The Cooky Book: Coconut Butter Balls

Don't let my crappy iPhone photo fool you -- t hese little balls of butter and coconut are in every way, my friends, winners. Really, they're called Coconut Butter Balls. That's my idea of perfection.

These cute little buttery balls are rolled in coconut, which make them pretty delicious looking and tasting on there own. The secret is, however, that there's a surprise pecan half in every ball. Could you ask for more? No, no you couldn't.

The Cooky Book: Russian Teacakes

The recipes in the Cooky Book tend to be so generic sounding, it's becoming difficult to tell what's going to be delicious and what's going to be blander than bland. The ingredient list for Russian Teacakes is pretty standard (butter, sugar, vanilla, flour, salt, and nuts), but somehow, they are magically delicious in every way.

I should disclose that it's actually icing sugar, not regular sugar, which is probably why these little morsels are so light and fluffy. I think there's also a mental thing -- the name "Russian Teacake" just sounds so darn fancy and elegant. We had family in town when I made them and I actually served them with tea, which made all of us feel like ladies and gents.

The Cooky Book: Date-Oatmeal Cookies

I'm fairly faithful to the instructions and recipes in the Cooky Book, but I have some issues with baking with dates. First off, I generally don't really like dates at all, unless they're fresh and stuffed with cheese and walnuts and served in a fancy over-priced restaurant. But that's me. Secondly, the decent looking baking dates in the grocery store are pretty pricey, and the cheaper ones are pretty gross looking. Thirdly, I don't think my kids would willingly eat them. So, while in the dried fruit aisle, I made the executive decision to skip the dates in my Date-Oatmeal Cookies and go for Craisins instead.

I'm pretty sure Craisins didn't exist when dear Saint Betty Crocker put together this cookbook, but I'm sure she would have loved them. As it stood, these cookies were unmemorable, but edible. Which is sometimes all you can ask for from the Cooky Book.

The Cooky Book: Zimtsterne

These were another Christmas cookie that I'm finally just catching up with now. I know, I know. The Cooky Book describes them as "a crisp, spicy cooky with a chiny glazed top. A favorite of Switzerland." Hmm. Well, if the Swiss like 'em they have to be good, no? They're okay. That's about it. I didn't really find them spicy enough to be interesting, but they didn't taste bad. They did have a weirdly flaky quality to them that I didn't particularly enjoy. I liked the fact that they're brushed with egg, because shiny is always fun. So okay, but not a Christmas treat that anyone, Swiss or otherwise, would likely look forward to year after year. If it's any indication, I had a load of these left after Christmas was long over and ended up throwing them out.

The Cooky Book: Cream Filbert Candy Cookies

Betty Crocker advises that these resemble creamed filberts, otherwise known as mothball candies. To which anyone under the age of 100 is probably saying "huh?" I've never had a mothball candy, nor do I want to. But these are pretty tasty little cookies.

If I were to make these again I'd skip the festive decorative sugar because it's too crunchy and distracts from the yummyness of these cookies. They're rich and creamy little balls with filberts in the middle. They're quite buttery, but other than that, I can't really account for what sets them apart from any regular vanilla cookie -- I think the word "cream" in the title is making them taste better than they actually are. Either way, these are a hit, not a miss.

The Cooky Book: Christmas Bells

Where the heck have the cookies been? I admit to taking a short Cooky Book hiatus. I'm only human. But I'm back on the horse. Back on the horse.

So yes, I obviously made these some months ago, for Christmas. Because they're called Christmas Balls and one makes them at Christmas time, right? Or, at least I did, because I thought they'd be festive and worth serving to guests. Or so I thought.

These are not guest-worthy cookies. They were boring and bland and contained way too much food colouring. And they don't really look like Christmas balls at all. People didn't want to eat them because they don't even look like food. How could you blame them?

The Cooky Book: Pumpkin Cookies

The Recipe: Pumpkin Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book.

The Verdict: Surprisingly delicious! After my applesauce cookies got all gross and moldy, I was not excited about the prospect of putting large quantities of moist fruit into a cookie recipe. But, with Halloween and Thanksgiving and all that business, I felt compelled to whip up some pumpkin cookies. I have a recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip muffins that are delicious, so I threw in half a bag of chocolate chips in lieu of nuts. The result was pretty damn good.

The did turn out a little spongy and moist (sorry, I know that word irks some people), but these pumpkin lovelies were a hit. They really are like the cookie equivalent of a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, which I know some people really go cuckoo crazy for. And the kids loved them, which means I got them eating squash. Hooray all around!

The Cooky Book: Pecan Spice Cookies

The Recipe: Pecan Spice Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book.

The Verdict: The Cooky Book has been hitting 'em out of the park lately. These are super good -- very spicy, but not so overpowering that kids won't eat them (or at least my kids, though they may have eccentric tastes). With nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and cloves there's a lot of taste packed into these little dynamos.

