And an Occasional Cookie

    When I was a kid I didn't like frosting on my cupcakes, cakes, etc.  I had a huge sweet tooth but not for something like frosting.  Even then I had discerning tastes and saved my sugar overload for chocolate.  Ice cream.  Certainly cookies.   I've been known to say "cookies and ice cream are why I'm fat."   I've lost the sweet tooth to a great extent (and some of the fat.)   Now when I look at something like, say caramel, there's no temptation whatsoever.  Put a little salt on that caramel and we're changing the rules.  Cookies and ice cream, though, are still my kryptonite.
     I love to bake.  Now, though, if I bake I have to have someplace to send the goodies when I've finished. PH really doesn't eat baked goods (I know, right??)  I'll keep maybe 6 cookies and send the rest away. Cake?  It's a good thing our daughter lives down the street.  And we have a freezer.  One of my friends once said she would love to live in my freezer.
     As I remember it, when my mom made cupcakes we would walk over to the wastebasket and scrape the frosting off so eventually she stopped putting the frosting on.  Some things, though, needed the frosting.  My brother loved(s) Boston Cream Pie and you can't scrape the frosting off that...and besides, it's chocolate.

  In my other life I decorated cakes for a little mad money and the frosting that I used was a basic buttercream, I think.  It was the frosting recipe I was given at the class I took so it's the one I used for all the years I decorated cakes. 

    Many, many years ago I cut the recipe for these cookies from the newspaper when newspapers did
 that sort of thing.  It was a granny recipe.  The woman who gave it was a little ol' granny and these were the ones she made all her life. They are a soft, not sweet, old fashioned sugar cookie. I tried it and they became my daughter's most favorite cookie her whole life.
     Little ol' granny frosted the tops of the cookies.  Well, you know what happens when you do that. They stick together and are impossible to store.  So, I sandwiched them together and from then on, for the last 40 years we've called them "sandwich cookies."   With no one around to eat cookies anymore I make these once a year, Valentine's Day.

Sandwich Cookies

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 2 Tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups flour

Cream together the butter, sugar, vanilla.  Mix in the egg and soda/milk, then stir in the flour.  Roll out to about 1/4 inch thickness and cut with cookie cutters.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 6-8 minutes.  Watch them!  You do NOT want color on them.  Makes about 2.5 dozen cookies, depending on the size of your cookie cutter.

Tips:  I ALWAYS double the recipe since each serving is really two cookies.
          When rolling out try not to re-roll and re-roll the dough.  Adding more flour when rolling makes them tough.  I sometimes use powdered (frosting) sugar to roll them out on instead of flouring the counter.
           Really watch them.  You want them to firm up but NOT brown.

Frosting:
 
Beat well:
1 1/2 cups solid white shortening
1/4 cup water
2 lb. powdered sugar
2 egg whites
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. salt.

Tips:  For the cookies I cut this recipe in half otherwise it will frost an 8 inch layer cake
          It keeps well in fridge if you have leftover