Oy vey. I'm a little verklempt to be writing the very last post of Cookie Bookie 2010. Three Octobers ago when I started this little blog of mine, I thought it would be fun to share my favorite fall cookies and some spooky reads. I had only a handful of readers, and they were mostly just relatives, trying to be supportive. By the next year, my reader family had multiplied. A few kind readers emailed to ask if I was planning to do Cookie Bookie again. And so the tradition was born, thanks to you all. This time around I've had a whole year to test cookies and read scary stories. I saved the sweetest and scariest for last....
I wouldn't recommend reading Stephen King's Misery when your husband is out of town. It will be a long night, full of nightmares and macabre hallucinations. Maybe you've already seen the movie Misery, but don't let that stop you from reading the frightening book. (Who could forget the hobbling scene with Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata playing in the background? Well, it doesn't happen in the book-it's worse.) If you thought it was scary in technicolor, you won't believe how chilling the story is on the black and white printed page. Misery tells the story of dangerously unbalanced Annie Wilkes, who rescues her favorite writer Paul Sheldon when his car slides off the road during a snow storm. She transports him to her isolated farmhouse in the Rocky Mountains and nurses his shattered legs. Doting Annie is Paul's self-proclaimed "number one fan!" Although Paul is grateful to Annie for saving his life and limbs, it becomes almost immediately apparent that Annie is distressingly, but sometines humorously, abnormal. (She loves to use creative curse words when she's annoyed, like "dirty birdy" and "Mr. Man" and "cock-a-doodie." Hmm. I could use a few of those gems daily.) One dark evening as she reads the latest installment of Paul's popular romance series, she flies into a dangerous rage because the main character , Misery, dies in childbirth. That evening, Paul realizes that Annie has no intention of releasing him from her home. She demands that Paul bring Misery back to literary life on a rapidly deteriorating antique typewriter. Adding greater insult to injury, she torches Paul's first completed attempt at a serious semi-biographical novel. Misery now becomes not only Paul Sheldon's psychological condition, but his magnum opus and probably his swan song; or will the writing of Misery become his literal and figurative salvation? Read it yourself, if you dare. A word of warning though, it is bone-chillingly terrifying. (Don't read it, Mom. You wouldn't like it. But go ahead and read it, Roy; you would.)
And here is my Cookie Bookie swan song. 
For this year, anyway. I saved my favorite treat for the last. These fantastic cookies are chock full of suprising textures and flavors. The dough is heavy on caramel tones with a splash of molasses and lots of dark brown sugar, all balanced with a generous bite of salt. Cornflakes add a hit of crunch while marshmallows (the staler the better for keeping their shape) provide a gooey, sweet counterpoint. Peanut butter M&Ms provide another dose of sweet and salty flavor. The cookies have to be fairly large to get the right combination of chewy-on-the-inside, crispy-on-the-outside, bumpy-all-over textures, and also to keep the cornflakes, marshmallows and peanut butter M and Ms in place. Don't cheat and try to make them tiny. But, mmmmm. Mm-mm-mm. They are really, really good.
