Birthday "Hamburgers"

These are the cookies my daughter made my son for his birthday.

The "buns" are Nilla Wafers and the "patties" are fudge covered Oreos.

The french fries are actually ketchup flavored chips.

These turned out so awesome I just had to share!

Happy Halloween

I saw these cookies on the web and thought....hmmmm those look like cookies I need to make for our youth groups halloween party!!

They are too freaky looking for me to eat!!! I used my sugar cookie recipe (you can find it under February), loosely shaped them into stubby fingers, pressed one end with the tip of a knife to make a fingernail indent and used the knife to put three slashes for knuckles.

After they were baked, I put a dollop of red gel frosting and a slivered almond on top of that.

These are really gross looking!!! I love them!!

Zucchini Cookies

With my over-productive Zucchini plant I needed to come up with something other than zucchini bread. I especially wanted something that I could pack in the kids lunches now that school will be starting back up. Here's what I came up with. These are moist and cake-like, I think they'd be great with cream cheese frosting.

Zucchini Cookies

1 cup sugar, 2 cups grated zucchini, 1/2 cup shortening, 2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 cup raisins (or however many you want).

Mix all ingredients and bake in a 375 oven. If you use a Tablespoon to make the cookies bake for 12-14 minutes, if you use something smaller bake for 8-10 minutes.

Valentines Day

Valentines Day is a big deal at our house. The kids especially look forward to it because it's the one time of the year when they get to have a cookie for breakfast.

Each year I make and decorate big heart shaped cookies. The kids don't get to see them until morning so it's always a big surprise.

This year I tried a different recipe for my cookies and this is probably the best recipe I ever used for shaped cookies. They bake without turning brown or losing their shape. Here is the recipe for anyone who wants it.

1/2 pound butter
2 1/2 cups sifted flour
1 cup sifted powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract (or orange, lemon, whatever!)

Mix butter until light in color and then add remaining ingredients, add additional water by the teaspoon fulls until dough holds together. Knead until velvety (if you have a kitchenaid mixer you can skip this step and let the machine do the work). Roll out to 1/4 inch thickness and cut your cookies. Bake at 325 for 12 minutes.

We decorate the table and everyone gets a small present. This year I made some milk carton gift boxes and filled them with little candies and small gifts for the kids. For my husband I made a long box and put a package of Cheesecake Kisses from Hershey's that I found.

You can find the template for the milk carton here. The template for the long box is also on Splitcoaststampers but I couldn't find the link. I know it's there somewhere though!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!