First Few Christmas cookies!

I didn't wait long before starting my Christmas cookies!

I've had a few things up my sleeves for a few weeks now.

These cute little reindeers are an idea I saw on The Baking Sheet's blog here. Using an upside down Gingerbread man cutter to make this cute little guy!Not a bad look Rudolph! Adapting a Santa I saw on Cookie Crumbs Facebook page here. I love using the circle cookie cutter to make lots of different things! Who would of thought to use a cupcake cookie cutter to make a Snowman?

One of my favorite Blogs - The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle. She is amazing at thinking outside the box.

Happy Baking! Jen

Trevor Wants to Bake!

A request by Trevor to bake this weekend!!! I didn't have anything up my sleeve so he had to wait a day before I could come up with something for us to do together. I found a very easy, but very good recipe in my Christmas Cookie Book from Taste of Home. Italian Sugar Cookies. A quick cookie to make that puffed up very nicely and was very soft! A simple icing recipe that we made red for the Christmas season. Trevor did all the cookie dipping in the icing and did a very nice job. He even waited to eat a cookie until we were all done decorating. Trevor's master piece! I put the sprinkles on myself when I saw that we could have sprinkles all over the floor if I let Trevor do that part. Here is the finished product! I think these are Trevor's favorite because it seems over the weekend he has eaten most of the little cookies himself! We may be making these cookies again soon. Not bad for something that took us about 30 minutes to do from start to finish! Once we had made the cookies I realized I didn't have any milk for the icing....but I did have chocolate milk. And you couldn't tell the difference. So if you are ever in a pinch..... HAPPY BAKING. Jen

Thanksgiving Treats

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. With lots of turkey and treats!

I made there Thanksgiving goodies to take to our dinner. Can you see that these are pumpkins? A cream cheese ball appetizer.
Trevor said to be a pumpkin they had to be orange...well, they are sort of orange, right?

I followed what Kitchen Simplicity website said! LOL
This has to be the EASIEST thing ever.

Melt a Hershey's kiss on top of a pretzel - 3 minutes at 275.
Then put a candy in the center when you pull it out. For the Thanksgiving colors I used a Reese's Pieces candy.

And Ta-Da.

Yummy treat.
For Trevor's Thanksgiving Breakfast I had fun making this little turkey.

Trevor enjoyed the goodies on top much more than the healthy apple.

Go figure, right?

I found this on Sisters Stuff blog and had to make it.

You can pretty much use any goodie you wanted to make the feathers.

Gobble, Gobble.
On to Christmas treats for me now.

I've already rolled out a few cookies to begin this week. Yeah!

Happy Baking,
Jen

Indians and Pilgrims

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

I hope you are all enjoying the holiday with family and friends. I certainly have much to be thankful for this year. Lots of wonderful family and friends, health, happiness....I couldn't ask for much more.

I thought I was done making Thanksgiving cookies when I stumbled on these from Karen's Cookie Blog. They did look a little difficult, but her step by step tutorial is fabulous and I was able to make them !

Nothing says Thanksgiving more than Pilgrims!
I experimented with different shapes for the hat since I didn't have exactly the right one. Not sure I found one that is perfect...but they will do, right?

And we can't have Pilgrims without Indians, right? Look what I found here from Sugarbelle. Boy and Girl Indians.


HAPPY BAKING.
Now I think it's time for Christmas cookies!!!
Jen

Indian Corn

So I picked a very messy treat to make for Trevor's friends!!! But I couldn't resist when I saw an Indian Corn recipe found here.

An ooey, gooey mess made to look like corn. A perfect treat to give each kid for a Thankgiving surprise. First I melted butter and marsmallows. Then added Kix Cereal and dried fruit. Looks sticky, right? Well, it sure was! The recipe even said to butter your hands when forming the corn on the cob.



Taking a popsicle stick, you form a cob shape around it. Then put fruit strips on the bottom....sort of looks like an ear of corn, don't you think? I can see it in the abstract way, what about you?
At least it was fun to make!! Not sure how it really looks or what it tastes like!

Happy Baking.
Jen

2 Ingredient Pumpkin Cookies

I found a VERY SIMPLE cookie recipe this past week and then thought of the perfect thing to make them for! There is always a sign up sheet at Trevor's school to bring a healthy snack.

When I discovered "2 Ingredient Pumpkin Cookies" here , I had to try them. They are from the blog Cookies and Cups.

Of course Trevor wanted to help me! He was a bit disappointed that there was no egg to crack though since that is really all he likes to do.

AS usual, I made this recipe a bit of my own as I always seem to do. I couldn't find the spice cake mix in the store like Cookies and Cups called for. What is healthier than oatmeal and pumpkin, right? So I chose oatmeal cookie mix instead.

This recipe calls for only the cookie mix and a can of pumpkin. I added some butterscotch chips and a bit of cinnamon to mine.