My kids are also weirdly obsessed with any cookie with a nut stuck on top. I'm not sure why, but I'll go with these. These have chopped pecans inside and also a pecan half on top, so they're not school-friendly, but are a great non-school snack for nut fans.

The Cooky Book: Peanut Butter Cookies

The Recipe: Peanut Butter Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Verdict: Do I even have to tell you how these turned out. Classic PB cookies with the criss-cross on the top, you can't go wrong. The Cooky Book boasts that these are "So rich, good with anything: a favourite with men and children." A favourite with men and children? Well, I am neither a man nor a child and I thought they were pretty fab.

This is the most basic, flawless peanut butter cookie recipe ever and I can't really fathom how anyone could improve on it. There are a couple of variations in here, one with honey added in and another with jelly thumbprints. I was tempted to do another batch of the jellies, but with Christmas coming up and PB being taboo in school lunches I elected to move on. Maybe when I get through the book I can go back. Catch up with me in a decade or so.

The Cooky Book: Chocolate Crinkles

The Recipe: Chocolate Crinkles from Betty Crocker's Cooky Book

The Verdict: These are good, but off. It's a fairly standard crinkle recipe, with the chocolate, the icing sugar, all that jazz. They look fudgey and delicious, but they're lacking... something.

Full disclosure: Martha Stewart has a recipe for almost identical chocolate crinkles. Martha's crinkles, however, are mind-blowing. I realize I could look up the recipe and compare the ingredients, but I'm willing to bet that Martha's contain a whole heck of a lot more chocolate. On first bite, Betty Crocker's crinkles are tasty and brownie-like, but the more you eat, the more hollow they taste. Since chocolate cookies are a rare occasion on the land of the Cooky Book, this makes this recipe tragic. I ended up crumbling the last few over homemade vanilla pudding instead of eating them whole. That's how sad it was.

The Cooky Book: Snickerdoodles

The Recipe: Snickerdoodles from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Verdict: Thank the fates for Mrs. Ronald Anfinson of Benson, Minnesota, the creator of this, the original recipe for snickerdoodles. This is the true snickerdoodle recipe and there have obviously been many variations and riffs on it since Mrs. Anfinson was on the scene. I googled Mrs. Anifson and couldn't even find so much as her first name. All that comes up is this recipe, attributed to her genius.

I'm not sure what makes snickerdoodles so awesome, but awesome they are. They aren't a fancy cookie, just a crackly little morsel with a cinnamon coating, but they are quite magical. Crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, they are a classic. Classic.

The Cooky Book: Viennese Shortbread

The Recipe: Viennese Shortbread from Betty Crocker's The Cooky book

The Verdict: A Cooky success! These are really yummy little cookies. It's a pretty basic shortbread, pressed flat like rippled chips and sandwiched together with some coffee buttercream. Yum. Think of them as a slightly more elegant version of a Coffee Crisp. Did I say yum?

The Cooky Book: Lemon Cheese Pressed Cookies

The Recipe: Lemon Cheese Pressed Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Verdict: Lemon cheese. There's something about those two words together that just sounds super gross to me. Lemon cheese. Of course, the cheese in question in this recipe is cream cheese, not some inappropriate-for-dessert variety, but still, the very words make me think of lemony gouda or something equally unappealing.

So, much to my surprise, these little cookies are quite delicious, despite the fact that I generally do try to avoid cream cheese at all costs (I realize this contradicts my above assertion that cream cheese is an acceptable cookie ingredient. It just isn't usually acceptable to me as an incredibly picky individual). The lemon flavor is pretty intense and the cheese gives a little bit of heft and creamy-ness without turning them into mini cheese cakes. The cookie press was, as usual, a complete pain in the ass -- so much in fact that I actually injured myself using it, almost losing a finger nail. By the end of the batch I took to just molding the cookies into little balls.

Despite the fact that these are pretty tasty and very lemony, no one in my family would eat them. My son wouldn't even try one. He's only three and the very mention of lemons and cheese made him gag. Also, the cheese made them a little bit unstable, which made them go a little rank after a while. Which wouldn't have been a problem if my children had agreed to eat them, but you know how it is.

The Cooky Book: Chocolate Spritz

The Recipe: Chocolate Spritz cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutes: Butter for shortening. I also opted for the chocolate variety so my family would eat them.

The Verdict: Pretty yummy, but I don't really see what makes spritz so special. These are a pretty basic cookie, pressed through a cookie press. So, they look pretty (or, uh, should look pretty) and taste okay, if not particularly unique.

A word about the cookie press: what a pain. I didn't invest in a particularly expensive press, which may be part of the problem, but it was really difficult to get them looking right. Sure it's fancy -- and I do like me some fancy -- but not truly worth the effort.

The Cooky Book: Chinese Almond Cookies

The Recipe: Chinese Almond Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: Butter for shortening.

