Snowmen Cookies

What a crazy couple of months it has been. Not long after my last post, my husband and I decided to take the plunge and move. I quit my job at the bank and we started looking for new jobs and a new apartment. The day before our 1st anniversary we packed up the cats, ourselves and our assorted junk and headed East. Well, East of Batavia that is. And we landed right where we wanted, in the lovely little town of Victor. Now we're just a hop, skip and a jump from our families, Wegman's, and everything else we love about the Greater Rochester area. Finally.



It was not completely smooth sailing, as it took me almost a month to get a job, though I did manage to get a really rocking sinus infection in the meantime. I eventually started full time at Sears in our local mall. Suddenly all of my great plans for starting my business and baking for fun were thrown out of the window. Luckily with Christmas fast approaching, I at least had cause to bake, if not for fun than to be able to provide presents for my family.



And along came my cousin with a request for some cookies for some family members and friends. Decorated cookies no less, in the shapes of snowmen and house painter themes. Yay!!! A chance to sit down and have some fun designing new cookies. The snowmen were pretty easy, a ton of ideas came all at once and had to be funneled into the above designs. The house painter theme is coming a little more slowly. I have some sketches completed, but the desgins won't be finalized until I put decorating tip to cookie. Check back to see the finished cookies- I hope I won't disappoint.


Now for a closer look at my snowmen army:



Really more of a snowwoman this design features a purple hat, done with a small star tip, and embellished with purple buttons centered with silver dragees.












This gentelman is wearing a green hat, adorned with more silver dragees. His wooly red scarf was made using the small star tip.












Last but not least, this young man is wearing a cotton-blend hat and scarf in a green and red stripe. Doesn't he look happy, all bundled up against the lake effect snow?










I hope my cousin likes these as much as I do- I almost want to make a little army just for me.
Check back soon for the house painter cookies!

Doug's Birthday

My husband Doug recently had a birthday and asked me to make a chocolate chip cookie cake. It's a pretty simple process, just make the dough and press into the pan, bake, cool and then decorate. I've only made one other cake like this, for a former coworker, and even though that once came out pretty well, I must say my latest one is truly adorable.







This first picture is the cake, cooled and ready to go. Yummy looking at this stage, but there is more to come!








Now the cake is decorated with chocolate swirls and vanilla dots. Yum!!!








And here the cake is complete with a sweet message. All that's left is to dig and enjoy this bad boy. And let me tell you- it was the best cookie cake I've ever had. I filled the pan a little more than I realized so the cake was pretty thick, almost an inch thick. Kinda like eating five cookies at once- so tasty and chocolatey and delicious!!

New Menu and my foray into Etsy.com

After repeatedly being told that my prices are too low, I have decided to re-work my menu, updating my prices and selection. I think the new prices are still reasonable, but only time (and orders) will tell. I'm happy so far with the new cookies I've tried and plan to do a rotating selection, to keep my customers (and myself) from getting bored. I also plan to work on some new decorated sugar cookies and I'll try to post some pics when done.

Also new is my venture into the world of Etsy.com. Etsy is a marketplace for handmade goods and features some really awesome products. After much contemplation I decided to try listing some of my cookies on etsy. I haven't sold any yet, but I'm still new to the process and still figuring out how it all works. Things are looking promising though- I've had a ton of views so far and was even approached by a fellow blogger about doing a give away of my peanut butter cup shortbread. Peggy from luckygirltrading, who also has a great blog all about peanut butter, ran a contest for two lucky winners of my peanut butter cup shortbread. The contest was a great success and the suggestions from her readers were awesome. I can't wait to try to make some of their suggestions.

If anyone is interested you can view my etsy store at http://cookiesbykristin.etsy.com/.

Carrot Cake Shortbread

This is another shortbread variation that I found and couldn't wait to try. After all, who doesn't love carrot cake? All in all they were pretty easy to make, just a little time consuming. Basically the dough for the cookies is similar to real carrot cake- grated carrots, flour, spices, etc. The cream cheese filling is sweet and contains carrot as well, which I thought was the coolest part. Once the dough is made, it is rolled into little balls, flattened with a glass and baked. Once cooled, the halves are sandwiched with filling and then eaten.

