Lime Meltaways (Pg 121)

I've had some challenges with these cookies that are shaped into logs and sliced. See Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C. I guess they don't look all that bad, but I'm a perfectionist and I'm bothered that they are not perfectly round. The dough, while it's sitting in the fridge, gets flat on the bottom. One recipe says to put the dough in a paper towel tube. That helped, but then as you're slicing it the bottom gets flat. One recipe said to continually roll it while you're slicing it, after you slice a few cookies, so it doesn't do that. That helps. But still none of them are perfect, and that bothers me.

So I thought I'd trick the dough this time by not even trying to make it round. I tried to make it a rectangle. That worked until I tried to slice the cookies. I guess the rectangle was too long and each cookie fell apart right down the middle. Foiled again.

So I went to the other go-to method: roll the dough in balls! I rolled a bit into a ball and flattened it with my palm. Viola! They look like little buttons. Aren't they precious?

They are very small. I guess they're nice little tea cookies or something like that. My Mom nicknamed them "Fairy Cookies" which is very fitting. They're little and delicate and sweet. I'm usually not a big fan of the little delicate cookies but these were really good. They're almost shortbread-y in texture so they're still really rich, what with all the butter. Butter makes everything better, obviously.

They're coated in confectioner's sugar while they're still warm so they have that nice snowy coating. The lime is not overwhelming. It just adds a nice little tang to the sweetness. I like these a lot.

Yield:

Recipe predicted: 5 dozen.
Actual: 5 dozen plus 2.


35 recipes down, 140 to go.

Magic Blondies (Pg 180)

I'm not sure what's supposed to be "magic" about these. Is it that the blondies magically turned themselves into cupcakes? That seems less like magic and more like me putting blondie batter into cupcake pans. Maybe I'm just underestimating my magical powers.

This one surprised me, because I keep seeing it in the book and I've really had no interest in making it. But obviously I have to make everything, so I was looking for something to do yesterday and I figured I might as well. Also I wanted to do some of the "Nutty & Chunky" ones cos I have a bunch of nuts that I've bought and I need to use them. Of course, I didn't have the right kind of nuts for this one. I needed chopped walnuts. I had lots of other nuts and no walnuts. But I looked through the recipe and I thought to myself, I just don't think the walnuts are necessary.

I know, I know, I've been saying I'm following every recipe exactly. But after I made the Double Chocolate Coconut Cookies I realized that a lot of these recipes are just overloaded with stuff.  Coconut flakes, nuts, chocolate chips, dried fruit, like everything under the sun you can think of. I made an executive decision. I decided it's not necessary.

So this blondie (in cupcake form) was supposed to have coconut flakes, chocolate chips, walnuts, and dried cherries. No walnuts. Plus that's better for me cos I'm allergic to walnuts so now I can eat them. Score.

I was surprised with these. They're good! The blondie batter was really smooth and sweet and delicious. Then all the stuff is mixed into it, and then you keep some of the stuff aside and sprinkle it on the tops. This is another thing I'd change. I'd just sprinkle a little bit of coconut flakes on top, mostly for looks. The dried cherries that were on top got too dried out, and the chocolate chips that were on top got too gooey and dripped all over the place. But other than that I really like these little guys. It's a cute idea.

Yield:
Recipe predicted: 12.
Actual: 12.

34 recipes down, 141 to go.

Dark Chocolate Cookies With Sour Cherries (Pg 98)

So this is another one that for some reason I had been really looking forward to. Apparently when I get too excited about a recipe and look forward to it too much, I'm disappointed in it.

First of all it took me a while to find dried "sour" cherries. Did you know that they always sweeten them? Yes, they do. I finally found them at Fairway, of course.

One thing I didn't like about this finished product is that it was too much. I've had that complaint about a few of the recipes so far. This one is chocolate dough, chunks of bittersweet chocolate, and the sour cherries. If I do them again it'd be without the bittersweet chocolate chunks. I'm not crazy about chunks in cookies anyway cos they get all melty and gooey and they're messy to eat and to store. So there's that. It's also just so much chocolate. And come on, I love chocolate, I have no idea why I'm saying this, I just felt the chocolate kind of overpowered the cherries. Maybe I've just been eating too many cookies and I'm sick of them. I never thought that would happen.

It probably is just my cookie overdose that's making me saying all this, cos I brought them to some friends and everyone said they were really delicious. I'm over cookies. For today, at least.


