Leaf and Acorn Cookies

Nothing too special about these...except for the fact that they look freakin' phenomenal!

I made these for Annie Bananie to take to one of her classes. Apparently it was her day to bring something in, so I got to make it for her!

I was very pleased with how the decorating worked on these. I was going to try adding some sprinkles, but it proved a little too complicated. Especially considering these took me a good 4 hours to decorate! Haha. Being the huge dork that I am, though, I LOVED every second of it! My decorating skills still aren't perfect, but I'm getting there!

I used this cookie recipe and this royal icing recipe. Have a great weekend!

Chocolate and Vanilla Frosting For Sale

Yeah, those are big, ginormous tubs of frosting....

But guess what?! I made my first food related sale this week! Annie Bananie is determined to help me sell some of my baked goods and has been telling everyone she meets that her roommate bakes. Very sweet of her.

So one of her friends asked if I could make her frosting like the Magnolia Bakery's. Duh! She paid me to make her two tubs of frosting....how awesome is that?!

I've made the vanilla frosting before here, Magnolia's actual recipe. And I used Wilton's recipe for Chocolate Buttercream, which also tasted exactly like Magnolia's. I'm just cool like that.

Chocolate Buttercream Icing
Wilton

1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups confectioners' sugar
3-4 tablespoons milk

In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add cocoa and vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.

Dorie's "Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies"

This past weekend I wanted to try a new sugar cookie cut out recipe and, of course, who better to go to than Dorie Greenspan herself? Tuesdays With Dorie baked up some of these awhile ago and I saw lots of posts about how good they were as roll out cookies. So far so good, right?

Eh, not so much. The dough was super soft and even though I managed to get them cut and on baking sheets, they puffed up and hardly kept their shape when baked. Boo. I quickly gave up and just started making them drop cookies with sprinkles.


The actual cookies were great! We couldn't stop eating them at our house. I really liked the texture. They were very crisp and chewy. I wouldn't try them as a cut out cookie, however. Just sayin'.

Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies
Dorie Greenspan

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
10 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder.

Cream the sugar and butter together with a mixer. Add the egg and egg yolk. Add the vanilla. Add the flour mixture slowly, mixing until all combined.

Refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Roll tablespoons of dough into balls and dip into sprinkles of your choice of simply place on parchment paper. Bake for 9-11 minutes. Remove to wire rack to cool.

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

You know when you think you don't like something and then someone tricks you into eating it and you find out that you, in fact, love it?

My best friend growing up doesn't like chocolate, but her favorite kind of cupcake is red velvet. I have yet to tell her it is a mild chocolate cupcake dyed red.

When Annie Bananie first moved in, she told me she hated cream cheese frosting. Being the good friend/roommate I am, I tried to use buttercream frostings where I could. Example A. Of course, I couldn't help myself (mostly because I'm not a huge fan of buttercream) and made some cream cheese frosting for these bad boys. Needless to say, Annie Bananie tried one when I had them out on the counter and I get a text saying how much she likes them and the frosting! Um...excuse me. It's cream cheese frosting, Goofball! I am now convinced she really does like cream cheese frosting because she also really enjoyed this cinnamon cream cheese. Maybe I just wont tell her when I use cream cheese!

I made these cupcakes for the Halloween party. They were super duper soft, and very flavorful, probably since I overdosed on the spices a bit, but in a good way, I promise! I really had to fart around with the cinnamon frosting because I wanted to get the right texture to pipe it on to the cupcakes. I really liked the end result and it matched perfectly with the cake!


Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes
Williams Sonoma

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (I probably used about 3)
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I probably used about 1/2 a teaspoon)
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (I probably used about 1/2 a teaspoon)
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 teaspoon salt
1 15-oz can pumpkin puree
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup canola oil
4 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tins with cupcakes liners and spray with cooking spray.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt.

In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, granulated sugar, brown sugar and oil. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking after each addition.

Add the flour mixture in three additions, stirring with a large wooden spoon until just combined.

Fill the muffin tins about 3/4 full. Bake until the cupcakes are golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes, then remove the cupcakes from the tins and let cool completely before frosting.

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
4 cups (approximately) powdered sugar

Mix cream cheese and butter until creamy. Add the vanilla and cinnamon while mixing. Slowly add the powdered sugar until you have the consistency you want.

Halloween Sugar Cookies

I hope you had an excellent Halloween! Our party was so much fun and, of course, everyone loved the food. Including myself =) I definitely had a few too many cookies, made pretty apparent by the picture below where my friend India and I are about to eat the entire plate!


I had so much fun decorating these cookies and they turned out super awesome! I really liked the recipe I used for the sugar cookies. I made sure to refrigerate the dough overnight and then after I rolled and cut out the dough, I refrigerated it again before I put it in the oven. The result? They didn't puff out at all and kept their shape almost perfectly. Not to mention they were also delicious.

I used the same recipe for royal icing that I used before here. I used Americolor soft gels to color the icing white, black, orange and green.


Cut Out Sugar Cookies
The Hungry Housewife

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the egg and extract and beat to incorporate.

In a separate bowl sift together to flour, baking powder and salt.

Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until combined. Divide the dough into 2 portions, wrap with wax paper and refrigerate 2 hours or overnight.

Remove the dough, roll out to 3/8 inch thick in between sheets of parchment paper and cut into desired shapes.

Place cut cookie dough back into fridge for 10-15 minutes. Bake cookies on an un-greased cookie sheet for 8-12 minutes. Cool on cookie sheets for 2 minutes before removing to a cooling rack. Cool completely before icing.