The only change I think I would make is to leave out the pecan that you see on the top of the cookie. Most people that I shared these with seemed to pick them off and it was difficult to me to bite through the cookie and the pecan at the same time. Some also commented that the pecan flavor was too strong, almost overpowering. I think instead I will incorporate the chopped nuts into the filling or maybe just leave them out.

All in all they were good, and with a little fine tuning I think they might make it to the next menu.

Peanut Butter Cup Shortbread

In the words of Rachel Ray- "Yum-O". These are absolutely delicious. I'm not ususally a giant peanut butter lover, but I totally love peanut butter cups so I had to give this recipe a try. They were very easy to make- the hardest part was cutting up all of the mini peanut butter cups.


Once the dough is mixed, it gets rolled out and cut, almost like a biscuit. Then they are baked, cooled and topped with the drizzle. The recipe listed the peanut butter drizzle shown in the picture, as well as a chocolate drizzle, but I thought the peanut butter one would be a better flavor. One bite and it was absolute heaven. I had intended to save some for my neighbor, but for some reason they just never made it to him. Wonder why....... :)


I can't wait to make these again, especially for holiday or birthday gifts.

Strawberry Shortbread

I found this recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens 2007 Christmas Cookie magazine. At the time I had plans to make at least a few of the recipes, but got distracted by other baking plans. so I tucked it away until now.

The directions are pretty simple- basically you make a compound butter mixture of the butter, strawberry preserves and almond extract, then freeze til hard. From there you cut the butter mixture into the flour and sugar, as if you were making a pastry dough. Then knead the dough til smooth, roll and cut out into shapes, and bake. After cooling they get topped with a powdered sugar- strawberry preserve glaze.

My husband and co-workers *loved* them, but I'm not entirely sold. They are definitely good, with a buttery light taste, just a hint of strawberry flavor. The dough, prior to baking, had a beautiful, intense strawberry almond scent that seemed to really bake out once they done. That might be because I used a generic strawberry preserve, rather than something like Smuckers, so the flavor might have been too subtle.

I think my problem comes from the fact that I don't really know what shortbread is supposed to taste like. It's been so long since I've had it, prior to making some, that I didn't know what to expect. But for my first attempt I'm happy with the results.

I think next I might try the PB Candy Shortbread, with chopped mini peanut butter cups, or perhaps the Banna-Nut. Stay tuned.........

Menu

I've finally done it this time- finally carried through with my plans to create a menu for my cookies. Now that it's in print (and on actual paper for some lucky people) I can't wait to start baking in earnest, getting paid for all of my hard work. A huge Thank You to all of the friends and family members who so graciously have agreed to sample my wares. Thank You so much for your feedback and especially for the orders that have already come in. Thank You for your support, in every form. It has been a dream of mine for a few years now to run my own business- this is only the beginning of a long journey, but one that I can't wait to share.


So, please stay tuned- I am always working on new cookies and will be updating my menu from time to time. I can't wait to share my creations with you- so drop me a line if you see something you like :)

Lime Sandwich Cookies with Lime Pistachio Filling

This recipe comes again from my Better Homes and Gardens- Biggest Book of Cookies. I really love lime flavor and pretty much anything that is sweet-tart, so I couldn't wait to try these. The recipe overall was pretty easy- basically just mixing the ingredients together, forming into a log for chilling, slicing log into pieces and then baking. Simple right? Not exactly.

The first hitch in the plan came when it was time to "knead in enough green food coloring for desired color". Silly me decided to skip a step, and add the color with the rest of the flour, hoping that the power of the mixer would be enough to evenly distribute the color. Might have worked if I had added more than just a few drops. No big deal though- I just turned off the mixer, added like 15 or 20 twenty more drops, and without donning a pair of gloves proceeded to mix with my hands. The resulting effect (I hope you can tell from the pics) was a cool, marbled/swirly look that luckily didn't dye my hands too green.

