A Fun FHE Treat and Activity

So last Night we had a yummy Thai Chicken stir Fry which I will post in a bit but the real hit of the night was our Family Home Evening treat and activity, homemade Oreos. Bridger is addicted to cookies and he wanted Chocolate Oreos and we only had the vanilla kind so I decided that it would be a fun activity to make our own. I have only seen people make them using chocolate cake mixes which is so easy and yummy but we didn't have one so I found this recipe that was so weird and I thought would give the sane type of result. It turned out really good despite its weirdness and the fact that I had to use almond extract instead of vanilla because we were out. So here our of new favorite homemade almond chocolate Oreos. Here it is:

Lion House's Chocolate Crackle Cookies

1/4 Shortening - who has shortening sitting around? I used margarine
1/4 cup cocoa - I had dark *Dutch* (wow wow) chocolate cocoa so that is what I used
1/2 cup oil - this cued me off that this would give me a cookie like the cake box kind (makes them very thin and moist)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs - I know, how weird, I guess it's good to get a little more protein in there
2 teaspoon vanilla - I didn't have any so I used 1/8 or 1/4 teaspoon almond extract instead. If you replace almond extract for vanilla make sure to use less then is called for because it is much stronger then vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 baking powder - a little weird they usually call for baking soda
1/2 walnuts - I didn't add thise
1/2 cup chocolate chips - I didn't add this either
1 cup powder sugar

Preheat to 350. in a large mixing bowl cream shortening margarine cocoa, oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla/almond extract.

Add flour, salt, and baking powder. Mix well. Add in the chocolate chips and walnuts is you want them. ( the dough will be very sticky and not firm at all)

Then refrigerate dough for 2 to 3 hours or over night. OK, so I didn't do that at all. After I put them on the cookie sheet I placed the cookie sheet in the refrigerator for a few minutes. The next day I used the rest of the dough that had been refrigerated over night but I didn't notice a differences in how they turned out. So no need to plan ahead just bake them when you want to.

Form balls to whatever size you want, rolling the dough between your palms to make a round ball. Mini ones are a little more stable because these cookies are so soft and smaller is also a better size for kids but I was too lazy to have to make that many cookies so I just made regular sized ones. Either are just fine.

Then roll the balls in the powdered sugar. This isn't necessary but it makes them prettier and perhapses helps them come off the cookie sheet easier.

Bake them about five minutes but the time depends on what size you make them. Make sure to not over bake them. ( that is the hardest part for me!)

Once done let them sit awhile then remove them from the cookie sheet and have fun frosting them!

I made up my own butter cream frosting: 1 stick butter/margarine, vanilla (or in our case almond flavoring), and lots of powder sugar, and a little bit of water. Mix butter until very soft then add a lot of powder sugar (2-4 cups) it should be very dry and crumbly looking. Then add extract and while mixing drizzle tiny bits of water at a time until its the consistency you want. But, store bought frosting is much easier and tastes about the same so you can totally go for that. I think the cream cheese frosting is a yummy way to go too.

Our activity was spreading the icing on the cookies and then putting them together. Bridger loved it! I think he eat more icing then cookie but it was worth the mess and sugar high.
Angeli's favorite was sucking on the beaters.

Over all it was a really fun and yummy way to spend time together as a family even when the recipe had to be changed a lot and was very last minute!

Me trying to be a food Photographer :o)

My Very Own Cookie Monster

Bridger recommends Milk to go along with your very rich cookies