American Dessert
APPLE CINNAMON COOKIES WITH MAPLE ICING
INGREDIENTS – COOKIES
½ cup butter, softened
¾ cup brown sugar
1 egg
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ teaspoon baking soda
1¼ teaspoons cinnamon
2 cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
1⅓ cups diced*, peeled apple (Your preference: Granny Smith = tart, Fuji = sweet)
* = 1 Granny Smith apple
INGREDIENTS – ICING
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons milk
½ tablespoon maple syrup
SPECIAL UTENSILS
electric beater
2 baking sheets
Makes 30 cookies. Takes 40 minutes.
PREPARATION – COOKIES
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add butter and brown sugar to large mixing bowl. Blend with electric beater set on medium until mixture becomes fluffy. Add egg and vanilla extract. Blend with electric beater set on medium until thoroughly blended.
Add baking soda, cinnamon, flour and salt to medium mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Gradually add this dry mix to large mixing bowl. Blend with electric beater set on medium until dough is thoroughly blended. Fold in diced apple.
Roll dough into little balls about 1″ wide. Leave a 1″ gap between dough balls. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes or until golden brown. (Baking times for any successive batches may vary.) Let cookies cool for 2 minutes before transferring with a spatula to wire rack or cold plate. Let cookies sit until completely cool.
PREPARATION – ICING
While cookies bake, add confectioners’ sugar, maple syrup, and milk to small mixing bowl. Mix with fork until thoroughly blended. Use knife to gently spread icing over cookies.
TIDBITS
1) It is worth restating from time to time that not all cookies are particularly fleet of foot.
2) Please notice that the last two letters of “of” are “of.” It’s true. You can tell just by looking.
3) The first two letters of “foot” are “fo.”
4) Culinary linguists call whenever the first two letters of the second word are the reverse of the last two letters of the previous word an “offo.”
5) Use this fact to amaze you fellow partiers. It’s also a sure-fire pick-up line.
6) Friend: How did you get Miss America 2009 to come home with you?
You: I used the “offo” fact.
7) See, proof you cannot deny.
8) Anyway, not all cookies can move on their own.
9) True, all cookies next to fault line, such as the San Andreas, clearly move in one direction or another. However, culinary seismologists don’t count as cookian–adjective for cookies–self propulsion.
10) However, some cookies do move rather quickly.
11) In fact, culinary sports announcers, will tell you after they’ve had a few, that Apple Cinnamon Cookies With Maple Glazing can move rather fast. Indeed, these apple cookies set the record for the 1500 meters with a speed of 2 minutes 2 seconds.
12) Unfortunately, poor-sports human had Apple Cinnamon Cookies With Maple Glazing from Olympic individual foot races, giving the spurious excuse that Maple Glazing is a banned substance.
13) However, the humans felt no need to ban Apple Cinnamon Cookies With Maple Glazing from relay racing.
14) So, these cookies hold their own marathons. They celebrate diversity with all types of cookies encouraged to enter. Poway, California holds one every April 1st. Book you hotel rooms early.
15) Be sure to look for the Apple Cinnamon Cookies with their Maple Glazing uniforms.
16) Please refrain from eating cookies in front of the contestants. It rather hurts their feelings.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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