From there you just have to split the dough in half, shape into logs and chill in the fridge for 4 to 24 hours. This is usually tough for me because for some reason I can never split the dough evenly- I always end up with one log thicker and longer than the other. And I can never keep them round- they turn out roundish/ squarish. Oh well.

So after chilling the logs overnight, now came the part I dreaded the most- slicing the logs into "1/8 inch slices". Anyone who knows me well knows that I can't draw or cut a straight line, much less slice dough into perfect, round slices. As a result, all of the cookies ended up a little more oval or square, a little thicker or thinner than intended. But still yummy all the same.

All that is left at this point is to bake the slices, let them cool and then assemble into sandwiches with the frosting. The frosting was pretty easy to make, the only tough part was getting the pistachios chopped fine enough. The frosting makes kind of a weird amount though- at first it didn't look like enough so I under-filled the sandwiches, and then towards the end I had a ton left over so I started really piling it on. But it is soooo good that I recommend really piling it on- you'll thank me :)

So, that's pretty much it. The taste is *really* limey at first-very sour yet sweet at the same time. I thought it was too much with the first bite, but then I couldn't stop eating them. They are wonderful with milk but I'm sure they would be great with lemonade too. Next time I make them I think I'm gonna try it with lemon, maybe change up the nuts to pecans or walnuts.

Until next time........

Father's Day

Just wanted to post the cookies that I made for Father's Day. Nothing too special- wish the pictures were a little better, but overall I think I'm happy with the way they came out.

Next up will be some Lime Sandwich cookies with a lime pistachio filling. I can't wait to try them :)

Coffee Bean Cookies

I tried this recipe because I wanted something totally different from the chocolate chip or sugar cookies that I normally do. Not being a huge coffee lover, I was a little skeptical but figured why not? The recipe comes from Better Homes and Gardens Biggest Book of Cookies.

The first thing I noticed after mixing the ingredients together was the most wonderful aroma, sort of like a cappucino-in-a-cookie type of thing. And since I absolutely crave iced cappucino-type drinks I was hooked. After chilling the dough for about an hour, you are supposed to roll the dough into one-inch balls, shape into a small oval, and then make an indentation so that it resembles a coffee bean. As you can tell from the picture, mine barely look like coffee beans. I also found that slightly smaller balls seemed to keep their shape better while cooking.

All in all it was a quite tasty cookie- a yummy cream cheese-coffee flavor that goes great with milk and probably even better with coffee.

My journey begins

To anyone who might actually read this other than me, I have started this blog to chronicle my baking experiments. Ever since I can remember I have always loved to bake or craft or just make something, anything, with my hands. Over the years I have tried different types of crafting, like card making, plastic canvas stitching, scrapbooking, decorative painting, etc. And what I have learned is that baking is what makes me happiest, and is ultimately my strongest area.
About a year ago, after bringing some baked treats into work and receiving rave reviews, I started thinking about baking for money, i.e. starting my own business. On and off I have sold a few dozen cookies here and there to friends and family members, always wondering if I could sell them to a larger audience. I got my first opportunity at work last summer. I work at a local bank and we were trying to promote a new type of credit card we were offering. I suggested that I could bake some cookies to tie into the promotion. My manger actually paid me for the cookies, but the best part was the reaction from our customers. They *loved* my cookies. So over the next few weeks I continued to bake, and my manager continued to pay me. However, all good things come to an end, and she had to stop paying me because she could no longer justify it on her expense accounts. Bummer. But she said she had no problem with me bringing in cookies anyway, even allowing me to place my business card next to the platters. Customers continued to rave over my cookies, yet no one seemed interested in buying. So, I decided to focus my efforts at fantastic looking sugar cookies, like the ones pictured above, for major holidays, occasionally bringing in other things like chocolate chip cookies, just because. I plan, with the help of this blog, to try out new recipes and record the results, as I work towards starting my business. I welcome comments, suggestions, and I always accept orders for cookies :)