Here you go Claire. Home Cookin Chapter: Recipes From Thibeault's Table Shire House Cream Cheese Pie ============================ have had this recipe for 30 years. It was given to me by the owners of the Shire House Restaurant which was just outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan The restaurant has been gone for many years. The original recipe calls for poached pears but I have used strawberries as well as peaches and apricots and you could use blueberries or blackberries. 1 8 oz cream cheese 1 cup whipping cream 1 French Pie Crust (Pate Sucree) Honey sugar vanilla 6 poached pear halves (substitute other fruit) orange liqueur Apricot Preserves Poach Pears or apricots in 1 cup sugar to 2 cups water with 1 tablespoon of lemon added. Cook until tender and cool. Prepare and bake pie crust. Cool Whip cream cheese with 3 to 5 tablespoons of honey (to taste). Whip cream with sugar (again to taste) Add vanilla. Fold cream into cheese and add to cold pie crust. Decorate with pears and brush with orange liqueur.

My 4 year old great niece and her mom are dropping by on Monday probably for not more than an hour. They live about 2.5 hours away and are going to be in town visiting other relatives, too. I’d like to have a fun activity for her. I want to be the cool aunt! I thought I might make up a batch of sugar cookies. Then when she and her mom get here, she and I would roll them in sprinkles and we’d bake them. She could take them home with her! I do not know what time they will arrive, but I want to have everything ready to go when they get here. Assume I will not know when they are going to be here until they are at the front door. How long can I let the dough set out once it is made? Can I go ahead, make the dough balls, and refrigerate them? I hesitate to refrigerate the entire bowl of dough because it will be too stiff to work with. This is the recipe I use. It is from Stella Parks when she was blogging as BraveTart.

Oil cookies are very specific. The science of what happens during baking is way different. I wouldn't go there without leisure to test the recipe. There's nothing simpler than true shortbread, AP flour, granulated sugar, solid fat (butter, shortening (eew) or "baking stick" margarine (100 Calories per TBSP). Each has a different flavor and texture, but all work. Cream fat and sugar, add flour, any add-ins, chill, roll or shape, bake. I'm not sure that makes the best general base however. I've done it, but while the cookies look really different, even with flavorings added, etc., I think they all taste like shortbread. There are a ton of good cookie recipes that only yield a dozen average suzed cookies. If you really want variety, I'd make 5-6 of those, rather than one huge batch of generic dough with varied finishes. OTOH, if it's for a party, rather than house guests, or gift baskets, most people will only eat one or two cookies, so it wouldn't matter if there's aa underlying sameness.

"I am going to try freezing shortbread and oatmeal raisin. I read that they work well." No problem at all; I do it all the time. I freeze most cookie doughs with great results, including shortbread, sugar cookie and any type of oatmeal or other drop cookie doughs. Right now I have a lot of cookie dough in the freezer, including shortbread, sugar cookie, oatmeal/cranberry, gingerbread and molasses. What I wouldn't freeze are more delicate cookie doughs that have more liquid and are thinner, such as florentines and tuiles. Sooz, freeze away! I agree with plllog. Snickerdoodle dough freezes beautifully but add the coating right before baking.