The Verdict: If you're trying to watch your figure, these guys should be avoided at all costs. There is A LOT of butter in this recipe (or shortening if you're going with the recipe as written). A lot. And I'm usually not one to balk at excessive amounts of butter, but in the case of these bland little cookies, the impending heart attack just isn't worth it. I had high hopes for these guys because of the relatively large amount of almond extract added in, but they just aren't almond-y enough. In fact, you can barely taste the extract at all.

So you're left with a boring, greasy cookie with a tease of almond taste. Naturally, my kids love them, but I'm handing them out stingily, because even a kid doesn't need that much butter.

The Cooky Book: Moravian Ginger Cookies

The Recipe: Moravian Ginger Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: Butter for shortening

The Verdict: I wasn't expecting much from these guys. They required almost no butter, which in my mind does not make for a good cookie. They also are supposed to be "paper thin." This meant that they were a bit of a nightmare to roll. The un-buttery dough was hard to work with and required a lot of pressure to get to that paper thin consistency. In other words, they were a complete pain in the ass to make.

But it was worth it! The ones that I managed to get ultra-thin were crispy and cracker-like, the ones that were a bit thicker were more like gingerbread. Either way, they were really tasty. We even had some friends over who are true ginger cookie enthusiasts and they loved them. So much in fact, that my cookie jar was empty within a couple of days.

The Cooky Book: Filled Cookies

The Recipe: Filled Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: Butter for shortening

The Verdict: These were pleasant, but troublesome. To keep things simple, I chose to make the turnover style, rather than cut out individual shapes and make cookie sandwiches. What I ended up with were some empanada style cookies, that were made out of straight-up buttery cookie dough rather than pastry.

I rolled these guys a little thicker than I should have, seeing as I ended up with almost half the number of cookies that the recipe was supposed to yield. This wasn't a problem in itself in that they baked up just fine, but the finished cookies got pretty moist and soggy after sitting in my cookie jar for a couple of days. I don't know if this is because of the thickness or because of the filling, but either way, they got a bit swampy over time.

Still, they're pretty delicious. I made the pineapple filling, which is basically a pineapple apple sauce with some nutmeg thrown in. Very tasty, even if they don't keep for long.

The Cooky Book: Mary's Sugar Cookies

The Recipe: Mary's Sugar Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: To prevent boredom, I threw in a package of Skor bits.

The Verdict: And the battle of the sugar cookies in ON! Okay, not really, but since the Betty Crocker peeps felt the need to put in two back to back sugar cookie recipes, I can't help but compare. This recipe, provided by a lady named Mary Herman (who, a Google search reveals, worked in the Betty Crocker offices, answering fan mail as Betty Crocker herself!), uses icing sugar instead of regular sugar and also has some almond extract in it (though the Skor bits pretty much canceled it out). Now that I've tasted Mary's Sugar Cookies and Ethel's Sugar Cookies, I have to proclaim Ethel the winner.

Not that Mary's cookies aren't tasty. They're less substantial though (Ethel's are more like a shortbread), and kind of greasy, though that might be a result of the Skor bits. Though, that doesn't mean I can stop eating them though. Because I, know, like cookies.

The Cooky Book: Ethel's Sugar Cookies

The Recipe: Ethel's Sugar Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: Butter for shortening. I used vanilla instead of lemon flavouring and added a bag of mini chocolate chips so that my family wouldn't abandon me.

The Verdict: Hooray, I've moved onto the "Rolled Cookies" section of the Cooky Primer chapter. I've kind of been dreading this point. First off, I am not a good roller. This is why I refuse to make pie crusts. But, the Cooky show must go on, so I'm committed to rolling for the time being. Secondly, the Betty Crocker people have included TWO sugar cookie recipes IN A ROW! In a row! I am not a fan of sugar cookies at all, and now I have to make two batches in a row? Oh right, you're not necessarily supposed to be baking through the entire book in order...

Anyway, Ethel's sugar cookies are nothing like the kind of sugar cookies I remember as a kid. They're basically made of the same drop cookie dough that most of the cookies in this book are made out of, only rolled out. This makes them a great candidate for the addition of chocolate chips. I really loaded them up, and as a result these are totally delicious cookies.

Would these have worked without the chocolate? Probably, but I'm not willing to ever find out.

Salisbury Steak with Mushrooms

Recipe: Salisbury Steak with Mushrooms from the March 2011 issue of Chatelaine. Recipe online here.

The Substitutions: None

The Verdict: Super Yum! Truth be told, I've only ever had Salisbury steak as part of a TV dinner. I had no idea how delicious they could be homemade. This recipe is really easy (it's essentially a hamburger patty simmered in some beef stock), but the taste really packs some punch.

This recipe contains a load of dried sage and I think I'd go easier on it next time because the taste is pretty overpowering. But all in all this recipe is a total keeper.