Baby Shower Cookies

After my Christmas Snowflakes came out so good I wanted to try making pretty cookies for my baby shower. I thought they might come out even better if I used a pastry bag to apply the icing. Well, all I can say is that I was less than satisfied with the result. The first handful were experimental as I tried to get the technique down and decide on a design. They look like I 4th grader did them. Then I tried to write "Its a Girl" on them, but it came out pretty smudgy. After that I just went with the most natural motion for my hand to make. They're kind of...Jackson Pollack meets the Easter Bunny. I guess I need more practice with this kind of thing.

Piece of Cake!

I decided to make cupcakes to bring to work for Valentine's Day....nothing special, just a Devil's Food cake mix in a box and a tub of Chocolate Fudge frosting. But I wanted to try using a pastry bag to frost them since so many times before I've been frustrated with the way my cupcakes looked in the end. I'd never done this before. So, I tried the bag and found it to be surprisingly easy to use and not nearly as messy as I'd expected. I quickly ran out of chocolate frosting so I improvised and just scooped another tub of frosting I had into the pastry bag. It happened to be buttercream. The result was a beautiful swirl of chocolate buttercream that tasted delicious! Add some pink sprinkles and...Voila!

Cool Christmas Cookies

I wish I'd taken pictures of the cookies we made this year. They were very tasty and I got rave reviews for my artistic frosting design. The snowflakes were beautiful! I was sinpired by the Better Homes & Gardens Glistening Snowflakes and I found this stuff called pearl powder at the craft store (in the baking section) that made the frosting sparkle and shimmer. Everyone was surprised to see this effect and thought they were great! I'm definitely going to do this again. But frosting sugar cookies is very time consuming, especially when you're making it into an art project. So, I'll have to allow extra time for decorating if I'm going to plan to give them as gifts next year.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

What did I do while I was on vacation? I lounged around for a while, and I baked. I made brownies from the box--I haven't tried a brownie recipe from scratch yet--and I made a new cookie which I haven't done yet. Thanks to Hershey's for putting their recipes on the bag! What would I do without it? So, my special friend and I had just finished eating lunch... being around me has brought out the sweet tooth in him so he asked me if I could bake something. Why not? I love baking! My cupboards are not fully stocked, thought, so I grabbed what I could find and discovered I could make Reese's Chocolate PB chip cookies (which look delicious on the bag by the way). Oh, I'm getting hungry just thinking about them! Surprisingly I wasn't able to find the recipe on the Hershey's website. But I did find the exact recipe I used on Cooks.com.

REESE'S PEANUT BUTTER CHIP CHOCOLATE COOKIES

1 c. butter

1 1/2 c. sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

2 c. unsifted all-purpose flour

2/3 c. Hershey's cocoa (sifted)

3/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 c. (12 oz. pkg.) Reese's peanut butter chips

Cream butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until light and fluffy. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture. Stir in peanut butter chips. Chill until firm enough to handle.

I dropped the first batch onto the pan in teaspoonfuls as directed, just so we could have some to eat right away and then start watching a movie. I figured I'd chill the rest and make them later or on another day. This turned out to be a great idea because I just sliced off sections later in the night and proceeded as follows:

Shape small amounts of dough into 1-inch balls. Place on ungreased baking sheet and flatten slightly with fork. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Cool 1 minute before removing from cookie sheet onto wire rack.

Makes about 6 dozen 2 1/2 inch cookies.

They were soooo goood! We couldn't stop eating them!

Congo Bars...sort of.

Memorial Day marks the beginning of BBQs, picnics, and any occasion you can think of to get people together and have lots of food. For our annual camping trip friends and I have decided to host a potluck on the campgrounds this year. So, I decided to give Congo Bars a try. This tasty treat was introduced to me through my step-mom, Lisa, whose (add Southern accent here) Granny down in South Carolina used to make them for her and Lisa would bring them back for us to try. I didn't quite know what they consisted of but they were deeelish!

For my attempt I used a recipe found on Treat A Week, but doubled it so I'd have plenty to bring to work the next day and on the camping trip. I also changed a few things along the way, using rum extract instead of coconut (because I didn't have coconut), and sprinkling untoasted coconut on top 1/2 way through baking. Well, they didn't turn out perfect.

The coconut on top started to toast too fast and smelled like it was burning, so I had to take the bars out before they were entirely cooked. They edges came out good, but the middles were doughy and kind of raw. I was disappointed and thought they were ruined. But I made a bold move and put a plate of the middle pieces out in the kitchen at work this morning with a sign:

To my surprise, they were all gone by lunchtime!! I guess my experiment was a success afterall. But next time...no extra coconut. I want them to bake all the way through!

These pictures were taken with my camera phone. The quality isn't great, but it does the trick and its faster than uploading from my Canon Elph.