Betty Crocker - How to Make Perfect Molded Cookies

For my last post I decided to make Russian tea cakes. The tips on page 23 said to make the dough as the recipe directed, chill if needed, roll into balls between the palms of hands, bake as balls or flatten with bottom of glass or fork and to take your time and mold the cookies carefully.

I started off making the dough which was a fairly simple dough, similar to my last post except with less flour. I then rolled out the cookies in 1 inch balls. This was probably the longest process of making these cookies. Once they were all on the pan I baked them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes.

The second longest process was rolling all 27 cookies in powdered sugar while they were still warm. I tried many different techniques when rolling them in the sugar many of which failed. I might have done something wrong but the cookies in the picture seemed to have a nice even coat of powdered sugar and mine had a sticky film around them instead. I gave up on trying different techniques and just rolled them in my hand in the powdered sugar.

I would not recommend this recipe unless you have a lot of time and patience, this is by far the messiest recipe I have tried. Powdered sugar gets everywhere and is very difficult to clean up and the cookies didn't really taste that good for the amount of effort I put into them.

Ingredients 

mixing butter sugar and vanilla

mixing flour and salt

fully mixed

after baking

The mess 

Finished product

Would you guys be willing to make these even though they are really messy?
If you would change anything what would you change or do different?

Betty Crocker - How to make the perfect rolled cookies

I made scotch shortbread for my fourth post. The directions told me to make the dough as directed and roll out part of the dough and chill the rest. I found that with the dough I made, the warmth didn't matter as much as other dough would have because of how crumbly it was.

It then said to lightly roll dough to desired thickness. I tries to do it as lightly as possible but every time I rolled out the dough it cracked everywhere, I compared it to a desert. I ended up squishing it together then squishing int down with my hands and a spatula.

I was supposed to dip the cookie cutter in flour so the dough didn't stick, which I did with the first 2 cookies, but then I realized it didn't make a difference whether I floured it or not. I ended up straying farther from the directions than I have in any of my posts. I did give up making the cookies after having to roll out the dough so many times so there was a bit of leftover dough.

If I do make this again, which I probably won't, I would maybe add a little bit of milk to make it not a crumbly mess. It was very frustrating making these cookies but I learned to exercise my patience and that cookies that take a lot of work sometimes don't taste amazing. The cookies were very bland and dry, probably needed to be dipped in something for them to taste better, like coffee or tea.

Ingredients

Mixing ingredients

Final dough

Cut out dough

baked

Final product

Betty Crocker Cooky Book - How to make the perfect refrigerator cookies

For my fourth post I make chocolate peppermint cookies. The cook book said to make the dough as recipe suggest, which I did. It also says to roll the dough into a cylinder with the diameter that the recipe suggests (Crocker pg 15).  I had trouble rolling the dough because neither the instructions or the tips told me how to roll it correctly. I ended up taking wax paper and putting the dough in it and rolling it out almost like a rolling pin.

I then chilled the dough in the fridge overnight. The tips on page 15 said to cut desired thickness but the cookies i made required the dough to be cut 1/8th of an inch to cook correctly. It was very difficult to cut the cookies the correct thickness because of how thin they needed to be. The tips on page 15 also say to use a very thin sharp knife. I had a thin knife but it wasn't very sharp which might be why I struggled with the thickness

After I baked them I made a mint frosting to put in between the cookies. I ended up burning a significant amount of the cookies so I had a lot of extra frosting.

Ingredients

Mixing the dough

After chilling in the fridge overnight

After i cut some of them

The frosting

The really burnt cookies

Finished product

If  I make these again I would watch them more carefully when they are in the oven and use a sharper knife.

If you made these would you cut them the right thickness or cut them thicker?
Would you try the flavors i tried or would you make different flavors?

Betty Crockers Lemon Squares

For this post I decided to make Lemon Squares from Betty Crocker's Cooky Book. On page 11 there are tips on how to make the perfect bar cookie.

"With Spatula, Spread dough evenly in greased square or oblong pan. Bake minimum time in heated oven... Bake meringue-topped bars until delicately browned." (Pg. 11).

I started with the crust of the squares, I ended up using my hands to spread it evenly in the pan because the spatula didn't spread the crumbly dough. I baked the crust first and while the crust was baking I made the topping. When the crust was done I poured the topping directly onto the crust without letting it cool.

"Beat rest of ingredients together. Pour over crust and bake 20 to 25 min." (Pg. 13)

I think that the book should have said to let it cool first because there was a slight film over the crust that was stringy. When I took them out of the oven they looked very puffy but eventually flattened out. If I were to make this recipe again I would let the crust chill first and double the amount of lemon topping because there was more crust than the lemon which resulted in a dull lemon flavor.

All the ingredients 

Mixing the crust

The crust going into the oven

Mixing the lemon topping

Right out of the oven

If you guys were to make these what would you add?

Would you double the amount or would you keep it like the book said?

Would you add lemon zest to make the lemon taste more prominent?