Fourth of July Firecracker Cookies

This was kind of a fun cookie, it was really unusual, I've never heard to have pop rocks in any kind of recipe. The red and blue were really cute for 4th of July. After I made them, they were sitting on my counter popping for about 3 hours. So they turned out to be a pretty weird taste when I first ate them. After awhile it seemed like all the pop was out of the cookies.

Check out our other 4th of July recipes:
Fourth of July Red, White and Blue Potato Salad
Star Ice Cream Sandwiches
Red, White and Blue Burger

The idea for this recipe comes from Cake Spy.

Ingredients:
-Sugar cookie mix (plus butter and eggs required by the mix)
-Frosting (I used 1 cup powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, 2 Tbsp. milk and added more until it was the right consistency)
-1 packet red pop rocks, 1 packet blue pop rocks

Make the sugar cookies according to package directions.
On the last few of them, I added a bit of the pop rocks
directly to the dough.

Mix up the frosting.

Red and blue pop rocks.

I tried to do some like the recipe I got the idea from,
I spread the frosting on the edge of the cookie, then rolled it
in the pop rocks.

This didn't work as well, the edges weren't smooth enough
to hold all the pop rocks.

Instead I sprinkled the pop rocks and some extra
sprinkles on top of the frosting and cookies.

Putting the pop rocks into the dough didn't really do anything, I couldn't taste them in the cookies. If you make these, be sure to add the pop rocks right before you plan on eating them so they don't lose their pop. The pop rocks were a little hard to spread out evenly on the cookies, but they looked ok after I spread them a bit.

Star Ice Cream Sandwiches

Recipe from a Farm Girl Dabbles. She made her own ice cream, but I just used vanilla ice cream. This recipe does take a little bit of time to make because the dough will need to sit in the fridge and the cookies will need to cool before you make the ice cream sandwiches.

I cut this recipe in half and it made about six sandwiches!

Other Fourth of July Recipes: Fourth of July Red, White and Blue Potato Salad.

Ingredients:
Cookies
-1 c. unsalted butter, softened
-2/3 c. sugar
-1/4 tsp. kosher salt
-2 c. all-purpose flour
-4 T. cocoa powder
-2 T. (1 oz.) red food coloring
-1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
-red sugar, to sprinkle on top

First, soften the ice cream. Spread it onto a cookie sheet covered in wax paper.
Top with plastic wrap.

To make the cookies:

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter and sugar. Add in the salt and flour, mix -- do not over mix. Then add the cocoa powder and mix again. Add the food coloring and vanilla, stirring until red coloring is evenly distributed. Divide dough into 2 equal portions and pat each into a disc. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours.

Heat oven to 350°. Spray cookie sheets with cooking spray.

Lightly flour your work surface and rolling pin. Roll to about 1/4'' thick. If the dough is sticky, just pick it up and pat into a round, flour your surface again, and roll out the dough again. With a small star shaped cookie cutter, cut out star shapes and place them on the cookie sheet. 

Sprinkle with red sugar. Bake for 11 to 13 minutes, taking care to not let the cookies brown. Let cookies rest on cookie sheet a couple minutes before removing to cool completely.

Once the cookies have cooled completely, cut the ice cream out with a cookie cutter.
It helps if you dip the cookie cutter in warm water first.

Put the ice cream on a cookie half.

Top with another cookie and serve immediately.

Put the extras back in the freezer right away.

These ice cream sandwiches were surprisingly easy to make, the cookies did take some amount of time, but mostly it was a lot of downtime. Sometimes when you make ice cream sandwiches and then refreeze them the cookies get too hard to eat, but these cookies stayed chewy after being frozen.

The major issue that I had with making these was the temperature in my house. It's been hot outside, but not hot enough to turn on the air conditioning, when I put the ice cream sandwiches together I put them in a room temperature container. Once inside the freezer, the air was still too hot and the ice cream from my remaining sandwiches melted. To fix this I could have frozen the cookies and the container first or I could have put the sandwiches in the freezer in an open container for about half an hour, before putting them in a closed container.

Aside from the temperature issue, these were delicious. I made the star shapes because it was for the Fourth of July, but when I make these again I'll probably make round cookies.

Brown Sugar Oatmeal Coconut Chewies

This recipe comes from the Dough Will Rise Again. These cookies are perfect if you want something sweet without any chocolate (I know, it's hard to believe, but sometimes that happens). I made these cookies for a party that I went to and they were a hit. Between the cookies I left at home and the cookies I served at the party, these were gone in less than a day. 

Ingredients: 
-1 cup butter, slightly softened
-1 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
-3/4 cup sugar
-2 tsp vanilla extract
-2 eggs
-1 tsp baking soda
-1 tsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp salt
-2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
-1 cup quick cooking oats
-1 1/2 cup shredded, sweetened coconut

Cream together the sugars and the butter.

Add one egg and mix until incorporated, then add the other egg plus the vanilla. Mix again.

Add the baking powder, baking soda and salt to the mixture. Slowly add the flour into the dough while mixing on low speed, you'll do this until the flour is incorporated, but make sure not to over mix. 

Take the bowl of dough off the stand mixer and incorporate the oats and coconut by hand.
Make sure not to over mix.

Bake on a greased cookie sheet for about twelve minutes. 

The edges will be slightly golden brown and the centers will be soft and chewy.

These cookies were perfect, they weren't too sweet, just the right amount. Be careful when baking these because the original recipe called for them to be baked for 8-10 minutes, but mine needed to be baked for 12-15 minutes. This recipe made about three dozen cookies.