Katie's Cut Out Cookies

My friend Katie makes these cookies which I love when she makes... of course isn't everything better when someone else puts in all the effort.  I didn't make this forever because I just wanted to eat hers but we needed some cut out cookies so I decided that I would make her recipe.  My family has declared it a new favorite recipe required for every special event and just sometimes when we are stuck in the house.

My son helped me make them the last few times so these pictures when I made them without a helper.  Of course whenever I pull out the ingredients, he comes running to help.

I put the butter and sugar in the bowl to cream together.

 I mixed until it was nice and creamy.

 I added the eggs and the vanilla.

I measured the dry ingredients to get them ready to add to the mixture.

I added all of the dry ingredients and mixed until combined.

The dough comes together easily and then you scrape down the sides and put it in the fridge overnight or at least until it is really cooled and ready to be rolled out.

We floured the surface and rolled out the cookies but I don't have an pictures of this for any of the times that I have made them.  Last time we made Virginia, candy cane, gingerbread men, and hearts.  My son picked the shapes so he was excited to cut them out and bake them.

This time, we decided to go with an Easter theme so we had two different bunnies, two different flowers, a butterfly, and ice cream cone. Super glad to have lots of spring sprinkles in the cupboard. 

We love to decorate upfront before baking so that they don't have to be decorated when they come out.  Although my husband likes his plain without any sprinkles so if he doesn't finish all his then we put frosting on them.  As always, these cookies are a home run. Everyone had lots of cookies and I hope that you try these for your own family.  Everyone I know who tried them thinks that they are a home run!

Katie's Cut Out Sugar Cookies

Dough

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1tsp vanilla extract (although she adds more)

3 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Cream together butter and sugar.  Add eggs and vanilla, beating well.  Add dry ingredients.  Cool in fridge before rolling out (I usually do this over night).  Roll out, cut into desired shapes, then cook at 350 for about 8 minutes.  Cool before frosting

Frosting

1/3 cup butter (must be room temperature!)

3 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

at least 2 tbsp  heavy whipping cream

Blend butter (again, make sure its room temperature) and powdered sugar.  Add vanilla.  Add whipping cream and then keep adding little bits at a time while mixing until desired consistency.

Orange Lemon Cookies

I was looking for something to make for Christmas and my aunt sent me a few recipes from my grandmother for me to choose from.  My husband decided that we would go with the Orange Lemon Cookies.

 I was making the cookies with my mother and husband so I totally forgot to take pictures!!  We used the microplaner to grate the orange peel and my husband juiced the citrus fruit.  My mom mixed all the ingredients in the mixer to get the dough ready (so no pictures there...sorry).

We used the small cookie cutters to make circles and placed them on the cookie sheets.

We put them into the oven to bake.

The finished cookies looked very lightly browned on the edges and not very different from those in the oven.

The cookies got a little hard in the container so I put a slice of bread in the container and they got softer and super tasty. We also made some with a simple glaze with powered sugar and orange juice that was tasty!!!

 I hope that you make these yummy cookies for yourself because I know that you will enjoy them.  I know that I will make them again soon!  Sorry it took me so long to post!!

Orange Lemon Cookies

2/3 c shortening 
1 1/4 c sugar
2 eggs
3 c flour
1 1/2 t salt
2 t baking powder
orange rind
1 T orange juice
1 t lemon juice

Cream sugar and shortening and eggs together until creamy.  Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture.  Add lemon juice, orange juice and rind to the dough.  Roll out to 1/4 inch think and cut into small cookies.  Bake for 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes.  Top with powdered sugar or glaze on top or eat plain.  If the cookies become hardened in the container then add a piece of bread to soften cookies.

Quickly Running Out of Stockpile

I find that I stock up on a lot of things and then I think that it will last forever.  Do you feel this way with things because I find that it is that way with everything for us like clothes, shoes, cars and food?  I just bought that shouldn't it last forever!!!

I got so much flour and with the construction at the new house and the selling of the old house, I didn't use as much as I thought so we did move a ton of flour and other baking supplies to the new house.  However, I have ramped up my baking at the new house to meet our food needs and I am almost totally out of the 25 five pound bags we moved (125 lbs!!).  I poured the second to the last bag of flour and the last bag of sugar in my Tupperware tubs.  My flour one is in the bright orange because my mom found a Halloween tub on sale years ago when my other flour container cracked (it was my grandmothers so it was old). The container on the left is my sugar (still my grandmothers but newer so only 20 years old).  I realized that I am going to have to go back to stock up mode.

