Red Velvet Cupcakes

It was a nice and lazy day at my parents' cabin and I had the "itch" to try a new recipe. This was my first attempt at making red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I think they tasted pretty good-although I would've cooked them slightly less (in my defense I'm not used to the oven up here and it was a new recipe) :)

I do have another red velvet recipe I want to try too. I garnished them with a strawberry slice and piped the frosting with a ziplock sandwich bag with a hole in the corner as I left all my supplies at home.

Cupcakes!

Cupcake cookies I made for my son's teachers for the last day of preschool. The colors don't show as well as I took these pictures with my phone.

Lightning McQueen!

A friend from my mommy group asked me to make cookies for her son's 4th birthday. She had told me that the theme was "Cars", but I could make any old car for the cookies-they didn't have to be Lightning McQueen. Ha! Like I was going to make any old car! So I set out to make LM. First of all I didn't have a cutter that resembled LM. The closest thing I had was a car that looks like a VW Bug and that wasn't going to work. I did a search and found a cute LM (sugarmamasf.blogspot.com). The baker had written in her blog post that she had cut her dough out by hand. I had promised never to do that again after the My Little Pony cookies, but it didn't look to hard! I drew the shape on paper-actually only half of it and then folded the paper and cut both sides at the same time. Symmetry-my first graders would be so proud of me! :)

The whole time I was making these cookies I was trying to come up with my back-up plan. Considering my mommy friend lives in Kansas and I would need time to send these in the mail, there was no back-up plan which meant these needed to turn out perfect (or near perfect). Considering that I've only been making and decorating sugar cookies for 4 months, I think these turned out great! I'm so excited for Kate to get these cookies! Happy Birthday Mason!

Dump Trucks

I made these dump trucks for a second birthday. I did add lines to the dumper part which makes them so much cuter! Happy Birthday Logan!

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After:

Teacher Appreciation Week

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week. Because I am a teacher I felt it was necessary to honor my son's preschool teachers with something. I wanted to do sugar cookies but by the time I thought about doing something and realized his last day of school each week is Wednesday, I didn't have time :( Instead I made these delicious mini strawberry cupcakes. These are SO SO yummy! The best strawberry cupcake I've ever had. I use a recipe from Sprinkes (a cupcakery in Los Angeles).

4th Birthday Cookies

I made these for a 4th birthday. "N" is the little girl's first initial.

My Little Pony

I made My Little Pony cookies for my friend's daughter's 4th birthday. I was actually quite proud of myself for making these cookies, because I didn't have a My Little Pony cookie cutter. I don't even have a horse cookie cutter!

I had to get creative to make these. First I found a picture on the internet, printed it, cut it out, and then after I rolled out my dough I laid the picture on the dough and cut around it with a knife. It was a lot of work, but I really like how they turned out. I'm super excited to hear the little girl's reaction to her MLP cookies!

Confirmation Cookies

I have the most wonderful para in my classroom! I made these cookies for her son's confirmation.

Easter Dessert

I made this dessert for Easter. It was very refreshing with the strawberries and "light" cream (is there such a thing as light cream?). I found this on Martha Stewart's website.

Easter Cookies

I made these Easter cookies for someone who needed some cheering up.

Bridal Shower

I made these adorable wedding dress sugar cookies for a bridal shower.

I also made the mini cupcakes with heart shaped fondant.

Baby Shower

We had a baby shower for my cousin and her sweet baby boy, Riggins. The theme was orange elephants, brown bears, and green ducks.

I also decided to try making cupcakes as I had found some really tasty cupcake recipes (love the internet!).

The cupcakes were great. The strawberry cupcake recipe came from one of the first (or maybe it was the first?) cupcakery in Los Angeles called Sprinkles. The owner and founder is a judge on Cupcake Wars (Food Network) one of my favorite shows.

Football Cookies

My uncle was diagnosed with cancer this year (he's doing great!). As a way to show him that I was thinking of him I baked some sugar cookies. He's a well-respected high school football coach in our area, so these cookies represent his team.

Para Appreciation Week

It's always nice to feel appreciated, so I baked cookies for our paras at school. I think they really enjoyed their cookies. One para told me she took a picture of her cookie and made it her profile picture on Facebook :)

Baby Boy

Ducks for a cute baby boy!

Scooby Doo Sugar Cookies

My son turned 4 in February. Of course I had to make sugar cookie favors (my new found hobby!). I asked my son what he wanted on his cookies-Scooby Doo (I'm not even sure why I asked!). I looked around for a Scooby Doo cookie cutter and didn't have any luck. At this point I only had about 20 cookie cutters and none of them were going to work for Scooby Doo. I decided to use my flower cutter (the closest thing to round I had at the time) and draw Scooby Doo. Oh my goodness, it was difficult! I have learned a lot since then. Everytime I wanted to quit, I thought of my son who was so excited about his "Scooby Doo cookies!"

I worked on them one day while he was gone. I test out my designs by asking my son, "Do you know what this is a picture of?" I figure if he can tell me what's on the cookie, then everyone should know what it is. Thankfully he knew they were Scooby Doo and he was so excited. I told him I'd never make these again so he better enjoy them now. For several days afterwards he would say, "Mama, are you never going to make Scooby Doo cookies again because they were really hard?" My response? Never again!

My Very First Attempt

My daughter's first birthday was in January. I knew I wanted to have a cupcake theme. I started looking at desserts and party favors. I saw so many beautifully decorated sugar cookies on the internet. I started to wonder if I could make them. I've done a bit of baking here and there (although admittedly not much decorating!). I spoke with a few baker friends for tips and searched for recipes. I tried three recipes to start with and immediately fell in love with one (and it wasn't Martha Stewart's!).

I then attempted decorating with royal icing. It's not easy! My kitchen was a disaster, and I was beginning to think it would be a whole lot easier to order them! But I am the kind of person who always has to have a craft or hobby that I'm working on, and since I was tired of my previous hobbies I thought this might be the beginning of a new one!

Grace's cupcake sugar cookies turned out really well for my first real attempt at decorated sugar cookies.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! I'm creating this blog for two reasons:
a) I want to keep pictures of my sugar cookies in one place
b) I've had people inquire about my sugar cookies, and now I have a place to send them.

I use a pretty standard sugar cookie recipe. I've tried many different recipes, and this one was by far THE BEST! Most recipes work well, but there are a few secret tips that make them even better. I also use royal icing to frost my cookies. Royal icing dries well and is really really tasty.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me :)