Yield:
Recipe predicts: About 3 dozen.
Actual: Exactly 3 dozen.

33 recipes down, 142 to go.

Coconut Cookies With Passion-Fruit Curd (Pg 39)

Seriously. This recipe was insanely frustrating. The jury is still out on whether or not it was worth it.

First of all, I could write an entirely separate blog about my mission for the passion fruit puree this recipe calls for. I asked tons of people, nobody had ever heard of anything like it or seen anything like it, I looked everywhere....nothing. I never actually found the puree, but I found passion fruit "paste," which was more like a jam, at Fairway. Fairway is awesome, by the way, you should go if you're in the North NJ area. They roast their own coffee and they have a blend called "Fairway To Heaven." Come on, I couldn't resist.

Making this passion fruit curd was weird. All the ingredients (the jam, sugar, butter, egg yolks, some other stuff) are all cooked together and it starts getting thick but then you have to strain it through a sieve and you get all this weird clumpy junk that you have to throw away. It seemed very wasteful. And the curd itself....well, I kinda just liked the jam better on its own.

The recipe says once you make the dough for the coconut cookie, you refrigerate it and then roll it and use a round cookie cutter. OK, I know that a lot of work goes into making cookbooks and there are tons of people testing these recipes so I don't really want to criticize anyone, but I seriously think something went wrong with this and someone was slacking off in testing the recipe. There is no way this dough could've been rolled with a rolling pin. It was way too wet and sticky. I just rolled it in balls and flattened it with my palm. It worked well enough.

The cookie itself was good, but I just really love coconut so I could be biased. You really taste the coconut and the flakes are very apparent in the cookie, and I like that. As with most of the other sandwich cookies, I think this cookie could stand on its own without being a sandwich. I think the passion fruit curd was a total waste of time. I would do it again and just use the jam on its own, but the thing is that passion fruit is a very strong flavor and it overpowers the coconut. Lemon might be nice, but I think the best option would be chocolate. I think if I did it again I'd just melt a nice chocolate and I wouldn't make a sandwich, but dip half the cookie in the chocolate. Like a half moon type of thing. Coconut and chocolate can't go wrong. Can anything go wrong with chocolate? I think not.


Yield:
Recipe predicts: 3 dozen.
Actual: 14. Seriously.

32 recipes down, 143 to go.

Vanilla-Bean Spritz Wreaths (Pg 151)

So making this cookie fulfilled a lifelong dream of mine: to make cookies in one of these neat cookie press things. I don't know why, but I always thought those cookie gun things were really cool.

It's funny because we've had a cookie press in my house for probably about 15 years. And all these years I've really wanted to make cookies using it and I just never got around to it. Plus you can't just use any cookie dough, it has to be a specific recipe for the cookie press, so that was another thing that made me not want to bother. But here I am.

I got in a fight with the cookie press when I first was trying to make the cookies in it. I couldn't get it to screw together and I got really upset. It turned out I just had the piece backwards, so once I figuerd it out I was good to go. Making the cookies themsevles is....a bit strange. It was hard to get the pressure right and get them to come out even. They don't look as nice as Martha's but I think they came out pretty cute. Well, the ones I took the picture of were cute, there were a lot of other ones that weren't cute. Some of them came out thinner and looked more like a wreath, and some of them came out too thick and didn't have a hole in them at all.

Of course, it really doesn't matter what they look like, because you end up eating them anyway. And they taste really really good. The fresh vanilla bean is just awesome, and there's cinammon sugar sprinkled on top. They're delicate and crumbly but they're still rich. They're also really small which makes me want to eat a dozen of them at a time.

I think I need cookie rehab.


Yield:
Recipe predicts: 5 dozen.
Actual: 8 dozen. I think the cookie press I have makes smaller cookies than whichever one they used for the book.


31 recipes down, 144 to go.

Chocolate-Ginger Brownies (Pg 276)

I honestly don't know what to say about these besides one word: YUM. Seriously.

They're pretty much just like the Double Chocolate Brownies, just with the addition of freshly ground ginger. There's also nutmeg and cloves, but there's so much chocolate in here that the other spices don't really compete or even make themselves noticeable, they just add a really nice depth of flavor. And they're moist and rich and awesome.

Best brownie ever.

30 recipes down, 145 to go.

