Baseball Cookie Favors

I made these Baseball Cookies for my best friend's son on his first birthday. Her whole family is huge Phillies fans and the baseball themed party was such a fun idea! It was a great day to celebrate with dear friends!

 

5 years and counting, Love sugar cookies

My husband, my best friend, my always helping and fun partner, my favorite person has dealt with me for five fun years of marriage.

 Yep, five years since we said I Do. It's a long time. We have laughed and cried together. And I'm so blessed to go through life with him. He's just the coolest guy in every way.

My husband is "that guy". That guy who holds open doors and cares for everyone. That guy who likes spending time with me as much as possible. He's that guy who cares for my friends and family like they are his own. He's that guy who always wants to help the world and will lend a helping hand to anyone. He's that guy who's can build a wall or fix or a door, but will also helps with fill piping bags and ice cookies (and he's good at both!). He's the guy who reads devotions to me at night even though he's tired and always thinks of my needs above his own. He's that guy who works hard and loves his job and his students.

So yeah, he's pretty awesome.
And I'm pretty lucky.

Here's to many more years together! Happy 5th anniversary Robert!

Our church had it's Valentine's banquet on our five year anniversary and I was making some desserts. So wisely, I made a few extras for us to celebrate with. It was pure genius to get married right after Valentine's day and not at all because it was when we had off for president's day...

 

These sugar cookies were fun to make. And rather simple. Make sugar cookie dough. Roll and cut. Bake. Make icing. Edge and flood. Dot and pull with toothpick. The end.

It may seem like many steps, but it really isn't bad.



 I have been experimenting with a many bakers, bloggers, and other talented individuals' sugar cookie recipes and I have found my favorite. At least for now. The very talented Bridget, from Bake at 350, has a fantastic recipe which I will be sharing with detailed photos soon. Go check out her blog. It's amazing!

And for some royal icing tips and trick, Sugarbelle has opened my eyes to whole new world. Many helpful tricks for decorating with royal icing. My favorite part... NOT SIFTING! I have been sifting sugar like an idiot all this time and guess what?  It made no difference. Perfect Royal Icing without sifting. Thank you Sugarbelle!

Happy belated Valentine's Day and remember to appreciate those in your life worthy of love!

Boy or Girl? Baby Shower Onesie Cookies

 

I was thrilled to make these pink and blue onesie cookies for a friend's baby shower. They would be perfect for a gender reveal too! Best wishes to your new little one, boy or girl!

 

I stole this photo from the lovely host and grandmother to be because it was too cute to not share.

 

In case you can't tell, I really liked these cookies...

 

Well, if you have to be obsessed with something, it can't be better than cute cookies!

Christmas Sugar Cookies with Glaze Icing

Every year our family has a Christmas party with all of my Grandpa's family. His brothers and sisters and all their kids, grandkids, and now even great grandkids, get together to eat, dance, and take tons of pictures. It's such a nice gathering and tradition that we all love. We always make my Grandma's classic cookies (which I'm planning to share soon) and I also made these Christmas shaped sugar cookies.

As you know, I love making cutout cookies so much. I have made many shapes, sizes, and kinds, but the materials are generally the same, sugar cookies + royal icing= decorated sugar cookies. Now I love this formula for making decorated sugar cookies, but I will admit when making a large batch of say, 100 cookies or so, it can be time consuming. And though I do enjoy taking the time to decorate, design, and be creative sometimes you don't have as much time to dedicate to decorating. So here comes the perfect solution for quicker cookie decorating that is still terribly cute. Instead of royal icing or fondant, try this glaze icing. It's so very simple and looks great. It hardens to a stackable point, similar to royal icing, but not quite as stiff. Give it a try next time you are pinched for time or just want to try a new kind of decorating.


For our What's Baking challenge for December, Jenna from Jenna's Cooking Journey, chose Christmas traditions and there is nothing more Christmas to me and my family than Christmas  family parties and cookies. Enjoy these Christmas cut-out cookies with glaze icing.

Also I know I'm little behind but Merry Christmas to all of you and I hope that 2014 brings many blessings to you!

Cookie Dough:

1 cup sugar
2 sticks butter, cut into cubes
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond extract
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt

Glaze:

2 cups powdered sugar
1 tbsp corn syrup
2 tbsp milk or water
1 tsp clear extract (vanilla or almond)
green gel food dye
sprinkles/sugar crystals


1. Cream butter and sugar on high until well mixed. Add in egg and extracts and continue to beat.

2. Slowly add in dry ingredients while mixing. Remember to scrape down sides of the bowl.

3. Knead the dough briefly and roll out on a floured surface. Cut into your desired shape using cookie cutters.

4. Place on parchment lined baking sheets and bake in 350 degree oven for 9-11 minutes, until very slightly golden brown.