Caramel Cookies with Cornflakes, Marshmallows, and Peanut Butter M and Ms
For this year, anyway. I saved my favorite treat for the last. These fantastic cookies are chock full of suprising textures and flavors. The dough is heavy on caramel tones with a splash of molasses and lots of dark brown sugar, all balanced with a generous bite of salt. Cornflakes add a hit of crunch while marshmallows (the staler the better for keeping their shape) provide a gooey, sweet counterpoint. Peanut butter M&Ms provide another dose of sweet and salty flavor. The cookies have to be fairly large to get the right combination of chewy-on-the-inside, crispy-on-the-outside, bumpy-all-over textures, and also to keep the cornflakes, marshmallows and peanut butter M and Ms in place. Don't cheat and try to make them tiny. But, mmmmm. Mm-mm-mm. They are really, really good.Caramel Cookies with Cornflakes, Marshmallows, and Peanut Butter M and Ms(recipe by me-share it all you want)
Estimated Cost: $3.50 for a dozen
1/2 cup unsalted softened butter (if you use salted, cut the added salt by a generous pinch)
1/2 cup unsalted softened butter (if you use salted, cut the added salt by a generous pinch)
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon molasses
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
scant 3/4 teaspoon salt
1 and 1/3 cups all purpose flour (or use half whole wheat)
3/4 cup cornflakes, crushed (or use rice krispies)
3/4 cups stale or frozen mini marshmallows
3/4 cup peanut butter (or plain) M and Ms, divided use
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butters and sugars until fluffy. Add vanilla, molasses and the egg. Stir in soda, powder, and salt. Add flour, mixing until just blended. Stir in cornflakes, marshmallows and 1/2 cup M and Ms. Scoop cookies by generous 1/4 cup full portions into balls and place on two cookie sheets with two inches of space between cookies. You should have between 10 and 12 cookies. Bake for about ten minutes, or until tops are just beginning to carmelize. Poke remaining M and Ms atop the still warm cookies. These cookies are equally good warm and at room temperature. For the best texture, stick with room temp.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butters and sugars until fluffy. Add vanilla, molasses and the egg. Stir in soda, powder, and salt. Add flour, mixing until just blended. Stir in cornflakes, marshmallows and 1/2 cup M and Ms. Scoop cookies by generous 1/4 cup full portions into balls and place on two cookie sheets with two inches of space between cookies. You should have between 10 and 12 cookies. Bake for about ten minutes, or until tops are just beginning to carmelize. Poke remaining M and Ms atop the still warm cookies. These cookies are equally good warm and at room temperature. For the best texture, stick with room temp.
Thanks so much for reading my ramblings and recipes. And thanks especially for all of your kind comments for Sailor on yesterday's post.
Next Up:Italian Tomato and Basil Steaks in the Slow Cooker
Hi, everybody. It's me, Sailor. I'm really excited to be a guest blogger today. Maybe I'm a little bit nervous, too. I hope you will like what I have to say. I am a big reader. Actually I am a little reader with a big appetite for books, and a big appetite for cookies too. Ha, ha. I read lots of scary stories and then I have trouble sleeping at night, but it never stops me. It's impossible to put down a good book, especially when there's a villain lurking in the shadows ready to pounce on you the moment you close your eyes. My favorite scary stories are the Nancy Drew Mysteries. Today I'll be sharing one of the best: The Ghost of Blackwood Hall. 
If you like Nancy Drew Mysteries, then you know that the stories follow a certain formula. Nancy finds a mystery to solve and meets the villain in the first couple of chapters, then she spends most of the book hunting him down. She makes a lot of mistakes, and I always feel like shouting, "Don't go in there, Nancy!" but she never pays any attention to her readers. Ha, ha. In this book, Nancy hears mysterious organ music and then sees a disappearing figure, a ghost in Blackwood Halls. Later she meets a woman who has seen the ghost of her dead husband. The ghost asked her to bury her jewels in the woods by a walnut tree. Later she decides to go back and get the jewels, and when she takes them to be cleaned she discovers that they are all fakes. Can a ghost be a jewel thief or is there a human being posing as a ghost? Read the story and find out for yourselves. (Doesn't this sound a little bit like it could be a Scooby Doo episode? Zoinks! Ha, ha.) 
I think they are really yummy. You can put chopped peanuts instead of ghosts on top for grown-ups. 
Would you please help me decide? Leave me a comment! Maybe I should be Nancy Drew next year. Thanks, love Sailor
The Ghost of Blackwood Hall Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars
Poolr little schizophrenic cookie features a blend of chocolate and vanilla doughs, studded with colorful Halloween M and Ms, for nibbling with Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Click 
See you then. Welcome back to Cookie Bookie, the week long celebration of the sweet and the spooky. Follow along today and everyday by clicking the link in the upper left hand corner. Scroll down if you've missed Christie and chocolate, Austen and maple, or Noyes and candy corn. But why should grown-ups have all the fun? Today's Cookie Bookie is dedicated to the wee little ones. Today I'm sharing some of my favorite Halloween picture books and an adorable, easy to make cookie. 
Let's get started with The Little Red Hen-oops, I mean The Little Green Witch by Barbieri McGrath. What should a pint-sized witch do when her lazy companions refuse to help her make pumpkin pie? She'll take a cue from the little red hen, eat it all up herself and cast a suprise spell of revenge on her feckless friends. 
