Recipes for Delicious Desserts Featuring Favorite Fall Fruits

Is there anything better on a cool Fall day than coming into the house and smelling the aroma of the season's best fruits?  Well, feeling the warmth of the oven might be a close second.  Here are some recipes to enjoy this Fall and Winter (or anytime of the year), using some of our Fall favorites - pears, apples, and blackberries.  Grab a cup of coffee, hot tea, or hot chocolate and enjoy a real treat.

For more delicious dessert recipes visit my blog at http://ladybugssweettreats.blogspot.com

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Favorite Cookie Baking Tools and Equipment

Baking homemade cookies is a lot more enjoyable when you have the right tools and equipment. Here's a list of items that will help insure cookie baking success.

Baking Pans and Cookie Sheets: Come in a wide variety of styles and materials. Dark metal pans absorb heat and will cause cookies and brownies to brown more quickly. Shiny metal pans reflect heat making them perfect for more delicate baked treats. Air-cushioned sheets provide extra protection from burning but make it difficult to obtain golden brown cookies. Glass pans carry heat more effectively so your oven temperature needs to be adjusted down 25 degrees when using them. I prefer dull, light colored heavy duty aluminum baking pans. Basic pan sizes you'll want in your collection include:
9 X 13-inch 8-inch square 9-inch square 9-inch round Cookie sheets with or without sides. Although many books suggest rimless pans for baking cookies, I have had great success using rimmed half sheet pans.
Bowls: Small, medium, and large mixing bowls in glass or stainless steel.

Cookie Bake

Wooden Spoons: Great for stirring brownies batter

Measuring Spoons: One or two sets of graduated spoons designed specifically for measuring

Measuring Cups: A 2-cup glass or plastic one for liquids that has a spout and a set of dry graduated measuring cups

Spatulas: One thin metal spatula for removing cookies from the pan and a couple of plastic spatulas for scraping cookie dough and brownie batter from bowls into baking pans

Whisks: One or two medium to large whisks for mixing both dry and wet ingredients

Ice Cream Scoops: Small ice cream scoops make easy, speedy work of dropping cookie dough onto pans. They're one of my favorite inexpensive cookie making tools

Microplane: A wonderful tool for zesting and grating zest from citrus fruit and chocolate

Silicone baking pan liners: Make clean-up a breeze and are available in a wide variety of sizes. With a silicone liner you are able to forgo greasing cookie sheets too. Just be sure to not cut them.

Parchment Paper: An indispensable aid for quick and easy baking. Available in both rolls and sheets, I bake all my cookies on parchment lined sheets for the easiest clean-up

Wire Racks: For cooing your cookies and brownies

Electric Mixer: I love my KitchenAid mixers, both hand-held and standing versions, for making brownies and cookies. If you only bake occasionally or have limited space, start with one or the other. If you bake a lot, you will eventually want both.

Food Processor: I am a fan of Cuisinart food processors. They can really speed up the process for many kitchen tasks like chopping, grating, shredding, and pureeing. Get one that has at least a 6-cup capacity.

Favorite Cookie Baking Tools and Equipment

Martha McKinnon is an avid home cook and cooking instructor who loves sharing everything she has learned through her years in the kitchen with all who are interested.

Her website, http://www.best-ever-cookie-collection.com is dedicated to publishing the best cookie recipes.

And her blog, http://www.simple-nourished-living.com explores easy recipes, tips, and hints.

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Favorite Cookies - The Effects of Baking Recipes From Scratch

When baking cookies it's all too easy to open a roll of Pillsbury dough and lay it on the pan to bake within minutes. Have you ever taken the time to think about what is in these easy to bake cookies? The preservatives, the sugars, the additives, the coloring? It can't be healthy for you.

The best thing for yourself and your family is to make foods from scratch as much as possible. It's healthier and it tastes better. Try getting recipes for ingredients and make your own. You'd be surprised as to how much money you can save in the process. When baking cookies, breads and other desserts you'll find ingredients such as brown sugar, butterscotch, caramel, marshmallow, fruits and others. By making many of these ingredients from scratch or using the real thing you get a healthier quality product as well as a better tasting dessert. Who doesn't want a better tasting dessert?

