Suprise Cookies

Most of the recipes I try, I get from the internet, usually from one of three sources: How Sweet It Is, The Pioneer Woman, or Tasty Kitchen.  But occasionally, I'll go old school and dig out one of my cookbooks (I actually have quite a library of them and should use them more often).  I decided to do that this week, both because I wanted to test out my new super awesome oven and because I really wanted cookies.  So I went to my tried and true Pillsbury Baking cookbook, and found a stack of hand-written recipes that I had stashed in there.  Chances are, if it's handwritten, I've copied it from one of my grandmothers' or my mother's recipe cards.  I found one that I had written on the inside of a blank card that was definitely a cookie recipe, but it had no title.  I was intrigued.  Since I happened to have all of the ingredients on hand, I decided to give it a shot and see what I ended up with.  Here's an idea of what you'll need if you decide to make them too:

The Wilton bottle behind the butter is almond extract.  Whoops, my bad.  And you don't need wine glasses, I just forgot to move them.

Don't mind my crappy dinosaur-age phone.  It's really time for an upgrade.

I rather liked the assortment of cutters Lilah and Grady picked out from my stash.  

Fueling up before dance class.

Grady is always a fan of cookies!

The full recipe is below, but I won't keep you in suspense.  They turned out to be gingerbread cookies, and they were goooooooood.  Sure, it might be a little early for gingerbread, but my kids really didn't think so.  Besides, gingerbread cookies are my favorite part of summer visits to Santa's Village in New Hampshire, so I think gingerbread works for any time of year.  We didn't frost them this time, but I did include a basic frosting recipe in case you want to.  I have no idea which grandmother I got this recipe from (I'm pretty sure it's not from my mom, but I could be wrong), so I'll have to ask them each some tricky questions to confirm whose it is.  In the meantime, enjoy the photos, and make these soon!  They are super-easy, and they turn out so perfectly chewy and spicy.  I wish we had some left...

Suprise Gingerbread CookiesMakes about 5 dozen cookies; recipe can be halved easily
Ingredients:

1 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp. ginger

1 tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 cup butter

1/2 cup evaporated milk

1 cup molasses

3/4 tsp. vanilla

3/4 tsp. almond extract

4 1/2 - 5 cups flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare cookie sheets. Melt butter in a small bowl, let cool 5-10 minutes.  In a large bowl, stir together the sugar, spices, salt, and baking soda.  Mix in melted butter, evaporated milk, molasses, and extracts.  Stir in flour one cup at a time until you have a nice workable ball of cookie dough.  Dough can be chilled for about 30 minutes in the refrigerator for ease in rolling out and cutting shapes, but it's not necessary.  Roll dough onto floured surface to about 1/4 inch thickness.  Cut shapes with cutters and place 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheets.  Bake 8-10 minutes.  (I took mine out at 8 minutes and they were perfect, but you may need to adjust baking time depending on what size cutters you use.  My cutters were about 2 inches across, average.)

Frosting:1 cup confectioner's sugar
1/4 cup milk (or less, for thicker frosting)
food coloring, optional

Just mix sugar and milk to desired consistency and spread on your cookies!  Can top with sprinkles, chocolate chips, whatever you choose.

A Cake, a Cupcake, and a Giveaway

So, my birthday is this week.  I'm turning 29, and that's a for-real 29, not the 29 that I'll claim to be next year and the year after that.  Lilah thinks that's terribly old, but any excuse for a party and she's all over it.  She helped Memere make me a birthday cake today.  By helping, I mean cleaning the beaters for her after it was mixed:

And of course, Grady got in on the action:

Unabashed cake batter licking.  Yep, that's how we roll.

You wanna see pure bliss, though?  I'll show you pure bliss:

The girl has no shame.

Grady dipped his beater in the bowl for another go:

After they cleaned up and the cake was cool, they both lined up for a shot at frosting and decorating.  Lots of sugar was consumed by my children today, and the cake hasn't even been sliced yet.

Love that pouty face!

Here's the (almost) finished product.  They added some rainbow sprinkles, chocolate chips, and a few fingerprints after.

I can't wait to eat it tomorrow!  (That's if Grady doesn't dive in first.)