5.  Set cookies on racks to cool while making glaze.

6. Mix powdered sugar, corn syrup, and milk in a bowl. If your glaze is too thick, add 1 tsp more milk or water and if it becomes to too thin add some powdered sugar.  (For candy canes and Christmas trees, make one batch regular white glaze and a second batch with green dye)

7. To decorate, put glaze in ziploc or piping bag and cover cookies with glaze and use a utensil to help spread and smooth out glaze. Use festive sprinkles or sugar crystal to decorate if desired. Let glaze set up on baking racks until fully dry and hardened.


Source: Bake at 350 and Baked Bree

Bachlorette Party Cookies

 

 

I had the pleasure to make some treats for a sweet friend of mine's bachlorette party last weekend. We had a great time getting pampered and massaged, then having a fantastic Italian dinner, a limo ride, and dancing to end the night. For such an occasion as this, I thought lingerie cookies would be perfect! Best wishes to my lovely Krista and her future husband!

 

Baby Elephant Sugar Cookies

I had the honor of making favors for my cousin's baby shower.

I am so excited to meet this sweet lil boy in a month!

The baby's room theme will be baby elephants so that's what I made for favors. 

Best wishes to Gaby and Vin and lil peanut!

 

Here are the sugar cookie elephants ready to be baked.

 

 

And here is the final product, all wrapped and ready!

 

 

Onesie Baby Shower Cookie Favors

 

 

I had the honor of making these adorable favors for one of my dearest friends that I have known since elementary school. I used my usual sugar cookie recipe for cutout and royal icing as I did for these onesie cookies, but tried something new for decorating these. Hope you enjoy these new onesie cookies using homemade templates and food color spray. I loved how they came out and had such fun making them!

Mini Snickerdoodle Sandwiches

 

This month I had the privilege of hosting the What's Baking Challenge and I chose for all the participants to bake mini or bite-sizes treats. I don't know if you love all things cute and petite, but I do! A mini cupcake or mini donut is just so adorable as well as tasty! So for April's What's Baking challenge, I decided to make mini cookie sandwiches. And my husband was craving snickerdoodles terribly so that was decided.

 

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2¾ cups flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 quart ice cream, vanilla or caramel
lollipop sticks

1. Beat softened butter and sugar on medium speed until fluffy.

2. Add in eggs, one at a time, beating after each one.

3. Add in vanilla and beat for a moment to incorporate.

4. Mix flour, cream of tartar, salt, and baking soda in a separate bowl. Slowly add the dry flour mixture to your batter continually beating.

5. Combine cinnamon and sugar in small bowl or cup.

6. Pinch very small dime sized balls of dough and roll in cinnamon sugar mixture until fully covered.

7. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for about 5 minutes on 350 degrees.

8. Let cookies completely cool on drying racks. Take out the ice cream to soften while cookie cool.

9. Then take softened ice cream and spread onto one cookie and press second cookie on top of ice cream. Or if you'd like to have cookie sandwiches on a stick, insert a lollipop stick into the ice cream before placing the second cookie. You will want to keep these in the freezer until time to eat!

 

Source: Lovin' From the Oven

Lady Bug Sugar Cookies

with some pink girly flare!

Yes, these are pink lady bug cookies, because almost everything is better in pink, is it not? But more importantly, these cookies were made for a special one year old on her birthday! I made these lovely lady bugs for my best friend's adorable little girl. We had the pleasure to visit my wonderful friend and her sweet little girl for the weekend and we had a blast! She is truly the cutest thing since cupcakes and sprinkles!

These cookies are made of lemony vanilla dough and topped with royal icing. The recipe for these cookies has similar flavorings to an earlier sugar cookie I've made on here, but is a very different. As any of you who follow my posts know, I am always on the hunt to perfect my sugar cookies recipe, which means getting the joy to try many other recipes! Whether it's a cookbook, a magazine, a blog, a friend or family's recipe, or whatever, I'll gladly give a new recipe a whirl! And my husband and family don't mind serving the taste testing committee! This particular recipe is one I've heard much positive rumblings about in the cyber world. It's courtesy of the blog, Bake at 350, which posts all things cute, sweet, and colorful! The writer is both witty and incredibly talented with a piping bag! I used her basic sugar cookie recipe, only switching out some flavorings.





Lemon Vanilla Cookies

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
2 sticks (salted) butter, cold
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp lemon extract
1/2 tsp lemon zest

1. Start by combining the flour and baking powder in a bowl; set aside.

2. Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand or electric mixer.

