SMS: Granola Breakfast Cookies

This week's Sweet Melissa recipe was chosen by one of my favorite bloggers, Jessica from A Singleton in the Kitchen. The recipe is Granola Breakfast Cookies, and uses the cherry almond granola recipe in the book (a delicious double whammy). You can get the recipe on Jessica's terrific blog here. Before getting on with my comments on this week's recipe, allow me to introduce you to my SMS mascot - Bumble Bee Eeyore. As explained by the great Elyse in her out of this world post today, SMS grew out of my terrible Sunday blues (while I am nicknamed eeyore, he's in full force on Sundays). So when I saw this Eeyore on ebay, I HAD to have him, right? So perfect. Anyway, you'll be seing more of him in the Sundays to come.

Back to the baking, this week's recipe is a perfect example of why I love baking clubs and this awesome world of baking blogs. Things have been a little a hectic around here, so I was going to use store bought granola, because I didn't know where to get all the ingredients for the granola and had never made it before. But, having read all the comments from the other great SMS bakers, many of whom liked the granola more than the cookies, I thought, this is what the club is all about - doing things I wouldn't ordinarily do.

So, it turned out to be a great Sunday afternoon, making this delicious cherry almond granola (with cranberries, raisins, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds). In between all the stirring, I ran back to my computer to catch up on my google reader - almost below 100 now! More about the granola later when its time to post that recipe. But I must say thanks to Wendy of Pinkstripes for her real time assistance with my granola making questions. Wendy is quite the baker and I am so honored she joined SMS, and gave me a little coaching.

The cookies were delicious in my opinion. I love molasses spice cookies alot, so I knew I had to make these dairy free so I could have some. I did add in more spices than just the cinnamon because I love baking spices, so I added ginger, nutmeg and allspice (these were all in the granola too, so I knew it would work well together). The result, a nice chewy molasses spice cookie with crunchy goodness and delicious dried fruit. Since this is a breakfast cookie (made with whole wheat flour), I think it's totally Kosher to eat these for breakfast. That's what I plan on doing this week. Check out the rest of the SMS bakers and the yummy cookies they cooked up here. Thanks Jessica, I think you TOTALLY picked a winner =)