52 Cookies - Chapter 12

At church, we talk about how sometimes when an event happens with meaning to it, it's a "God Thing."  It's like you really feel like God took the time to bring something, smack-dab in front of your face; like He's trying to say "Listen, would you?!  You need to think about or do this thing now!"  Oftentimes, people talk about how a "God Thing" encouraged them to make a change in their life or do more "good" in the lives of others, etc.  This week's cookie has nothing to do with God.  But.  I did have several "messages" come to me in less than a week that told me, "Make these cookies!"  I cannot tell you the last time I had carrot cake.  I love carrot cake but there is a good reason to not eat or bake a carrot cake very often.  Three words.  Cream.  Cheese.  Frosting.  I can't say that I had carrot cake very often, if at all, growing up.  But I can say that they served a delectable carrot cake in the dorm commons (dining hall) at The Ohio State University back when I was a student there.  They also served a very yummy german chocolate cake, an unforgettable boston cream pie...and you know where my freshman 15 came from...partly.  I had already saved this recipe for Carrot Cake Cookies awhile back and was hoping to get to them this spring, but then three times over the past week I have had conversations with people that mentioned carrot cake.  Either they had just had some in a restaurant or their Grandmother made the best ever and so on.  I decided it was meant to be and so the carrot cake cookie was made.  Owen helped me out in the kitchen this week and he gives them double thumbs up even without any frosting!  This recipe makes roughly 3 dozen cookies and comes to me from a search on All Recipes, one of my favorite go-to websites when I am searching for a recipe.

Carrot Cake Cookies
Here's What You Need:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 (8 oz.) can crushed pineapple, drained
3/4 cup shredded carrots
1 cup raisins
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Here's What You Do:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Line the cookie sheets with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar.  Be sure there are no lumps of brown sugar.  A little lump of brown sugar can ruin an entire cookie.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time and then add the drained pineapple, carrots and raisins. 

In Go The Carrots!

At this point in the "helping" process, Owen decided it was snack time and so he enjoyed a little pile of raisins and the pineapple juice.  Darn.  I was wanting that pineapple juice myself.  Oh well.  Now, combine your dry ingredients - flour through cinnamon, in a small bowl.  Give it a whisk and then very slowly, with your mixer turned on low, add the flour mixture.  Be sure not to over-mix.  Just get everything combined.  If you are adding nuts, which we did not, go ahead and do this now.  Scoop up the cookie dough and put it on your cookie sheet.  I made them on the small side using my smaller cookie dough scooper.  I just love that thing!

Look at all that chunky goodness...raisins, pineapple, carrots.

  My recipe tells me to bake the cookies for 15 to 20 minutes but I have no idea what cookies that person is eating because mine baked for 8-9 minutes and were perfectly done.  Please, whenever you are making a new cookie recipe, always set your timer or begin checking on the cookies sooner rather than later.  I suppose the person who developed this recipe made her cookies a bit bigger than I made mine, but still, 20 minutes is a looooong time for a cookie to be in any oven.  Let the cookies cool on a wire rack before icing them, if that's what you have planned.  I decided to mix up a little cream cheese icing and ice just half of them since I figured I would end up freezing some of these.  I didn't think cream cheese frosting would freeze and then thaw very nicely.

I ended up icing the whole batch. 

They are so good, I know none will ever make it to the freezer!

Warm and fresh from the oven, Owen and I split the first cookie.  They are really very good and I was surprised by how much he liked it.  I stuck the next cookie sheet in the oven and decided to quickly check online for a simple cream cheese icing recipe.  I heard him doing something in the other room but didn't think anything about it.  I came back through the living room and noticed he was chewing something.  "Did you sneak another cookie?!"  Bless his heart, he didn't even fib about it.  He smiled and said, "Yes, they're yummy Mommy.  Can I have another?!"

Delish!  Like my yellow nail polish?  It's Jenna's.