I grabbed 8 bags of sugar when they were under $1 and I am going to have to get my Wegman's flour because it is on sale for under $1 for the unbleached all purpose that I use regularly.  I am almost out of vital wheat gluten which I used to get in Amish country for cheaper but my parents haven't been there in ages so I know that I am going to have to bite the bullet and get the box at the store.

My husband is down to the last four containers of cranberry juice from my crazy stock up deal so I will have to add a few more to the budget to make sure that he isn't out by the end of the month but I am super thankful that they lasted this long.

I just moved things around in the pantry and I realized that we are down to the last 3 potato soups and 5 chicken noodle soup.  We have plenty of canned tomatoes but the rest of the pantry is sort of bare.  I know that I will be making lots of soup from scratch with the homemade chicken broth that I have in the freezer but having some quick cans on hand is way easier.

We are almost out of our incredible stock pile of Saffron rice.  We used up all the regular flavor and I only have 6-8 left of the spicy flavor.  They are really great mixed up with taco meat to make enchiladas to stretch the meat.  It is a great filler but even better because I got tons of them free with a sale and coupon awhile ago but we are at the bottom so we will be sad to not have them to fall back on.

I used my last bag of popcorn from the freezer from Aldi that I stocked up on last "season" because popcorn is seasonal.  I grabbed four bags at Harris Teeter when they were on sale to hold us over but I only have two left of those.  My son eats popcorn every day for snack at school and I love a little snack of fresh popped popcorn too.  For a special treat at night my husband and I used to enjoy kettle corn that I made but I haven't done it in an age!!  We are going to need a lot more popcorn!

I just used up the rest of the blueberries in my yummy blueberry strudel muffins.  I made some with the the oatmeal yogurt topping that I had left in the cupboard from one that I didn't use.  I love having frozen blueberries to use all year round but they were super little this year so I didn't buy any to save for winter....we will be really sad when there aren't blueberry muffins in the cold months.

I just used the rest of the crunchy peanut butter that I only buy to make cookies.  I love peanut butter cookies and I rarely make them.  My son doesn't eat them so it seems a little weird to make things that only my husband and I enjoy but I got some crunchy peanut butter on sale and with coupon for free or nearly free.  This was my last batch of cookies!!

I am working on using up everything in the house to reduce the amount of money out of pocket this month because I am already part way through my budget.  Trying to be a little more creative to stretch the grocery money.  I used my free day to make a bunch of food to last through the long weekend but now I am wiped out!!  Double batch of peanut butter cookies, blueberry strudel muffins, homemade brown sugar, whole wheat pitas, and chopped hash browns for the weekend.

Do you have certain things that you always keep on hand at your house??  Do you stock up on things seasonally??

Easy Sugar Cookies Recipe

My son and I decided that we were going to make some sugar cookies so I went looking for the recipe that we were going to use.  I pulled out all the of ingredients and luckily we had them all!!

We put the butter in the mixing bowl.

We added the sugar but then forgot to take all other pictures because cooking with a  year old seems to be hard enough without trying to photograph and have him slow down enough.

The dough came together easily and was a little sticky.

We pushed it into the center of the bowl and refrigerated it until it was cooled.

I took out the decorations so that my son could decorate all the cookies himself. 

He scooped them on to the sheet where I told them would be best to fit the most cookies.

He picked decorations and had fun making each cookie unique which took a lot of time and effort so he didn't get a lot decorated and I had to finish the decorating.

You can see that mine were a lot more boring then his because I used the same sprinkles on all of the cookies...mine are in the front.

Then, I made some that were the color of the Olympic rings since we were watching the Olympics which all had stars on them for our United States Stars.

I hope that you get to enjoy some of these easy cookies soon!!  If you want to check out the original recipe here.  We enjoyed them a lot hot out of the oven and even a few days later but they quickly got dried out and they weren't finished.  Not sure this is the answer to our sugar cookie recipe but we enjoyed the beginning of the batch.  Let me know how they turn out for you!

Easy Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls, and place onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.

