Stonewall Kitchen's Vanilla Sandwich Cookies

It's hot out! It's sticky! Too lazy, hot and tired to make a snack from scratch? Too busy with work lately to do a lot of your own baking? (Umm, yes that would be me...) I won't tell, whip up a batch of Stonewall Kitchen's Vanilla Sandwich cookies and it will look like you slaved all morning!

"You made these cookies for us in this heat?! Oh what a doll you are dear!"

Recently at a Stonewall Kitchen store up in Portsmouth, NH, I bought a box of these that were on the clearance shelf, can't beat 75% off :).  I wanted to make something fun for visiting some family tomorrow so I thought these would be easy. They were, and I still was able to modify it as needed and I even learned something. 

Two bags were included in the box, one with the cookie mix, and one with the filling. You need a LOT of butter for these cookies... 8 and a half Tbsp for the cookies alone...that is one stick plus half a Tbsp of butter. Mmmm butter.

Notice anything about the shape of my cookies?

Before Baking:

After Baking:

Well, they didn't spread out at all, and they are more than a little misshapen! The directions just said to slight flatten a rounded teaspoon of dough. Ummm....yeah. Ok. So, the next batch, I decided to roll the dough in between my hands, and then flatten with a spoon. Can you tell the difference?

Lesson Learned #1: Use your noggin.

Next was making the filling, which was very easy. Dump in the bag of the filling into your mixer, add 1/4 softened butter and 1/4 vegetable shortening..i.e. good old Crisco.

Crisco still freaks me out a little, but in reality it has 50% less fat than butter....cool :) So wait are these low fat cookies!?! Uhhh, no, but it makes me feel a little better that they are slightly less fattening than they could be.

The directions basically just say to mix together the Butter, Crisco, and 'filling mix'...but without any sort of liquid, it wasn't doing much of anything except getting powdered chocolate all over my kitchen. I added about a Tbsp of milk and it mixed up perfectly.

Lesson Learned #2: See Lesson Learned #1

The only thing left to do is put the sandwiches together and try a few. Oh the things I do for baking.

P.S. I love my Pyrex dish I got at Brimfield!

Brimfield Antique Fair

Brimfield! I finally went! OK, what on Earth is Brimfield you're asking? Well, it's one of the largest antique fairs in the country. It happens three times a year, May, July and September. Brimfield is a town about an hour and a half West of Boston, and with lots of fields and open spaces, Brimfield is on the map due to this unreal exposition.

So knowing how overwhelming this amount of STUFF might be, I went in with a plan and some goals of what I wanted to look for.....bakeware and chocolate molds of course!

It was great having something specific in mind going into something this HUGE! It was SO MUCH FUN! Ok, enough with the all capital letters....ahem..

These choocolate molds were amazing! They were in fantastic shape, and just beautiful. I loved the cat sticking out its tongue, and the lobsters were my favorite! Seeing how the least expensive mold was $200, I settled for some pictures :)

There are hundreds and hundreds of vendors that travel from all over the country to go to Brimfield. What results is a phenomenal collection of collectors! Looking for an odd piece of Pyrex?

Looking for a rare tea tin to complete your collection?

So after walking around and seeing hundreds of vendors, what did I buy? Check it out!

I love this vintage tablecloth, I have a thing for them and I just love this one! The little scenes are very 1950s-1960s. You can see the three little teapots, the golf cart and flowers, and the lamp with flowers. I love it. You can also see the red white and blue bracelet I bought in this picture.

Can you say molds!? Ok, so they aren't chocolate molds, but I absolutely adore them. My Mom has similar molds that we used to use to make jell-o, but I have some fun plans for these babies.

The little gold frames are for some of my oil paintings, I've been looking for small, ornate gold frames and was thrilled to finally find these!  Once I have time to paint again, I can't wait to use them.

(Never start a sentence with "And", but...) AND, do you see my new Madeleine pan!? $3.

 Oh and how much do you love the little cross-stitch baker?!

Also in the mix, an old Pepsi advertising crate, which is perfect for my canvases and painting supplies.

I also took home two difference pieces of pyrex. If you haven't cooked with Pyrex, seriously, try it out. It can make your life and cooking easier.

Your next chance to experience Brimfield, is July, so bring your sunscreen, leave early, and wear your walking shoes!