Pie D'oh to Plan B Cookies, Sweet-Tweaked

Initially, I started out with a rolled, refrigerated pie crust, which I had intended to use in my MayDay lemon meringue pie. The box had info about letting the dough warm up a few minutes to room temperature before unrolling it onto a pie pan. Or could microwave for a few seconds.

My brain misfired and had my fingers microwave the dough for defrost on a low setting. Unfortunately, the defrost setting is meant for FROZEN items. When I pulled out the plate of the rolled dough, I discovered the dough was tepid and soft, un-unrollable. D'oh!

I hatched Plan B—cookies. That plan worked OK. Yield was 13, with confetti sprinkles, but I thought it could use additional sweetening.

I hatched the sweet-tweak the next day after having only three cookies left. I spread some vanilla frosting, then glued additional sprinkles.

During the resolution of the pie dough, I poked around the web for ideas about pie dough cookies. I also expanded my thoughts about easy cooky making. Not addressing no-effort, ready-to-eat cookies nor the other extreme—scratch cookies. (I'm practically on permanent hiatus from physical effort and expense required for scratch cookies.)

Actual Pie Crust Cookies

I stumbled upon some sites for making cookies from pie crust. Some recipes use unroll-pie-crust dough, some suggest either unroll-dough or homemade. One calls for leftover dough. The commonality of these recipes is addition of cinnamon and extra sugar. Looks like adding butter is helpful.

• "3-Ingredient Cinnamon Sugar Cookies" is a true unroll-pie-dough recipe that uses only pie crust, sugar, and cinnamon. This recipe would not have worked in my case, as my dough was already kaput.
• "Easy Pie Crust Cookies" actually calls for a package of refrigerated Pillsbury Pie Crusts! She adds cinnamon, sugar, and melted butter, then cooky-cuts them out.
• "Pie Crust Cookies" provides guidance for using leftover pie crust. I do wonder about the small scale the baker uses—4 ounces of pie dough and rest of ingredient amounts. BTW, she calls for a lot more than three ingredients. The pix, however, are divine!
• "Cinnamon Sugar Pie Crust Cookies" suggests either store-bought or homemade pie crust, along with four additional ingredients.
• "Easy Pie Crust Cookies" also suggests either store-bought or homemade pie crust. Spartan amount of ingredients besides the crust—sugar, cinnamon, and optionally, melted butter. Her recipe uses cooky cutters.

Pretty EZ Cooky Dough Using Room-temperature Kits

Making cookies out of refrigerated rolled pie dough like I did is not economical. The pack of two was ~$3, total of just over 14 ounces. You can buy cooky mix in the cake aisle for about $2 for 17.5 ounces (example: Betty Crocker) with several varieties.

BTW, I used only one-half of my pie dough package for the 13 cookies. From looking at a website for BC cookies, the entire package yield would be 36. Sooo, if I'd used half of a BC package, the cost would have been 1/3 less than the pie dough, and the yield would have been about 50% more.

Almost EZ Cooky Dough Using Cake Mix

The standard easy recipe I use is one box of yellow cake mix, 1/3 C oil, and 2 eggs. Yellow cake is easy because the ingredients are simple. I'm not sure how factory ingredients differ among yellow, white, and butter-recipe; however, I know they require different added ingredients. For chocoholics, chocolate cake mix requires the same ingredients as yellow cake.

As for economy, each boxful weighs about 15.25 ounces. The yield, after adding oil and eggs, can range between 48 and 56. Yield is even higher, but the cost also more, if you add in choco chips and nuts.

EZ Cooky Dough Using Refrigerated Pre-mixed Cooky Dough

Refrigerated pre-mixed cooky dough comes in two forms—pellet-shapes and sausage-shaped wrapped ("chub"). Pellets come usually 24 to a pound. Open the pack, break at edges onto pan, and bake in pre-heated oven. With the slightly more laborious chubbed dough, peel away the plastic wrap, spoon the dough onto pan(s) or cut into pieces onto pan(s), and bake in pre-heated oven.

So, are you inclined to make pie dough cookies? Various other types of cookies with varying efforts?

Kool-Aided Cake

I recently made a two-layer cake using yellow cake mix and added Black Cherry Kool-Aid powder. The flavoring contained one teaspoon of powder. I used half in one cup of my batter for marbling effect, and the other half in 18 ounces of spreadable frosting.

Tasted good, although the colors were a bit pale. I didn't feel confident about adding food color to darken anything. As for the swirling, I think zebra-ing would have looked more interesting. Oh, well, I have more beverage powders to try the next time

Short Version of Kool-Aid Cake Infusing
Experienced bakers know the cake preparation process or how to find reminders. FYI, I've omitted the info for utensils, pre-prep, and post-bake.

1. I used a yellow cake mix, adding the ingredients called for (3 eggs, 1/3 C oil, 1 C water).
2. I added 1/2 pack of Black Cherry Kool-Aid into 1 C mixed batter for marbling before dispensing and baking.
3. I added the other 1/2 pack of the Kool-Aid into 18 ounces of spreadable frosting.

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Longer Version of Kool-Aid Cake Infusing
Novice bakers can use my content as supplemental info about cake making. Additional and reinforcement info is available on cake mix boxes and web searches.

