Wendy's Wonderings

The child, she is honest... ;-)

"Angel" came to visit me yesterday. She had her little closing program from pre-school. It was very cute, and her Mom even managed to get her into a dress rather than a Spiderman shirt and jeans. :-) She was so precious singing her little song about the months of the year and something about a marching dinosaur. :-)

She asked her mom if she could go to Aunt Wendy's house for a little while. So, she came over and ate lunch. She then begged to help me make some cookies.

OK, so she actually begged to get on the computer to play "WOW WOW Wubbzie", which I suspect is the whole reason she wanted to visit. :-) After about 30 minutes on the computer I decided she had enough and I quickly came up with the idea of making cookies to distract her.

When in doubt, bake. :-)

I pulled out my recipe book and looked for the recipe that had a lot of ingredients she could put in. I decided on "Ranger Cookies", because a lot of the measurements do not have to be EXACT, and what child would not want to crunch up Corn Flakes in a Ziploc bag? :-)

I pulled out all of the ingredients and asked "Angel" if she would do me a big favor and come crush the cereal for me. She was very happy to oblige. She then helped put all of the other inside, tasting the cereal and coconut before putting it in. She really liked the coconut. :-)

She also liked the dough, because it is one of those that you have to mix with your hands after a while, and then roll into balls.

After the first batch came out we tried our cookies and she exclaimed happily, "Aunt Wendy, you make the bestest cookies and cakes in the whole wide world. I love your cookies!"

Man, did that make me feel good! :-) I know I'm not the best baker in the world, but it is nice to have someone think so. Even if they are 4 years old.

As we all know a 4 year old will tell you truth, whether you want to hear or not. ;-)

I did tell her that she was also a very good cookie baker, because she helped make those cookies. You should have seen her little face beam. :-) I love when children get that "beam" after being told they did a good job. :-) Little Mark still gets that beam too. :-)

So, we bagged up a few for her take home to share with the family, and tell them all how she made the best cookies in the world.

Here is the recipe, just in case you and the kiddos would like to bake some this weekend. :-)

RANGER COOKIES

1/2 C Shortening
1/2 C white sugar
1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 C Cornflakes (crushed)
1/2 C coconut or pecans
1 egg (beaten)
1 t vanilla
1 C flour (sifted)
1t baking powder
1 C Quick Oats

Cream together shortening and sugars. Add egg and vanilla. Mix well. In a separate bowl sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together. Add a little at a time to the wet mixture, mixing well between each addition. Add the oats and coconut (or pecans). The dough will be very dry. (This is the part where we mixed with our hands.)

Roll dough into balls and press to flatten a little. Press onto a greased cookie sheet (I use parchment paper) and bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes. ENJOY!

Love,
Wendy Darling