Sugar Cookies

We have had a lot of celebrations this spring and summer, and we use every one as an excuse to make decorated sugar cookies. All we need is a theme or some color ideas, and we get baking!

 Our extended family welcomed two new baby girls this year. My sister is very lucky to have two new granddaughters! Baby H was born in May, and then Baby E followed in early June. They are both beautiful little girls already, and I see a future full of dress up and tea parties. 

For both showers, we did a tray of onsies and bibs, in pink for girls, and some cookies with the initial of each baby name in colors that coordinated with the baby rooms. Both moms gave us ribbon samples or pictures of bedding and we used those colors as our guide. 

 Mimi Jr. recently said adios to a co-worker, who happens to love all things western. We took this as an opportunity to try some new cookies. We have never made boots or bandannas, but they were fun to do, and now we are ready for any Western themed parties that comes our way. 

 

for a tutorials on the bandanas   and marigolds

visit The Sweet Advemtures of Sugar Belle 

  We took on the task of cookie baking for a few spring parties hosted by friends, and nothing says springtime like some pretty blooms. It was fun to try new techniques for decorating, and we liked that these are an easy way to add some festivity to the table. 

Zinnias (top)I used a petal tip, with fairly firm icing holding the tip  perpendicular to the cookies surface  Marigolds (bottom)
I followed the tutorial at  sweetsugarbelle 

After four years that simultaneously dragged on and flew by, Mini Me graduated from UCI.

with her BSN.

She worked so hard and I know she will make an amazing nurse. The Mimi's are all very proud of her, and we will continue to supply her with cookies wherever she ends up.

 In just the first half of this year, we have had so much fun making and decorating cookies for friends and family.  I know there are many more occasions in the coming months that will be calling for cookies, and we will gladly get out our rolling pins and piping bags and bake away!

Sugar Cookie Recipe

Link: Foodie Friday

Fish and Chips Cookies

This month's Improv Challenge ingredients were fish and chips. Some sort of fish cracker or Swedish fish came to mind as possible starting points, but noting really popped for me. So I admit that my interpretation of the ingredients is liberal, but Mimi Jr. needed to make some sugar cookies for someone, and that is how my fish and chips entry came to be. I used my usual sugar cookie dough, added mini chocolate chips, and dug out a few fish cookie cutters and we had a fun afternoon of fish and chips. 

While the recipe itself is not exactly new, this is the first time I have added chocolate chips, and really, any excuse to spend a day decorating cookies is good enough for me. I always like to make new shapes of cookies, practice mixing new and different colors of icing, and trying new techniques for decorating. While we do love fish, and we do love chips, I think cookies win out every time and I'm glad the Improv Challenge gave me a chance to try out some fun new cookies! 

Sugar Cookies

3 c  all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 c sugar

2 sticks butter

1 egg

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2 tsp pure almond extract

½ tsp  salt

1 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine the flour and baking powder, set aside. Cream the sugar and butter. Add the egg and extracts and mix. Gradually add the flour mixture and beat just until combined, scraping down the bowl, especially the bottom.

Roll onto a floured surface and cut into shapes. Place on parchment lined baking sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes. Let sit a few minutes on the sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack.

printable recipe

Links:Foodie friday

Gift Card Cookies

One of our most cherished Christmas traditions at Mimi's Kitchen is our Christmas Eve festivities. We are invited to Boy Mimi's God Parents house for an evening of feasting and fun. The evening always starts with an incredible meal, featuring Mrs. A's famous meatballs. It's a secret recipe, which even I don't have, but I do know that the meatballs are browned and then simmered in cream, making them the most delicious meatballs I have ever had. Boy Mimi loves these meatballs and has been known to consume massive quantities, so he has become the official meatball assistant. He heads over the day before the party to help Mrs A. with the meatball production. I always quiz him on what is in the recipe when he gets home, but all he ever says is, "Meat, of course!" So it still remains a secret, but even if we do discover the recipe, they will never be as good as they are at Mrs. A's on Christmas Eve. 

Besides our meal, we sing carols, play Christmas trivia games, and have a gift exchange. The evening ends with everyone heading off to church for the midnight Christmas Eve service. As our families have grown and kids have married, our group has expanded to include in-laws, boyfriends and girlfriends, and assorted relatives. We wanted everyone to be able to participate in gift giving, and since it is pretty hard to buy thoughtful gifts for people you don't know all that well, we have modified our gift exchange into a gift card exchange. What makes this a little more special than just handing out cards is the way we "wrap" our gift cards. So not only do you get a gift card, but a fun little gift as well. The packaging is a clue to the store; sometimes the clues are easy to guess, while others leave us stumped, but intrigued as to what is under the exterior.  Mrs. A's family is crafty as they come (check out her daughter's own blog in words and pictures if you want proof!)  in the past we have had all of these things under the tree: a picture frame with Prince William PhotoShopped into some vineyards, (Williams-Sonoma), a Michael Buble CD (Michael's craft store), an eye patch with a tuning fork (iTunes), a jigsaw puzzle of a barn (Barnes and Noble), and a barrel of monkeys inside a crate (Crate and Barrel).