While we're on the subject of cake, I made these little beauties a little while ago.  Root Beer Float Cupcakes from How Sweet It Is.

Hello, lover.

They are so fabulous.  Root beer floats are one of my favorite childhood treats, and in cupcake form they rock my world.  You seriously must check out How Sweet It Is, it is one of my favorite blogs and I have tried many recipes already.  Every single one has knocked my socks off.  Next to Pinterest, it's my latest obsession.

And I know I've been teasing you with a giveaway for a couple of weeks now, but I'm finally ready to do it!  I am getting ready to set up my own Etsy shop with some fun accessories, and I got some fantastic vintage lace to make headbands.  So one lucky commenter on this post will get a custom-made headband in their choice of black or white.  Just post a comment below telling me what your favorite childhood treat was, and I'll choose a winner at random later in the week.  Contest is limited to posters with US/APO addresses only.  You'll get an extra entry if you post a link to my blog on your Facebook page and tell me in your comment!  Good luck, and check back soon to see if you won!

Lemon Cupcakes and Buttermilk Biscuits

If you haven't visited the Tasty Kitchen website yet, bookmark it now, because it is the single best recipe finding site I have found.  I get lots of ideas and links to recipes at Tasty Kitchen from the Pioneer Woman's blog, and I have loved every single thing I've made from the recipes I have tried.  One of my first TK experiments was for these delicious Mini Lemon Loaves.  Lemon is probably my absolute favorite recipe ingredient, and especially in dessert form.  The first time we made them (Lilah is my right-hand girl when it comes to baking), we were both licking the batter off the spatula and from the bowl in great anticipation for the tasty loaves baking in the oven.  We were not disappointed - they were just lemony enough, super moist, and a perfect melt-in-your-mouth consistency.  I knew that it would be a go-to recipe for me, but I wanted to adapt it a little to make it more cake-like.  So we made them again last week as a treat for Memere and Grandpa (Matt's parents) to celebrate their anniversary when they came to visit.  I just substituted cake flour for the all-purpose and used cupcake tins instead of loaf pans.  They came out great, although I have to say I liked the loaf version just a bit more.  I didn't really do step-by-step pictures of this one, but I did take a few while we were making the cupcakes:



First, you must lick the butter.  With the wrapper on.  Yep, girl takes after her momma.

 You can click on the link for the instructions, but we mixed up our yummy batter (secret ingredient: sour cream), poured it into cupcake tins, then proceeded to take some silly pictures and shamelessly lick the sinfully delicious batter off the spatula, from inside the bowl, and possibly the bits that dripped onto the countertop.

See?  Shameless, I tell you, shameless.

This is our "Happy Face" pic.

Then Lilah wanted to do "Serious Face".

And, finally, "Silly Face".  Pay no attention to the bags under my eyes.  I get up too early and stay up too late.

This is where I should have a picture of the final product.  But I don't.  Possibly because my camera battery needed charging, and possibly because we ate all the cupcakes before I thought about it.  Anyway, I'll be making them again, so I'll try to post a picture at a later date.

The other TK recipe I want to share today is for Buttermilk Biscuits.  Seriously, these babies are so easy to make, and you probably have all of the ingredients in your kitchen right now.  If you don't have buttermilk, you can make your own using regular milk and vinegar, but I'm too lazy to Google the exact process at the moment.  I did take step-by-step pictures of this one, though.




See, this is all you need to make these lovelies.  Well, except for the 7 tbs of butter I had chilling in the freezer.

You just mix your dry ingredients...(I love this spatula I got from Matt's grandmother - it came in a set, and it's from Prepology.  Not a paid advertisement.)

Then you cut in your butter, make a "well", and pour in your buttermilk and mix.

Form your dough into a rectangle-ish shape...

And cut out circles with a biscuit cutter.  Or a glass, if you're like me and don't own a biscuit cutter because you never remember that you need one when you are at a kitchen store, instead you just keep buying cupcake tins that you think you need.  Or cookie scoops that break the first day you use them. 

Brush the tops with buttermilk (use your *clean* fingers if again, you are like me, and keep forgetting to get a pastry brush.).  Toss them in the oven and bake, then devour that little baby one you made with the leftover dough while it's still hot from the oven.  Yummmmmmm........

