Fall Baking, New Kitchen Utensil & Orange Slice Cookies

Orange Slice Cookies

It's finally fall, the leaves turn, the sun rises slower, and there is a slight chill in the air in the morning. But fall also means comfort foods, soups, and BAKING!!! I love to cook and bake and as I've said before I'm sure it has something to do with combining a bunch 'o stuff and then having something totally yummy (or at least most of the time it's yummy).  One of the challenges of cooking is making something you personally do not like. I would much prefer to make something I can taste along the way or at least smell that it's going well, but sometimes ya just gotta step out on faith, slap on the Nike slogan and JUST DO IT!

I had one of these adventures this weekend, it was actually a two-fold reason for using the recipe that I chose. I got this handy dandy new baking item for my birthday and couldn't wait to try it out. It is called a muffin top pan, (from Apron Strings- Hutchinson) used to bake a very shallow muffin so that you end up with the most scrumptious part - the top.

Muffin Top/Cookie Pan

I had seen these used also to bake cookies so that you have beautiful perfectly round cookies. Sometimes a nicely shaped cookie can be achieved by using a uniform measurement, such as a cookie scoop, but the type of cookies that seem to be a problem is one that has stuff that melts such as caramel or fillings. I decided to test it on Orange Slice Cookies. Now anyone that knows me at all knows that if I had to choke down a jellified, sticky, sugar-coated, fruit flavored piece of ick, I would do just that - choke. But the second part of the cookie adventure was that this particular cookie is one of hubs' favorites and he was feeling a little blue. He had decided earlier in the week that the Hutchinson Rod Run was the perfect weekend to sell his third child - a white, '91 corvette. He was suffering a bit from separation anxiety and I thought if these didn't cure the sorrow at least he could get a good sugar buzz going.

'91 'vette

Recipe for Orange Slice Cookies

I gathered my ingredients and chopped up the gooey orange slices and set to work. The pan only holds 6 at a time and I only have one pan at the moment, but that turned out ok since there seemed to be a bit of a learning curve on exactly how much dough to put into the pan and how much to smash it down.

Chopped Up Orange Slices

I was happy with the results and think I will be getting one or three more to cut down on baking time. I have several recipes I want to try (have I mentioned I'm addicted to Pinterest? There are days I'm so engrossed in looking at the random collection of things from wedding  dresses (yes, I'm already married, and yes I have two boys, so what's your point?) to cute sayings to DIY crafts (like I NEED one more thing to start) to a bazillion kinds of recipes that I'm sure if someone ventures into my pinterest viewing space, I snarl and bare my teeth.

Speaking of snarling....random thought - because it's my blog and I don't have to have fluid continuity, I can be Queen of Random, if I so choose, hear ye, hear ye, all bow to the Queen Mum of Random......ohhh, I like that.... anyhoooo... Murphy, our million dollar dog, has hurt her paw. That within itself is not some big news flash because she is always hurting something, but she is limping around holding it up when she is walking creating a hopping effect, so we are affectionately calling her Hoppy the wonder dog now. Poor thing, she sets her paw in your hand but the minute you act like you are going to inspect it, her lip curls up in the cutest little Elvis snarl you ever saw on a dog. Well, cute until she snaps and sends her aptly named canine teeth into the fleshy part of your hand.  I'll let her work on fixing it herself - dogs seem to be able to do that - and if it doesn't get better, we'll spend a few more dollars on that silly but loveable member of the family.

Murphy aka Hoppy the Wonder Dog!