Cookie Bake

Making your own brown sugar is as simple as mixing molasses with sugar and you can make light brown sugar or dark brown sugar by adjusting how much molasses you use. It's much less expensive than buying brown sugar or dark brown sugar. The ingredients for making your own butterscotch, caramel, and marshmallow are very inexpensive consisting of sugar, eggs, butter and vanilla. If you buy butterscotch or caramel to to put in your recipes, you will spend much more than you intend to.

You probably don't have time to bake from scratch like this, but if you do it is well worth it.

You can easily get recipes for many ingredients on the web and it would be well worth your time and effort to research these ideas. Your health will benefit as will the quality and flavor of your desserts.

Favorite Cookies - The Effects of Baking Recipes From Scratch

Jessica Blanck writes on marketing and business related issues referring to baking. You can learn more by visiting my blog, Chloe's Cookie Corner at http://chloescookiecorner.blogspot.com

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All Time Favorite Christmas Cookies

It's that time of year again, there is snow on the ground, and ornaments on the tree. Christmas is a magical time of year with memories and traditions that never seem to fade. One of these traditions is the baking of Christmas cookies. My mother went to a cookie swap just the other day, where she baked ten dozen of the same cookie to give away and she brought home ten dozen different varieties for the family to enjoy. There were rules in this cookie swap in an effort to avoid having five dozen chocolate chip cookies.

Don't get me wrong, I loved all of the different varieties my mom brought home, but it's not Christmas without the classics. You know which classics I'm referring to, they're in every home at some point during the holiday, just as they've been since before you can remember. It's not Christmas without cut-out sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, and snicker doodles. I have a plan for next year, we're going to bring the classics back to the swap, and everyone can add their own little spin on them.

Cookie Bake

Sugar cookies are by far my favorite cookies. They hold so much opportunity, they're a blank canvas for the ten year old cookie artist. Sugar cookies come in many different shapes, colors, and textures, but the taste is always the same. Everyone has sugar cookies during the holidays, and I mean everyone. Even if you're not the cookie connoisseur and you have the baking skills of a cyclopes, you can still enjoy an old-fashioned sugar cookie.

A trip to the local grocery store freezer selection will solve your kitchen catastrophe in the form of break-and-bake cookies. The rest is easy, decorating is half the fun of eating them. Your choices for materials are endless, it all depends on your style. You may choose to use cookie cutters, and make a perfect Santa. If you choose to go the classic circle direction, frosting and sprinkles are your best friends. Whether it's the smell of the cookies baking, the fun you have decorating them, or even just eating them, this cookie classic is sure to bring your family together if only for an afternoon.

When I think of the holidays, I think of gingerbread men and sugarplum fairies. Since sugarplum fairies don't come in cookie form, gingerbread is our second Christmas favorite. Gingerbread, other than tasting amazing, can make anything you can dream of. If you want to go simple, making a dozen gingerbread men to decorate with gumdrop buttons may be your choice this year. However, if you're willing to go to the extremes, this may be your year to create the ultimate gingerbread house. Whether you're a fashion designer for the gingerbread men army, or the newest member of the gingerbread house design team, magic is going to happen in your house this Christmas. When you complete your creation, it may even look so good you won't want to eat it!

It's no question why snicker doodles are our number three pick for the best Christmas cookies. If you've ever had a snicker doodle, you know the taste of cinnamon practically does the tango on your taste buds. However, if you have never had a snicker doodle, then you have not lived my friend. This cinnamon creation is dusted with Cinnamon sugar and best when served warm. Unlike most circle cookies, the snicker doodle always manages to stay soft and never flattens. I don't know if it's sparkle of cinnamon, or the sparkle of Christmas that make these cookies a favorite. One thing is for certain, they're magical.

All Time Favorite Christmas Cookies

This author is a HUGE fan of Free Cooking Recipes.

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Chocolate Chip Cookies - How We Love America's Favorite Cookie!

Don't you love it when your kids are getting ready for bed and you hear, "By the way Mom - our class party is tomorrow, and I signed up for three dozen chocolate chip cookies!"

Cookies are America's most popular dessert, and for all those late night, emergency cookie baking sessions, or almost any cookie occasion, about half the cookies baked are chocolate chip.

Cookie Bake

Did you ever wonder what chocolate chip cookies and President John F. Kennedy have in common? Perhaps not, but here are some historical chocolate chip cookie tidbits.

There are an estimated 2,000 varieties of this popular cookie, from chocolate chip banana to white chocolate chip raspberry, but the most popular is the Toll House cookie recipe seen on the back of every Nestlé chocolate chip package.

