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Post by chipperhiker on Feb 6, 2016 20:23:20 GMT -5
I did it vaporvac! I finally used my cookie press!! Your turn. Here's the recipe: 1/2 c shortening 1/2 c white sugar 1/2 brown sugar 1 egg 1 tbsp hot water 1/2 c peanut butter 1 1/4 c all purpose flour ***may need to add more or less depending on the moisture content of the peanut butter used in order to achieve a pliable dough that "breaks" from press cleanly.*** 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt 1- cream shortening 2-gradually add sugars and cream well 3- add egg, hot water, and peanut butter 4- sift flour, soda and salt together 5- gradually add dry ingredients to creamed mixture 6- Fills one Mirro cooky press, do not refrigerate 7- Form cookies on engrossed cookie sheet. Bake at 375° for approx 7 minutes. Makes 4 dozen Unbaked, and the cookie press I used for the very first time. It's from Mirro. Baked and pretty:
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Post by nana on Feb 6, 2016 20:36:59 GMT -5
Isn't that beautiful! What kind of cookie sheet is that? Whoa, it's like a flashback, man...and aren't cookie guns fun?
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Post by chipperhiker on Feb 6, 2016 21:18:55 GMT -5
It's an Ovenex cookie sheet. I really did have fun making these cookies! I don't know why it took me so long.
I have a bunch of Ovenex new old stock pieces that are too pretty to use - loaf pans, heart pans, and 7 x 11" pans. Given how pretty they are once they're seasoned, I don't know what I'm waiting for.
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Post by nana on Feb 6, 2016 21:34:03 GMT -5
Gee thanks. Ovenex. Something I never heard of before, but now I must find out all about! Seasoned? Is it cast iron?
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Post by nana on Feb 6, 2016 21:39:06 GMT -5
No seriously, tell me about it because I just googled it and got too many ebay results to wade through and nothing on wikipedia.
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Post by vaporvac on Feb 6, 2016 22:41:25 GMT -5
She playing with our minds trying to trip us out between the patterns on the pan and those in the cookies. What PRETTY cookies, maybe even prettier than your rack! I better get crackin'! No more bread making until I make some cookies. And to think I just finished all those from the holidays. Maybe I'll do the cheese straws and feel I'm getting some calcium or something. In trh=uth I think I'll make the card suits for my stepmom for V's Day. She's a big bridge player and would appreciate the motif.
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Post by Chuckie on Feb 7, 2016 0:01:56 GMT -5
It's an Ovenex cookie sheet. I really did have fun making these cookies! I don't know why it took me so long. I have a bunch of Ovenex new old stock pieces that are too pretty to use - loaf pans, heart pans, and 7 x 11" pans. Given how pretty they are once they're seasoned, I don't know what I'm waiting for. I positively HATE all you EVIL WENCHES that keep coming up w/all these kewl kooking kontraptions that I'd never even HEARD OF before, and now SUDDENLY cannot live without!!!!!! A pox upon ye!!! CHEERS! Chuckie
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Post by chipperhiker on Feb 7, 2016 12:08:21 GMT -5
The starburst ovenex is just thin tinned metal, just like most cookie sheets of the time, and it will rust. A thin layer of polymerized fat will protect it from rust, just like the thin layers that build up on cast iron protect those pans from rust. I can't vouch for any non-stick properties of the Ovenex seasoning, though it probably has that effect, too. Except in special circumstances (like spritz cookies), I always use parchment paper.
One thing about these cookies - they were EASY, and fast!!! I don't know why I've never tried them before. The real trick is to get the dough to the right consistency. At first it was too sticky and the cookies wouldn't separate from the press. I pulled the dough out and added more flour and then it went just fine. I made sure that the dough had enough flour to break cleanly into pieces before I loaded it into the press the second time. Too little flour and it's sticky, too much flour and it's crumbly.
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Post by nana on Feb 7, 2016 15:39:55 GMT -5
Temperature matters a lot too. Too warm or too cold causes grief. Just right is an absolute hoot. I'm so glad you're in the club now!