So there you have it.  My first official recipe experiments here on the blog.  Let me know how they turn out if you try them!

Surprise Packages

Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved getting the mail.  There is always a sense of anticipation, the possibility of something exciting that you weren't expecting to get.  A glossy new catalog to flip through and circle the items you want, a wedding invitation, a big check made out to you for your birthday...and sometimes, if you're really lucky, a suprise package.  I got one of those today.  Surprisingly, I didn't even notice a delivery truck pulling up beside our house at all, and Cosmo didn't alert me to it by barking either.  But just as Matt was leaving for work, he told me there was a package outside the door and tossed it in for me to open.  And it wasn't something I ordered, honey, I promise!

It was addressed to Lilah and Grady, and after scanning the packing slip I discovered that is was from my lovely mother.  She must have taken note of me mentioning that I would like an ice cream maker, because that is just what it is - called "The Camper's Dream".  It's shaped like a ball and after we fill it with the necessary ingredients, the kids can toss it around and it will make the ice cream.  So neat!  I can't wait to try it out.  It also came with one of those glossy catalogs, from Educational Innovations, and there are many things in it for me to circle.  I just LOVE to circle things in catalogs, don't you?  My BFF from college (hi, Kara!) used to sit on one of the twin beds in our dorm room, each with our own special color gel pen, and circle the things in the Victoria's Secret catalog that we wanted.  We'd even make notes in the margin of what color and size to order.  But I digress...

So now I can concoct all kinds of ice cream creations.  My mind is reeling with possibilities for flavors and I'm sure that Lilah and Grady will be willing test subjects.  So, thanks Mom!

I also wanted to share some photos that I have been playing around with from our summer so far.  I'm thinking about putting together a little summer album on Shutterfly with all of the great memories we are making this summer.  That's the one downfall of digital photography, at least for me - I rarely actually print my photos on paper as keepsakes.  It's something I'm going to attempt to get better at in the near future.  But for now, they'll live on in cyberspace...

Cool Moms Make Ice Cream

I follow a few kids' crafting blogs, and I saw a tutorial a little while ago about making ice cream in Ziploc baggies that I really wanted to try.  I never seemed to have all of the right ingredients in the house at the same time (quite common in my life), until this morning.  The kids were antsy, the baby was sleeping so we couldn't go outside, so I said "Let's make ice cream!".  Of course, Lilah was immediately excited and jumping up and down with anticipation, and Grady just does whatever Lilah does, so he was jumping up and down as best he could too.  Woo hoo, score big points for Momma today!

And then, I realized.  I don't have pint-sized Ziploc baggies.  I don't have gallon-sized Ziploc baggies.  What do I have?  Sandwich baggies.  Crap.  But I'm the queen of improvisation when it comes to motherhood (and life in general), so I searched my cabinets and found...Ziploc storage containers.  Perfect!  I decided to divide the recipe in half and put it into two sandwich baggies instead of one pint-sized baggie, then put those into the storage containers for the kids to shake.  What kid doesn't like to shake a box that just happens to be filled with ice?

Apparently, my kids:

"I shook it three times, Momma, is it ready yet?"

Grady just wanted to eat it right away, container and all.

So I did what any mother would do in my situation.  I shook.  I made up a shaking dance and a shaking song ("Shake, shake, shake.  Shake, shake, shake.  Shake the ice cream."  Creative, I know.)  and I made a fool of myself in front of my children.  But that's okay, you're supposed to make a fool of yourself in front of your children.  Right now they think it's funny.  I can't wait until they're teenagers.

When I couldn't shake it anymore, I took the baggies out, rinsed them off, and put the slightly melty concoction into a bowl and a coffee mug for the kids to devour.  Here's the results:



Yes, I realize my son is sitting in a pink booster seat.
It's okay, he's comfortable with his masculinity.



She was quite thrilled with the "banilla" flavor.

And although it melted and got soupy pretty quickly, I dug up some bendy straws and told them it was milkshakes.  All in all, it was a pretty successful morning activity.  Here's a link to U Create With Kids where I found the idea, and a link to 2 Little Hooligans where the original tutorial is.