McCartney Jennifer - Lazy cake cookies & more: delicious, shortcut desserts with 5 ingredients or less

: KaraBrennan/iStockphoto.com Front cover (clockwise from top right): haha21/iStockphoto.com; kreinick/iStockphoto.com; huePhotography/iStockphoto.com; jatrax/iStockphoto.com; AlexStar/iStockphoto.com; subjug/iStockphoto.com Back cover: Alexander Sherstobitov/iStockphoto.com; Southern Light Studios/Shutterstock.com No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages. Copyright 2015 by Jennifer Palmer All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, The Countryman Press,
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Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110 www.wwnorton.com The Library of Congress has catalogued the printed edition as follows: Palmer, Jennifer, 1980 author. Lazy cake cookies & more : delicious, shortcut desserts with 5 ingredients or less / Jennifer Palmer. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-58157-370-1 (pbk. : alk. Desserts. 2. 2.

Quick and easy cooking. I. Title. II. Title: Lazy cake cookies and more. TX773.P245 2015 641.86dc23 2015028904 ISBN 978-1-58157-508-8 (e-book) I THINK BAKING COOKIES IS EQUAL TO QUEEN VICTORIA RUNNING AN EMPIRE.

THERES NO DIFFERENCE IN HOW SERIOUSLY YOU TAKE THE JOB, HOW SERIOUSLY YOU APPROACH YOUR WHOLE LIFE. MARTHA STEWART

If youre like me, baking is one of the most enjoyable activities in your life. Its right up there with sunny days by the pool, late-night dinner parties, and, well, eating what you bake and sharing it with loved ones. Baking is truly a way to relax, recharge, de-stress, and embrace your creative side.
So lets get baking! If lazy cakes arent already a part of your baking routine, I hope these recipes will inspire you to create delicious, easy treats on the regular. Theyre great for when youre pressed for time, or just feeling lazy! Inside youll find more than fifty recipes for cookies, pies, cakes, and moreall with just five ingredients or less. Thats right, these are delicious concoctions you can make in a flash, without endless measurements of teaspoons and tablespoons.

While I love a complex recipe, sometimes its nice to just grab a box of lemon cake mix, a tub of Cool Whip, and an egg and make a batch of light and sweet Lemon Dream Drop Cookies. Or add peanut butter, condensed milk, and vanilla to biscuit mix and bake up a plate of Grandmas Peanut Butter Kisses. Whatever your sweet tooth, youll find something here to satisfy you and your family and friends.

Lazy cake recipes require very few ingredients. But in order to be prepared for baking on a whim, here are a few key items youll want to have on your shelf, along with some common substitutions. Youll find a wide variety of boxed cake mixes in the baking aisle of your local grocery store.

Keep an eye out for dealsmany stores offer discounts when you buy in bulk. Stock up on your favorite brands of vanilla, chocolate, and lemon cake mix.

Biscuit mix is a great base for baking cookie and cake recipes. A tub of Cool Whip or a comparable brand of whipped topping is a key ingredient in many lazy cake recipes. Always keep some on hand so you can whip up a batch of cookies in no time. Coconut oil is a healthy and flavorful substitution for canola or olive oil.

Coconut oil adds a delicious, tropical flavor to whatever youre baking and goes well with chocolate, lemon, and vanilla cake mix. Dont hesitate to include this in any of your recipesespecially those calling for shredded coconut.

Graham cracker crusts make a great crunchy base for many of the pies and desserts in this book. Buy them in the grocery store, or make your own ahead of time and store them in the freezer. Cream cheese is such a versatile ingredientuse it in cakes, cookies, and pies. Vanilla Eggs Powdered sugar Peanut butter Sweetened condensed milk Butter or margarine Miniature marshmallows Cream cheese Semisweet chocolate chips (or white chocolate, extra-dark chocolate, or butterscotch chips) Cinnamon While cakes and cookies arent exactly known for being healthy, we all need a bit of sweetness in our lives.

With that said, there are lots of small changes you can make to these recipes to create healthier treats for you and your family. For healthier fats: Recent studies have shown that the fats in butter are healthier for you than those in margarine. While many people switched from butter to margarine because margarine is lower in cholesterol, we now know that margarine is high in trans fat, which isnt good for us. I use butter in my recipes for that reason, but its up to you. You can also try coconut oil instead of butter. Fellow bakers have recommended substituting half the amount of butter in a recipe for mashed avocado.

Avocados are full of heart-healthy monounsaturated fatty acids. For more antioxidants: Try using dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate. Look for chocolate thats 70 percent cocoa or higher. Using dark chocolate will make the recipe less sweet, so be forewarned. For less sodium: Use unsalted butter to lower the sodium content of any recipe. For less sugar: Try using half the amount of sugar and substituting applesauce for the rest.

Ethical eating: Many of us are trying to buy foods that are healthier not only for us but for the planet. If thats something youre interested in, look for labels that say organic, hormone-free, free-range, cage-free, or GMO-free. For example, many grocery stores now sell eggs that come from free-range chickens raised outdoors.

Lazy cake recipes dont require any special baking equipment or fancy kitchen tools. In fact, many of these recipes dont even require an oven! But here are a few key things to have on hand before you get started. Stand mixer Hand mixer Whisk Measuring spoons Measuring cup Large mixing bowl Shallow bowl Muffin tins and mini muffin tins Cookie sheets Baking liners like parchment paper or silicone baking mats 9 13-inch pan These amazing lemon cookies have four ingredients and come together in seconds.

You can omit the powdered sugar coating if you want, but the sugar adds a hint of sweetness to the gooey and tender interior

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