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Post by chipperhiker on Feb 7, 2016 19:36:37 GMT -5
Thank you nana! I'm in good company!
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Post by kellyjo40 on Feb 7, 2016 21:30:48 GMT -5
Ooh! Never made PB spritz! That sounds fabulous. Added benefit is that my hubby hates peanut butter, so they should last long enough to give them away at christmas!
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Post by cinnabar on Feb 8, 2016 9:06:55 GMT -5
We tried cinnamon spritz this year with the cookie gun. Like them better than the cream cheese DH has been making forever. When we do them we color the dough and have a rainbow on a plate. At the end the dough all gets stuffed into the tube and the colors are lovely mixed up.
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Post by nana on Feb 8, 2016 18:39:53 GMT -5
Coloring the dough seems like so much work... I want to find out what trick they used to make them come out like on my recipe card, with all the decorations already.
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Post by chipperhiker on Feb 9, 2016 12:06:36 GMT -5
There are so many recipes in the little booklets that came with these cookie presses. I really had a hard time choosing which one to make, particularly since some of them sound so similar - how to choose between the various plain spritz version, for instance. I think that's why I made one I'd never tried before.
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Post by vaporvac on Feb 9, 2016 12:32:23 GMT -5
I'm feelin' you. A quick google further complicates the issue. I can't figure out when to use butter vs. the shortening. Even the booklets use both. I've seen some recipes with confections sugar and another where the buttner isn't beaten with the sugar first and they end up flaky. Maybe i'll try the PB ones too.
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Post by nana on Feb 9, 2016 17:12:28 GMT -5
Butter. I always go with all butter. Shortening is such an artificial thing and to me it is not worth whatever it brings to the party. And I've never heard any complaints about my cookies...at least not where I can hear them!
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Post by chipperhiker on Feb 9, 2016 20:22:22 GMT -5
I agree with you, nana. I pretty much always sub butter in for shortening. This time I decided to follow the recipe as written because it was my first experiment with a cookie press. Next time it's butter or nothing!
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Post by Chuckie on Feb 9, 2016 21:48:28 GMT -5
I'm feelin' you. A quick google further complicates the issue. I can't figure out when to use butter vs. the shortening. Even the booklets use both. I've seen some recipes with confections sugar and another where the buttner isn't beaten with the sugar first and they end up flaky. Maybe i'll try the PB ones too.
Since I'm on THIS site--where I can SWEAR--instead of being censored on Todd's--I have a well substantiated line of advice for you bakers, cookers, chefs, etc. Julia Child would BITCH SLAP YO' ASSES if you didn't use B-U-T-T-E-R!!!!
Feel free to sub in bacon grease when the aforementioned isn't available... LOL
CHEERS! Chuckie
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Post by nana on Feb 10, 2016 18:15:19 GMT -5
Julia Child will not be spinning in her grave on MY account, Chuckie! Butter all the way!
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Post by kellyjo40 on Feb 10, 2016 21:47:11 GMT -5
Go, Nana! No artificial cow feed for me and make me. Ditched it years ago.
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Post by nana on Feb 11, 2016 8:16:16 GMT -5
Not exactly sure what you're trying to say Kellyjo40, but I like your enthusiasm!
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Post by kellyjo40 on Feb 11, 2016 16:01:48 GMT -5
Not exactly sure what you're trying to say Kellyjo40, but I like your enthusiasm! Margarine was developed as a supplements cow feed, to fatten them up better, but then the war came along, and so they added colorant to it and sold it as a butter substitute.
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Post by nana on Feb 12, 2016 17:11:02 GMT -5
Eeeew! Thanks for explaining. Poor cows. Why do we torture them so? Just let them eat grass!
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Post by mach12 on Feb 12, 2016 21:37:14 GMT -5
During the Gulf War a bunch of us were trying to eat lunch among the flies and they were driving us nuts. There were some of those individual pats of margarine and others of butter and one of the guys put one of each on a plate and set it on the table. The flies went after the butter but wouldn't touch the margarine. Seems to me that if flies won't even touch it that it can't be good.