Double Chocolate Coconut Cookies (Pg 173)

My problem with these cookies is that I'm allergic to them because they have walnuts in them. As I've mentioned before, I have some allergies, and nuts are the worst. Except for pistachios, which apparently aren't nuts, but I guess that's another story.

So there's a chapter of "Chunky and Nutty" cookies in the book, and I've obviously been avoiding it just as I've been avoiding "Delicate and Annoying" but it is time to confront the chunky nutty craziness. I just have to be careful not to handle the nuts too much, or forget that nuts are in the dough and accidentally lick my fingers. I almost did that with these. Hopefully I don't end up in the hospital.

I guess the thing with most of these nutty chunky cookies is that they can be adapted by just leaving the nuts out, and that way I can eat them. But of course, the whole point of this project is to follow the recipes, not fudge everything and make things up as I go along. However, I am taking notes along the way of which ones I think will be worth trying again, without nuts. This is one of them.

The dough itself has cocoa powder in it. I didn't use my favorite Royal Mahogany, but the other kind I have from Bergenfield is really great also, so the dough was tasty. And then I mixed in the sweetened coconut flakes. In my humble opinion, the cookie could've stopped there. Coconut and dark chocolate, what more do you really need? But from there white chocolate chunks and chopped walnuts are added. I'm also allergic to white chocolate so when I make these again I'm gonna stick with the coconut flakes and just some dark chocolate chips.

So I didn't get to taste the finished product, but I did taste the dough before the white chocolate and walnuts, and it was really good. Really really good. Apparently the finished product was really really good also, because they didn't last very long around my friends.


Yield:
Recipe predicts: 5 dozen.
Actual: 36 cookies - 3 dozen. Huh?

29 recipes down, 146 to go.

Chocolate Cookie Cutouts (Pg 239)

Alright, so in the book they make these star shaped, and they sprinkle red, white, and blue nonpareils on them before baking. Obviously, that's a cookie for celebrating Independance Day, and that's not for a few months.

Of course, I guess I could've gotten away with the stars and the red, white, and blue this weekend for President's Day, but it's also Valentine's Day and I just can't resist heart shaped cookies. I definitely will make the patriotic ones for Independance Day.

This is a really great cookie. The dough was a little tricky to work with, but it wasn't too bad. The interesting thing is that the dough has confectioners' sugar instead of regular granulated. It makes the dough really soft. They actually recommend freezing it if it gets too soft while you're rolling it, but I didn't bother with that, I just kept working with it even though it was a little too soft. I'm a trooper.

I promise I'm not getting paid to say this but I have to plug a product here. My Mom had gotten a couple different kinds of cocoa from a local cocoa company, and I tried a new one this time and it was out of this world. It was Royal Mahogany from Bergenfield Cocoa. I definitely recommend it. It's the best cocoa I've ever used. Seriously.  

Another thing I love is the cookie cutter (another purchase by my Mom) that lets you put little words on the heart. It has some pre-made words and also a lot of little letters so you can make it say whatever you want. It's fun.

Yield:

Recipe predicts: 3-4 dozen.
Actual: 36 cookies, 3 dozen!

28 recipes down, 147 to go.

Gingersnap Raspberry Jam Sandwiches (Pg 103)

I'm sure it's a bit premature to say this, but this cookie might be my favorite cookie. To be clear, I mean just the cookie part, not two cookies as a sandwhich.

So I'm not sure why it's called a "Gingersnap" but it's in the "Soft & Chewy" chapter. It's a contradiction, because, obviously, gingersnaps are crispy. This cookie is definitely not crispy, it's chewy. Deliciously chewy. There's more baking soda than usual, and it mixes vegetable shortening with the butter; both things seem to make it a lot lighter of a cookie. They are, in my opinion, the perfect cookie consistency. I'm in love.

Another strange reason to call them gingersnaps is that they are not very gingery. Well, that could be my fault. The ground ginger I used could've been the one that's been sitting in the pantry for a while, rather than the fresher new one. Don't ask. But the ginger smelled really gingery when I put it in, so I don't think the problem was the ginger being old. There's maple syrup in the cookie also, and maple is a very hard to compete with flavor. The maple won the ginger/maple battle, and I'm very happy about it because maple is probably my favorite sweetner flavor, so that's another reason this could be my favorite cookie ever.

