You can call me the cookie monster

It is that time of year again...back to school! But before that happened, I needed to do some final summer baking. As many of you know, we have been hit with mother nature a lot this year, and the recent hurricane brought upon a lot of hours in the kitchen. My roommates and I decided to have hurricane party, and to celebrate I made some ferocious hurricane cookies. I think they were more dangerous than Hurricane Irene ended up being. Once you ate one, you just couldn't stop!

I made my favorite cookie batter, the one that tastes like the "Walmart crack cookies." You know, the big sugar cookies with thick, colorful icing? I doubled the following recipe  to make about 2 dozen or so cookies.

Cookie Ingredients: 

1 1/3 cup AP flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 egg

5 1/2 tbsp butter, softened

1/3 cup buttermilk  (I made my own by using milk + lemon juice, let sit for 5 minutes)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside for now.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

3. Add egg and beat for 3 more minutes. Alternate adding the buttermilk and
the flour to the mixture, starting and ending with the flour.
 Add the vanilla and beat until all is combined. 

4. Pipe out or scoop out (I found piping the batter out of a plastic bag easiest) onto a lined baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes on 350.

The best part of these cookies - the icing! And not just the icing, but my hurricane icing.

Icing Ingredients and Directions:

(Doubled)

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

1 box (or 3 cups) of powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2-3 tbsp milk

Red, green, and blue food coloring

1. Cream the butter and powdered sugar.

2. Add the vanilla.

3. Add 1 tbsp of milk at a time until it is the consistency you want.

4. Separate icing into 3 bowls, add red, green, and blue food coloring to a bowl.

Hurricane cookies! Layer the icing with red in the middle.
Swirl lightly to make the icing appear as if it is a hurricane on the weather radar!

I made the same cookies the next day, but football shaped for my Fantasy Football draft.
To make cut-outs with this batter, refrigerate for a few hours first.

A few days later, I used this same recipe x5 and made nearly 100 cookies for the staff at my school, to welcome them back to a new school year. I have to say, this is my go to cookie recipe. You really can't go wrong with them! They are soft, sweet, and delicious! And you can be as creative as you would like with the icing. So if this winter you are stuck in another Snowpocalypse this year, you know what kind of cookies to make for your Snowpocalypse party (or just to enjoy for yourself!)