Crock Pot Chai Tea...

Today was one of those rare days that we spent the entire day out shopping. Everyone had received a gift card, cash, or both for Christmas this year. The daughter spent most of her money on clothes and splurged at the toy store for a huge remote controlled monster truck. The son spent a tiny bit of one gift card. Only to discover what he bought has to be taken back, because it is defective. My husband spent over an hour roaming the tool department at Sears, finally leaving with nothing because he could not decide what he wanted. After a quick stop at the house for lunch, I did a repeat of my husband’s performance only at Bed Bath and Beyond… sigh. Sometimes there is too many choices and not sure what I want the most.

From there we swung back by the house, to pick up the kids bowling equipment for practice. The bowling alley was freezing and after sitting for over two hours, I wish I had a pot of this Chai Tea waiting for me. This would be great to serve for at a brunch, if you are having a New Year’s party, this might be good for after midnight.

Chai is generally a sweet drink, but you may reduce the sweetener to taste.
 If whole spices are not easily available, you may use powders. However, you will
wish to strain through several layers of cheesecloth or a coffee filter before
serving.

For your vegan friends, you can use a non-dairy milk

Crock Pot Chai Tea

2 quarts (8 cups) water
8 bags black tea
3/4 cup sugar or Splenda **
16 whole cloves
16 whole cardamom seeds, pods removed
5 cinnamon sticks
8 slices fresh ginger
1 cup milk
Optional: more cinnamon sticks



1. Combine water, tea bags, sugar, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon sticks and ginger
in your slow cooker. Cover and cook on HIGH 2-2.5 hours.

2. Strain mixture and discard solids. (At this point, the chai tea may be
covered and refrigerated up to 3 days.)

3. Just before serving, stir in the milk. Serve warm or chilled with additional
cinnamon sticks for garnishes, if desired.


Makes 8-10 servings.

Historical Snickerdoodle Cookie

Top: Recipe as written. Bottom: Adjusted recipe

Originally, cookies were little round sweet cakes. Over the years, these have evolved into the cookies we know today.

On June 14, 1898 if you were, reading the Boston Daily Globe newspaper you would've come across this recipe for Snickerdoodles.

2 cups sugar

1 cup milk

two eggs

¾ cup butter

2 teaspoons tartar

teaspoon soda

3 cups flour

I decided to make this recipe.Instead of using three quarters a cup of butter, I used half a cup of butter in a quarter cup of Crisco. The first batch, produced beautiful buttery yellow, thin snickerdoodle cakes.

Since they were so thin and spread so much I decided to add about half a cup of flour into the dough. Adding the additional flour produced a drop cookie, we are accustomed to today. However, in doing so, I lost the pretty, yellow color. The cookies stayed well formed, they were light, moist, cakey type cookie. I can understand why the combination of cookies and milk became popular.

Every time I have made snickerdoodle cookies, my recipe says to form dough into a ball then roll ball in cinnamon sugar. This cookie is a drop cookie. This means you drop spoonfuls of dough onto a cookie sheet. Before you place in the oven, sprinkle each cookie with cinnamon sugar. My family really enjoyed the taste of these snickerdoodles. I had to hide what was left, which was half the batch.

Historical Snickerdoodle Cookie:

Ingredients:

2 cups white sugar

1 cup milk

2 eggs

½ cup butter

¼ cup Crisco

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

3 ½ cups flour

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F

Combine butter sugar eggs and milk, in food processor until well blended.

 In separate bowl, stir flour baking soda and flour together.

Slowly add flour mixture to food processor until completely blended.

Line cookie sheet with parchment paper and drop 1 serving tablespoon of cookie dough onto cookie sheet.

With a heavy hand, cover cookie with cinnamon and sugar.

Cook for 8 to 10 min. or until the edges are slightly brown.

*Did you know: if you're out of eggs, you can substitute 2 tablespoons of cornstarch per egg*