{"id":690,"date":"2011-11-30T14:20:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-30T14:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/11\/holiday-surprise-cookies-revisit-of-2008-post.html"},"modified":"2013-11-29T12:46:44","modified_gmt":"2013-11-29T17:46:44","slug":"holiday-surprise-cookies-revisit-of-2008-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/11\/holiday-surprise-cookies-revisit-of-2008-post.html","title":{"rendered":"Holiday Surprise Cookies: Revisit of 2008 Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

Instead of recreating a blog post about one of our favorite cookie recipes, I’ve “repurposed” my November 2008 post. \u00a0Many of the commercial links from 2008 had to be changed, so I’ve updated the links to the recipe, some of the ingredients I like and the cookie-making equipment I recommend.<\/p>\n

Similar to 2008, this will be the first cookies we make for the season, and I<\/span> the kids<\/i> once again have to deal with unwrapping about 150 Hershey Kisses.<\/p>\n

What I will do differently this year is bake and store the cookies in batches according to the filling. \u00a0In years past I’ve jumbled everything together: Timmy doesn’t like milk chocolate, Jacob doesn’t like dark chocolate!<\/p>\n

Enjoy!<\/p>\n

****************************************************************<\/div>\n

The first batch of cookies: Holiday Surprise Cookies,<\/a> courtesy of the Quaker Oats company. Hit the hyperlink to go to the recipe straight from the horse’s, er, Quaker’s,<\/em> mouth.<\/p>\n

I gave Dave the camera tonight and asked him to document our experience so I’d have some nice pictures with which to blog. He told me, “Okay, I’m going to be like Maryann<\/a>!”. He did a great job, he took almost all the photos…<\/p>\n

So, to start, we have to come up with a filling…this is the “surprise” in the cookie. In years past, we’d used Wilbur Buds, a Lancaster County, PA staple<\/a>. In fact, the first time I made this recipe was to keep Dave and me from eating an entire bag of Wilbur Buds we’d gotten for Christmas in one sitting, I think. It was either 1999 or 2000…I can’t remember. The beauty of Wilbur Buds is (a) you can buy a combo pack of milk AND dark chocolate together and (b) the buds aren’t indivually wrapped<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If I’d had the foresight to order the Wilbur Buds ahead of time I would have<\/a>. But it was much easier to pick up some assorted flavored Hershey’s Kisses from my local mega mart. As can be seen in this photo, we had a lot of unwrapping to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

As the boys were unwrapping about 100 Kisses, in 3 flavors shown here, I was preparing the dough. It’s essentially a sugar cookie dough replacing about 40% of the flour with oatmeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Look at those oats — your cholesterol is lowering just looking at it, right? Don’t worry…won’t happen: there’s 2 sticks of butter in the basic recipe…and I doubled it tonight!<\/em><\/p>\n

Once the chocolates were unwrapped and the dough was ready, I set up the assembly line in the dining room. The boys were great — Jake stuffed the chocolate in the dough, and Timmy rolled the little ball of dough in the colored sugar and placed the ready-to-bake cookie on the baking stone<\/a>. My job was quality control — I pre-measured wads of dough for Jake to stuff so they’d be uniform in side, and I made sure the cookies were properly spaced on the stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Does that look holiday or what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2008 11 14 HolidaySurpriseCookies<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

We tested the cookies, of course, and everyone in the Vollmer clan gave them a thumbs up!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Instead of recreating a blog post about one of our favorite cookie recipes, I’ve “repurposed” my November 2008 post. \u00a0Many of the commercial links from 2008 had to be changed, so I’ve updated the links to the recipe, some of the ingredients I like and the cookie-making equipment I recommend. Similar to 2008, this will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[184,75,8,54],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ycQ0-b8","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":268,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/11\/holiday-surprise-cookies.html","url_meta":{"origin":690,"position":0},"title":"Holiday Surprise Cookies","date":"15 November 08","format":false,"excerpt":"This is Patricia (don't let the Dr. Dave fool you). Tonight we made our first batch of cookies.... ...but not before a shopping extravaganza at Costco on Veteran's Day. Bulk packs of eggs, butter, sugar, powdered sugar, oatmeal, dried cranberries, vanilla extract... ...but not flour. There was a great deal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"christmas\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":691,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/12\/the-neiman-marcus-cookie-legend-turned-family-tradition-from-2008-post.html","url_meta":{"origin":690,"position":1},"title":"The Neiman Marcus Cookie: Legend Turned Family Tradition — from 2008 Post","date":"03 December 11","format":false,"excerpt":"Another post from 2008, and the next cookie recipe headed into in my stand mixer this afternoon. \u00a0This isn't really a Christmas cookie, but it's among my most popular (after the Holiday Surprises).****************************I'm not going to waste time going into the legend of the Neiman Marcus cookie. \u00a0I will\u00a0simply \u00a0refer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"baking\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2770,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2013\/12\/holiday-cookie-roundup.html","url_meta":{"origin":690,"position":2},"title":"Major Mom’s Favorite Holiday Cookie Roundup","date":"04 December 13","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm a one-trick pony: I make the same cookies every year. I've written pretty elaborate posts about them in 2008 and 2011, so this year I just want to round them up for you. Today is the day I plan to address all of my Christmas cards once and for\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"No matter what cookies we make, there's always some for Santa! What cookies are you making this year?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/IMG_0501-1024x768.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":271,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/11\/the-neiman-marcus-cookie.html","url_meta":{"origin":690,"position":3},"title":"The Neiman Marcus Cookie","date":"26 November 08","format":false,"excerpt":"This is my last cookie posting for the time being. I'm going to the Florida Panhandle on Monday for some AF Training and will be back the weekend before Christmas. Yes, I could think of better times to be away from the family, and I will do what I can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"christmas\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":121,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/04\/whole-wheat-chocolate-chip-cookies.html","url_meta":{"origin":690,"position":4},"title":"Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies","date":"16 April 08","format":false,"excerpt":"\"WHAT???\"Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies\"Eeewwww....doesn't that defeat the purpose of chocolate chip cookies? Sinful bliss?\"Well, does it HAVE to be so sinful? Okay, a little truth time here. I had everything to make chocolate chip cookies for the family, you know, that recipe on the back of the bag of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"cooking\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":692,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/12\/cranberry-almond-biscotti-from-2008.html","url_meta":{"origin":690,"position":5},"title":"Cranberry Almond Biscotti: From 2008","date":"04 December 11","format":false,"excerpt":"I made these last evening also. \u00a0I didn't have enough almonds, but had plenty of almond extract so these taste SO GOOD this year!******************************Cranberry Almond Biscotti. This is a recipe I've been making for over 10 years. \u00a0This is one sophisticated cookie...cranberries are always so, well, holiday! What's cool is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"baking\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2767,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions\/2767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}