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My First Time Decorating Sugar Cookies

I’ve been enjoying looking at several baking blogs lately, and many of them display beautifully decorated sugar cookies.  I’m planning on incorporating pretty sugar cookies into my wedding design, so I thought I’d practice on my Dad and my friend, Katie.  Their birthdays are this month, and what better way to celebrate than by eating cookies made by yours truly?!

Sugar cookies are not my favorite cookie.  I’m a chocolate chip girl all the way; and I also appreciate a good peanut butter cookie now and then, but since sugar cookies are the traditional cookies for decorating, I decided to go with them.

I didn’t document the process since it was my first time making these from scratch, and I didn’t want you all to follow my instructions in case they didn’t turn out that good.  The batter was VERY crumbly, and I had to knead it together as I scooped it out of the bowl.  I had a hard time keeping it together as I was rolling it out.  Next time I think I’ll add a little more liquid.

I went to a bakery supply store and Joann’s and picked up some cookie cutters, squeeze bottles, and a few other supplies.

Here are the cookies I made my dad.  Since it was my first time making them, I wasn’t very organized with the frosting, and so I wasn’t able to do as many colors or details as I wanted, so I finished decorating with an edible marker.

He is turning 70 this year.  70!!!  I can’t believe it!  He’ll always be young to me.  When I look at him, and I look at other 70 year olds, he still looks WAY younger!  Maybe it’s because he still has brown hair, and doesn’t even color it!

These hammers are my favorite.  He has been a contractor since he was about 16, so a hammer seemed pretty fitting for him. 🙂  I know hammers don’t usually have white handles, but I didn’t have any brown….so you’ll just have to deal with it.

The butterflies I made for Katie turned out pretty good.  Although, when the icing dried, it left a couple craters.  Hopefully she won’t notice. 🙂

I know I’ll get better with practice, so if anyone would like me to practice on them, feel free to let me know!  I certainly can’t eat a bunch of cookies, especially before my wedding!

Here are the rest of the butterfly cookies.  I made several different sizes so she won’t feel too guilty if she wants to eat more than one at a time.  I hope they don’t break during shipping!  Thanks for sharing my first sugar cookie decorating adventure with me!

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Blondies

I love peanut butter!  I’m the type that could eat a whole spoonful (or 2) of peanut butter and say, “More please!”  It’s not a surprise that my favorite chocolate candy is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  So when I discovered these delectable treats on Bake at 350, I just knew I had to try them out.  I knew the girls at my Thursday night Bible study wouldn’t mind being my guinea pigs, and they were such a hit that I decided to make them again on Saturday night for our dinner at our friends Connie and Jason’s house.  The way I described these when someone asked what they were is, “They’re like a chocolate chip, peanut butter cookie in the shape of a brownie.”  Yum!

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • 6 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter (or you can certainly use smooth peanut butter if you don’t want whole peanuts in your blondies)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 cup chocolate chips (semi-sweet)

Start by whisking flour, salt, and baking powder together in a medium bowl.

In another, larger bowl, add your peanut butter and softened butter.

Mix until thoroughly combined.  (Note: I accidentally put my butter in the microwave for too long and it was completely melted.  That’s why the butter and peanut butter mixture looks so runny.  It turned out fine, but next time I made sure to only soften my butter, not completely melt it.)

Next, add your sugars.

And mix thoroughly with your peanut butter mixture.

Add your eggs one at a time and mix until combined.  You’ll want to scrape the sides of the bowl to make sure there are no stray ingredients that would rather stick to the bowl than combine with all the other ingredients.

Next, add the flour mixture.

And mix until combined.

Next comes the best part….the chocolate!!  Unfortunately I only had about a half a cup of chocolate chips in my freezer, so mine weren’t as chocolaty as they could have been.  But they were still good!  Fold in the chocolate chips with your spoon or spatula.

