Monthly Archives: August 2011

August 28, 2011 · 4:26 pm

Fun & Easy No-Icing Sugar Cookies

Anyone can do these.

Seriously.

You don’t need a rolling pin, cookie cutters, or any fancy tools or whatever.

I just have one request. Make the dough from scratch.

This is the recipe I use. It makes a huge difference! Now that I found such a good and easy sugar cookie recipe, I will not ever make cookies from a bag or tube again.

I am addicted to sprinkles. I just cannot help myself when I see an awesome color combination, or a shape or something that I haven’t see before. I have to buy it. I have a lot of sprinkles. These were fun cuz I got to use a bunch of different kind of sprinkles too.. and they all came out so pretty!

I actually made these because I had a ton of leftover dough, didn’t want to spend a ton of time rolling stuff out that I would not have time to frost for a while,, and because a friend of mine can’t have dairy right now and she wanted some cookies! (My icing uses milk.)

I just rolled out the dough like a fat snake (you remember this from play-doh, right?), then cut ever inch or so to make 1″ – 1 1/2″ chunks. Roll the chunks into balls, then smash flat to make a little disc. Put your sprinkles on a plate and press the little dough disc on top of the sprinkles. Place the sprinkled discs about an inch apart on cookie sheets and bake at 350 for 10 min. (The sugar cookie recipe I use does not spread. If you use a different recipe you might want to place them further apart.)

Leave a comment

Filed under Cookies

Tagged as easy cookies, sprinkles, sugar cookies

August 27, 2011 · 6:24 pm

Over the Hill Cookies

Made these cookies last week for a coworker’s 50th birthday party. Black icing is a little intimidating so I stuck with just black details…

Recently bought some sprinkles (my serious addiction), and my purchase included a sample pack of sprinkles… while I was getting ready to decorate these I realized there might be black sprinkles in that pack.. so I did a few like this. I love these!

I searched for over the hill cookie ideas and came across a lot of tombstone cookies. Well that’s easy enough, and I already had a tombstone cookie cutter.

Didn’t want to do them all the same, so I had to come up with another saying. I knew they would be appropriate for the birthday dude, because his wife was asking for “old man” or something like it. I think this is fun and “funny” to go along with the over the hill theme!

Hope the birthday dude loved them!

Leave a comment

Filed under Cookies

Tagged as birthday, black, buttercream, cookie favors, icing, over the hill, sprinkles, sugar cookies, tombstone

August 22, 2011 · 9:10 pm

Homemade Funfetti Cupcakes

I tried homemade funfetti again, after a not-so-successful first attempt. These turned out better but they still need some work. A little bit to dry.

I decided to go with cupcakes this time. Mainly because I had some leftover frosting and some of it was already colored. I had a tad of pink and green frosting, so I put them in the piping bag at the same time and made this guy:

Then I dyed the rest of the frosting bright blue and added it right on top of the pink and green. This one is my favorite:

A little green kept trailing out on the blue cupcakes…

Leave a comment

Filed under Cakes

Tagged as buttercream, funfetti

August 21, 2011 · 12:23 pm

Sheila

All, I would like to introduce you to my new love. This is Sheila:

photo by Lizz Cleaver - http://www.flickr.com/photos/holdencleaver

We’re besties.

Leave a comment

Filed under Misc

Tagged as aqua sky, kitchenaid, stand mixer

August 20, 2011 · 9:54 am

Hot August Days Cookies

This year’s theme for my annual company picnic is “Hot August Days.” Whilst perusing cookie cutters online, my coworker came across this 57 Chevy Cookie Cutter.

I was “hired” to bake 300 cookie favors for the picnic. The biggest feat for me to date, and it was a huge success!

All cars were to be identical red chevys. I baked the week before, and froze them until it was time to decorate. I knew 300 cookies was a lot, but until they were taking over my freezer I didn’t really realize how crazy this was going to be.

Assembly-line was the way to go. I started with the tires…

Then added windows and the side panel…

photo by Lizz Cleaver - http://www.flickr.com/photos/holdencleaver

Then outlined the cars…

photo by Lizz Cleaver - http://www.flickr.com/photos/holdencleaver

Filled in the tires, then the cars, then the windows and side panels…

Then finished them off with the side-line and “hubcaps.” I had originally planned on leaving the tires black, but my husband INSISTED that it looked dumb without the white on them. I thought it was the white-walled tires, but my husband corrected me, they are the hubcaps. OKAY.

Then each cookie was bagged and tied with ribbon. Here is the finished product!

Did I mention I have a full-time 8-5 job? This was all done after work hours and on my weekend… thank GOODNESS I had the help of my husband, my mom, and my best friend. There is no way this would have been done without them!

Here is my friend Chelsea (who helped so much with the decorating!!) enjoying a cookie. Or as my mom says, the car is “zooming” into her mouth. Haha…

2 Comments

Filed under Cookies

Tagged as 57 chevy, buttercream, cars, cookie favors, hot august nights, icing, red, sugar cookies

August 14, 2011 · 12:04 pm

Summer Flowers

My mom bought me this cookie cutter from an antique fair:

Super cute little tulip! I had some leftover dough from a batch of cookies yesterday so I made a few…

Whenever I’m not restrained by specific colors I always seem to do pink… maybe because everyone I know that’s having babies is having boys!

I also did a cookie for my neighbor’s 2 year old daughter. I brought her some cupcakes a couple months ago and her mom said she now points towards my house and tells her mom in a very serious tone “Mommy, I need cupcakes.” Haha…

How cute would these be next to the purple daisies I did a couple weeks ago… Garden party anyone?

Leave a comment

Filed under Cookies

Tagged as buttercream, flowers, icing, pink, sugar cookies, tulips

August 1, 2011 · 8:10 pm

Strawberry Cake Pops

OMG Yum!

A friend is about to go back to school to Chicago in about a week. She was sad that we didn’t get to make anything while she was here all summer, so I told her to come on over Sunday and we made cake pops together.

I must have gotten lucky the first time I make cake pops, cuz I didn’t have any issues. These were much more difficult but we learned a lot so hopefully next time will be perfect again.

Lesson 1 – I think we put too much frosting in them because it was very wet. They just didn’t harden up enough and kept falling off the sticks. And they are WAY sweeter than last time. Almost too much for me to handle. Almost… 🙂

Lesson 2 – I think some of them were just too big. They started to crack while sitting upright. The smaller ones are okay, so I’ll just have to watch the size next time.

Lesson 3 – Mixing red candy melts with white candy melts does not make pink. I guess we could have just colored the white ones, but we really thought it would turn pink. Oh well.