Hamburger Cookies Recipe

Pigs and people are very different animals.

When people think about summer, you think about swimming pools, beaches, suntan lotion, and barbecues.

While pigs appreciate barbecues, there is really only one thing on the pig’s mind when summer is approaching.

No, it’s not mud!

Do you really think that’s all there is to pigs? Rolling around the mud? By now, you should really know we are much more sophisticated than that!

No, when summer is approaching, the one thing that pigs think about is hamburger cookies!

Nilla wafers smell like summer.

Back when we first started making hamburger cookies, they were in such high demand, that Cal and I had to restrict them to a seasonal treat. Otherwise, we think they might be demanded the entire year. 

Assorted hamburger cookie recipes are all over the internet, but this particular method is a Castle Farm special.  A full box of both cookies makes 40-something burgers (depending on how many broken ones there are).

Oh, and sorry these pictures are so bad.  We took them last year right after we moved into our new apartment.  Think of the moving boxes as scenic decor. 

Ingredients

• 1 box of Nilla Wafers
• 1 carton of Keeblers Grasshopper cookies (or Thin Mints)
• 1 can of yellow icing
• 1 can of red icing
• 1 egg white
• sesame seeds
• a handful of shredded coconut – dyed green

Instructions

1. Line up ½ the Nilla wafers facing up and ½ facing down. – all close together. 


2. Beat an egg white in a small bowl.  Brush the smooth rounded tops of 1/2 the cookies with eggwhites, then sprinkle with sesame seeds.  Make sure to sprinkle every 6-10 cookies, or the eggwhites will dry.


3. On the other half of the cookies, squeeze red icing around the edge of the flat side.  Press a grasshopper cookie on top. 


4. Squeeze yellow icing on top of the grasshopper cookie – around the edge and in the middle.


5. Sprinkle a very small amount of coconut on the edge of the yellow – making sure some of the green sticks out.  Cornelius’ tip: this is very important.  If you just pile the “lettuce” in the middle you won’t see it, and the bun top won’t stick.


6. Press the seeded bun on top of the cookie.

Total Time: 30 min

Yield: 40 cookies

That’s it! If you make these a few times, you’ll get the hang of how much icing you need and where to place it to get it all to stick together and to look the best. 

They may seem like a kinda weird combination of things, but they are the most glorious summer treat in all the land.  Be warned, when you bring these to a picnic, people will never allow you to bring anything else in the future.  That’s why we are strong advocates of having a firm hamburger cookie season that runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day. 

Happy Summer!

pig, out!

Cookie Extravaganza! Triple Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe

Do you know what goes with peanut butter?

If you said 'jelly', you are wrong.

If you said 'pigs', you are close. And you get bonus points.

But the correct answer is MORE PEANUT BUTTER!!!!

The way to make standard peanut butter cookies more delicious is really quite simple.  Go to the store and buy everything that says 'Reeses' in the baking aisle.  Now put them all into the cookies.  

These are triple peanut butter cookies, but maybe you could make them into quadruple or quintuple peanut butter cookies if you can find even more things.  That would be amazing.

Cal, however, disagrees.  He doesn't like peanut butter cookies.  

Yeah, I don't understand either.

To make these cookies, we started with a basic peanut butter cookie recipe from our Good Housekeeping Cookbook.

Ingredients 

• 1 1/4 c flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 c. natural creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 c butter
• 1/2 c packed brown sugar
• 1/4 c sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 
• 1 c peanut butter chips
• 1 c Reese's pieces 

Cornelius' tip: don't use the reduced fat stuff! or "peanut butter product" you really need  the good stuff

instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line your cookie sheets with parchment.


2. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl.


3. In the electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars.  When its light and fluffy, add the peanut butter.  Add egg and vanilla.  Beat until combined. 


4. Add flour mixture and make sure it's all mixed up and blended.


5. Now put all of those glorious peanut butter bits and in and mix it by hand.  You can use the electric mixer if you want but you'll probably smash up the pieces.


6. Drop heaping tablespoons of the dough, 2" apart, on the sheets.  With fork, press criss-cross pattern into cookies. Cornelius' question: why do we do this part?  is there a real baking reason why peanut butter cookies are criss-crossed or is it just expected at this point?


7. Bake until lightly browned, 15-20 min. Transfer to a rack to cool.

Yield: 3 dozen cookies, maybe more

Eat with plenty of milk! 

pig, out.

Penguin Sugar Cookies Recipe

As you may be aware, pigs and penguins are close allies.  

We are both highly stealthy and have many secret skills which we cannot tell you about. 


There is however one skill we can safely tell you about - that is our cookie baking prowess.