Is there any reason for making it into a sandwich? I really think not. The cookie on its own is really awesome, and they're kind of big so putting two together for a sandwich is a bit much. I did try it though. Of course the title says raspberry jam is the sandwich filling, but I didn't have any raspberry and it said I could use apricot, which I had. It actually was a pretty tasty sandwich. I liked it, but I prefer the cookie on its own. I only made the two sandwiches and I ate the rest on their own. Well, I gave a lot of them away also, it made a lot. I was happy.

Yield:

Recipe predicts: 2 dozen.

Actual: It made 40 cookies, so it would've made 20 sandwiches. But I was more than happy with 40 cookies.

27 recipes down, 148 to go.

Gingersnap Palmiers (Pg 51)

So I didn't completely fail at this recipe, but it wasn't a total success either. I guess I'd give myself a B-. There were a few complications, and most of them I blame on my oven, but I'll get to that.

If you're like me, you're wondering to yourself, "Self? What the heck is Palmier? How do I even say that?" Of course, if you know how to speak French you're probably not asking yourself the second part of the question, but I asked myself. It's pronounced "pahlm-YAY" but I like to say it phonetically, cos I like to do that with French words. It's funny. It's funny to me, at least.

So I'm browsing around online for information about these cookies, and a lot of pages say "This is a simple recipe!" Well they weren't talking about

the recipe from the Martha Stewart cookbook.

It started out simple. You don't even have to make the dough, it calls for

pre-made pastry dough. And then you make a mixture of sugar with some

spices, and you make a syrup of brown sugar, molasses and freshly grated

ginger. All you have to do is sprinkle the sugar mixture on the dough, then brush the syrup on, and then you roll both ends to meet in the center. Then you put the logs of dough in the freezer. 

I always make too much work for myself by not reading the directions all the way through before proceeding. And like an idiot, I keep telling myself I will change this bad habit, and I keep doing the same thing over again. In this case I should've saved the sugar mixture and the syrup because they're used again right before putting the cookies in the oven, but I didn't realize and I thought I was done with them so I threw them out. Oops. So I had to make more the next day. Oh well.

So I ran into a huge issue here with my oven temperature. The recipe says to first bake them for 10 minutes at 425 degrees, then take them out, flip them and brush more syrup on them, and bake them for another 10 minutes at 400 degrees. Now, I've mentioned before my oven has a bit of a problem with keeping the temperature steady. I had pre-heated it to 425 and literally left it at 425 for like, 40 minutes while I was prepping the cookies. It stayed constant. Until I put them in and 8 minutes into them baking it shot up to 450 degrees. WHAT THE......?!? 

Yeah, I was a bit angry. Especially because these are made with puff pastry, which, as the name implies, puffs when it's baked. These puffed out way too much and lost their cute little heart shape. One of the things I found online said to watch these while they bake specifically because they'll puff out too much, and it said make sure your temp isn't too high. If I ever bake them again, I'm just baking them at 400 degrees like every other sensible recipe says.

So I was a bit disappointed with the way these looked but they taste pretty nice. I found them to be a bit sticky. The syrup is brushed on top of the cookie halfway through baking. Even though it ends up getting pretty crispy, it's still pretty sticky. But it does taste a lot like gingersnaps, which I love. That would be the brown sugar and molasses, which I love.

Another thing I found online says that these are sometimes called Elephant's Ears. I've never seen a real live elephant ear, but I'm pretty sure that they are bigger than these cookies.

Yield:

Recipe predicts: 3.5 dozen.

Actual: 2 cookies short of 3.5 dozen. Huh? I guess I sliced a couple of them too thick.

26 recipes down, 149 to go.

Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies (Pg 67)

I have to admit that I cut a corner on this cookie. I was supposed to use bittersweet chocolate chunks...meaning a full bar chopped into big chunks. Instead I used bittersweet chocolate chips, already made into little chips in the chocolate factory. I'm sorry, I was feeling lazy. The taste is the same.

Another thing I really wanted to cut corners on was this. After the dough is made, it's refrigerated for 2 hours until it's firm. Then you roll the dough into balls, then you put the balls in the refrigerator for 20 minutes, then you roll them in sugar. It all just seemed unnecessary.

I tried one batch without refrigerating the balls. It worked, but I didn't roll them in sugar. The rolling of sugar makes it look prettier.

I think, but I can't really be sure because I didn't test it, that if you don't refrigerate the balls, you can't roll them in sugar because the dough is too sticky. I think the refrigeration makes them firm enough that you can roll them into balls.

