Penny Pinching Peach

For the semi crunchy, homeschool friendly and totally frugal!

Tag Archives: cookies


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My Favorite Cookie Recipe Books

my favorite cookie recipe books

After using them to do some Christmas baking, I thought I’d tell  y’all about my two favorite cookie recipe books!

I used to check them out repeatedly from the library to try new things, but my dad finally wound up buying them for me. Talk about an amazing gift that he knew I would use and love!!

The first of my favorite cookie cookbooks is called 1001 Cookie Recipes.

1001 cookie recipes

It’s chock full of tasty recipes, complete with indexes for types, ingredients and titles. I absolutely love it!
Want to know a couple of the goodies I have made from this book?

On page 54, you will find Banana Chip Bars. It’s one of my go to treats! I always add a dollop of peanut butter, because we love it, and sometimes simplify it by using self rising instead of all purpose and it’s accompanying ingredients.

Chocolate Refrigerator Cookies. For a really soft cookie like we prefer, I bake just 5-6 minutes. My kids loved decorating these for Christmas!
You can get your copy on Amazon here: 1001 Cookie Recipes

My other favorite recipe book is BH&G Ultimate Cookie Book.

ultimate cookie book

It also has beautiful pictures, a detailed index using ingredients and titles and includes tips for baking better cookies.

A favorite from this book is banana split brownies from page 379. If you don’t want to make the icing from scratch, just get fresh or frozen strawberries with the pre-made cream cheese kind. This recipe is soooo good, though!

Get your own copy at Amazon here: BH&G Ultimate Cookie Book

What is your favorite kind of cookie? Want to know some of my favorite cookie recipes I have created from randomness? Try my completely healthy cookies and my easy peasy cake mix cookies!

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After School Snacks

With school just starting, I thought I’d share a few suggestions for a variety of after school snacks. There should be something to make any kiddo happy in this list, from homemade junk food to truly delicious healthy options!

Easy Cake Mix Cookies

This is a super simple and versatile cookie recipe you can whip up in a snap with whatever mix you have on hand. Try it!

Easy Cake Mix Cookies

Easy Cake Mix Cookies

Crafty Snacking

This post has a few creative, cute and quick snack ideas, including the friendly spider below. Anyone can do these, even kids!

Happy Spider

Happy Spider

Penny Pinching Popsicles

Try these refreshing and inexpensive homemade popsicles! You won’t regret it!

Penny Pinching Popsicles

Penny Pinching Popsicles

Super Yummy Don-t-Tell-Them-They’re-Healthy Snacks

Here’s a list of fun, easy and very healthy kid approved snacks! Many of these can also be made by the kiddos themselves.

Veggie Snack

Veggie Snack

Completely Healthy Cookies? Yes, Please!

This recipe for multiple versions of oatmeal cookies are made with only wholesome ingredients- no sugar or flour- and pass the taste test of my children and hubby who all have a sweet tooth. They are quite filling, and healthy enough that you could be the cool mom giving them cookies for breakfast! 😉

Peanut butter chocolate chip close-up

Peanut butter chocolate chip close-up

Home Flavored Yogurt

Do you love yogurt, but not all the sugary content or the high price tag on individual servings? This is the perfect idea for you!

Home Flavored Yogurt

Home Flavored Yogurt

Some More S’mores

Love s’mores, but no time for campfires for awhile? Here’s your solution!

S'mores Cupcakes

S’mores Cupcakes

Which of these do you want to try first? These are all tried and approved by my own munchkins. They don’t pretend to like anything just to spare Mommy’s feelings, so you know they’ve passed at least a couple of kid tests. 😉


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Easy Cake Mix Cookies

Easy Cake Mix Cookies

Easy Cake Mix Cookies

My family loves super soft cookies, and I love simple and inexpensive treats. While I don’t always keep cookies around, sometimes nothing else will do. I usually have some cake mixes stashed in ym cabinets, so I decided to try out this easy cake mix cookies recipe, shared at the bottom of this post.

The beauty of this recipe is it’s versatility. You can literally do pretty much any flavors you can get in a cake mix and throw in whatever mix-in tickles your fancy. My husband is a fiend for chocolate and peanut butter together, so this time I went with devil’s food cake and peanut butter chips. It was the bomb diggety!

This recipe is a terrific choice for cooking with kids, because it’s pure simplicity and no fuss to make, and what kid doesn’t like cookies? 😉 My five and two year olds had a good ol’ time dumping in the ingredients, doing quality control taste tests on the peanut butter chips, dumping spoonfuls of batter on the cookie sheet, and eating the results of their labor.

Some other flavor combinations I think would be yummy? Lemon cake with vanilla chips, almonds or coconut. Chocolate cake with white chocolate, coconut, raisins or nuts. Vanilla cake with chocolate chips, dried cranberries or nuts. Peanut butter cake with chocolate chips, Reese’s cups diced up or nuts. Orange cake with dark chocolate chips or dried cranberries. Strawberry cake with dark or white chocolate chips. I’ll stop now, but you get the picture. There are TONS of possibilities!

What flavor combinations can you come up with?

Here is the link to the simply sweet recipe I used as my base.

http://www.food.com/recipe/easy-cake-mix-cookies-5287


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Chocolate Chip Cookie Cups!

My daughter two years ago with a different cold sweet treat.

My daughter two years ago with a different cold sweet treat.

I just spent a good part of the afternoon putting plants out in our little yard garden. It’s warm outside, and the pollen count is at an ungodly high level. I would love to eat icecream right now, since I got quite warm & dusty and my throat is pretty itchy from that pesky yellow haze covering everything outside. I’m being a good girl and resisting temptation for the moment, but I’m sharing a tempting recipe that might make it difficult for y’all to keep from indulging. 🙂 What I’m sharing today is a frugal tip for fancifying that delectably cool warm weather treat: Homemade cookie cups filled with icecream. Mmm, mmmmmmm!!! 🙂 I’ve got savings to go along with it, which certainly sweetens the deal for me! 🙂

What you need: Cookie dough and a muffin tin, plus whatever you want to fill them with. I have always seen chocolate chip cookie dough used, but I’m sure other types would work and would like to try some other varieties this warm season.

What to do: Flip the muffin tin over, form the cookie dough around the cups instead of inside, then bake the pan upside down like that. Let the cookies cool, then pop them off of there and fill them with icecream or frozen yogurt of your choice, or even fresh chopped fruit with whipped cream on top, if you prefer.

Some flavor combinations that I think would be good to try: The classic chocolate chip cookies with vanilla, chocolate or peanut butter icecream. Chocolate chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter or strawberry icecream. Peanut butter cookies with chocolate icecream. Sugar cookies with strawberry icecream or fresh fruit & whipped cream. Your imagination is your limit! 🙂

Where to go for savings: http://www.coupons.com/coupons/Food-Coupons-107/

Which coupons to print: Pillsbury refrigerated cookie dough and Yoplait frozen yogurt.

Bonus savings: Saving Star has an additional $1 on Pillsbury refrigerated cookie dough that will go to your account there if you purchase at one of your registered stores using your store card! If you aren’t signed up for saving star, you can read up on it and then sign up by going to my post on Saving Star here:

What flavor combination can you come up with? Which do you think would taste the best? 🙂