Tina The Storyteller

This particular cookie has been in my arsenal for quite sometime. It is always a crowd favorite. I haven't meet anyone yet who has disliked them, except for me. And I did like them, maybe a little too much the first time I made them, but they are a treat that no longer tempts me. The recipe is from Land o Lakes Butter . It was featured on the butter box in the mid 90's. You can find it online here . The video just shows the final part of the recipe, considering we have made shortbread recently, we didn't think you needed to see us running the mixer again. And because we made balls of chocolate, that technique wasn't needed either. So we hope you enjoy! If you can't view the video, it can be found online at this link http://youtu.be/poq59jtesyw

I think that I first heard about someone making their own chocolates when I was in seminary. If I remember correctly, Ellis Nelson made his own chocolates. I was intrigued. My mom used to make mounds and potato candy, but truffles, well those were fancy, a little out of my reach, until I tried them. Turns out, chocolate truffles are pretty easy and it's not difficult to keep the ingredients on hand. Though they aren't as easy as somethings, it's not an overly complicated process, you just need a microwave and a freezer and you're well on your way to having homemade truffles. The recipe that we used today is from Betty Crocker. You can find the link here . Here's our video, if you have any problems with viewing it, you can access it directly on Youtube by clicking here .

This recipe comes from Joel's family and is called Scotch Shortbread. When he was younger, Joel would use half shortening and half butter as opposed to all butter as we've done in the video today. If the embedded video doesn't work for you, click here . Scotch Shortbread recipe 1 cup butter 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup white sugar 2 1/4 cup all purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt Mix together ingredients. Roll out and cut into cookies or press dough into 8x8 pan. Bake at 300 degrees Fahrenheit on non greased cookie sheet for 20-25 minutes. May be decorated using springler cookie presses. As stated in the video, when we used the shortbread pan, we increased the temperature to 330 and cooked for closer to 30 minutes. Keep an eye on it as you cook, you're looking for a golden brown color.

I've heard from a few folks that the embedded videos on the blog are not producing my desired results. So, here are the direct links to the videos!  Enjoy!! PS I'll embed and add the link with our next show, which I don't have a definite time for yet. http://youtu.be/eyJOQUaMeps (Snickerdoodles) http://youtu.be/LMw-_VOsqQw (Vanilla Cake)