Sugar Cookies

Unicorn French Macarons with a “raw” Cake Batter Filling

Did you know and realize my little girl is going to be 4 next Tuesday. How in the world did that happen? Someone please tell me and help slow down time! It’s flying by sooooooooooo fast. I remember as a kid they said it would but dang! Time really needs to slow down. I remember as a little kid how we wanted time to speed up so we could get our driver’s licenses, graduate high school, be of age to vote and drink and the list goes on. When I got to 25 I was done… that meant my car insurance dropped and I was okay with that. Then I wanted time to just slow down… but unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

With Abug’s impending birthday (I use those big words for my friend Jody haha… Hi Jody) it was time to start thinking about and planning for her birthday party. Lately, she’s been all about unicorns. This has been an ongoing thing for oh I don’t know… since before Christmas. My dad found a pony we could make into a unicorn for her for Christmas but it was in Iowa, at least 6-8 hours away and we didn’t have time to drive up and buy him. I’m kind of okay with that… she does have Aloha after all. But that’s another story for another day… (more…)

Woooo Pig Sooie! UofA Sugar Cookies

Do I have any University of Arkansas fans out there? No? Bueller, Bueller? haha.

A couple weeks ago I was asked if I could do some U of A cookies. I thought, well maybe, what do you have in mind. We discussed it back and forth, she sent me a few ideas and bam! the magic began. Okay… well, the “magic” began a couple weeks later because obviously, I had a little planning/prep time.

Now, if you don’t know, U of A’s mascot is the Razorback. And apparently at all football games anyway (or sometimes just in a large crowd of Arkansas fans), you hear them yell Woooo Pig Sooie! Truthfully, I have no idea what that means, but it’s funny to hear a crowd of them yell it. I kind of assume it’s a lot like being at a Chiefs game when all of the fans start chanting the Tomahawk chant. A few years ago, at a Houston Texan’s game when we shut them out, you could hear Chiefs fans on the tv. I assume, the Woooo Pig Sooie! might be something like that. Just a guess. (more…)

Fishing Sugar Cookies

I’m a couple weeks behind sharing these cookies. It happens. Life happens. I’ve had a lot going on in my life and I promise that a lot of things will have light shed on them very soon. Truthfully, just waiting on a couple more pieces to fall into place.

So Fishing Cookies. My friend Jody hit me up and asked if I’d do some cookies for her cute little boy. Hey, who am I to turn down that cutie! haha. He just had his birthday last month. They are totally into fishing. Now… the one way I would tell her NO is if she made me touch a real fish. Now… I have touched a real fish, I screamed, made the boat captain think I fell overboard. It was great. I’m not a fan of fish. haha.

But these weren’t real fish so we were good. We discussed a few different ideas/options and came up with fishing bobbers. Easy peasy. haha. But seriously, they turned out soooooo darn cute! If I do say so myself. (more…)

Baptism Sugar Cookies

Guys, It’s truly been a bit since I’ve decorated Sugar Cookies. The last ones I did for anyone were the Ladybug/Steampunk. They were done at the same time. Then… I haven’t done any until Easter when we tried a different recipe. By the way, I like my recipe better when it comes to decorated sugar cookies. Those we tried around Easter mounded up and then sunk. Not so good on the decorating storefront.

(more…)

Steampunk Sugar Cookies

Steampunk Sugar Cookies

Steampunk? I didn’t even know such a thing existed. I guess I’ve fallen out of the loop or something… I don’t know.

One day last fall I got hit up about making 4 dozen steampunk sugar cookies. I had to go google what in the world that was. It’s like corsets and balloons and clocks. That type of thing. All dark colors. So Google and the gal who was ordering the cookies told me. I thought, Okay, I think I can manage that.

I decided that I could make flip flop cookie cutters into hot air balloons and I could make a swimsuit top into goggles. And of course gears and clocks could be done on circles. Easy peasy.

