CookieD-oh

 Hey, long time no blog! Life just keeps on happening, and that's the only excuse I have. The kids are growing up rapidly. The boy is in high school, and the girl is in middle school. Both of them run cross country, so I (finally) got around to making cookies for them. The school logo and some general cross-country themed cookies, along with a saying from their coach. And just so this isn't the world's shortest blog post, here's a picture of my vintage kitchen: It's a weird mix of 40's and 50's, but as I'm working off of Craig's List for my décor, it's the best I can do.  Well, that's all for now.  Enjoy!

We recently moved into an old farmhouse and we thought it would be fun to go retro with the kitchen decor. We inherited a 1940's kitchen cabinet from Mr. D-oh's Grandma May when she passed a few years back. We love it and it reminds us of Grandma, so why not decorate the kitchen around it? Craig’s List has been good to us thus far. I found an old chrome and Formica table and chairs (in yellow and green Moonglo) as well as a remarkable old stove. I’m still hunting for a refrigerator, but I’m in no hurry. Anyhoo, I made a chocolate cake for a family get-together. Mint chocolate frosting with roses. Added some blue because I read somewhere a long time ago that you should use at least three colors when decorating. So red, blue, and green for this one. I don’t know if that’s really a thing, but it stuck with me. And here’s a bit of the kitchen with the amazing stove. It’s purported to be a 1948 Western Holly. Works like a champ and kind of looks like we have a laund...

OK, people. I would just like to say that I recently found a new recipe for chocolate chip cookies, and these cookies are the real deal. I didn't have particularly high hopes. I didn't even take any pictures of the process. I mean, a chocolate chip cookie is a chocolate chip cookie, right? Maybe. Maybe not. I have made these approximately 8 times since discovering them on Smitten Kitchen last month. (And yet, somehow, I still only have the one photo.) Anyhoo, I tinkered with the recipe a little bit, just because that's who I am these days. The one thing I need to stress is that you should use a chocolate bar, cut into chunks. Chocolate chips work, but the cookies are better with chunks. So far I've used Ghiradelli, Hershey Special Dark, and a Spanish baking bar I received from a friend. If I could easily get the Spanish chocolate, I would use it again, but since I can't, I've been using the Hershey bar. It's bigger than the other and cheaper. And j...

So this was kind of weird. A friend of my mom's asked me to make some Honda Odyssey cookies for her. Basically she was looking for an excuse to have a celebration, and she decided to throw her minivan a birthday party. So, I present to you a 2004 Honda Odyssey in royal icing! On a candy corn cookie! I ended up doing royal icing transfers for the vans. They weren't great, but they were recognizable, at least. And I'm happy to say that after about 30 RI transfers, I can spot an Odyssey from 100 paces. Or more. Well, that's all for now. Enjoy!

I never knew there was such a thing as Elvis UNO cards (and I do enjoy a good game of UNO), but a friend from church asked me to make some Elvis UNO card cookies. So after she sent me some pictures I realized I couldn't make those cookies because I'm not an artist. So I improvised. Silhouettes seemed to be the way to go. We've got some young Elvis and some old Elvis. I kind of liked the Jailhouse Rock Elvis in the middle. Then I had to explain to my children who Elvis was (ouch). And as a result I've had "Blue Suede Shoes" stuck in my head for DAYS. Two dozen total. Please pay no attention to the Christmas plate. It was unavoidable That's all for now. Enjoy!

They were celebrating a retirement at my mom's place of employment and she asked me to make some cookies for her. Turns out the retiree is a big Mickey Mouse fan! And it just so happens that my cookie-friend Lisa gave me some genuine, officially licensed Disney cookie cutters a while back. Yay! So as usual, I did not take a picture of the cookies before they left my house. My mom did get one, though, and she sent it to me. I kind of liked how they came out. I did have a couple extras that I got a close-up of. I did not have any extras of the Minnie bow. :-(  So no close-up of that one. I used a butterfly cookie cutter (Thanks, Sugarbelle !!) and did the outlining and details in black to coordinate with the rest of the set. I think I might make these again sometime. Well, that's all for now. Enjoy!

