The Big Cookie Project: Week 43

I am really excited about the cookie(s) this week! I got to be a help at Carrie's reception by helping with the Cookie Bar. Since Carrie didn't want a traditional cake, she went non-traditional with the idea of a Cookie Bar. We decorated numerous tins (mostly popcorn tins or cookie tins from Christmas) and filled them up with different kinds of cookies. Carrie made White Chocolate Macadamian and Oatmeal Raisin, my mom made Peanut Butter, her friends from church made Sugar and No-Bake Peanut Butter Oatmeal and I made Chocolate Chip, Snickerdoodle and Chocolate Sugar Cookies. It seemed like a lot of cookies when we were filling the table with them, but by the end of the night most of the cans were almost or completely empty. It was great seeing people get plate-fuls of the cookies and was easy for cleanup and we didn't need silverware to eat them! Here's the first picture of the whole Cookie Bar. Carrie's reception colors were teal and gray with a sort of rustic/outdoorsy feel. I sprayed most of the cans with spraypaint...there were a ton of colors to choose from at Lowe's! Then, I covered some with scrapbook paper that resembled bark from trees.

These tins were full of Sugar, Oatmeal Raisin and Surprise Cookies. The Surprise Cookies and Sugar Cookies were made by friends of Carrie. I thought it was really neat and special that they could help out with the dessert.

Funny story about the Peanut Butter tin....my mom made those and I told her it would be cute if she would glue some peanut shells around the edge. She bought a huge bag and asked my dad to be really careful and try and break them in half to make them easier to attach to the tin. She came home to find a huge bowl of shells. My dad found out that my mom only used a handful of shells for the project. He had spent all that time eating all those peanuts and breaking shells for my mom to only use about 10 peanuts. I wonder how many peanuts he actually DID eat :)

A different angle of the table.

Here's the recipe for Chocolate Cookies:

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

sugar, for rolling

DIRECTIONS:

1. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into a bowl.

2. In a mixer, combine butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla until combined. Gradually add flour mixture. Form dough into a flattened disk, wrap with plastic wrap and chill until firm, about 1 hour.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Roll into 1 1/4 inch balls, then roll each ball in sugar to coat.

***After placing dough balls on to cookie sheet, I lightly pressed doughballs to flatten them a little. Seems to help with the spreading process for me, but you don't have to if you don't want to.*** Bake cookies for 10 to 12 minute. Transfer to a rack and cool for 5 minutes.

These turned out really good, I was a little sad I only got to try one cookie. They were the first kind of cookie to disappear from the cookie table.

I really loved doing this with and for my sister and I would do it again in a heartbeat, happy baking guys!