I quoted her a price. She never actually said, yes she wanted them… but at the same time she did. It’s really confusing. So I went to making the 4 dozen steampunk sugar cookies. I hit her up about picking them up twice and never got any more words out of her. So I wound up with 4 dozen steampunk sugar cookies that I didn’t know what to do with. (more…)

Ladybug Sugar Cookies

I was going back through all the sugar cookies that I completed last fall and realized there were 2 sets that I didn’t blog. This was one of my absolute favorite sets. A girl I went to high school with that I am distantly related to hit me up and asked me if I could do ladybug sugar cookies. I thought about it and was like, well, of course, those would be not only easy but extremely cute! Heck yeah.

I was so pleased with how they turned out. Absolutely adorable! These were some of my absolute favorite cookies

Self Doubt (through Sugar Cookies)

Do you remember last fall when I discussed the Sugar Cookie Challenge? It might have even been late last summer. Well, I’m here to tell you, it was going well… and then it wasn’t. I knew it was kind of a long shot to do 300 dozen cookies, but I was willing to give it a shot. I think I actually forgot to blog a few of the different batches. I’ll go back and make sure, and if I didn’t, I’ll add them. It may not be that important but it is so fun to look back at the years on this blog and see things. Things I had otherwise forgotten… like the post on wedding dress shopping.

So where does the title fall in? Easy… When you are going along, selling dozens of cookies and then all at once BAM! cookie sales stop. You begin to wonder what happened. Then when you very seldom have repeat customers, you begin to question things again.

Were the cookies not good? I did create my own recipe. Did they not meet or exceed people’s expectations? I’m not sure. Do I just suck? Maybe. So much self-doubt creeps in. It is enough to make a person question everything. I mentioned the other day that I used to be the total optimist just like Sue Heck (the character from The Middle), but after being put down and called naive your whole life, it starts to wear on you.

New Sugar Cookies

The week before Easter I decided I was going to make some sugar cookies. It really stemmed from this whole blog. Explain? I’m glad you asked! Well, I was looking back through Easter posts on the blog looking for recipes we had used in years past. I stumbled across a post where Tbug and I decorated sugar cookies way back when. It was actually a kit I bought from the good ol’ Walmart store. The cookies were hard. Who knows how long the icing had been in the package. But it was super easy and super fun!

I decided I needed to do something like that with Abug. But the Walmart store didn’t have those kits the day I went there. So that meant I needed to make my own sugar cookies to decorate. (more…)

French Macarons

I attempted French Macarons… again. The first time I did them, like how many years ago, they were okay. At that time I wasn’t sure what they were supposed to taste like. The recipe turned out okay I would say. I didn’t feel like filling them because I didn’t want to make a filling so we used some strawberry jam I had in the fridge. Other than that… meh. These are kind of time-consuming cookies really.

So a couple months ago I decided to try again, but this time I planned on making them Coffee French Macarons. Holy cow, they didn’t work. They didn’t bake. They were awful. I threw them all away. It was sad. Also, I didn’t have any heavy whipping cream so I tried to thicken half and half to make the ganache. My Friend Google told me I could. He lied. It was just a nightmare.

At that point, I thought I had given up… But then I ran across a blog called Bigger Bolder Baking. Gemma is Irish. She does/has a YouTube channel and listening to her accent is fun. So I decided to see if she’d made French Macarons. By golly, she had. I watched both videos she made and then I got the urge again.

Now, I was ahead of the game a little. One thing you need to do is have egg whites at room temperature and aged 24-48 hours. Over the weekend I made Pioneer Woman’s Chocolate Pie. After we went to the Merchantile, everyone was raving about it. I had a bite but really don’t remember it. We had a family game night over the weekend and I made dessert. You guessed it… Chocolate Pie. It uses egg yolks so I had egg whites sitting in a bowl. I guess you could say I was already preparing to try French Macarons again before I came across Gemma’s recipe. Guilty.

French Macarons

Gemma said that these are temperamental cookies. She’s not lying. And truthfully it is not difficult, you just have to be precise. This is where the scale I got for Christmas comes in handy. Especially because she said you had to measure in metric measurements. Hello Grams. Thank goodness my scale measures in those…. whew! Saved by the scale.

She also recommended using a hand mixer, so I dug it out and did. So you want to whisk your egg whites, 55grams to be exact, until soft peaks form. Then you add sugar, turn the mixer to high and let it form stiff peaks. (more…)