I had a casualty while I was making these. I was rolling one into a ball and my Mom was watching TV in the other room and she called me. "Come look at Mickey Rourke when he was young and hot!" she called. How could I resist? I ran into the other room with the cookie dough ball still in my hands and when I saw Mickey Rourke being so young and hot, I was in such shock that I dropped the cookie. I'm just saying, I wish I had had the foresight to put the cookie down before I ran to look at the TV.

I find these a bit too spicy, but that's just me. There's fresh grated ginger in them and ground ginger. I could've done with just the ground ginger. But they are good, and they're pretty. They're nice for Christmas.

Yield:

Recipe predicts: 2 dozen 

Actual: 2.5 dozen!

25 recipes down, 150 to go.

Classic Shortbread (Pg 109)

There's something so comforting about shortbread. Maybe it's that it almost tastes like you're eating pure butter. Or it could be that it's just one of those simple classics. It's always the simplest things that become classic and that are so comforting.

I also love that it's so British. I imagine I just took a brisk hike through the English countryside with my Corgis and I'm sitting down to a nice warm cuppa Earl Grey to be enjoyed while reading some E.M. Forster.

Oh, sorry.

This recipe is ridiculously simple. The challenging part was pressing the dough into the tart pan (10 inch fluted tart pan with removable bottom, of course) and making sure it's neat and smooth. I wasn't entirely happy with the smoothness of mine. Some parts were a bit thicker. But it seemed nearly impossible to get it perfect. I tried.

I also wasn't so great with measuring out the center so I could cut a circle out and cut the wedges from the circle. It seemed like I needed some kind of architecture tools or something - like something to find the exact center, one of those little things that makes you draw a perfect circle, and something to figure out how wide each slice should be. My calculations were far from exact. Actually, there weren't any calculations, I just completely eyed it. It was close enough, but some wedges were definitely smaller than others.

Due to not really measuring to end up with exact wedges, I ended up with 9 wedges instead of the predicted 8. Score! So they came out a little messier looking than I would've liked, but they taste so great. The shortbread just crumbles and melts in your mouth. I love it.

Yield:

Recipe predicts: 8 wedges.

Actual: 9 wedges!

24 recipes down, 151 to go.

Surprise Cookies (Pg 195)

So these cookies are....interesting. I'd really like to know where this idea came from.

It's a chocolate cookie, baked for about 10 minutes so it's just about done, and then you press half a marshmallow into the center and bake it another couple minutes. And when it's done baking and it's cooled, you put chocolate frosting on top to hide the marshmallow. Hence, the surprise.

I guess the idea is it just looks like a chocolate cookie with a dollop of chocolate frosting and then you bite into it you find a marshmallow. Surprise!

Interesting.

So This is what they look like before the frosting. I kind of like it better this way. The cookie itself is really good. It has whole milk in it so it's a bit more cakey and mushy. I like that. And with the marshmallow slightly baked it's gooey and sticky. I think with the frosting it's just a bit....much. But people seem to like them. I'm on the fence. I'd definitely dig the chocolate cookie on its own.

They were fun to make, but also a bit much. By the time we were putting the frosting on, I was kind of over it. Again, another reason for me to stop before the frosting.

Sarah joined me again for baking these. She's been joining me at least once a week, and she was complaining that there aren't any pictures of her on my blog. So here we are. We are both wearing Starbucks aprons. Aren't we cute? I look a little bit pissed off, but I really wasn't. It's just how I look sometimes.

Yield:

Recipe predicts: 2.5 dozen.

Actual: 2 dozen.

23 recipes down, 152 to go.

Cream-Filled Chocolate Sandwiches (Pg 95)

So after my disappointment with the Honey Florentines I wanted to make a cookie. A dense, rich, hearty, comforting cookie. I found exactly what I needed.

I would've made these a long time ago had I had vegetable shortening in the house. It's not something I normally keep on hand, and I kept forgetting it in my grocery trips, but I finally remembered it.

These were well worth the wait. They are delicious. They are dangerous.

They were much easier to make then I expected. The cookie itself is very similar to Grammy's Chocolate Cookies, but of course smaller, and you don't have to refrigerate the dough before baking. I always like that because I can make them on the spur of the moment and I don't have to wait hours or a day before baking.