Starbucks Chocolate Chip Cookie

This might sound a little strange but the only reason why I go to Starbucks is to take my son. Before you get up in arms about how horrible a mother I am, it isn't for the coffee.  We aren't a coffee drinking family and husband started getting gift cards at work for Starbucks.  I was a little upset that we were going to waste money and not use them so I decided to go and see if there was anything that I liked at Starbucks.  Although I do like the cinnamon chip scones and a few other baked goods, it is nothing compared to how much my son loves the Starbucks Chocolate Chip Cookie.

He will do anything to get this fun treat and I have gift cards to pay for this since they cost $2 each but they are totally worth it.  I decided to try to make it at home with a new recipe that I found.  Luckily I had all the ingredients on hand so I pulled them out and got ready.
 

I put the stick margarine and the coconut melt into the bowl.

I added the sugars to the bowl.

After the sugars were mixed, I added the eggs one at a time.

The dough got smooth.

I added the dry ingredients including the flour and the whole wheat flour.  Luckily I got a chance to use the remaining whole wheat flour from the freezer and enjoyed finishing off another item to clear out the freezer.

I chopped up the dark chocolate bar. First into bigger pieces and then into a little bit smaller pieces.  I am not a huge dark chocolate fan but it is a nice flavor to have in the cookies for a treat.  I got this one free at Harris Teeter and we are almost out of chocolate chips so it served a lot of purposes!

I added the chocolate chips and the chocolate bar to the cookie dough.

I thought it looked a little thin but I hate changing recipes the first time that I make them.  I scraped the sides of the bowl and got ready to scoop the make cookies.

I made the cookies with the scoop on to the silpat.

Unfortunately, they spread across the cookie sheet and didn't really maintain the shape.

After adding a little more flour, these cookies turned out really flat and not really like the cookies at Starbucks.  The similarity was found in the whole wheat flour which I thought added a nutty flavor that was pretty tasty.  My husband did not like it for the exact same reason.

So these cookies aren't going to be made again in our house but I would totally say that they needed more flour needed (at least 1/2 cup) so I added the additional flour to the recipe from the original recipe.  I hope that you try these out and see if your family would enjoy these cookies.  If you want to check out the original recipe, please look at the original recipe on the blog, The Grant Life here.

Starbucks Chocolate Chip Cookie

 

Ingredients

• 2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup dark chocolate chunks
• 1 cup semi-sweet milk chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Cream the butter and the two sugars together until light and fluffy.
3. Add in the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time.
4. Mix together all the dry ingredients - both flours, baking soda and baking powder.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well.
6. Add in both chocolate chips and stir until combined.
7. Drop ⅓ cup spoonfuls of dough on a silicone baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown.
8. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Homemade Brown Sugar

I have known for a long time how easy it was to make brown sugar but I could never make it cost effective.  If I can pick up a bag at Aldi for $1.29 then why would I buy an expensive bottle of molasses for around $4 at the store just to turn sugar into brown sugar (even if I was getting the granulated sugar on sale pretty cheap). 

Then, Nathalie told me that she saw molasses at Aldi for $0.99 so I went on a hunt.  I found one box left and lovingly grabbed four bottles....wanting more but feeling greedy taking more than that.  No joke I was hugging one while walking through the store because I was so excited!!  Do you see the molasses on the belt...I was so excited that I took at a picture at the store when I finally put the bottle down.

I might be getting ahead of others if you don't know the top secret recipe to make brown sugar.  1 cup of sugar and 1 tbsp. molasses.  Yup, that is it!!!

Check out this process.  I took out a container that I could mix and seal to put in the cupboard.  I measured two cups of sugar.

I measured out 2 tbsps. of molasses (please note that it is way thinner then honey and I might have over poured because I thought it would be slower like honey).  I dumped the molasses in the container (and cleaned off the counter and outside of the container...oops).

Then, I mixed!  I quickly saw the mess coming together to look like a softer and nicer version of the brown sugar in the store.  Bonus with the flat sides of the container, I can pack the brown sugar without even having to touch it. 

The down side was that I realized that was all the sugar that I had left.  I might be going into shock but I obviously need to go shopping!!!  For white granulated sugar and no more brown sugar needed here for a long time or at least as long as the 4 bottles of molasses hold out.  I hope that you check this out and make some for yourself.

Brown Sugar

1 cup of sugar
1 tbsp. molasses

Mix in a sealed container and keep in cupboard until ready to use.