A Cookie day!!

Finally a day without any snowfall! The sun is shining and melting some of that snow. Unfortunately there is not much outside chores to be done today. Keith is busy shoveling paths through the snow, but doing things like cleaning up the horse manure is not possible since it's buried under almost a foot of snow and still frozen to the ground. So today is an indoor day.

I started a knitted scarf on my Knifty Knitter. This is my first project on the knitting loom. I am extremely bad with a pair of knitting needles, but this knitting loom is really easy to use.

So in not very long at all my scarf looked like this and I am totally excited. I"m actually able to complete a knit and purl stitch on this loom. I can only do a knit stitch with the needles and it's totally frustrating, but this thing is fun!!

But I had to put away my knitting for a while to make cookies. What is better on a cold snow day then cookies?

So I made Rolo Cookies

you need at least 4 rolls of Rolos

1 cup of butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup cocoa powder

2 1/2 cups flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the sugars, butter, eggs and vanilla in a bowl.

In a separate bowl mix the baking soda, cocoa powder, and 1 1/2 cups of flour.

Combine the  sugar mixture and the flour mixture until well mixed.

Add the remain cup of flour as needed until the dough is sticky.

Scoop out teaspoon sized amounts of dough and roll around a Rolo making a ball.

Roll the balls in granulated sugar and place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet.

The recipe says either a parchment line sheet or spray with cooking spray. I used Aluminum foil.

Either way it's best to line the pan because the caramel leaks.

Bake 8-10 minutes. I had to bake longer. Almost 15 minutes even with a hot oven. I don't know if it's because of my altitude ( 7200 Ft) or because of lining the sheets with foil or some combination of things. So just keep an eye on it.

Tips that were not in the recipe

1. The dough handles better when it's been cooled. Even 10-15 minutes in the fridge makes it more manageable.

2. Either I didn't make the cookies big enough or the recipe is larger then the amount needed for the amount of  Rolos. I used 4 full rolls of Rolos and still ended up with enough dough for another roll. The cookies are still really good even with out the use of the Rolos. So if you don't have Rolos or don't want to use them. the rest of the recipe makes a really good chocolate cookie.

3. When you take the cookies out of the oven, make sure you place something under the cooling racks to catch the remaining leaking caramel.

And finally if you have kids or cookie monster hubbies, make sure they know that melting caramel is really hot so they don't burn their mouths or hands with the fresh from the oven cookies. 

Now that I'm done with the cookies, back to the knitting.