Baking in a little Toaster Oven

Once I didn't have a stove or oven for 6 months and became very creative on how to feed my family. I used a wok, toaster oven, electric skillet, and crock pot. I couldn't figure a way to bake bread, so I found at a garage sale, a smoker, bbq for $5. It wasn't in great shape but could bbq. I took some red bricks and clean them, soak them in water and put them in the cooker part. I then had hot coals on the bottom. I baked bread on top of the bricks and it worked! I was sure glad when I finally was able to have a stove and oven again! Now I am kinda in the same situation, I don't have my own oven. So yesterday, I took my little toaster oven to my daughters house and we baked cookies! They turned out delicious!!

Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Only six at a time, but it works!

Oatmeal cookies!

Here is the recipes we used:

Slice and Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies

from More Make-A-Mix Cookery

2 cups butter

1 1/3 cup sugar

1 2/3 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla

4 eggs

5 ½ cups flour

2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 cups semisweet chocolate pieces

1 cup chopped nuts

Cut four 14x12” pieces of waxed paper of plastic wrap; set aside. In a large bowl, cream butter, sugar and brown sugar. Beat in vanilla and eggs until light and fluffy. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and baking soda. Gradually stir flour mixture into egg mixture until blended. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces. Shape each piece into an 8-to 10-inch roll. Wrap each roll in 1 piece of waxed paper. Place wrapped rolls in a plastic freezer container with a tight-fitting lid, or wrap tightly with foil. Store in freezer. Use within 6 months.

To bake: Preheat oven to 350˚F. Cut frozen dough into 1-inch thick slices. Cut each in half and bake for about 10 minutes, until lightly brown around edges. Remove from oven and cool on cooling racks.

You can use whatever cookies recipe you want and bake away! The little toaster oven doesn't heat up the house like the big oven, especially in the heat we are having.

Ginger Cookies!

Finally, I had a chance to try a recipe from Sugar Baby Cookbook before I had to return the book back to the library.
Definitively will be rechecking this book out many more times! Since this is such a new copy-written book I can't put the recipe on, so check the book out from your library, or buy it! A must have if you like sugar and love to bake!

Nice size cookies!

The recipe is called, 'Best Ginger Cookies Ever' by Gesine Bullock-Prado. I like ginger cookies and have try a few, but I wanted a more softer ginger cookie. This one is pretty good, but there is another that I like better. I just need to see if the person will share the recipe with me. I tasted them this past Christmas and boy they were good! I think if I would have used the crystallized ginger these would have been close to what I tasted. So next time I will use the crystallized ginger instead of fresh grated ginger. They still tasted great, just not as much zip and zang.
Also didn't have on hand some white sanding sugar, so I used yellow as you will be able to tell from the pictures!
They dough was nice and light, I really enjoyed working with it.

Aren't the swirls pretty?

That day I also made sugar cookies for my other blog: http://mymomsfilebox.blogspot.com/2011/06/sugar-cookies.html

Ginger and sugar cookies!

Another view of them stacked! Sometimes, I just go crazy with the camera!

Cranberry Walnut Oatmeal Cookies

Kroger company makes a pretty good cookie dough, that you pull apart and bake. Well, knowing me, I just had to make it home-made or from scratch. Well as I was making something else that needed Crisco, I read the back of the sticks and low and behold there was a recipe for the same thing. And I only changed one ingredient.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly coat baking sheets with no-stick cooking spray.
3/4 cup shortening (I used 1/2 cup shortening and 1/4 cup butter)
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 3/4 cups rolled oats
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup chopped walnuts
Beat shortening, sugar and brown sugar in large bowl at medium speed of electric mixer until creamy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in small bowl. Beat into shortening mixture until blended. Stir in oats, dried cranberries and walnuts. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until light brown. Cool on baking sheets 2 minutes. Place on cooling rack to cool completely.
These were great, even the next day!! Soft and chewy.

Sent this off to Sweet As Sugar Cookies #17:

Grandkids and grandma in the kitchen!

Last Saturday around 3 p.m. my granddaughter remembered we were going to a church potluck, where we were suppose to make a dish and share it for different contests.

The dinner, I thought started at 6:30 p.m. So we pulled out one of Seth's cookbooks, each found a recipe we wanted to try and got started.

Kalene started first with the recipe, 'Vanilla Rings'. As she was pounding whole almonds into ground almonds, Seth got his ingredients together. I went to the store to buy some yogurt as we were actually out. They did an awesome job, all by themselves and both of their cookie batches came out so delicious!

In the recipe that Kalene chose, she decided to add melted chocolate on top. What a great idea and it made the cookies.

I haven't tasted a sugar type cookie with ginger in it before, Seth's were a light type with just a little crunch as they cooled off. 'Grantham Gingerbreads' is the recipe Seth chose.

I decided to make a bread that I needed to enter a recipe for Bread Baking Day, 'Lemon Poppyseed Braid'. Post is below this one.

When we got to church, we found out the dinner started at 6 p.m., but lucky for us there were others who were late and plenty of food. Everyone was glad I brought bread as only two others did and this helped to be spread around, same with the kids bringing cookies. We must have chosen the right recipes as we didn't take anything home, yeah!

I think everyone who brought a dish should have won, everything was great! Very filling night.

Recipes:

Vanilla Rings

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

¼ cup ground almonds

3 cups flour

• Preheat the oven to 350˚F.
• Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl, or use a food processor on a low speed, until light and fluffy.
• Beat in the egg, then the vanilla extract, almonds, and flour.
• Put the paste into a decorating bag fitted with a star-shaped tip.
• Pipe 2-inch rings on to a greased baking sheet.
• Bake for 8 to 9 minutes.

Recipe by: Deborah Gray

Book: the baker’s bible

Grantham Gingerbreads

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons self-rising flour

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 stick butter or margarine

1 ½ cups superfine sugar

1 egg, beaten

• Preheat oven to 300˚F.
• In one bowl, sift together the flour and the giner.
• In another bowl, beat together the butter or margarine and sugar, then beat in the egg.
• Stir in the flour mixture and combine well.
• Roll the dough into a walnut-sized balls.
• Place the balls on a greased baking tray and bake for about 40 minutes until crisp, hollow, and lightly browned.

*Note: These round puffy gingerbread cookies should be “hollow and slightly dome-shaped, with a pleasing fawn tint.”

Recipe by: Deborah Gray

Book: the baker’s bible