Cookie Baking Day

Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. We are up to our elbows in cookies. We made Luscious Lemon Bars, Mount Bars, Peanut Butter Balls, Lefse, Maple-Date Bars, Nut Butter Balls, Rum (Crown) Balls, Gingersnaps, Fudge, Walnut Slices, Pecan Slices and our newest and yet oldest cookie to the Christmas collection, Gum Drop Cookies. It is a cookie that our mom's mom used to make when our mom was a kid. The dough is made from shortening, flour, oats and coconut and then chunked gumdrops make a kaleidoscope in every cookie! Mom found this recipe two years and ago and we can personally thank her for adding 10 lbs to our waistlines because of these cookies. In fact, these cookies are so addicting, the two of us no longer refer to them as Gum Drop cookies but by their real name, Crack cookies. We figure there must be something in there that makes us crave them so much! The interesting story about these cookies, is that our grandma was such a good baker that she didn't need to write the entire recipe down. She made notes and side notes and sometimes, as in this case, didn't write down the process on how to make the cookies. Thank goodness our grandmothers and mom taught us cookie baking techniques from an early age so we were able to not only produce a pretty cookie but a damn tasty, fricken' addictive one.

We think this is how it goes...

Gum Drop Cookies (a.k.a. Crack Cookies)

1 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp soda dissolved in 1 Tbsp water
1 tsp baking powder
2 cups flour
2 cups oatmeal
2 cups coconut
2 lbs gumdrops, quartered and tossed in cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 375F

Cream the shortening and sugars together in a mixer until well combined and smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time and beat until combined. Add the vanilla and soda dissolved in water; mix well.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, oats and salt. Slowly add the flour mixture in the sugar mixture and stir just to combine. Fold in the coconut followed by the gumdrops.

Scoop on to ungreased baking sheets and bake until slightly golden, 8-12 minutes, depending on size. Let sit for 1 minute on the tray and the move to a wire rack to cool completely.

Yields 6 1/2 dozen cookies