Cookie Shooter Cookies

1 box white cake mix
2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1 lb of unsalted butter
1 tsp almond extract

Melt 2 sticks of butter in microwave. Cut next two sticks into one inch pieces into melted butter. Mix until creamy consistency.

Sift cake mix and flour together to remove any lumps. Add cake mix to butter and mix until well blended.

Bake at 350 degrees; until lightly golden.

Variations:
*Replace half of the butter with a 1/2 of peanut butter
*Use different flavored cake mix such as lemon or chocolate
*Make a gingerbread buy replacing a 1/4 cup of flour with cocoa powder and add ground ginger and/or pumpkin spice

Peanutbutter Cookies

Laney making Peanutbutter Cookies
Originally uploaded by cncarter108

3/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup shortening
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tbs milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt

With a mixer cream together peanut butter, shortening,sugar, milk and vanilla. Add egg and give it a quick mix. Then slowly add in flour. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and place onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Press a fork into cookies to create the all important criss cross pattern. Dip fork into some cold water to prevent it from sticking to cookies. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes until lightly browned. These are awesome with Nutella drizzled on them. Just warm the Nutella in the microwave to make it drizzable. Drizzable, like it? Its my new word.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4 cup of butter flavored shortening
1 1/4 cup of light brown sugar
2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp vanilla
1 egg
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup of chopped nuts (optional)

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Combine shortening, brown sugar, milk and vanilla. Mix at medium speed until blended. Add egg to mixture. In a separate bowl combine flour, salt, and baking soda. Give the dry ingredients a whirl with a wire whisk to break up any lumps. Mix flour mixture into creamed mixture until blended. Stir in chips and nuts. Drop dough by spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes.

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookie Dough

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookie Dough
3 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
4 0z room temp cream cheese
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup room tempt butter
1 egg (room temp too)
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Stir with a whisk to lighten the flour up and break up any clumps. With a mixer beat (medium high) butter and cream cheese together then add sugar and mix till kinda fluffy. Then beat in egg and vanilla just until combined. Turn down mixer to a medium low speed and slowly add in the flour mixture. Separate your dough into two parts and then put your dough into plastic containers and seal. Leave dough in the frig for 2 hours. Roll out and cut. Cook at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. I highly recommend unsalted butter not margarine. Margarine has too much water in it and your cookies spread out and flatten when they cook. If you use salted butter omit the salt in your recipe.

If you want to make ginger bread replace 1/4 cup of flour with coco powder and sprinkle in 1/2 tsp of pumpkin spice. I like mine really spicy so I use 1 tsp of pumpkin spice. To sprinkle on colored sugar in a heart shape cut out a heart from a small sheet of wax paper. Lay on top of cookie and sprinkle on sugar. I kinda patted mine down and added on another layer of sugar just so the red would stand out more and then ripped away the paper real fast so the excesses sugar did not jack up my lines.

Other variations.

Maple-Walnut cookies
Prepare dough above but add 2 cups finely chopped walnuts to flour mixture and 1 tsp maple extract to butter mixture. Shape into 1 inch balls and bake at 15 minutes. Roll warm balls into powder sugar.

Pecan Bars
Prepare dough above, and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 15 x 10 pan with wax paper over lapping pan for easy removal, lightly spray bottom and sides with cooking spray. Press dough into bottom of pan and bake for 20 minutes till lightly browned. Combine 2 eggs, 1 cup of firmly packed brown sugar, 2/3 cup light corn syrup, 1/4 cup melted butter and 1 tsp of vanilla. Stir until well blended, add 3 cups of chopped pecans. Spread nut mixture evenly over warm crust. Bake an additional 20 minutes. Allow to cool completely. Using wax paper remove from pan, and cut into bars.