There’s this little boy at school who, I think, may have a crush on Morgan. Well, he’s not really a little boy, but work with me here. Little boy sounds tolerable and non-threatening, while teenage boy sounds disturbing and nightmarish. At least when it comes to Morgan, who is of course just a little girl.
A little girl who is 16. Though this photo was taken when she was 15. I think I’ll keep using it as affirmation of my denial of her growing maturity.
Anyway, now that we’re all on the same page and understand that we are just talking about little children–
He likes her. For her birthday, he gave her a small cookbook called “Cookies” from Gifts for Giving, along with a spatula. And a meat mallet. (???) Now, Morgan doesn’t like to cook and mostly refuses to cook. This is a position she has taken explicitly to cause me pain. It’s similar to the steadfast stance she took for several years during elementary school on reading. She only read if she was forced to read at school, and she adamantly and repeatedly stated that she hated reading. Since I’m an avid reader and a writer, this was a difficult cross to bear. How could I go so wrong? Did I not read her stories every night from the time she was a baby? I was about ready to fall on my sword when suddenly in middle school she became an obsessive reader. Now, and for the past few years, you can hardly pull her nose out of a book. In fact, what inspired my interest in getting Kindles, for her and Weston and myself as well, was that she and Weston were amassing books in their rooms at an alarming rate and I needed to stop the amassing by converting their reading obsessions into digital form that didn’t take up so much space.
I can only hope that her aversion to cooking will take the same path, so I don’t push her about it. And I can only wonder if this boy knows her BUT AT ALL to get her a cookbook as a birthday present. He was lucky she didn’t take the meat mallet and pop him on the head with it.
Or maybe he knows her after all because when I perused the cookbook I found that some of the recipes were take-offs on refrigerated store-bought cookie dough, so there was actually a limited amount of real cooking involved. But even that was too much for Morgan, so she handed me the cookbook and the spatula and bounded up to her room with her new fun toy, the meat mallet.
And that’s all right. If she’s going to have boys interested in her, she might as well be carrying something with which to whop them.
Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, I decided to try out one of the recipes and convert it to a from-scratch recipe. This is a “cinnamon roll” take on the classic pinwheel cookie. Rather than use refrigerated store-bought dough for the base, I used homemade sugar cookie dough.
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How to make Cinnamon Bun Cookies:
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
dash of salt
1 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla; blend. Mix in flour, baking powder, and salt. Divide dough in half. Set aside one half, leaving the other half in the mixing bowl. Add the brown sugar and cinnamon to the bowl. Mix with an electric mixer until the brown sugar and cinnamon is completely incorporated. Wrap each half separately and chill for at least an hour.
Remove the dough from the fridge and divide each half into two more halves so that you have two parts plain dough and two parts brown sugar/cinnamon dough.
Roll the first plain half into an 8-inch by 8-inch square on a lightly floured surface. Look, I even measured.
Roll the first brown sugar/cinnamon half the same way.
The easiest way for me to transfer the dough was to fold the brown sugar/cinnamon dough over.
Carefully lift it up and move it on top of the plain dough.
Unfold it and spread it out.
I lightly rolled it also to press the two pieces together. Now roll it up.
Repeat with the second plain half and the second brown sugar/cinnamon half to make two rolls of dough. Wrap and place rolls in the freezer until very firm (which makes slicing easier without mangling the dough). You can leave it in the freezer for 30 minutes or leave it in the freezer for a month–up to you! This is a good make-ahead recipe if you want it to be.
When you’re ready to bake, take the frozen dough from the freezer and let sit at room temp for a few minutes, just to soften enough to slice–but not get too soft. Preheat oven to 400-degrees.
Slice the dough into cookies and place on greased baking sheets.
Bake for 6-8 minutes. Let cool completely before icing.
Powdered Sugar Icing:
Combine 1 cup sifted powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, and enough milk (about three to four teaspoons) for drizzling consistency. Drizzle decadently over cookies. And wow, these do look like little cinnamon buns, don’t they?
And they taste like little cinnamon buns, too! This recipe makes about 3-4 dozen cookies. I gave a third of the cookies to my cousin for helping me with my furnace. I sent another third of the cookies to school with Morgan to give to the “little” boy, and kept the rest hanging around here for our snacking pleasure. I think Clover would like one, too.
Clover: “Sometimes, Woman, you are pretty smart.”
P.S. Let the icing set completely then they are stackable.
See this recipe at Farm Bell Recipes and save it to your recipe box.
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gaea303 says:
LOL!!! Suzanne, you have a gift for making me feel better about things…my son refuses to cook and claims he hates to read, and I also feel he is like this just to cause me pain! Now that I know I’m not the only parent living with this, I will persevere. Thank you!!
On January 30, 2012 at 6:48 am
JoJo says:
:happyflower:
Suzanne, I am so happy to see you back to posting your recipes, I have really missed them amist of all of the changes in your life of late, when I saw the post this morning, it was like things are getting back to normal.
I am anxious to bake there they will make a wonderful “good morning cookie” sometimes in the morning I like a litte somthing with my coffee, I am a very early riser, these are perfect. Thank you.
On January 30, 2012 at 7:45 am
JoJo says:
:happyflower:
Suzanne, I also want to add, dont worry about Morgan and her not liking cooking, she has all of the knowledge, she has absorbed it through osmosis, one day she will start cooking, like preparing dinner for a boy friend–then you should worry 😉 She is just at that age were cooking isnt that important, I remember when I was 16 I was wanting to drive and go “cruising” with my friends,and talk on the phone about who was the cutest boy we knew– do kids even do that anymore? I think I just told my age!
