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!

SLACKER EXTRODINAIRE!!

That would be me.  It’s not that I haven’t been doing anything, it’s just that I haven’t been blogging about it!  So I have a whole list of blogs to write, but I at the very least got the pics sized and uploaded to Photobucket last night – so there WILL be posts in the next few days recounting my time in the kitchen, and the craft room over the past month or so…

And just a semi-update… I have decided to not continue with my participation in Tuesdays with Dorie.  It’s a GREAT group and a lot of fun, but it didn’t align with my goals for healthy living and financial responsibility at this time.  So I resigned from that and decided to join a group that will have a positive impact on others, and will allow me to bake as well – I have proudly joined Operation Baking GALS.  This group adopts ~10 soldiers that are overseas each month.  Bloggers from all over America are signing up to support one of the chosen soldiers and we mail off packages to them so that they get an abundance of “home” to share with their units around them.  This way I get to bake, but the goodies don’t stay in my home tempting me!  It’s perfect!  AND it’s only once a month, so I definitely have time for it!  My post(s) about what I sent will follow shortly…

God Bless and have a wonderful day!