 As soon as we walk in the door, we begin checking out the wrapped cards, trying to figure it out while we eat and sing, waiting for the exchange so we can see if we guessed the gift cards correctly. 

Since we express our creativity in the form of baking here at Mimi's Kitchen, we decided to make gift card cookie clues. We have done red glittery stars for Macy's, red and white bull's eyes for Target, Hibiscus flowers for Trader Joe's and biscotti for Starbucks. These make good hints as to what is in the package, and the recipient gets a tasty snack. We haven't decided what gift cards we will be bringing this year, but we do know that our clues will be edible!

sugar cookies

Links: Foodie Friday

4th of July Cookies

The minute my neighbor Mrs. M handed me her latest Martha Stewart magaine, I knew I would make these cookies from the cover. It just so happened that Mini Me was home from school for the week and she wanted to make cookies, so we grabbed our aprons and set to work. These cookies were not only gorgeous to look at, but really fun and easy to make.

 We made our favorite sugar cookie recipe and a big batch royal icing, and had an afternoon of fun. Although these are just in time for the 4th of July, we thought they would be a fun and easy idea to tailor to any holiday color scheme with the pretty pattern.

I don't have any how to pictures- we were having so much fun I forgot to pick up my camera. I'm sure you could find them on the Martha Stewart web site. I think the trick is to have your icing very thin to get the fluid motion as the colors flow together.

Steps:

1. Outline and flood your cookies with royal icing. We used white for the background.
2. Pipe a dot of color in the center followed by concentric circles of color. On the cookie below the center dot was navy blue followed by three rings of red and ending with a blue ring. Now drag a toothpick from the outer edge to the center of the cookie. Start in center and drag the tooth pick back to the edge of the icing, making a "V" shape with the toothpick. Repeat the process all the way around the cookie

To get some variety you can vary the width of your colored rings and how close together you drag your toothpick to the center to make different patterns. You might only drag the tooth pick from the center, or only from the edge into the center. You can use several different sized cookies, or make some in only two colors instead of three. There are so many ways to do these and they all turn out beautiful, so have fun!

Happy July 4th!

Links:This Chick Cooks
Cast Party at the Lady Behind the Curtain
Foodie Fridays at Designs by Gollum

Busy Bees

You could say that Mimi Jr. and I have been busy as bees making cookies. Mimi Jr. works with a very creative and talented woman, L, who was planning a bee themed birthday party for her six year old daughter, T.  She asked Mimi Jr. if we would help out and make some bee cookies for the party. Never one to turn down an opportunity to make cookies, Mimi Jr. said yes. L sent over some ideas, and based on the pictures she showed us, we created these buzzing bee sugar cookies.

We used our favorite sugar cookie recipe and royal icing to make our cookies. Since we had to make 100 of these, we spread out the work over a few days.

First we searched the internet for a bee that we liked and then used it to make a template for our bees. We printed out a sheet of bees and covered it with a sheet of wax paper that we taped to the kitchen island. Then with royal icing we traced over and flooded the the bees wings. When these were dry, we did the head and body, making sure the colors touched so we could peel them off in one piece. We fit 20 bees on each piece of wax paper, and just moved the printed paper to another space on the island and topped it with more wax paper for each new set of 20. We let these dry completely. When the cookies were baked, we flooded them with a pale yellow color and placed the dried bees on top of the almost dry flood icing. When the flood icing was completely dry we added the final details- we did the eyes and mouth with a food writer, and piped the antena and flight path with royal icing.

This was our first real "cookie order" for someone other than family, and we learned a few things along the way. Wait until your flood is almost dry to attach your detail so the wet icing doesn't make the colors from the bee/detail  bleed, and don't press them down too hard or your flood icing will wrinkle around the detail.

L made this gorgeous bee hive cake and matching cupcakes with toppers that coordinated with the party invitation. For the boys she had worker bee hard hats, and she made some cute flower headbands for the girls. Party favors included a yellow beach pail filled with assorted black and yellow candy and toys. No detail was over looked in her party planning, and her daughter's excited face made everything worth it.

The worker bees and a crown, for the birthday queen

Happy Birthday T, and Thank You L for letting us create the cookies for your bee-autiful party!