The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything, by Linda Williams, is the tale of a lone woman pursued on a path in the dark of night . Gather up some random articles of clothing and turn this book into a reader's theatre. When you're done reading, you'll have a dandy scarecrow and only the mildest case of the shivers. 
The darling illustrations in Ghosts in the House by Kazuno Kohara make it an inviting read, but it's the clever use for unwanted ghosts that make the book worth reading again and again. 
A new book, Matthew McElligott's Even Monsters Need Haircuts will delight the whole family with a clever peek into the minutia of Monster Life. Even ghouls have to wait in long lines (yawn!) to get their locks trimmed. One of my favorite spooky reads comes from Dr. Seuss. 
What Was I scared of? tells the story of two dissimilar beings scaring the daylights out of each other. One of them just happens to be a spooky pair of pale green pants with nobody inside them. I followed the lead of my college buddy, Johanna Wagner, who memorized the entire book to recite to her siblings. I shared it with my little sisters Mary Kate and Catherine and then with my baby-faced nephews Jacob and Jordan. They're all grown-ups now (waah!), every last one of them, so I tell it to my charges and they're starting to memorize it too. 
She just signed a lucrative book deal with Penguin Books, so maybe next year, I'll be able to feature one of her stories on Cookie Bookie. For now, if you want a shot at winning this oh-so-cute print, 
These are an answer to a busy mother's prayer. I love making frosted sugar cookies with the charges, but let's face it: they take forever! The kids love it and want to make them for every holiday, right down to Arbor Day and Grandparent's Day. But I get tired of the mixing, the rolling, the cutting, the baking, the frosting, and don't even get me started on the dishes. Ay, mamacita. I spotted a tinted dough snowman recipe in a Taste of Home cookbook, and I doubted it would really work. It was worth a try, but I had my reservations. To my suprise, the cookies were fantastic. The dough has only five ingredients and mixes up in minutes. There are no eggs in the dough, so the tots can nibble as they go. Tinting the dough was simple enough with standard liquid food coloring. 
The charges had a blast shaping the dough into pumpkin shapes and beyond. 
Sailor made sweet little well-behaved pumpkins 
and West made feisty rabble rousers. 
Hey-I was having fun, too with a minimal amount of work. I was still nervous that the cookies would spread too much in the oven, or lose their bright colors with baking, but no! They were still bright, compact, and firm. 
And buttery-yummy, too. I have a feeling we'll be making these often. They're so fast that you'll have plenty of time to do the things you love, like read another spooky Halloween story with your little ones. 
Pumpkin Butter Cookies
The cookie is crowned with a full kiss, like the one that the Highway man plants on Bess's black hair. Hugs (and Kisses) and Happy Haunting. 
Kisses Candy Corn Autumn Cookies from the Hershey's website
Today, I'm sharing a book from another of the world's most celebrated authors. 
Jane Austen wrote about love, romance, and class distinction...but did she write about anything frightening enough to be included in Cookie Bookie? Well, yes. And no. And maybe so. Let's get started with the slightly frightening and work our way up to the downright eerie. 
Northanger Abbey has all of the rosy charm that readers have come to expect of Jane Austen. Heroine Catherine Morland is torn between the demands of her heart and the demands of her family's pocketbook in the form of two potential suitors. Typical Austen fare. But Northanger Abbey is also a spoof on the chilling gothic novels that had become so popular during the Regency Period. Our heroine spends a good portion of the day with her nose stuck in a spooky novel, and then superimposes eerie gothic mystery into everyday situations, to the point of suspecting her lover's father of being a murderer. Think Walter Mitty with a death wish. Catherine craves the horror and suspense, the drama and the intrigue that are standard fare in her favorite books. As Catherine wanders the dark halls of Northanger Abbey, you won't be immune to her spine-tingling perspective. Before Catherine can give herself over to true love, she must learn to respect the boundaries between truth and fiction. It's the perfect read for those who are looking for a mild case of the shivers. But look what they've done to dear Jane now. (Don't look, Mom.)
It's a little fancy, a bit on the high brow side, since Austen deserves our utmost respect (tut, tut). But it's also playful, with a little touch of salt thrown over the top, to ward off superstition. Just in case the macabre really is lurking around the darkest corner of your attic. Mwah, ha, ha. Until tomorrow. 