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Post by pooka on Feb 13, 2016 3:03:35 GMT -5
That's interesting. I had never heard it started out as a cattle feed supplement. The only thing I remember hearing is that dairy farmers lobbied to not allow it to be colored. That way it wouldn't look as appetizing as butter, & it would have a harder time competing with the real thing.
I'll have to admit I do use margarine for most things, but I still use butter too. Margarine is just what I grew up using & it's become my habit. Growing up our cereal bowls were reused margarine tubs.
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Post by cinnabar on Feb 13, 2016 9:26:22 GMT -5
Too true pooka, in the old days the only margarine we got was in a plastic bag and it was white. If you wanted it yellow you had to break the little pouch inside the bag and mush the color into the paste(margarine) Used only for cooking really. Until 1965 you could not buy yellow stick margarine in the state of Wisconsin. Even now restaurants by law, can only serve butter on the tables, whipped or pats. No substitutes, unless that law was changed very recently.
We have been using butter 95 % of the time since we moved back in 1991. It seems we like what we were raised with, had a cousin (from Georgia) who on Dr's orders was told to use butter. She hated the taste and complained bitterly about having to use it. Believe me she could be a bitter complainer. I generally have 3-4 lbs of butter in the freezer at all times and maybe one of stick margarine. Soft tub butter is on hand for when the butter dish was out on the table, in the winter and it is like a brick, (like ..it's -23 this morning and the kitchen is very cold).
Back to the cookies, sometimes we use a mixture of butter/shortening in the spritz. For making the dough the kitchen aid mixer is a blessing. We divide the dough and color each ball before we chill it. Seems like a lot of work but we also make triple batches so there is a lot of dough to go around. My DH likes the wear ever cookie gun best of all the presses we have (3 at this time), and he is the one that makes them.
It truely is a challenge to decide which kind to bake. The cream cheese are popular, but I get tired of them. So many cookies , so little time.
cinnabar
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Post by nana on Feb 13, 2016 10:11:56 GMT -5
During the Gulf War a bunch of us were trying to eat lunch among the flies and they were driving us nuts. There were some of those individual pats of margarine and others of butter and one of the guys put one of each on a plate and set it on the table. The flies went after the butter but wouldn't touch the margarine. Seems to me that if flies won't even touch it that it can't be good. As is so often true, a lot of things we were told were good for us, along the lines of better living through chemistry, turn out to be actually harmful. When you think about what flies DO eat, the fact that they wouldn't touch the margarine sure seems to show that even flies know when to turn up their noses at something with no nutritional value. Only people seem to be taken in by the industrial "food-like substances" we are programmed by advertising and misinformation to think of as food.
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Post by evangeline on Feb 13, 2016 17:53:01 GMT -5
I've been buying tubs of Kriemhild Dairy Farms pasture (meadow) butter at Trader Joe's. The container locates the farm in Hamilton NY, where I used to live. It's fabulous!! I also buy Organic Valley pasture butter. Will never go back to regular butter. I buy a few tubs and freeze them. Yum! Yum! PF doesn't care for grass milk, but I think it's absolutely the best.
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Post by nana on May 28, 2016 12:58:40 GMT -5
Just wanted to quckly let you know I scored 2 ovenex sheets today, $2 for the pair! They are very gunky and one is a teeny bit rusty in spots. Any sage advice on how to clean all those nooks and crannies, Chipperhiker? I took this picture with the on/off button to the left. I was going to ask if they look right side up or down to you guys, but then I realized with this picture who can tell? But the one with the price sticker on it should be on the bottom pan if it is right side up.
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Post by pooka on May 28, 2016 14:59:27 GMT -5
Here's a link I found by just Googling "Ovenex". Tutorial | Cleaning Vintage Ovenex PansI passed on a muffin pan at the thrift store yesterday for $2. I just didn't feel the need. Plus, their waffle pattern isn't as pretty as the pans with the starburst pattern. I've been spending too much recently too. The price sticker is on the top one as I view it.
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