Doo-Doo Bombs

Doo Doo Bombs

(a.k.a. Granny Geisinger Cookies)

This is a recipe that Mom passed down to us. She originally got it from "Granny Geisinger", a family friend from church. But they became known as Doo Doo Bombs...

When Mom was in college at UC Santa Barbara, she cooked up a pan of the cookies with her best friend Betty Ann. The cookies needed to sit and cool when they came out of the oven, but they didn't want any of the other college students stealing some of the cookies. So they put a note on the pan:

"Do Not Eat the Doo Doo Bombs!!"

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 egg yolks

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 Tbs milk

Topping:

12 oz package semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 egg whites

1 cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream butter and sugars, then add egg yolks and vanilla. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl. Then add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture and stir until crumbly. Add up to 3 tablespoons of milk, as needed, to hold the dough together. Press into the bottom of an oblong pan lined with parchment paper.

Now comes the unusual step! Take the chocolate chips, and press them pointy side down into the dough, until it is dotted with chocolate but flat on the top. You won't use the entire bag. 

To make the meringue topping, beat the egg whites until firm but not dry. Gently fold in the brown sugar, 1/3 at a time. Spread over the top of the cookies. Bake for 25 minutes.

Let cool before eating. A warning sign to ward off college students is optional, but can be a wise idea. These are delicious!

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Chocolate and zucchini? Together?

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Just trust me on this one.

My dad is a talented gardener, and every summer our garden was overflowing with fresh fruits and vegetable to be eaten up and canned. Zucchini, in particular, seemed to do very well in the Seattle soil, and each year we would be inundated by huge, dark green, monsters of zucchini. For mom, it was a challenge to figure out what to do with it all. Then she discovered this recipe (and dad discovered the Continental Vegetable recipe), and voila! Problem solved.

This is a lovely, moist, but not-too-sweet loaf cake that is perfect for a tea-time snack. It's a big recipe, and makes three loaves - if you want just one loaf, divide the amounts by three (which is what I usually do). It's a fairly forgiving recipe, so if you don't get the coversions exactly right for the baking powder and soda, it won't make much difference.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

3 Eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp. Vanilla

2 cups brown sugar, packed

3 squares unsweetened chocolate

3 cups grated zucchini (about 3 store-bought zucchini, or one zucchini from Dad’s garden)

4 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. cloves

Heat oven to 350 degree F. In a microwave or double boiler, melt the chocolate.

In a large bowl mix together the eggs, oil, vanilla and brown sugar.  Stir in the melted chocolate and then the zucchini.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl, and then add them to the zucchini mixture. Stir well.

Bake in 2 or 3 greased and floured loaf pans for 40 - 60 minutes, depending on loaf size.  To test whether the loaves are done, get a piece of spaghetti and stick it into the tallest part of each loaf (my mom's clever technique). If it comes out with wet batter still attached, cook for another 5 minutes then test again.

The cooked loaves freeze well. (This is very useful as gardens generally produce a huge amount of zucchini all at once.)

From: the Zucchini Cookbook, discovered by Mom

Chocolate Chip Cookies (!!!)

I think this is perhaps the most classic recipe in my family's cookbook, although I think we could easily have a good long debate over it at dinner some day - that is, if we ever all managed to be in the same place for dinner.

My mom was a nurturer. It was just built into her nature. And one of the ways she showed love and care to people was through baking. when we were growing up, and friends came over, my mom would chat with them for a little while, learn about the things going on in their lives, and then she would disappear off into the kitchen for twenty minutes, then come back out as if nothing had happened.

And then 10-20 minutes later, a magical scent would come wafting out of the kitchen, usually brownies or these chocoloate chip cookies.

I probably had this recipe memorized not long after I had grade school, I spent so many afternoons cooking them with my mom. When I feel the need to feel a little closer to my family, this is the recipe I pull out. I have my own technique, and I'm sure each of my sisters does as well. I am not jeopardizing future bake-off winnings by sharing my secrets, so instead I will just post it the way our mom made it.

(OK, I will share one tip - I mix everything by hand, I never use a blender. I find this turns out soft, dense cookies, rather than cake-like ones.)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 ¼ cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup butter
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips



Preheat oven to 375F. In a small bowl, mix together flour, salt, and baking soda. In a blender, mix shortening, sugar, and brown sugar on medium speed until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat on medium-high speed for about 3 minutes until light and creamy. Mix in flour mixture on low speed until just combined.

Remove bowl from blender and stir to make sure there are no pockets of flour. If dough seems too sticky, add a little extra flour. Stir in chocolate chips. (Here's my mom's secret - use a butter knive so that the it doesn't get too stuck in the dough). Drop 1½ - inch balls of dough onto nonstick cookie sheets, at least 2” apart.



Bake cookies. For soft cookies, bake for about 9 minutes and remove cookies from the oven when there are just barely beginning to turn golden. For crunchy cookies, bake for about 12 minutes and remove cookies from the oven when they have turned golden. If you remember, switch the cookie sheets halfway through baking and they will cook better.



Makes about 45 cookies.

We're big fans of breakfast in this house. Every weekend morning you'll find us tucking into pancakes, waffles, or biscuits, or maybe bacon and omelets, and of course big pots of tea and coffee to wash it down. A few years ago I finally learned to make my mom's biscuit recipe, and now I make these almost every week. My mom, on the other hand, really only pulled out the biscuits on special occasions, so I never realized just how easy they are. The part of this recipe that takes the longest is waiting for the oven to get hot enough!

It's also a great use of all the buttermilk we always have lying around. My mom's original recipe called for Crisco and milk, but I have updated it with fresh butter and buttermilk, which makes a rich but fluffy biscuit perfect for slathering with butter or jam (or topping with gravy, as I am inclined to do on occasion.)



This recipe makes about 16 biscuits, so I usually do a half recipe. I have tried freezing the biscuit dough after it's been cut into rounds, but this seems to result in flat, dense biscuits, so I don't recommend it.

Buttermilk Biscuits

1/2 cup butter
2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
2/3 to 3/4 cup lowfat buttermilk

Preheat oven to 475ºF. Mix together the flour, salt, and baking powder. With a fork or pastry blender (or your fingers) cut the butter into the flour. Work until you obtain pea-size bits. Stir in the buttermilk by degrees. Stop adding when dough just comes together.

Combine with your fingers just until the dry bits are incorporated, then press the dough into a 1/2 inch thick sheet. Cut into circles with a cookie cutter or small glass. Arrange side by side on a baking sheet. Bake for 5 minutes at 475ºF, then lower the heat and bake another 7-8 minutes at 450ºF. Serve hot with lots of butter and jam.