Threadbear

So I did it. I managed to finish my first tiny animal friend. I haven't decided on a name for him yet though. Maybe Winslow. His arms didn't come out exactly how I wanted them to and I had a hard time getting the face right (you can tell the nose is just, well, not QUITE), but he is here. So no one can complain any longer that the Threadbare Bakery has no threads. I feel really bad because I know any faults in the bear are not his fault, but mine, but still, I kind of just want to sacrifice this one, say I did my best, and give him to a kitty that needs something to chew on... It's hard to tell because the picture is so close up, but he's only about 5 inches tall and would be a perfect toy once rolled in catnip. Well he would be a perfect toy for about 10 minutes until his stuffing innards got all over the floor. This is probably why I haven't committed to naming him. Naming an animal and then sending it to it's death is just wrong.

Cookie Bonanza

I have to say, I am quite pleased with the way the cookies came out. I made the snickerdoodles and the pecan pralines like expected (though without the icing as I ran out of brown sugar) and since I was running short of time I combined the last two cookies - pumpkin cinnamon chocolate chip cookies. Actually most of the batch was just pumpkin cinnamon chip, but I had some morsels hanging around and added those to the last batch or two.

From top to bottom are the pumpkin cookies, the pecan cookies, and the snickerdoodles.

I can't tell you the final count on how many cookies I made, but there were TONS! I filled two very large tupperware buckets. One could have fit a very large round cake while the other looked the size of a lasagna. I was pleasantly surprised to leave the weekend jaunt a little early with only about 15 cookies left. They were, in short, a hit. One especially nice compliment I got on my snickerdoodles went something like "I really like snickerdoodles, and these taste exactly like snickerdoodles!" Maybe he's not really one for words, but it got the point across.

The snickerdoodle recipe got from joyofbaking.com and the praline cookies I made from a faulous cookie book my mom has so I won't recreate those here (I'll try to get the name of the book sometime). I got the pumpkin cookie recipe from Teri's Kitchen at AOL hometown, but I made some changes to it so I'm renaming them and posting it:

Kerri's Pumpkin Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 c. flour
• 1 c. oats*
  
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 c. butter softened
• 1 c. brown sugar
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
  
• cinnamon chips**
• chocolate chips (optional)***

Recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 350 deg F.
2. Combine flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon, pie spice, and salt.
3. Cream butter in a separate bowl and gradually add sugars beating until fluffy.
4. Mix in egg and vanilla.
5. Alternate adding pumpkin and flour mixture until well combined.
6. Stir in desired combination of cinnamon chips and or chocolate chips depending on preference.
7. On a parchment covered baking sheet drop batter by rounded tablespoons (I use one of those fabulolus cookie batter scoops that releases the batter when you squeeze he handle). Leave about two inches between each cookie. It is advisable also to wet your fingerips and flatten just the tops of the cookies so they will cook evenly.
   
8. Bake about 12 minutes until cookies are lightly browned.
9. Cool on wire rack.
   

The recipe I started from said to pour 1/4 c. of the dough for each cookie and to spread it to shape with a spatula. I didn't want cookies this big and was also afraid they would turn into something more resembling muffin tops. If this is what you are going for try it with the quick oats and the huger cookies and bake them for about 20-25 minutes instead of 12. Doing it my way actually gave a soft chewy pumpkin cookie which I have never had the likes of before as most are either soft and cakey or muffiny. I wanted them chewy so I was very pleased with the results and their relative low moisture compared to the cakey cookies meant that I could cool them and put them in tupperware without them gettin too wet and gooey and falling apart. They actually stayed really well for about a week. They may have been good even longer, except they were eaten so I don't know.

* Original recipe called for quick oats, but I didn't have any so I used rolled oats, this might have made the cookies chewier, which I am all for
** I believe I put in a whole cup of the cinnamon chips. I probably could have cut it to 3/4 because they were REALLy cinnamon chippy. Luckily they're mini chips so they kind of melted into the batter.
*** I only had a very small amount of chocolate chips so I put them in just the last baking sheet worth of cookies. It was probably only about 1/3 of a cup.

More Cookies Coming Up!

So, no, I haven't finished my poor little koala yet. I just can't seem to find the time to sit down and DO something! It seems lately that once I get home, as soon as I am off my feet I am ready for bed. Luckily, baking is a mostly stand up kind of activity.

I am going out into the middle of nowhere with Favorite (my husband) and some friends this weekend to get some r&r out in a cabin in the woods. What a perfect opportunity to bake some cookies! So I have been making cookie doughs nights when I come home so that tomorrow I can bake them all batch after batch. So far I have a log of pecan praline cookie dough and one of snickerdoodle dough in my fridge. I am going to make at least one, possibly two more doughs. One will definitely have some chocolate in it and the other is going to be something pumpkinny! I have some cinnamon chips that my mom so thoughtfully gave to me and I was thinking about making some kind of pumpkin cinnamon chip cookie with them. We'll see how it goes.