Pre-preparation
Cake mix boxes provide excellent instructions for preparation. Obtain cooking utensils, bowls, measuring cups and spoons, ingredients, plates for setting cookery items on, cake pan(s). Be forewarned: Making a cake dirties up a lot of items and surfaces.

Pan Preparation
Pan(s) need preparation so that the batter doesn't stick to the surfaces during baking. Cake mix boxes tend to advise greasing and flouring. I use spray oil at the bottoms and sides, then press down parchment paper circles, and spray more oil. Pre-heating the oven to 350 at this time is good.

Batter Mixing
Cake mix box instructions say to mix water, oil, eggs, and powder together, slowly for 30 seconds, then 2 minutes on medium. I tend to draw the process out as follows:

1. Ensure no bad eggs or loose egg shells during cracking process. Crack an egg into the bowl. Crack another egg into a cup; pour it into the bowl if no mishap. Pour the third egg into the cup; pour it into the bowl.
2. Measure and pour the oil into measuring cup, then add to bowl.
3. Measure and pour the water into measuring cup, then add to bowl. Blend these wet ingredients about 20-40 seconds.
4. Slowly add the cake powder while continuing to mix for about half a minute. Speed up mixer to medium for the next two minutes, also using rubber spatula to help blend.
5. Scoop out 1 C batter into a smaller bowl. Lightly blend in Kool-Aid powder. (I used 1/2 envelope, which amounted to 1/2 teaspoon)

Batter Dispensing, Baking

1. Pour lighter-color batter into pan(s).
2. Pour Kool-Aided batter afterward, use spatula to lightly swirl colors.
In my case, I used 2 9-inch pans, aided by kitchen scale for weight checks. Another option for batter distribution is using additional measuring cups to alternate the different batters, thereby getting a zebra cake effect. (Visit "Zebra Cake, Using Two Half Boxes of Cake" or "Zebra Cake, Using Marble Cake Mix".) Advisory: Weigh battered (grin) pans to ensure similar doneness.
3. Bake according to box instructions, then cool.
Part of the baking process includes checking for doneness, often poking a toothpick into the risen cake, pulling the toothpick out and seeing if still-raw batter sticks. If not, cake's done. Pull the pan(s) and place onto cooling racks for about 10 minutes, invert the cake(s) onto the rack(s), remove papers if you used them, and let cool to room temperature, about an hour or more.

Blending Kool-Aid into Spreadable Frosting
I had a partially used can, which I pulled out of the refrigerator for warming to room temperature. I added enough from a new can to total 18 ounces. I added the other half of the Kool-Aid (1/2 teaspoon) into the frosting.
Caution: If your frosting isn't at least room temperature, blending the powder in is laborious. I'd be sure to microwave chilled frosting in very small doses before attempting to stir in the Kool-Aid.

Frosting the Cake, Two-layer (Assembly)

1. Frost a layer, flat side up.
2. Set other layer on top, flat side down, and frost.
3. Finish frosting sides.

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Looking Closer at Unsweetened Beverage Powders
I noticed that weights seem to vary among brands, even among Kool-Aid flavors. My collection:

• Kool-Aid, Black Cherry, .13 oz, 3.6 g (Used this one.)
• Kool-Aid, Cherry, .13 oz, 3.6 g
• Kool-Aid, Tropical Punch, .16 oz, 4.5 g (Oy, I have 5!)
• Strawberry Fresa Flavor Aid, .15 oz, 4.3 g
• Hawaiian Punch Berry Blue Typhoon, .35 oz, 10 g

Looking a Bit into Kool-Aid
Each packet costs about a quarter, takes up very little room, and is non-perishable. I poked around the web for shelf life. It seems that Kool-Aid lasts forever if the packet is unopened. If you're inclined to try Kool-Aid to flavor your cake, frosting, or both, you can find plenty of info on the web.

• "KOOL AID OLDER THAN ME!" includes research that the teen did, revealing some Kool-Aid was up to 18 years old.
• "Drinking 53 year old Kool-Aid" shows Bugs Bunny on the envelope.
• "The History of Kool-Aid" provides overall history of the product, inventor, and the product path since its invention in 1920 (under a different name). It had cost 10 cents an envelope for a long time, then dropped 5 cents for awhile. My supermarket shows envelopes for 26 cents.

Lemonade Kool-Aid and More Flavor Suggestions
I previously wrote "Lemon Juice Aid 1, Let There Be Cake!", where I first mentioned my intention to use Kool-Aid lemonade flavoring for next lemon cake or pie.

Earlier, I mentioned different weights for Kool-Aid powders. Oddly, lemonade Kool-Aid weight seem to vary even more. "Kool-Aid Lemonade Unsweetened Drink Mix" shows .23 oz (6.5 g). "Kool-Aid Cake or Cupcake Recipe" looks like a reasonably uncomplicated recipe—one packet for the cake, and one packet for the frosting. Amount of Kool-Aid in one envelope is .15 oz.

"Anyone Used Kool-Aid (Powdered) To Flavor Buttercream??" provides bakers' helpful hints about Kool-Aid in frostings. The handiest post, imho:

All I do is just add the Kool-Aid to my icing as I am making it. You already have the water and it doesn't leave a gritty taste. ... I also marble it into my cake mixes for the kids and kids at heart.... Lemon lime, grape, and lemon is very tart so don't add that much. I have have even mixed 3 to 4 different flavors in the cake mixes ...