3. Add in egg, extracts, and zest beating after each addition.

4. Slowly add in the dry mixture, beating and scraping the bowl down frequently.

5. Be sure to give the dough a quick hand knead before rolling it out.

6. Roll out your dough and grab your favorite round cookie cutter. Transfer the cut cookies onto parchment lined baking sheets.

7. Pop the baking sheet with cookies in the freezer for just a few minutes before placing them into a 350 degree preheated oven. Bake for approximately 10-12 minutes and then allow the cookies to rest on the baking sheets for a few minutes before moving them to cooling racks.

8. Once the cookies are fully cooled, decorate the cookies with your favorite colors for lady bugs following this recipe for royal icing from a previous post on house cookies.
For these cookies, I learned how to make polka dots on flooded icing! (Polka dots are one of my favorite things !) A full post on the how-to for this fun technique will be coming soon!



Source: Bake at 350

Also featured on: Made from Scratch Tuesday

We finally bought a house!

I apologize for my absence this past week or so, but don't worry it's for good reason... I have an announcement to make.

We are home owners!

Hubby and I bought our first house last week and it has been a crazy few months trying to get everything finished up. We are super excited and ready to tackle the new and fun challenge of owning a home! There is some construction that needs to be done still so we won't be moving in for a little while, but our weekends are happily full of sledge hammers and dumpsters! My hubby teases it's our home away from home since we aren't staying there yet. I can't wait to fully move in ! I'll be sure to keep updating throughout the process. Ah, my very own kitchen... Soon!

Since our attorney is close family friend, I thought I'd make her a treat to say thank you for her hard work with the closing. And what's more appropriate then house cookies! I made these once before when one of my best friends bought her first house. I tried adding some new elements such as keys, moving boxes, and sold signs. I made templates for the cookies by drawing on card stock and then cut the cookies out using a small paring knife.

These cookies were a variation of the usual vanilla and almond version. I've been playing with different flavors recently and trying to new variations of my usual sugar cookie recipe. I truly loved this one! It was different and the lemon was a great addition!


Lemon And Vanilla Cookies

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp Madagascar bourbon pure vanilla powder
Zest of half a lemon (or the zest of a whole lemon, if you love lemon)
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt


1. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and powdered sugar on medium until smooth, about 1-2 minutes.

2. Add in the egg, vanilla extract, vanilla powder, and lemon zest until blended.

3. Next, pour in the flour and salt on low speed just until incorporated.

4. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough until chilled and firm(about 2 hours).

5. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll the dough out between two lightly floured pieces of wax paper to about ¼-inch thickness.

6. Cut with cookie cutters and transfer to the prepared baking sheets.

7. Bake on 375 for 8-10 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through baking, until fully cooked but not at all browned.

8. Allow to cool on the baking sheet 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

9. Decorate with royal icing, marshmallow fondant, or any other favorite toppings! I used royal icing from this recipe I used earlier to make house cookies, which was my first attempt to decorate with royal icing and ever since then I've been hooked!

Source: Annie's Eats
Also featured on: Tempt my Tummy Tuesday and Tasty Tuesday

Make Your Own Edible Arrangements (Fruit and Veggie)

Welcome Spring! We missed you! This past Sunday, first day of spring has finally arrived after much anticipation! It's been a cold and snowy winter and the idea of warmer weather, flowers, being outdoors without a fuzzy coat, all sound very appealing. However, just a few days into spring and I wake up to see this....


So apparently winter is trying to give us one last hurrah before spring can come and take over! This time last week, there was beautiful 70 degree weather and today schools are closed. Either way, I'm getting ready for spring! It's coming soon, right?

Fruit Edible Arrangement

1 whole pineapple, cut into 1"inch thick slices
10 blueberries
1 container strawberries
1 cantaloupe
1 pound green grapes
1 pound red grapes

Also some necessary items for construction:
bowl or vase with wide mouth (approx 5-6 in diameter)
foam or loosely balled foil with a cover, such as lettuce leaves or melon rind
skewers
toothpicks

1. Prep your base first by placing the loosely balled foil into the bottom of your vase or bowl until its 3/4 full. Then place the covering over it. I used the rind from the cantaloupe and it looked so cute! Or if you happen to have florist foam you can just place it in the bottom with or without a cover. Just be sure it fits snug.

2. Now here is the beauty of making your own edible arrangements. You can choose exactly how many of each items, how tall they are,and how to arrange them; it's all up to you! So if you love strawberries, use more of those. If you are making this for friend who loves pineapple, go crazy. Also I found it easier, to choose one skewers to make all the holes in the base before you begin. I also choose to push the skewers in the base before adding the fruit. It seemed to work better.

3. Cut the cantaloupe into wedges after removing the rind. I tried to keep mine welly intact to use it as the cover. I also used a fancy vegetable slicer to add crinkled edge cuts on the cantaloupe. Set aside prepped cantaloupe.

