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.

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!