As part of the cookie extravaganza (still running since last December), we invited our penguin friend Skipper to help us with the sugar cookies.  

As you will see, Skipper did very little work.  Other than posing with the cookies.  He was very good at that.  I was in charge of all the decorating.  Cal helped some.

Once upon a time there was... Dipped Shortbread Cookies

I know these cookies seem a little untimely now that it's April... they made a lot more sense when we made them back in December.  


Despite the holiday sprinkles, this basic dipped shortbread recipe is good all year.  It's actually a very nice, light spring cookie!  


Maybe you'll want to find some sprinkles with bunnies or something on them instead, though.  Of course, if you have red and green sprinkles leftover still, we wouldn't hold it against you if you wanted Christmas cookies in the springtime - they would still be delicious.

Once upon a time there was.. French Butter Cookies

So.

We could make up some reasons we haven't been sharing our cute faces lately... like bluepigface disease or the whooping oink syndrome.... or we could pretend like our absence didn't happen and we have been blogging all of 2011.

We're going to go with the second choice.

Today, we present the fourth installment of our cookie extravaganza! French butter cookies.

For some reason, it never occurs to me that certain foods can be homemade.  Like circus peanuts.  

I only eat these wonderful cookies once a year, at Christmas time.  They come in a round tin and that is just how it is.  

So when I saw their recipe on Annie's Eats, my first reaction was confusion - it had really never occurred to me they could be made in a kitchen.  My second reaction, was, of course, I NEED TO MAKE THESE AND EAT THEM NOW.

If you are having the same train of thought, I recommend going with the second option. 

Cookie Extravaganza! Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies

You didn't really think our cookie extravaganza was only two kinds of cookies did you?  After I posted that picture of us sitting on top of a giant mountain of ingredients but then only followed up with two blog posts, did you wonder if we just posed like that for fun? And to tease you with the possibility of cookies?  Well fear not, castle farm cookbook blog readers, we have more cookies up our sleeves (if we had sleeves there would ALWAYS be cookies in them). 

We found this recipe in Taste of Home Best Loved Cookies magazine.  They are a peanut butter cookie with a surprise inside as you might have guessed by the name "peanut butter surprise cookies".  Although we like to keep surprises secret, it would be difficult to tell you how to bake these without telling you the surprise.  We would have to come up with some sort of elaborate plan where you tell us you are baking them and we sneak to your kitchen and add in the surprise ourselves.  

But since we are but two small farm animals, it seems much easier to just give away the surprise.  As long as you promise not to tell other people before they eat it.  Then, wait for them to take a bite, and yell "surprise!".  

So, do you promise to do this?

Cookie Extravaganza! White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

I was trying to come up with a creative name for this cookie that wasn't such a mouthful. I did not come up with one. So these cookies with a long name will stay long-named.

We usually make just plain oatmeal cookies. (Although last year we added chocolate chips). The pig likes his oatmeal cookies to be slightly overbaked, hard, and crunchy, but no one else does. That means the pig ends up eating most of the oatmeal cookies. So we needed a new plan for our oatmeal cookies...

Cookie Extravaganza! S'mores Cookies

Wow.

There are two events worthy of a wow today:
1) These cookies.
2) This is also our 100th blog post!

Quick celebration for #2: yay!!!!

Back to #1: S'mores are one of the best treats ever created.  I really don't think you can go wrong when you combine marmallow, graham cracker, and chocolate.   Unless you combine them with like, asparagus. 

That would definitely be wrong.  Please don't defile chocolate like that. 

Anyway, when you combine s'mores ingredients with cookie ingredients, do you know what happens?  Magic.  It's like cookie-campfire-chocolate-childhood-gooey-delicious-magic.   

Let the 2nd Annual Cookie Extravaganza begin...

Yes, I know it's 10:45 PM.

Blooper Friday! Sugar Cookie Bar Semi-Fail

The thing about sugar cookie bars is that they are impossible to fail.  We ran out of time, melted a plastic container, used the wrong pan, and didn't fully cook them and they were STILL delicious.  So unlike other Blooper Fridays, we are actually going to show you this recipe.

We first saw the cookie bars at Recipe Girl, complete with beautiful, colorful pictures and knew we had to make them.  She adapted the recipe from The Repressed Pastry Chef, to make her own version (<-- that's where you can find the full recipe and see what these are supposed to look like). We adapted it a little from hers.