I have to admit I slacked off a bit and skipped a step when it came to the cream filling. The recipe says to put the cream filling into a pastry bag fitted with a coupler and squeeze a bit out onto the cookie. Well once I made the filling I realized how ridiculous that was. The filling was very thick. It was just butter, vegetable shortening, and confectioner's sugar, so it was like a very heavy buttercream. It was way too thick to put in a pastry tube so I just dropped a tablespoon full on the cookies. It worked out beautifully.

Did I mention these cookies are delicious? It's the type of cookie that's almost a chore to eat, but it's so worth it. The cookies are chewy in the center but a bit crunchy on the outer edges and when you bite into it the cream filling squishes out. You can pull them apart and eat each one separately, or have fun and just eat it as a sandwich. It's not too messy.

It is a very rich cookie. You can't really eat too many of them, unless you're crazy like I am and you can't stop eating them. I had to give them away otherwise I would've eaten all of them in a day and I'm sure I would've gotten pretty sick from that. 

Yield:
Recipe predicts: 2.5 dozen.
Actual: 1.5 dozen. Oops.

22 recipes down, 153 to go.

Honey Florentines (Pg 29)

I really wonder why this recipe is in this "Cookies" cookbook. They're really not cookies, they're more like candy, or brittle. Of course, brittle is considered candy, isn't it? Whatever the case, I just wasn't happy with these.

The entire first chapter of the book is "Light and Delicate." I've been kind of avoiding the recipes in the first chapter because, honestly, who wants a light and delicate cookie? Cookies should be hearty and comforting. I'm not really into these prissy cookies. And I always think they're gonna be way too complicated to make. But then I realized that if I keep putting them off, I'm going to end up having made every other recipe in the book other than these, and I'll have to do them all at once. So I figured I need to start tackling these recipes, and I started with Honey Florentines.

The recipe is like, nothing. Melted butter, sugar, and honey mixed with a tiny bit of flour. Seriously, it's like candy. I was surprised that they came out looking the way they were supposed to, but I really wasn't impressed with how they taste. They're too sweet. I have quite the sweet tooth and I almost never say anything is too sweet, but these were. It's nothing but sugar and honey, of course it's way too sweet. And they're crunchy but they stick to your teeth.

I decided the best use for these is to crumble them up and use them as ice cream topping. I know, that's my default use for cookies that aren't good. What can I say? I like ice cream. I just crumbled these up and I'm keeping the crunchy mess in a ziploc bag in the fridge so I can have it on ice cream.

Yield:
Recipe predicts: 2 dozen.
Actual: I don't know, I forgot to count them before I crumbled them up.

21 recipes down, 154 to go.

Iced Oatmeal Applesauce Cookies (Pg 77)

I'm sad about these. I'm trying not to be too hard on myself but this is the second recipe in a week that turned out wrong and it's a little discouraging. But I shall carry on.

I'm guessing the mishap this time was with the applesauce. The recipe calls for chunky applesauce, and for some reason I couldn't find plain chunky applesauce. The only ones at the store that were chunky had a bunch of other flavors, like cinnamon or other fruit or junk like that. I thought that other flavors would interfere with the flavor of the cookie, so I went for a plain flavored applesauce that happened to not be chunky. I guess it was too thin and the dough came out too wet. And looking back on it, I'd go for the cinnamon flavor applesauce anyway cos the cookies, although they tasted good, they could've had a little more umph.

So once again, I just threw these in the oven and hoped for the best. They flattened out a lot more than I expected. And when I tried to take them off the cookie sheets with the spatula, the centers were all mushy and collapsed.

This picture is a bit blurry but you can see that the centers were falling apart so much so that this one had a hole in it.

As with my other mishaps, these were a mess but they tasted good. I guess the moral of the story is that cookies always taste good. Like I said, they could've had a bit more umph, but that's where the icing comes in.

They are supposed to have a maple syrup icing drizzled on top. That would add a really nice flavor to them, I'm guessing, but I honestly just didn't feel like bothering with it because the cookies just weren't right. I don't really skip parts of recipes like that normally, but I just felt like it was a lost cause so why bother with icing?

So the verdict is: If I can't find plain chunky applesauce, I'll make these again with cinnamon applesauce and I won't use the icing and I think the cinnamon will be a nice addition. If I can find plain chunky applesauce I'll try them again, and in that case I will make the maple icing which will be a nice addition. And they'll be prettier and they'll look like they do in the book which is like this:

Oh well. I live and I learn.

Yield:
Recipe predicts: 2.5 dozen
Actual: 34 cookies, almost 3 dozen.

20 recipes down, 155 to go.