Technically mine should be called 4 Ingredient Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies.

Turned out to be more of a drop cookie than the recipe picture but that is because of my oatmeal mix.

I haven't figured out how in the world to make a drop cookie (or for that matter a bar cookie) look good in a photograph! But here is what they look like. I was very pleased with how these tasted. I did have to cook them for about 4 minutes more than the recipe called for - I think because I added the butterscotch chips. But they turned out perfect. The flavor wasn't too strong in my opinion and I'm not a huge pumpkin fan. The cinnamon might have cut down on that a little.
I'm wondering if any of the kids like pumpkin...

I hope they like their healthy snack!

Gobble Gobble.

Happy Baking.

Jen

Thankgiving Assortment

A lot to be Thankful at this time of year....my family, my friends, my health, my job...my list could go on and on. I've enjoyed making some different designs for Thanksgiving this year. I've seen so many creative ideas that I just don't want to stop!! Here are some of my latest creations.


Using a tulip cookie cutter, SweetBella Bakery inspired me on these very cool cookies. Amanda has several ideas that I liked this year and found them here.


Can't be Thanksgiving without a pilgrim hat, right? I don't have the perfect cutter but I think this does okay!
Cornucopia's are always fun for this time of year.
Another inspiration from Sweet Bella Bakery. The freehand trees were something different. I haven't done much freehand on cookies. That certainly takes practice.
You've got to have some trees to remind of us fall this time of the year!


I had to try just ONE more owl cookie when Sugarbelle made some with a candy corn cookie cutter. I thought her Owl in Pumpkin Cookies were just precious. This blog does an awesome job with the tutorials and showing you step by step how to make cookies just like the ones she does. The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle is an amazing blog.

Some more acorns! We have a ton of them falling in our backyard. What about you?
Oh my and what is Thanksgiving without Pumpkin pie??? Another idea from Sweet Bella Bakery.

A fall assortment of apples, pears and pumpkins. The pumpkins were some of my favorite that I made this year. This design came from Bake at 350.


Just a few more sets of leaves....



As you can see I've been busy with Thanksgiving cookies! I do have the last few up my sleeve to finish this weekend!
Happy Baking.
Jen

Turkeys, Turkeys, Everywhere

I have been doing lots of Thanksgiving cookies! Just haven't shown anyone yet! I've seen so many cute ideas lately that I've had to try so many...I couldn't hold out anymore and NOT share them, so here are my turkey's so far...I've done several different styles!! Which one do you like best?I did a lot with the same colors only using different shapes. Loved Cookie Crazie's idea here. Using half of a daisy cookie cutter.... A 3-D turkey cookie from Bee in our Bonnet website here. Using a circle cookie cutter and then heart cutters for the feathers. Another Cookie Crazie idea.....here...I tried using the black outline and then the colored outline. I think I like the black because they stand out more. Traditional turkeys made the the actual turkey cookie cutter. My freehand drawing idea compliments of The Decorated Cookie, found here. This turned out much better than I thought it would! And using Bake at 35o's idea...2 different cookie cutter with the tutorial here. So now you can see I've had so many ideas come across my path for turkeys that I just want to try them all!! HAPPY BAKING

Peppermint Crunch-Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have gotten on to Pinterest lately and love it! I've found so many fun things to do that I will NEVER have time for it all.

If you aren't familiar with what it is, here is a definition. Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes. Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

And boy have I found lots of inspiration for baking all sorts of fun things! The first thing I tried were these Peppermint Crunch-Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies that were "pinned" from Culinary Concoctions by Peabody website here. These were very easy to eat and very yummy. I was in the mood for a little Christmas taste and found it here! I altered the recipe a bit to my taste -using white chocolate instead of milk chocolate. And making a drop cookie out of it instead of waiting for the dough to firm to cut into nice shapes. Let's just say I don't have the patience to wait!
I had never seen Andes Peppermint Crunch Chips and was glad to find them easily at Target! They made this cookie very tasty.



HAPPY BAKING.
Back to making my last set of Thanksgiving cookies. I've already a bunch but won't share them until this weekend!

Jen

It'sHard to Be Five

It's Hard to be Five, right? My son Trevor might tell you that!!

This week a friend of mine is a mystery reader in her sons Kindergarten class. She wanted some cookies to take with to give to the kids as a treat.

I didn't have much notice on this order but it worked out great and I had fun doing these.

I found a great design idea from The Chocolate Swirl Blog. and went to work.
I don't often take pictures of some of the "steps" that involved in making cookies. Here are a few with just the "piping" and "flooding".


It's Hard to be Five by Jamie Lee Curtis looks like a fun book to read and I"m going to have to find it for Trevor. But hopefully with these cookies the kids won't think it's so bad at their age!!


Happy Baking!
Jennifer