The Kids in my Kitchen: Cookie Exchange!

"The Kids in my Kitchen" is part of an ongoing series where I blog a recipe the kids and I made together. Why do I think it's important for my kids to be in my kitchen with me? Read this.


I am a part of a cookie exchange next weekend so today's project: 7 1/2 dozen cookies. At least. More would be great. After pouring over my many recipes, magazine pages and websites, as well as rummaging through my cupboards, I decided on "Caramel Thumbprint Cookies" which are from my latest Family Fun Magazine.

Now, this recipe is for 26 cookies. I quadrupled it to get what I needed - 8 dozen cookies.

First up, 6 cups of flour.



Normally this would be a lot of flour. But not for me. Back at the end of summer I bought a bag of flour, a huuuuuge 10 kg bag of flour, for $5.97 - anticipating the Christmas baking season.

Add to that 2 cups of cocoa. Remember this is for 8 dozen cookies.

Then the Baking Powder and Salt.

Today's helper, in her PJs because Sunday is her much loved pajama day.


Stir that all together.

In a separate bowl combine butter and brown sugar

Picture flipped the wrong way number 1.

And mix with the beaters until blended.

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Next, add the egg yolks. Just the yolks. Makenna had never separated egg yolks from the whites before and had never seen me do it either. When I tried to teach her how to separate the yolk from the white, this is what we got:

So, I did this part and she watched. 4 egg yolks for our recipe for 8 dozen. **Do not discard the egg whites. You need them later.

Use the beaters again to blend it together. This is her first time using the mixer.

Then, you slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.

And mix with the beaters until well blended. Because of the amount in this bowl, this took a few minutes. Cover with saran wrap and refridgerate for 30 mins.

Next, finely chop your pecans, if you did not buy them finely chopped.

And get the egg whites left over from before. You will notice the contents of the bowl pictured are quite yellow, not white. We actually had 4 egg whites and 1 accidental egg yolk in there. But for this, it didn't matter.

picture flipped the wrong way number 3

Start rolling Tablespoon sized handfuls of dough into balls

Dip them in the egg whites and then roll them in the pecans

And line them up on cookie sheets. Use your thumb to make a little indent into the centre of each cookie ("thumbprint cookies").

Bake at 350 for 10 mins.


When they come out, add a Rolo (or other chocolate covered caramel candy) to the centre of each cookie.

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Put back into the oven for another 3 mins. When they come out the Rolos will be soft and easy to smush. Use a fork greased with butter to flatten the rolo down, and then place the cookies on a cooling rack.

8 1/2 dozen (101) cookies later...

As you can see, I did a few without rolling them in the pecans and they turned out just as well. They taste like brownies, with a gooey, caramel centre.

Before Jeff or my kids got a hold of them, I packaged up all the ones I needed for the cookie exchange.

But I did make some extra ones for our house. They were a huge hit with both the young kids and the big kids.

We added a little gingerbread man tag to each box (made out of sandpaper traced with a cookie cutter, and other odds and ends we had around the house)

Picture flipped the wrong way number 5

And we are all ready for next weekend's cookie exhange and have a nice treat for home too!

As I said, I quadrupled the original recipe. Find the orginal recipe here.

Fun lessons for Makenna:

Baking in bulk - how to take and original recipe and use math to make it work for a big crowd. Also, counting the cookies as we go to make sure we have as many as we are supposed to.

Separating Eggs - Eggs actually have 2 parts to them; a yolk, and a white. Sometimes recipes want you to separate them. She learned how to do that. Not that she herself can do that just yet, but she learned how it is done.

Thumbprints - I actually wanted her to touch every single cookie and stick her thumb into them. Then she learned how doing that makes just the right sized spot for the rolo to sit in and spread all it's warm goey goodness when cooked.

Cookie exchanges - What they are and why they are awesome. Next weekend we will come home with 6 dozen different cookies. And that's something we can all get excited about!

:)