Sugar Cookies

 I had some little elves in the kitchen last night. A sugar rush before bed is not the best idea! The youngest proved to be a master in cookie thief!

Sugar cookies are so much fun, you can really have some fun with them.

You can use the following recipe or any sugar cookie recipe and use some themed cutters. It is really important to follow all the steps! The dough needs to rest in the fridge and you can make it a few days before you need the cookies. The step to freeze the cookies is really vital to helping the cookies retain their shape. The best baking tip I've heard in a long time is lining your cookie sheet with parchment paper, it makes clean up so much easier! 

Sugar Cookies

Makes about 18 -24 4-inch cookies

Ingredients:

4 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup (2 sticks) / 8 oz unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 tsp pure vanilla extract.

Directions:

1. Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.

2. Using an electric mixer, put butter and sugar in a bowl with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy.

3. Mix in eggs and vanilla.

4. Reduce speed to low. Gradually mix in flour mixture.

5. Divide dough in half; flatten each half into a disk and wrap individually in plastic wrap.

6. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour but ideally overnight.

7. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

8. Remove one disk from the fridge and allow to sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes.

9. Roll out the dough until 1/4 inch thick.

10. Cut out the cookies, re-rolling the scraps and repeat with the remaining disk.

11. Transfer to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and place cookies in the freezer for about 15 minutes, until very firm.

12. Remove the baking sheet from freezer and transfer shapes to oven. I have 2 cookie sheets and I switch the cookies on the parchment paper that way I'm not putting a hot cookie sheet in the freezer or a cold one in the oven. Again the parchment paper is genius. 

13. Bake, switching positions of sheets and rotating halfway through, until edges turn golden, 15 - 18 minutes.

14. Let cool on wire racks.

15. Decorate with royal icing, sprinkles or buttercream.

Chocolate Cupcakes

I love cupcakes! They are the perfect little cake all to yourself. Plus I love chocolate!!!! So here is the perfect combination of two of my favorite things.

I think the trick to these is that you use melted chocolate not cocoa powder. My son who will not eat any sort of cake ate 3 in one sitting without frosting!

I've included my vanilla buttercream recipe, which is so wonderful, it really reminds me of ice cream. The recipe makes about 36 - 40 cupcakes.

Ingredients:

2 3/4 cups cake flour (this is really important because cake flour is lighter than all-purpose flour. It's easily found in most grocery stores, I use the Swann Cake flour)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

6 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled to room temperature (it's really important you let if cool before you putting in the mix)

4 extra-large eggs

1 T (tablespoon) plus 1 tsp (teaspoon) pure vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream

1 cup water

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

2. Line 36 standard muffin cups with cupcake liners.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Quick tip if you toss it all in the bowl and use a hand whisk you don't need to worry about sieving the flour, you break up the lumps with the whisk.

4. Using your electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together sugar and butter until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

5. Add the chocolate, again let the chocolate cool to room temperature, and beat on medium speed until well combined, about 2 minutes.

6. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition.

7. Add the sour cream and vanilla and mix until combined.

8. Turn the mixer to low speed, add the flour mixture in 3 parts, alternating with 1 cup of water and beginning and ending with flour, beating until just combined.

9. Fill the muffin cups 3/4 full with batter.

10. Transfer to the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Rotate the muffin pan and bake for a further 10 minutes, make sure that a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

11. Allow to cool before frosting.

Vanilla Buttercream

This recipe makes enough for about 30 cupcakes

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

6 - 8 cups confectioners' sugar

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Using an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth and creamy about 3 minutes.

2. Turn the mixer to low speed and add 6 cups of sugar, milk and vanilla; mix until light and fluffy.

3. Continue to add the remaining sugar until you reach the desired consistency.

Construction Birthday Party!

My oldest son turns 4 today! I can't believe how quickly time has flown.

Kids birthday parties are so much, a lot of work and with a little creativity can be wonderful. I loved looking back at my baby pictures to my 1st birthday and see the AMAZING pink palace birthday cake my mother made and decorated for me from scratch by herself. She out did herself the year my brother wanted cowboys and Indians and she made this awesome chocolate fort. There seems to some special about the little details that made the birthday all the more special.

So when I found out I was expected my first I went and took 2 Wilton Cake Decorating classes. I was determined to give my children that same magical experience. Trust me I will not have my own Ace of Cakes kinda show anytime soon. I get frustrated with details and perfection. Butter cream and I have a love hate relationship and I guess I didn't play with play dough enough as a child to be good with fondant! But I am blessed with an amazing friend that has an amazing touch with butter cream and can make it look fondant, together we make a great team. I'll post a few of our cakes soon.

Anyhow I have always LOVED cupcakes. The perfect portion, your very own little cake to enjoy. When it comes to kids birthday parties they are perfect, you don't have the hassle of cutting a cake and they are just simply cute! So after much debate and trying to figure out what sort of cake do to, as much as I would have loved to have done a 3D bulldozer cake, we just didn't think that would be structurally sound and I'm kind of a stickler for the cake actually tasting good and the two don't always go well together.

So I made chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. I found the cupcake stand at the party store in the perfect black color and took caution tape to jazz it up a little.

The top cupcake had the 4 candle and then 4 cupcakes with construction cones. The rest of the cupcakes had yellow hard hat picks.

I'll share my cupcake recipe in the next post because it is delicious and my son who refuses to eat cake of any kind actually ate 3 without frosting. The frosting recipe is addictive, it reminds me more of ice cream than butter cream, as my friend's husband will attest to!!!!

As for the menu, the party was between 3 - 5pm so I did snack food. A veggie tray, some fruit (had to do something healthy to counter all the sugar!), chips and dip, Dorritos, Cheezits, tool shaped cookies, Rice Krispie Treats and my sons favorite candy worms.

I also put a pot of chili on the stove because the LSU SEC Championship game was on at the same time so I figured we'd need some post-party/game food.

Decorations wise I had so much fun everything was construction/Caterpillar orientated as per my sons request! I wanted to do something unusual to serve the food so I went to Lowes and Home Depot.

I found quart and gallon size empty paint cans and printed out a cover for them.

I put the tool cookies in my sons tool box.

I used a metal roller paint tray to put the chips and dip.

My friend found some construction themed plates, napkins and cups for $1 each at a party store back in the summer, we knew then we were doing this, so a little forethought and you can find bargains!

But I have to say the best part was the inflatable hammers I found on Oriental Trading Company's website. We adults had a blast with those too. Each child got a cloth Home Depot tool belt and a yellow hard hat (again from Oriental Trading). A big pile of sand in the back yard, some little construction toys and shovels and they kids had a blast. I must thank LSU for the free entertainment for the adults and GEAUX TIGERS, they won!!!!!

For favors I used brown lunch bags and placed a tool bath squirt, tool bubbles, construction stationary set, tool cookie and some fruit snacks.

The whole thing didn't cost too much, no more than renting a party place and it really didn't require too much time to throw it all together.

It was a wonderful event and my son enjoyed it so much. I can't thank my friend Marti enough for her help brain storming and getting it all together.