Chocolate Chunkers, Snickerdoodles and a Thank You Card

 

For my first month as a member of Operation Baking GALS, I got paired up with Susan from She’s Becoming DoughMessTic, who is actually the brainchild of this great event!  We are baking for Christopher Handy, who currently has a lot of young guys reporting to him, so in baking for him, we were also sending a touch of home to a lot of youngsters that are bravely defending our freedoms.  If Christopher or his guys stumble upon this blog, THANK YOU AGAIN for your service – I sincerely appreciate all that you do!

So what did I make and bake?  Well of course I couldn’t let the package ship out without a card.  I wanted it to be simple, yet represent a little bit about me, so here’s what I came up with…

 

 

This could very well be the fastest card I’ve ever put together!  And I liked the outcome a lot.  But the guys really aren’t going to care too much about a card, so on to the good stuff…  I had a lot of chocolate in my freezer, and I wanted needed to get it out of the house!  I was looking through Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, probably my favorite cookbook for sweets now, and happened upon Chocolate Chunksters.  I will say that when I was scooping out these cookies, I was a little leary that they would stick together and actually bake into a non-crumbly mess.  And then when they first came out of the oven, I thought that they might be TOO chocolatey and would melt into a blob before they ever made it over to the troops.  I’m crossing my fingers on that one still!  But the day I was packing them up, they seemed more like a chocolate base cookie with lots of peanuts in them.  I’m hoping that they survive, and if they don’t, then I’m hoping that someone likes a blob of chocolate and peanuts! 

 

 

In addition to these, I thought I would make the classic Snickerdoodles – I knew they would make it there without melting, and who doesn’t like the simple goodness of a light cookie with a little cinnamon sugar on top?!?!  I got the recipe from Jayne of The Barefoot Kitchen Witch (she shipped these in her Operation Baking GALS package too!)  Of course I taste-tested them before sending, and they came out perfect!  I hope the guys enjoy these as well…

 

Before:

 

And after:

 

 

Thanks so much to Susan for putting this together!  I look forward to baking again for the troops next month – I’ve already got the cookies I want to send in mind! :o)

 

God Bless!