Link: Foodie Fridays at Designs by Gollum
         Cast Party  At the Lady Behind the Curtain

Flower Power

Mimi Jr. and I spent a fun afternoon making these cookies to cheer up Mini Me during mid term exams. We used our favorite white sugar cut out cookie dough and royal icing tinted with neon colors along with a few nonpareils.

These are easy to do, just outline and flood the cookies with the base color, and when dry, pipe on the petals and the center in a contrasting color. These are bright and perfect for spring. I got the inspiration while browsing blogs. I stopped at The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle who has a fun post on Easter Eye Candy. I noticed that a lot of decorators were using string work and I thought, what a great way to embellish your cookies. We have always been sprinkle girls at Mimi's kitchen, so this was a new adventure for us, although we couldn't quite get completely away from the sprinkles.

Sugar Cookies

3 c all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 c sugar
2 sticks butter
1 egg
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp pure almond extract
1/2 teaspoon salt


Preheat oven to 350.
Combine the flour and baking powder, set aside. Cream the sugar and butter. Add the egg and extracts and mix. Gradually add the flour mixture and beat just until combined, scraping down the bowl, especially the bottom.
Roll onto a floured surface and cut into shapes. Place on parchment lined baking sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes. Let sit a few minutes on the sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack.

printable recipe

    

Recipe Round Up

I really love belonging to cooking groups, but I don't like posting about foods that have no recipes to go with them, since this is a cooking blog. To that end I started doing a monthly roundup of recipes I made for Tuesday's with Dorie and French Fridays with Dorie. Well, this month I decide to combine both of the monthly round ups into one big round up. The recipes for Tuesday's with Dorie can be found on the weekly host's blog, to which I will include a link, but for French Friday's there is no host, so if it is a recipe that intrigues you send me an e-mail and I will give you more information.

Our Tuesday's with Dorie recipes were the Citrus Currant Sunshine Muffins and the Chocolate Pots de Creme.

Lauryn of Bella Baker chose Citrus Currant Sunshine Muffins. These muffins had a big citrus taste, with a coarse almost chewy texture. We made these three different ways; some plain, some with raisin, and a few with craisins. Everyone liked the craisin version the best. The dried cranberries added a nice sweet/tart taste to an otherwise pretty plain muffin. The raisins were good, adding sweetness, but lacking the balance of the semi-tart craisins.

 Christine of Black Cat Cooking  chose Chocolate Pots de Creme.

  This was an intensely chocolate pudding. Dorie had you cook and cool it in a water bath covered with plastic wrap, but I really don't think this improve the texture of this pudding, and next time I would skip this step. We would make this again for the deep, rich chocolate flavor. As a family we don't usually love chocolate flavored desserts because they tend to be too sweet or completely lacking chocolate taste, but this silky smooth pudding and Dorie's chocolate ice cream have both been winners, so she is definitely on to something with her chocolate treats!

The French Friday recipes we made this month were the salted butter break-ups. The pictures in the book were so fabulous and we were most excited about this recipe, but unfortunately, this was the most disappointing. It was really nothing more than a giant sugar cookie, brushed with egg wash for color. It was fun but nothing special. We were hoping the salt would come through, and even used the higher suggested amount, but it was pretty boring. We even tried dipping pieces in melted chocolate, and when that doesn't save a recipe, you know that it is something you probably won't make again.

Scallops with caramel orange sauce was a quick and tasty way to prepare scallops. Although caramel sounds like s dessert item, this sauce had a nice almost burnt taste that paired nicely with the sweet oranges, and was perfect over mildly sweet scallops. This is definitely a recipe that we will make again. It will be a nice change from a quick pasta or chicken dish on our busy school nights.

Brown butter, dried figs, raisins, pistachios, chives, almonds, Parmesan cheese and orange zest

And finally, the real star of this month's recipes was the Beggar's Linguine. Mimi Jr. and I made this for lunch one day because we were pretty sure that the other Mimi's weren't going to go for this fruity pasta. We even had our doubts as we were putting it together and taking our first few bites. We were really close to just skipping it, but figured that the whole point of the group was to try new things so we went for it. The most surprising thing was that with each bite we liked this strange pasta dish more and more. Somehow, the flavors all come together to create a wonderfully savory pasta that is not the sweet dish we had expected it to be based on the ingredients.What we didn't like were the small bits of fruit and nuts with the long strands of pasta. Mimi Jr. suggested that the fruit and nuts would be good with orzo or couscous as everything would be more similar in size and one forkful could get a little of everything. Since I had all the ingredients we made it the following day with couscous. I used about half the amount of butter, and it was perfect. We loved it at room temperature and think it would also be good served chilled as a salad or a side dish with some well seasoned grilled meats.

This month was full of surprises, with some new favorites, and some disappointments. We are excited to see what April's recipes will bring to the table.