Betty Crocker has some great recipes out there. When I started cooking, my mom (Lena) gave me a Betty Crocker cookbook containing all of the basics, almost the same as the one she had when she started cooking. Two years ago, I was in line at the grocery store and I spied Betty Crocker’s Christmas Cookies (Dec/Jan 2010 edition), which had some interesting, simple cookie recipes using Betty Crocker cookie mixes.
These Dark Chocolate Apricot Cookies, which are also on the Betty Crocker website, caught my eye. There aren’t many ingredients and it’s easy to swap out the flavors to suit your own tastes. Sometimes you need a quick cookie recipe to make, and this one fits the bill.
We’re all about quick and easy recipes here on the PinterTest Kitchen, and this is one of my quickest/easiest. I made my first batch last Christmas and they were such a hit that they are now a go-to recipe in my arsenal. The credit actually goes to my mom (Sharon) for finding this recipe, but I’m totally claiming it.
The great thing about these cookies is that you probably have all of the things you need in your pantry/fridge already. So you can just whip up a batch whenever you’re craving something sweet.
My boyfriend doesn’t really like peanut butter, but these are so sweet and chocolatey that I’m wondering if he might like them despite the peanut butter. I guess we’ll see! He’s currently deployed (in the Navy), and a care package of these and other cookies are on the way to him right now. So, I’ll report back on his opinion!
My mother (Sharon) is known for her Christmas cookie platters. If you’re lucky enough to get one of these puppies for the holidays, you have days of scrumptious treats to look forward to. She starts baking weeks before Christmas to prepare, often baking all day to fill the freezer with cookies for Christmas. Here are the results from one such baking marathon day:
That’s my Grandma, who was helper for the day (she’s a wiz in the kitchen as well), and my Pappy, who was the official taste-tester for the day. Your eyes do not deceive you: there are at least TEN different kinds of cookies pictured in this photograph!!! I’m trying to follow in my mother’s footsteps, and my cookie party last December was a hit, but there can be only one Christmas Cookie Queen: and that title definitely goes to my mom!
Today’s recipe is not one I recommend. Not at all, actually. These Jello Cookies were downright nasty. Seriously, that doesn’t even sound good. I don’t know what I was thinking. Jello cookies? Blech.
So why post it? Because I keep seeing people repinning this recipe on Pinterest! At least three or four times a week, I see someone repin this recipe. It’s like a zombie. I think it’s dead, but then it rises again. This pin needs an ax to the face!
The picture it pretty. The cookies are pretty. Well, mine are okay. But on the original pin, the cookies are really pretty. That’s why people are pinning and repinning like crazy. This is not a knock on the blogger who posted this recipe originally. I’m sure she really does think these cookies are great. Someone must, right? I assume that it’s like how every mom thinks their child looks beautiful when they see him or her for the first time.
News flash, new moms: newborn babies look like aliens. They have weird cone-shaped heads and unnatural purpley-red wrinkly skin. And most of the time, they’re covered in child-birth-y-goop. That’s totally a technical term. But the point is, newborn babies are not cute except to their own mothers. And that’s how this recipe is too.