Grease an 8×8 baking dish and pour in your batter, spreading evenly.  You’ll definitely want to lick any extra batter off your spoon/beaters/bowl.  Then try not to finish off the unbaked batter in your baking dish.  I know you’ll want to, but a little restraint is good sometimes. 🙂

Bake at 350° for 30-32 min.  Let it cool completely before you cut into squares.  At the Bible study we cut into it when it was still pretty warm and it was VERY gooey!  Didn’t matter to us, though.  We ended up scooping it out and eating it with spoons since we couldn’t wait for it to cool completely.  And, this is why I don’t have any pictures of the finished product for you.  For one thing, I had to rush out the door right when the timer on the oven beeped so that I would make it on time to Bible study, and secondly, I didn’t have my camera with me when we cut into it.  So you’ll just have to settle for the beautiful picture that Bridget took for her Bake at 350 blog.  If you haven’t checked it out yet, I highly recommend popping on over there sometime and spending hours looking through all her amazing cookies and baked goods.  You can get to her site by clicking on either of the links at the top of this post, or you can find her in the “Blogs I’m Following” section on the right of my blog.

Enjoy!  I know you will!

The Smoke House Rehab (Part 2)

It’s been a LONG weekend of rehabbing the Smoke House, but we are finally making some great progress!  Rustin & Elizabeth helped us ALOT on Friday and Saturday, and then Steve and I worked by ourselves on Sunday.  We were able to clean most of the kitchen, rip out all the carpets, and clean all the bathrooms.  (Steve generously assigned the bathroom cleaning project to me).  The bedrooms, hallway, and living room are ready to have their baseboards cleaned, and then all that’s left is to paint and put down new carpeting.  We’re still contemplating if we want to leave the vinyl floors in the bathroom or replace them with tile.  The vinyl doesn’t look too bad, but we’ll probably end up replacing it with tile so that it matches the entryway and kitchen.  Might as well make everything the same, right?

The kitchen has been an adventure.  Elizabeth and I spent the entire day on Saturday cleaning the cabinets and counters.  And what a task that was!  But the difference is amazing!!  Just look for yourself!

They look like brand new cabinets!  And when we add the new hardware, the transformation will be complete.

Here’s a before and after of the drawers in the kitchen.  I’m still surprised at how clean we were able to get them.  Bleach mixed in water is clearly our friend!

The fridge still needs to be cleaned out, and let me tell you, I am NOT looking forward to it.  And yes, I know it’ll be me that has the lovely task of cleaning this beast because there is no way Steve will come near it.  Did I mention that he found a vial of blood in the freezer?  Yah, talk about gagging!

Here’s another look at the nasty cabinets.

Here’s a nice butt shot of Steve scraping the carpet staples off the sub-floor in the master bedroom.

Here’s that awesome shot again of the clean freezer and dirty fridge.  The whole outside of the fridge is clean now.  I just have the dreaded inside left to do.

Here’s the hallway leading from the entryway to the bedrooms and guest bathroom.  The sub-floor is now completely cleared of all the carpet debris and thoroughly vacuumed, as are all the bedrooms.  I didn’t take any pictures today with all the blue carpet cushion stuff gone and all the rooms vacuumed, so just pretend that it is. 🙂

Bedroom #1

Bedroom #2

Master Bedroom.  Those wooden carpet tacking strips are gone now.

Living room.  All the trash and wooden strips are gone, and it’s ready to be painted!  We’re going to sand down the fireplace and paint it white.  It used to be white, but now has a yellow tinge from all the cigarette smoke.  Pretty much every wooden surface in the house has a yellow tinge.

I can’t believe how far we’ve progressed after only 3 days!  Here’s what we have left to do:

  • Wash baseboards and crown molding and paint white
  • Paint walls
  • Sand and paint fireplace
  • Finish cleaning kitchen
  • Rip up vinyl floors in kitchen and bathrooms and replace with tile
  • Install hardwood floors in living room and hallway
  • Install new carpet in bedrooms
  • Hire an HVAC guy to come and assess the AC/Heater and clean out all the ducts
  • Hire tree removal service to cut down 2 VERY large evergreen trees in the backyard that serve no purpose.
  • Redo the front porch (it’s sinking)
  • Replace all hardware and light fixtures
  • Mow yard and clean up the landscaping
  • Pressure wash all the siding on the outside of the house
  • Pressure wash deck, and seal

It seems like a long list, but really I think we’re in the home stretch.  We’ll probably only be working on it for a few more weekends.  At least I hope!  If any of you have done remodeling or rehabbing projects and have any tips or advice, we’d really appreciate it!