Yummy Surprise Cookies

I made these cookies for a young women's lesson that I taught at church. The lesson was on the worth of souls and I attached the following story to a bag of these "surprise cookies":

Author Unknown
A man was exploring caves by the seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake. They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could.He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone! Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left. Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look like much from the outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it. We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy. But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside each person.
There is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth. May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. May we see the people in our world [and ourselves for that matter] as God would.

I thought this would be great to do for family home evening too. I love the lessons in Young Womens.

Here is the recipe on the cookies:


INGREDIENTS
1-1/2 cups butter-flavored shortening
1-1/2 cups peanut butter
2 cups sugar, divided
1-1/2 cups packed brown sugar
4 eggs
3-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 package (10 ounces) Milk Duds

DIRECTIONS
In a large mixing bowl, cream the shortening, peanut butter, 1-1/2 cups sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine dry ingredients; gradually add to the creamed mixture. Chill for at least 1 hour. Shape 4 teaspoons of dough around each Milk Dud so it is completely covered. Roll balls in remaining sugar. Place 2 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes or until set. Cool for 5 minutes before removing to wire racks. Yield: about 8 dozen.
(I used mini snickers and rolos and just cut them in half because the gas station I went to didn't have milk duds but next time I would try milk duds...I bet they would make the cookie perfect)

The verdict on this recipe: Very yummy!!!! The kids really enjoyed helping me make these. Even Andrew was able to help out on this one. This could be one of my new favorite cookies to make. The only down side to it is that candy is not something I keep in my pantry so I'd have to plan in adance for making these but they are so worth it.

mini cinamon rolls

This morning we decided to try these "super easy cinamon rolls". I got the recipe from my mom who tried these at a bridal shower given by Holly Dippold. She absolutely loved them so I decided to give them a try this weekend while Rafael is in New Orleans helping with the clean up efforts. The recipe has one of my favorite ingredients Cream Cheese but Rafael can not even stand the thought of anything with cream cheese in it (or sour cream, ranch, mayonaise, alfredo, ricatta, cottage cheese... he has some weird oversion to white condiments). Don't you feel sorry for how limited I am in my cooking? Anyways, me and the girls got up and started cooking. As you can see Lauren did more tasting then making but that's ok. While the rolls were cooking the girls washed the dishes. I know some of you are thinking, but you have two dish washers why wash dishes by hand??? This way was much more fun for the kids and it helped pass the time while we waited for the rolls to cook. Besides these two dish washers are soooo cute! Andrew woke up just in time to help make the icing. As soon as he came in the kitchen he said repeatedly "need help, need help, need help..." as he pushed a chair up to the counter. That's what he says when he needs help with something or when he thinks mommy needs help with something and any time mommy is cooking or cleaning she "need help". So, the verdict on this recipe: Fun for the kids to help make, very yummy, and very messy. I don't know if I did something wrong but they didn't quite turn out like I imagined they would. They were too big for the mini muffin pans so some came out shaped like little muffins and some just came out as a big blob. The kids didn't care though and neither did I because they were so tasty but unless I figure out what went wrong I wouldn't serve these to anyone but if your looking for a yummy easy recipe this is perfect.

2 packages Pillsbury Crescent Rolls (preferable the packages where it is one rolled sheet of pastry per package)2 8oz packages softened cream cheese1 Cup sugar2 Tablespoons cinnamon2-3 Tablespoons melted butter
1 ½ Cups powdered sugar2-3 Tablespoons heavy cream (do not substitute)
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Remove rolls from packaging. Unroll each of the dough pieces so they are in the shape of rectangles. Roll each individual into an even thinness. Place cream cheese, sugar and cinnamon into a medium bowl. Stir until well combined. Spread half of the cheese mixture onto one sheet of dough and half onto the other spreading evenly across dough leaving about ¼ inch border around edges. Roll dough as if you were making cinnamon rolls, ending with seam side down. Cut 1 inch pieces and place all 24 pieces into mini muffin tins. Brush each roll with melted butter and bake for 15-20 minutes or until slightly golden around edges and cooked through.
2. Transfer rolls to a cooling rack and cool completely. While cooling combine powdered sugar and heavy cream until thick and drizzle ready. With a spoon, drizzle icing over each roll.
24 Rolls

Enjoy! :)