On January 30, 2012 at 7:59 am
Savannah says:
Those cookies look delicious this morning. What a fabulous idea. I think that little boy’s mother probably had a big hand in this. 😀 But either way it was a sweet gift. Pardon the pun.
On January 30, 2012 at 8:31 am
TeaCup says:
Those look yummy! This is likely going to be a a real problem here. I can resist cakes, ice cream, and most other pastries, but I have a real weakness for cinnamon with morning coffee.
They look wonderful.
Oh dear! (Where did I put that self-control? I know I had it here, somewhere….)
Judi
On January 30, 2012 at 8:41 am
Darlene says:
This is going to make great gifts to take to family. With freezing it they can make it up fresh for their families :heart:
Once again, Suzanne, you made my day :sun:
On January 30, 2012 at 9:37 am
amateisgal says:
Suzanne! This looks amazing! You should put it on your Pinterest board. 😉
On January 30, 2012 at 1:11 pm
stacylee says:
Cookies for breakfast! My nine year old would think I was the best mom ever!
On January 30, 2012 at 2:39 pm
oct4luv says:
Those look amazing! I can’t wait to make those. You are a cookie genius.
On January 30, 2012 at 11:20 pm
Nezzy says:
I just had to giggle when I read that the ‘little’ boy gave your sweet non cookin’ daughter a cookbook for her birthday, sounds like the young fella is plannin’ for the future! Heehehehe!
The cinnamon cookies look droolin’ like a five month old goooood!
God bless and ahve a magnificent day sweetie!!! :o)
On January 31, 2012 at 11:29 am
wtrmllngirl says:
I don’t know if you know about Pinterest or not…it’s essentially a digital bulletin board where you can “pin” things you like or as in my case, things you want to cook! It’s like bookmarking a page, only more visual, and other people can see what you’ve recently pinned and re-pin onto their own boards. I’ve pinned stuff from your blog before into my “recipes to try” section, but I wanted to let you know that less than an hour after I pinned this Cinnamon Bun Cookie recipe, it has been re-pinned by other folks over 300 times. Which is over 300 people who will be coming to this post to get the recipe!
On January 31, 2012 at 2:12 pm
Suzanne McMinn says:
Thank you, wtrmllngirl!
On January 31, 2012 at 7:25 pm
mamacarpenter says:
:hissyfit: Oh, NO! Sixteen? With that face you are going to need more than a mallet…maybe a shotgun? Good thing you have those wonderful “cousins” close by to run them off! She is going to be that sweet something that draws them like flies. Good Luck Mama! :clover:
On January 31, 2012 at 2:19 pm
JoJo says:
:happyflower: I baked these–excellent, I did a heavy drizzle with the glace and added some chopped toasted pecans, our neoghbor had not been well so we took ove a plate of the cookies, he really enjoyed them so much.
Thank you for these, I know they will be a favorite for quite some time.
On February 1, 2012 at 3:31 pm
yvonnem says:
Suzanne! I’m lazy. What refrigerated cookie doughs were in the original recipe? I know they make sugar cookie dough, but don’t know about the cinnamon, brown sugar. Do you add it to the refrigerated sugar cookie dough? My sister wants ME to make these!
On February 3, 2012 at 8:15 pm
Suzanne McMinn says:
This recipe specified two 27 ounce refrigerated cookie dough packages. You would add the brown sugar to half (one package) with an electric mixer.
On February 4, 2012 at 6:07 am
Virginia Farmgirl says:
Made these yesterday and they turned out great! I will definitely be making some to have on hand in the freezer. Thanks for another great idea! :snoopy:
On February 5, 2012 at 10:10 am
Eva says:
You two killing me. Read the blog at night and there are no goodies in the house. Can’t you blog on eating celery?
Eva
On February 6, 2012 at 10:49 pm
janicecauley says:
I was so impressed with the photo of your Cinnamon Bun cookies that I just had to whip up a batch. I am happy to report that your cookies received rave reviews from the 50+ coworkers at my office today. This recipe will be a keeper!
On February 8, 2012 at 7:36 pm
Hgange says:
These cookies really are wonderful. My husband at a half dozen shortly after they came out of the over (and they’re not small!), and my girls took a bunch off to school with them to give to friends. Even the daughter who claims not to like cookies ate one–I saw the crumbs in her room.
On February 9, 2012 at 12:27 pm
mamajoseph says:
Yup! These are good. A little more trouble than a regular drop cookie, but yum, yum. Taking them to a Valentine party for our homeschool group tomorrow and I am betting they will be gobbled up quickly!
On February 9, 2012 at 8:23 pm
lizinohio says:
Looks Delicious!
On February 10, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Laurie P says:
I love this recipe. I made these this last weekend for my family and they loved them. They could not get enough of them. I still have one roll in the fridge, so today after work I will have to make some more of them. Just wanted to say I loved them.
On February 13, 2012 at 6:46 pm
Squeegees Mom says:
These are the best cookies I have ever made. Even better than my snickerdoodle cookies. Thank you so much for the recipe. We have no will power when it comes to these!
Squeegee’s Mom
On March 5, 2012 at 8:09 pm