This has been such a hot, humid summer and the year was half over on July 9th. We are on a downhill slide now but the temperature is still near 100 every day. You get up early and get things done outside by 9 a.m. if you can. It's already hot when Pat and I go walking around 6:20 a.m. and we can only walk for 40 minutes. I get back home and drink a cup of hot coffee and eat breakfast while I cool off in the air conditioned breakfast room.I decided this summer was the time to tackle my recipe collection and put them in a cookbook form. These are recipes I have gotten from friends and are written on backs of envelopes, some on emails that are typed, others are torn from newspapers, etc. If we liked them, I would keep the recipes.
Many of the cookie and dessert recipes are favorites of the granddaughters. So, I decided to put them into a cookbook and give each of the 5 girls a copy. I chose a photo of Katie (now almost 19) when she was visiting us one summer at "Grandma Camp" and making a batch of chocolate chip cookies. The girls always want to bake something when they come to visit. Their dads (our sons) are also good cooks. I think their skills were learned during boy scout camps.
I have almost finished putting recipes in the computer and getting ready to print a good copy to take to Office Depot and have printed to make my cookbooks. I made the cover and will use clear plastic over the picture of Katie. I have a comb binding machine and will bind the cookbooks myself. Hope to have these finished by Christmas to put in their stockings.
They all have favorites but I think the most requested is Wagon Wheel Cookies, a recipe I found in a magazine a couple of years ago. They're so easy to make and taste a little like a brownie; soft and chewy with powdered sugar on the outside.
WAGON WHEEL COOKIES
A chocolate cookie that tastes like a brownie; soft and chewable.
Includes unsweetened baking chocolate, eggs, oil, flour and sugar.
Recipe: Approximately 3 dozen cookies
½ cup Enova oil (or canola oil)
4 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate (not chips)
Melted in microwave and cooled
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, slightly beaten
2 tsp. vanilla
1/ 2 tsp. salt
2 ½ cups flour, sifted
2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup powdered sugar
With a double boiler, melt the chocolate and cool to room temperature. (I use a glass bowl and melt the chocolate in the microwave; one minute at the time until it softens)
Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder.
Mix together the oil, chocolate and sugar; mix well.
Blend in eggs, in fourths, mixing well after each addition.
Add vanilla.
Stir in dry ingredients.
Cover and place in refrigerator and chill for several hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Portion dough into pieces and shape into 1 ½ inch balls.
Roll in powdered sugar and place 2 inches apart on greased baking sheet.
Bake for 10-12 minutes.
