You should make these cookies. But, after you do, don’t blame me. They are absolutely delicious.

Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup butter

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 bag butterscotch flavored baking chips

3 cups old fashioned oats

Start by preheating your oven to 375°.

In a medium bowl, combine first four ingredients: flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon. Set aside.

Beat butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla in a large mixing bowl.  I always beat the butter until fluffy, then add the sugars, vanilla and eggs.

Gradually beat in flour mixture from medium bowl.

Stir in butterscotch baking chips and oats.

Drop onto ungreased baking sheets.  Bake for 7 minutes – just when the edges start to look browned.

Let cool for a couple minutes and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.  I found each time I made these, they needed to cool for quite a while.

That’s it!

My husband has taken these to work twice and I made them for a trivia night last week.  Great reviews all three times!

You’re welcome.

So, I tried something new today.  New to me, probably not new to others.  Cake pops.  Balls of cake and icing mixed together and coated with dipping chocolate.  I think there are lots of ways to do this, and other variations to try, but here’s what I did.

Festive Fourth Cake Pops

1 Pillsbury Stars and Stripes Funfetti Cake Mix

Water, vegetable oil and eggs as called for on box

1 container of Pillsbury Stars and Stripes Vanilla Frosting(with cute sprinkles on top of container)

Wooden craft sticks, or candy sucker sticks

Styrofoam, to hold the cake pops (ball, square, circle – I used a few circles and a few rectangles)

Almond Bark, or other candy coating for dipping the cake pops

and last but not least…festive SPRINKLES!

1. Make cake according to directions on package. Bake and let cool for an hour or until cake is completely cooled.

2. In a large mixing bowl, crumble cake into tiny pieces. Spoon in the vanilla icing.  I started with half of the container, then added more as needed.  I did end up using the entire container.

3.  Mix thoroughly until combined.  The mixture will be pretty dense which allows for the cake to be formed into balls.

4. Form cake and icing mixture into balls.  I used a cookie dough scoop, but a spoon would work just fine with rolling the cake into balls with your hands. Arrange on a cookie sheet.  Then, put cookie sheet with arranged cake balls in the freezer for 15-20 minutes.

While the cake balls are in the freezer, prepare the dipping chocolate/almond bark.  I have an electronic chocolate melter(because I refuse to go the microwave route), but either will work.

5.  After removing the cake from the freezer, prepare your cake balls to become cake pops.  Using basic wood craft sticks(or those pricey sucker sticks you can find at Michael’s) dip one end into your melted chocolate and then insert into your cake balls. I found that doing this really helped keep the ball of cake attached to the stick!

6.  Dip each cake pop into your melted chocolate making sure to cover the cake completely.  To get a smooth finish, try to let the excess chocolate drip off as much as possible. (Thanks Ballew. )

7.  Decorate your cake pops with desired sprinkles!

Hopefully that covers it all.  They are pretty simple and easy to make, and the end result is really cute and yummy.  I can’t wait for it to be winter so I can make snowman and snowglobe cake pops.  (I love all things wintery and christmasy!) Thank to my husband, I’ve got some great pictures of these festive cake pops! And also thanks to Ballew, who spent the afternoon in my kitchen helping me!

And it was WONDERFUL.  I love fruit and this has my favorites.  Well, kiwi isn’t exactly my favorite…but I did like it mixed with the other stuff!

So here you go:

2 kiwis, peeled and diced
2 Golden Delicious apples – peeled, cored and diced
8 ounces raspberries
1 (16 oz) carton of strawberries, diced
2 tablespoons white sugar (more or less to taste)
1 tablespoon brown sugar (more or less to taste)
3 tablespoons fruit preserves, any flavor (I used strawberry)

10 (10 inch) flour tortillas
melted butter or butter flavored cooking spray
2 cups cinnamon sugar

1. In a large bowl, thoroughly mix kiwis, apples, raspberries, strawberries, white sugar, brown sugar and fruit preserves. Cover and chill in the refrigerator at least 15 minutes.

2.Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

3.Coat one side of each flour tortilla with melted butter or butter flavored cooking spray. Sprinkle tortillas with desired amount of cinnamon sugar. Cut into wedges and arrange in a single layer on a large baking sheet. Spray again with cooking spray (not necessary if using melted butter).

4.Bake in the preheated oven 8 to 10 minutes. Repeat with any remaining tortilla wedges. Allow to cool approximately 15 minutes. Serve with chilled fruit mixture. Best when made and eaten the same day otherwise the fruit gives off so too much juice and it gets runny.

I was actually really happy with the cinnamon tortillas.  I was worried they wouldn’t work out, but they were great!  They kept well – we still have just a few left in our pantry.