Once upon a time there was... Hamantaschen

Today is Purim - the celebration of the Jews escaping the evil Haman. Haman wore a funny looking triangular hat, so to celebrate/make fun of him, we eat delicious triangular Hamantaschen cookies! This recipe is from Cal's Jewish mother and makes about 30 cookies.

ingredients

2 eggs

3/4 c sugar

1/2 c vegetable oil

2 3/4 c flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla

1 jar dessert filling

Cal's tip: The exact dessert filling is very important! Jams and jellies will not work, and we havent had good luck with anything but this brand:

We also recommend making this recipe three times - a good excuse to make many flavors of Hamantaschen!

Cookie Extravaganza! Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies are one of our all-time favorites. They are crispy on the edges, soft in the middle and filled with yummy gooeyness. This recipe is adapted from The All New Good Housekeeping Cookbook.

Cookie Extravaganza! Surprise Cookies!

The name of these cookies are Surprise Cookies.  This is not because you can't know what they are, it's because if you didn't make them and you just took one and bit it you would be surprised - because there is a secret marshmallow inside!  When we made a bunch of cookies 2 years ago, these were everyone's favorites.  We are also excited that we actually get to bake cookies again, since the last few batches we've made have to refrigerate for a while.  This is another favorite from Martha.  So here it goes.

Cookie Extravaganza! Chocolate-Peppermint Cookies

It's 10 PM and the snow is finally starting to taper off. We've hit a solid 18" and possibly more like 19", but we didn't really want to bundle up again to find out for sure. But thats a full 2 farm animals of snow! Impressive showing. Although the snow may be slowing down, the cookies are still coming along! Up next is Chocolate-Peppermint Cookies. This is a recipe we saw on Martha's homepage and knew we had to make. So here it is.

Cookie Extravaganza! Lemon-Pistachio Wreaths

As of 7:30 pm, we have 17.5" of snow, that's roughly 2 farms animals high!

We've had some dinner, cleaned up some, and we're ready to go again with some more cookies.  After all, it wouldn't be an extravaganza if we quit after just 6 kinds of cookies would it?  It would be more like a casual party.  So now we are making Lemon Pistachio Wreaths.

This recipe is from Martha Stewart and we have never made it before.  At this point we also havent decided if we are actually going to make them look like wreaths either, circles might be good enough for us.  Here's the recipe.

Cookie Extravaganza! Greek Honey-Walnut Balls

For our next trick, we have Greek Honey Walnut Balls. I am not really sure if these are technically a cookie, but close enough. As loyal readers know, we really love Greek food. So if we are making a cookie extravaganza, naturally one of them has to be Greek. This recipe is based off of one we found at Christmas-Cookies.com, but we made a slight adaptation. We had a cinnamon stick, actually one from Greece, that we were excited to use in the syrup, but we couldn't break it in half!

And we didn't have whole cloves either, so we just used ground. Since these are really yummy, we can't even imagine the yumminess that they would have been if we had used whole seasonings. Here it is:

Cookie Extravaganza! Peanut Butter Cookies

It's time for cookie #5! We're just about 1/2 way there.  We are planning on making 10+ types of cookies, although we will probably have to finish the extravaganza tomorrow.  But we don't mind since we probably won't have to go to our day jobs on Monday.  So, this is Martha's peanut butter cookie recipe.

Cookie Extravaganza! Chocolate Chip Cookies

For our fourth cookie of the day, we are going to make chocolate chip cookies! I don't think you can spend all day making cookies and not make chocolate chip. That would be ridiculous. We were going to follow the original Nestle Toll House recipe, which is what we usually make. But then we realized we only ad Ghirardelli chips, and those came with their own original recipe on the bag. We wouldn't want to offend anyone by mixing chips and recipes, so we are going with that.

Cookie Extravaganza! Butterfinger Cookies

We took a quick lunch break and then went out into the blizzard to measure the snow again.  We're now at 14.5 inches, or roughly 1 1/2 farm animals.

It's becoming a treacherous place for two small farm animals!  Luckily, we have locked ourselves in the kitchen with all these cookies.  After making the last two recipes that have to chill, we are ready for some cookies we can eat!  These are one of our all-time favorites, Butterfinger cookies.

This recipe is adapted  from razzle-dazzle recipes.

Cookie Extravaganza! Coconut Sugar Cookies

Cal the cow here with our second cookie of the day. The snow is still falling heavily, we'll give you another update around 1 pm when we venture outside again. For now, we are going to make Coconut Sugar Cookies with a Coconut Glaze. We have made these before and really enjoyed them. They are also the closest we are going to come to making sugar cookies. You see we have temporarily mislocated all of our christmas cookie cutters, so no christmas shaped cookies for us this year. But these sugar cookies look pretty with just circles and other non-christmas shapes, so that's what we'll do. The recipe is originally from Martha Stewart.