Smiley Face Cookies

This recipe originally came from the book Peach Cobbler Murder. The book was written by Joanne Fluke and is part of a series of cozy murder mysteries about a coffeeshop owner that shares her recipes as she solves the murder. If you’re not familiar with the term “cozy murder mystery,” just think of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple or the TV show Murder She Wrote (as opposed to something “hard-boiled” like Law and Order or CSI). In fact, Joanne Fluke’s website is www.murdershebaked.com. Cute, huh?

In the book, the recipe is called Doll Face Cookies. I’ve changed it only slightly so that it makes fewer cookies and the faces actually smile. The original instructions call for three raisins (two eyes and a mouth). Instead of using a third raisin for a mouth, I replaced it with a quarter of a maraschino cherry. Now the faces can smile back at me. ☺ Besides, how can I pass up an excuse to use maraschino cherries?

Oh, and did I mention these cookies are egg-free?

Smiley Face Cookies

Ingredients:
¼ cup melted butter (1/2 stick)
¼ cup molasses
½ cup tightly packed brown sugar
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon lemon juice
¼ cup milk
1 ¼ cups flour
about 50 raisins
6-8 maraschino cherries (quartered)

Melt the butter in a large microwave-safe bowl. Let the butter cool to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Spray a measuring cup with nonstick cooking spray and measure out ¼ cup molasses. Add the molasses and the brown sugar to the melted butter. Next, stir in the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and lemon juice.

Add the flour and milk slowly, mixing as you go. Stir until all ingredients are incorporated thoroughly.

Use a small cookie scooper or rounded teaspoons to drop dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Put two raisins on top for eyes and a quarter of a maraschino cherry for the mouth.

Bake for 10-12 minutes at 375 degrees. Let the cookies cool for two minutes on the sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Yields: about two dozen

If I ever meet Joanne Fluke, I’d love to know how she gets these cookies off her cookie sheet. I must confess that I have problems doing it without the “face” getting stretched or pushed into another shape. Sometimes my cookies turn out more like Edvard Munch’s painting Scream.








And other times, they look more like Jack-o-lanterns.
Oh, well. They always taste yummy.