4. The strawberries are very simple. Just remove the greenery on their tops with a knife and place on skewers. You certainly could dip them in chocolate. I wanted to dip the, but happened to be out of chocolate when I made these, which barely ever happens because I love chocolate!

5. The grapes were fun and easy. Slide the grapes on the skewers vertically and just keep filling your skewer until the grapes reach the top.

6. Now for the trickiest of all, the pineapple flower. I used a star-shaped cookie cutter for this flower. Cut out one flower in the middle of the slice. Then, using a paring knife, carefully cut through the middle horizontally to make two 1/2" thick stars. Use a small piece of toothpick to securely attach the two stars in the middle and put one blueberry on the end and skewer up the center of the flower. Viola!

7. Be sure to keep your arrangements covered in saran or cellophane and in the refrigerator. And try to make it near to the time you will be serving or delivering the arrangements, so the fruit is fresh as possible!


Veggie Edible Arrangement

10 radishes
10 asparagus stalks
1 small bunch of fresh dill stalks
1 container of cherry tomatoes
1 cup of dressing (Ranch, blue cheese, Caesars, etc)

Also some necessary items for construction:
bowl, vase, or Ball jars
toothpicks


1. Start by washing and preparing a large bowl of cold water to let the radishes soak in.

2. Using a small paring knife, cut off the tops of radishes and level the bottoms.

3. Begin to make small cuts on the sides of the radishes, but don't go all the way down. Leave the bottom connected as a flap for petals. Let soak in cold water for about an hour to open the "flowers".

4. Remove the tops of the asparagus and put half a toothpick into the bottom of the stalk.

5. Push one radish flower onto the toothpick and repeat with the rest of the asparagus and radishes.

6. You can either use a dressing in the bottom to appear as "water" in your vase or what I did which was fill the bottom inch of the vase with cherry tomatoes.

7. Stand up the "flowers" and dill, which acts as your greenery, in the vase and that's it! Also, keep this arrangement in the refrigerator and serve/deliver as soon as possible for fresh veggies!


Source: The Dapper Darling

Also featured on: Works for Me Wednesday

Cheerleader Cookie Favors

I don't know how many people have the luxury to have their extended family live near them, but I do and it's something I try to not take that for granted. I get the joy of spending time with my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents whenever I want. One of my dearest cousins, Deanna, was having her end of the year, cheerleading banquet and I made these cookie favors for the event.

This dough was my favorite so far of all the different sugar cookie recipes I have tried for edible favors. It is very flavorful and sweet, but not so much that it was overpowering when added with the icing. The combination was tasty and easy to use for decorating! I adapted a recipe from Tidy Mom for the dough.


Vanilla Butter Sugar Cookie Dough

5 1/2 cups unbleached flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups butter
1-1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 eggs
4 tbsp milk
4 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp pure almond extract ( I didn't have any on hand, but it would be a nice addition)

1. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and set aside.

2. Cream sugar and butter, then add eggs and extracts.

3. Slowly add the flour mixture and beat until combined.

4. Roll out to desired thickness on lightly floured wax paper and cut.

5. For this cookie, I didn't have a cookie cutter for the shape I wanted. So I drew the shape I wanted, traced and cut it out of cardstock. Then I would trace the cardstock shape with a small pairing knife.

6. Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes on a parchment lined baking sheet. The cookie should not brown at all; it will remain light in color. Remove from cookie sheets after one minutes and let cool on cooling rack. Then you can begin the decorating!

For the icing of these cookies, I wanted to try a new icing for me. I've decorated with royal icing using meringue powder and I have made my own marshmallow fondant, so for these cookies I used an icing, I've been hoping to try for awhile. It's very similar to a royal icing recipe, but it replaces the meringue powder with more common ingredients. The end result was different, but also great. I'm not sure which I like to use more, but both were great! This recipe is from I am Baker.

Sugar Cookie Icing

1 cup Confectioners Sugar (powder sugar)
1 Tablespoon Milk
1 drop Lemon Juice (fresh or processed)
1 Tablespoon Light Corn Syrup

1. Combine powder sugar, corn syrup, and lemon juice in bowl of stand mixer.

2. Now you want to make one batch for outlining the cookies. For this batch, add less liquid(milk) to keep the icing thick enough to pipe. This is also the same consistency you will want for detailing the cookies after they have been flooded.

3. For the flooding the cookies, you will need a thinner icing, so add more milk/liquid slowly. Also, be aware that liquid food colorings and extracts can change the consistency. I used Wilton Gel Food Coloring in Royal Blue and Wilton Gel Food Coloring in Golden Yellow. This icing has great shine and gloss!

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