In 1930, Ruth Wakefield and her husband, Kenneth, established the Toll House Inn, near Boston, Massachusetts. Their tourist lodge was housed in a building (circa 1709) where, at one time, travelers paid their tolls, changed horses and enjoyed home-cooked meals.

The Toll House Inn was well-known for Ruth's cooking, especially her desserts. She often sent travelers on their way with a plate of her delicious cookies. One otherwise uneventful day in 1937, Ruth added small chunks of a Nestlé's Semisweet Yellow Label Chocolate bar to her butter cookie dough.

Results? Instant success!

The story goes that Ruth received a lifetime supply of chocolate in exchange for her recipe, which Nestle' printed on the back of their semisweet chocolate bar packages. The cookie recipe was so popular that Nestlé began marketing chocolate chips to be used especially for cookies.

Over the years, the popular Toll House Inn included many well-known guests, including - guess who? - President John F. Kennedy.

Almost a century after Ruth dropped that first piece of chocolate into her cookies, every bag of Nestle chocolate chips in North America continues to have Wakefield's original, Toll House recipe printed on the back.

Just like Ruth's recipe, all basic chocolate chip recipes call for flour, sugar, butter or margarine, baking powder and/or baking soda, eggs, vanilla, and chocolate chips. The taste and texture varies with recipe. Some chocolate chip cookies bake puffy and others flat. The easiest to decorate are flat.

Decorate chocolate chip cookies? Yes, these are especially unique for Jenny and Jeff's school parties - that is, if you aren't too tired after your all night baking session! Chocolate chip cookies are tasty enough without icing, but a little decoration will make you the most popular mom in the class!

Decorated Chocolate Chip Pan Cookie

Instead of the more time-consuming individual cookies, the chocolate chip pan cookie can be a life-saver when you've awakened at midnight, realizing you forgot to bake those cookies for tomorrow's first grade celebration of "National Play Doh Day."

After you bake the cookie, pipe on a balloon (royal icing border filled in with gel icings) and message like "Happy Imagining!"

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bouquets

While chocolate chip cookies don't lend themselves to the fancier, polished cookie bouquets, they can be very cute and cheerful - exactly the thing for 85-year-old Aunt Myrna, who married her yoga instructor, or Cousin Jim who just graduated from bungee-jumping class - with flying colors!

Here's one idea:

Cookies and Milk Bouquet

1 batch of Toll House chocolate chip cookie dough

Lollipop sticks (rolled paper, not plastic) of varying heights

Royal icing

Preheat oven to 375° F. Roll cookie dough into 2-inch balls. Arrange four balls on an ungreased cookie sheet. Insert a lollipop stick into each ball. Press dough down slightly.

Bake for 13 to 15 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are crisp. Cool on baking sheet for 1 minute; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Once cooled (about 20 minutes), decorate your cookies with a decorating bag and royal icing. Use icing sparingly so as not to detract from the wholesome cookie taste. For the "cookies and milk" theme, you might want to add white icing milk moustaches.

After the icing hardens, wrap each cookie in cellophane and tie with a ribbon. Arrange in a mug (for the milk!) that matches your theme.

If you're interested in creating the beautiful cookie bouquets made from sugar cookies you see selling for to , you can learn how from classes, books and videos, such as the "Cookie Decorating Made Easy" Video Books that this reader used:

"Hi Michael! I bought your cookie video books on Friday and made cookies with my kids on Saturday. It was the funnest time and the cookies turned out beautifully."

Chris B.

Las Vegas, NV

One last tip. If you want to be the mom with the most original cookies, bake your chocolate chip cookies in various shapes. Just fit a large decorating tip to a pastry bag, fill with your dough, and pipe out drop flowers or other shapes onto your cookie sheet.

Chocolate Chip Cookies - How We Love America's Favorite Cookie!

Samantha Mitchell, Co-Author Cookie Decorating Made Easy! Vol. 1 & 2 The World's First Cookie Decorating Video Books. For more cookie decorating tips along with online videos from our "Cookie Decorating Made Easy" Video Books, sign up for our free newsletter at http://www.CookiesMadeEasy.com

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Favorite Cookie Baking Tools and Equipment

Baking homemade cookies is a lot more enjoyable when you have the right tools and equipment. Here's a list of items that will help insure cookie baking success.

