Camellias and Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches

A walk to the mailbox had me enthralled with the blooming camellias, dotting the landscape. Their colors really brighten up the late winter garden. I picked a big handful and arranged them in a favorite vase.

Earlier in the day, I cleaned house, did a mountain of laundry while listening to albums I found last weekend at TBones in Hattiesburg.

After housework, I got in the kitchen and used up part of a cake mix to make cookie ice cream sandwiches.

If the egg is left out of the cake mix recipe, you can have cookies instead. Here’s what I did:

In a medium bowl,  I dumped in the cake mix ( I had about 3/4 of a box mix). I added about a 1/2 cup chocolate chips and a generous dash of cinnamon and ginger. Then I added 1/4 cup of brown sugar and stirred all the dry ingenious together to coat the chocolate chips well. Next, I stirred in half a stick of butter, melted, and enough water to bring everything together. I pressed the cookie dough into a 10 × 12 cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Then I baked it in a 350° oven till the top was golden – 15 minutes or so.

Then I took a round cutter and, well, cut out rounds. I figured this method would be the most consistent. 

I put a dollop of my favorite ice cream on one cookie and topped it with another. Repeating till I ran out of cookies, I then put them on a plate and placed them in the freezer to harden up. Each cookie sandwich was then stored in its own baggy and back into the freezer for individual snack time.

Note: Cool cookie completely before adding ice cream. I didn’t wait long enough, and the ice cream began to melt. Learn from my mistake.

Blessings from the Exile’s Kitchen. 

Eggless Cookies

I ran out of eggs and didn’t want to drive to town, so I tried an egg substitute. Using up last years sprinkles (you know, a few of this kind, a few of that kind-oh they don’t go bad, do they?), I made these eggless cake mix cookies.

Ingredients:

1 box vanilla or white cake mix

2 egg substitutes (for each egg needed, do this:1 tablespoon water, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons oil)

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

A bowl of miscellaneous sprinkles

What to do:

Preheat oven to 350°. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a small bowl, mix up the egg substitute, set aside. In a big mixer bowl dump in cake mix. Then add the next 5 ingredients and stir together. With a scoop, drop mounds of cookie dough into the bowl of sprinkles, one at a time, coating each cookie. Place a few inches apart on cookie sheet, as these cookies will spread. Bake until the tops crack open and the bottoms are slightly browned. Twelve minutes or so. Cool on wire racks. These cookies are very crisp and are great for dunking, if you are so inclined. Makes about 2 dozen.

Great for dunking: won’t disappear into your hot beverage

Blessings from the Exile’s Kitchen.

April Cookie of the Month: Cake Mix Cookies

I said back in December, when I unpacked my cookie jar collection, that I would do a cookie of the month. Well, here goes the first recipe four months late:

Cake Mix Cookies

1 yellow cake mix ($1 aisle

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup Greek yogurt (all I had on hand was flavored)

1/4 cup corn oil

8 Hershey’s Miniatures broken up into small pieces

What to do:

Preheat your oven to 350°. Spray muffin top pans with vegetable spray and set aside.

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In a large bowl mix all of the ingredients. Form dough into balls (about 1 inch or so) and place one in each muffin space.

 

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With a fork, make a crisscross pattern

Place in your preheated oven and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.

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Cool cookies in the pan for a couple of minutes, so they set up. These cookies are crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Cool completely on wire wracks and then place in your favorite cookie jar. This recipe makes 2 1/2 dozen.

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I filled the jar that my oldest granddaughter Parker will get when she grows up and gets her first kitchen. The big strawberry came from Jeanie’s Antiques that was once in Osyka, Mississippi.

Parker is having a baby sister in June. I have been sewing every spare minute I can scrape together. Wednesday evening my 32 year old Dial and Sew sewing machine bit the dust. A trip to the store with the W on it, netted me a new Singer. Wow! is all I can say. Such a difference. I love the new machine and won’t miss the old one.

 

The see through bobbin cover is great; no more sewing nothing, when you’ve run out of bobbin thread,  but didn’t know it. It also has many decorative and monograming stitches to play with. The price was around $200. I am very pleased with it.

Grandmotherly blessings from the Exile’s Kitchen.