Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Carrot Cookies

Saintseester had asked me a few posts ago what carrot cookies are. I figured I'd put up some pictures and give the recipe.

Although they're not Christmas Cookies it's about the only time of year my family has them. They take awhile to make because of the peeling & cooking of the carrots. Although this year I used bagged baby carrots and they came out just fine so I think I'll stick with that from now on.




These are the uncooked cookies. The easiest way to get them on the pan is to scoop some batter up on a spoon then scrape off the spoon with either another spoon or a small spatula. Try to make sure they're in a circular shape.




These are the cooked cookies. As you can see they cook up in basically the same shape; there's very little spreading going on. Which is nice, you can put more on one sheet than other cookies.



And these are the final products all frosted and ready to eat.

So here's the recipe for anyone who's interested.

What you'll need:

1 cup shortening - use all margarine - sticks

3/4 cup sugar (I used splenda this time and it worked just fine)

1 cup cooked mashed carrots (make sure you cool them before use)

1 egg unbeaten

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups sifted flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Cream together the shortening & sugar until fluffy. Add the carrots, egg and & vanilla then mix well.

Sift flour, baking powder & salt together and add them to the mix.

Mix it all up very well.

Drop batter on greased baking sheets and cook for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

I found I was able to get between 30 and 34 cookies depending on how big I made them.

For the frosting you will need:

Powdered sugar and concentrated orange juice.

Start with 1 & 1/2 cups of powdered sugar then add the concentrated juice a little at a time until it's well blended. The frosting shouldn't be runny but it shouldn't be thick either. If it's too much of one just add the sugar or juice as needed. I found the best way to frost them is using a spoon. Scoop some up, not much is needed for each cookie, then just spread it around the top. As you can see by the last picture some of it will run down the sides but that's just fine. Make sure you don't make the orange juice, that you use it straight from the can.

I couldn't remember about the juice part (it's been awhile since I made these) and I mixed up the concentrate and water to make the juice and let me tell you the frosting is no where near as good. It's just not orangey enough. Luckily that was on the first batch of cookies I made which I also screwed up on. When I put everything together I realized the batter wasn't quite right. When going over the ingredients and making sure I used everything as required I found out I only used one stick of margarine so I threw in the other stick and mixed everything up. Although everything was together as needed it just wasn't the same and the cookies came out kind of rubbery. The cookies still taste the same it's just that the texture is off. And since I screwed up on the frosting that taste is also off but they're still edible. Of course we didn't take those to anyone's home, those we're keeping.

The frosting is where you get most of the flavor from; the cookie's themselves don't have much, they're pretty bland. But together they're really very good.

If you make them let me know how they turned out, whether you like them or not.

Media quote of the day: Where the cookies at? - Frank Barone (may he rest in piece) - Everybody Loves Raymond

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I need carrots for my juicer! Do you have any left?

Come to think of it, do you have an carrot cookies left? ;)

Anonymous said...

I might have to try that orange juice concentrate icing. It sounds really good for pound cakes and such.

Katrina said...

Dan - I only have some cookies left. Some of them are from the 1st batch and about 10 from one of the good batches. Although I found out they shouldn't be put in a sandwich bag. I guess the moisture created by sealing them in fucked up the frosting. Now they're all kind of gooey.

Saintseester - That sounds like a great idea for a pound cake. The frosting is nice and sweet and orangey but not overpowering, I think it would make a great frosting for the cake.