Baking Pans and Cookie Sheets: Come in a wide variety of styles and materials. Dark metal pans absorb heat and will cause cookies and brownies to brown more quickly. Shiny metal pans reflect heat making them perfect for more delicate baked treats. Air-cushioned sheets provide extra protection from burning but make it difficult to obtain golden brown cookies. Glass pans carry heat more effectively so your oven temperature needs to be adjusted down 25 degrees when using them. I prefer dull, light colored heavy duty aluminum baking pans. Basic pan sizes you'll want in your collection include:

9 X 13-inch
8-inch square
9-inch square
9-inch round
Cookie sheets with or without sides. Although many books suggest rimless pans for baking cookies, I have had great success using rimmed half sheet pans.

Bowls: Small, medium, and large mixing bowls in glass or stainless steel.

Wooden Spoons: Great for stirring brownies batter

Measuring Spoons: One or two sets of graduated spoons designed specifically for measuring

Measuring Cups: A 2-cup glass or plastic one for liquids that has a spout and a set of dry graduated measuring cups

Spatulas: One thin metal spatula for removing cookies from the pan and a couple of plastic spatulas for scraping cookie dough and brownie batter from bowls into baking pans

Whisks: One or two medium to large whisks for mixing both dry and wet ingredients

Ice Cream Scoops: Small ice cream scoops make easy, speedy work of dropping cookie dough onto pans. They're one of my favorite inexpensive cookie making tools

Microplane: A wonderful tool for zesting and grating zest from citrus fruit and chocolate

Silicone baking pan liners: Make clean-up a breeze and are available in a wide variety of sizes. With a silicone liner you are able to forgo greasing cookie sheets too. Just be sure to not cut them.

Parchment Paper: An indispensable aid for quick and easy baking. Available in both rolls and sheets, I bake all my cookies on parchment lined sheets for the easiest clean-up

Wire Racks: For cooing your cookies and brownies

Electric Mixer: I love my KitchenAid mixers, both hand-held and standing versions, for making brownies and cookies. If you only bake occasionally or have limited space, start with one or the other. If you bake a lot, you will eventually want both.

Food Processor: I am a fan of Cuisinart food processors. They can really speed up the process for many kitchen tasks like chopping, grating, shredding, and pureeing. Get one that has at least a 6-cup capacity.

Martha McKinnon is an avid home cook and cooking instructor who loves sharing everything she has learned through her years in the kitchen with all who are interested.

Her website, http://www.best-ever-cookie-collection.com is dedicated to publishing the best cookie recipes.

And her blog, http://www.simple-nourished-living.com explores easy recipes, tips, and hints.

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Favorite Christmas Cookies 2 - Toll House Variety Chip Cookies - 2

After you have gathered all your ingredients, heat the oven to 350*. You will need 2 bowls: a medium one for the dry mixture and a large one to mix all the ingredients for the cookies. In the medium bowl, mix the dry ingredients (4 & ½ cup all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons salt, 2 teaspoons baking soda). In the large bowl, add the 1 & ½ cup of granulated sugar and 1 & ½ cup of packed brown sugar, 4 sticks (2 cups) softened margarine, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and beat until creamy. Add 4 eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after adding each one.

Now, gradually add the dry mixture. Stir in 2 bags of your choice of morsels (and nuts if you choose). Drop a rounded tablespoon of dough onto ungreased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Place a few morsels on top of each cookie and bake 9-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes then remove to wire racks. This will make about 9 dozen of the best tasting cookies you will ever have!

It is fun to see if someone in your family or a close friend wants to share their favorite cookies with you by becoming part of a Christmas Cookie Exchange. Because many people have favorites of their own, you will be able to enjoy a variety of cookies. It is simple when you double your recipes. You will be able to share ½ of your baked goods and receive ½ of theirs so you will have a bigger selection.

My family loves my Christmas cookies but they also love and enjoy eating different kinds of cookies baked by their aunt. In Favorite Christmas Cookies 1, you saw how I made Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies. In Christmas Cookies Part 3, you will see another kind of cookie called Swirled Turtle Brownies. You can also see other recipes in the article entitled "Cookie Exchange Will Save at Time at Christmas". Enjoy the time you spend making Christmas cookies and memories and remember, make it fun.

Social network users, click for Christmas myspace comments . You can also use Christmas myspace graphics . For Christmas Layouts- click Christmas Myspace Layouts to add to your profile.

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