cup) salted butter, softened
1/2 cup corn syrup
2/3 cup (packed) dark brown sugar*
1 cup old-fashioned oats (not quick or instant)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour**
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chocolate Glaze:
1/4 cup heavy cream
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips (about 1 cup)
2 teaspoons light corn syrup

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.
• Melt butter, corn syrup, and brown sugar over moderate heat, stirring constantly until sugar dissolves. Increase heat to high. When mixture boils, remove from heat and stir in oats, flour, and vanilla.
• Drop by half teaspoons 3 inches apart onto lined cookie sheets. Bake for 8 minutes or until mixture spreads, bubbles and begins to brown. Let cookies cool for 1-2 minutes before rolling.
• Roll around a wooden spoon handle, creating a tube. If cookies become too brittle, return to oven for 30 sec. to soften, then try again. Cool rolled cookies completely.
  

Chocolate Glaze:
Heat cream in microwave safe bowl until scalded. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips and corn syrup. Cover and let stand for 15 minutes for chocolate to melt. Mix until smooth.
When cookies are cool, dip half of each cookie into chocolate glaze. Refrigerate for 15 minutes to set.

*I only had light brown sugar, so added 2 tsp of molasses to the corn syrup
**I used 1/4 cup each of Rice Flour, Potato Starch and Tapioca Starch

Notes
I figured out to drop ALL of my 1/2 tsps of cookies onto one long piece of waxed paper. Then, when it was time for a new tray, I only had to transfer 6 of the blobs with my silicone spatula. Otherwise, my mixture was cooling off between batches making them hard to portion.

The recipe is not kidding about dropping by 1/2 tsps 3 inches apart! These puppies spread. I use half sheet pans for my baking (with a liner that I love) and only placed 6 cookies each time. That worked well, because there is not much time for rolling. I started about 25 seconds after removing from the oven and sliding the liner onto a cooling rack. While it was still too hot to want to touch, but not so hot that the cookie was too melt-y to roll. I had to roll fast, or the last one was too brittle and I didn't want to have to put it back in the oven because the next batch was already in. I only needed to bake them for 5 minutes.

Because you are only using 1/2 tsp per cookie, this makes well over 2-1/2 dozen cookies! Or maybe they are referring to the number of cookies that will actually turn out right. A fair number of mine broke,

the roll became flat,

or weren't quite a roll because of flat parts cracking and poking up.

I did get some good rolls.

Verdict
Meh. Not bad exactly, but not at all worth the effort and overheated fingertips.

I think there is WAY to much butter in these. Making them my hands became greasy and there were actually bubbles in the layer of butter left on my liner after each batch that I had to wipe off. After I finished, I double checked that it said 1/2 cup of butter and not 1/2 a stick. It really wanted the whole stick! Even the cooled cookies left my fingers greasy.

These aren't good cookies for nibbling either. Because they are so brittle, one bite seems to make the whole thing shatter. Cavell decided he needed to eat his over the garbage can.

Edit to add:
I am more willing to call this a candy, like a brittle, rather than a cookie.  And, if I am in the mood for such a candy, I would rather make microwave peanut brittle.  I'll save that recipe for a later post.  If I want a light, sweet oat cookie, I will be making the Lacy Oatmeal Cookies.