Like totally. For real, man. My lame photography skills don't do these justice. In some circles, I am renowned for my cinnamon rolls. I keep telling people how easy they are and that they can make their own, but nobody believes me. You believe me, don't you? If not, I'll prove it to you. First things first, go to the Pioneer Woman's site and steal her sweet dough recipe. Go ahead. I'll wait. Got it?  Ok make some dough. I made some...it was one and a half batches. I'm really glad I didn't go crazy and double it. That's my biggest stock pot right there. So, once you've made the dough let it sit in the fridge overnight. If your biggest stock pot is alarmingly full, you may need to get up a time or two in the night and punch the dough down. Maybe. But here's where we leave the Pioneer Woman behind and strike out on our own. And since I was making cinnamon rolls I forgot to take pictures (you can thank me later) and you'll have to...

A friend of mine from work brought me a picture of a cake a while back and asked if I could make it for him. He got it off of Facebook, so if it's yours, let me know. He's a big fan of M&M's.  But then again, who isn't? So I finally got around to making it. (I kept telling him I hadn't forgotten!) This cake used lots and lots and lots of M&M's. And as I drove it to work the next morning, every bump I hit I heard M&M's hitting the cake board. I made repairs at work and no one was the wiser. Red and Yellow were a bit bumpy. They're giant cake pops and I used off-brand candy melts to coat them. I repented immediately. I will only use Wilton candy melts from now on. I piped the faces onto waxed paper using royal icing and candy melts and glued them onto the pops the next morning. I made lots of extras just in case. And lots of extra "M"s, thankfully. I had quite a few snap as I was glueing them on. Chocolate ca...

I made some cookies to take to work a couple weeks ago.  I wanted to try something different...but not too different.  So I found this recipe on Pinterest and decided to try it out. It's originally by the Picky Palate ...click on the link for the recipe. I stuck pretty close to the original recipe.  I think the biggest difference was that I baked mine for about twice as long as she did.  About 20 minutes.  They needed it. They were some big honkin' cookies. Basically, two chocolate chip cookies with an Oreo in the middle.  They were pretty good.  I think they would be better with Reese Cups. Or even fudge covered Oreos. I made a double batch and got about four dozen cookies.  Huge cookies. Anyhoo, that's all for now. Enjoy!

Happy Autumn! Apparently I decided to take the summer off from blogging. It happens, I guess.  Things get busy and before you know it, the summer's over and the leaves are turning.  Stupid leaves. One downside to having a baking blog is that sometimes you get so busy baking that you don't have time to blog. Happens to me a lot.  That and I don't take pictures because I'm a lousy photographer.  But if you've been around here before you already knew that. So I finally decided to stop messing around with the bottles of vanilla extract at the grocery store. Found this one on Amazon.  Now hopefully I won't run out every week or two. My beautiful assistant started the first grade this year.  How did that happen? To prove that I've been baking, despite the lack of blog posts,  I took a picture. From left to right-ish: Honey Wheat Bread , Granola , Chocolate Cake , Peach Cobbler . Click on the links for recipes.  The peach cobbler has...

Just some quick cookies made to look like iced donuts. Gave me an excuse to use some sprinkles. That's all for now. Enjoy!

OK, so I really didn't take just lemon pies to church last week. I thought a nice coffee cake would do the trick, too.  But since it's a hospitality table, the food needs to be finger food.  So I searched Pinterest and found one coffee cake muffin recipe.  Seriously.  One. (I think it was because I used the mobile app. There are more on the actual site.) So I made a double batch and hoped for the best! They were delicious. I ate several.  Maybe more.  But don't take my word for it, make some for yourself. Here's the recipe: Coffeecake Muffins Streusel Topping 1 cup packed dark brown sugar 1 cup flour 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 cup chilled unsalted butter, cubed Muffins 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1 cup sour cream 1 cup granulated sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract 2 large eggs Prepare streusel topping: In a medium bowl stir together brown sugar,...

Two of my coworkers moved on to bigger and better things last week.  Jerks. Just kidding. I wish them all the best.  And to prove it, I made a cake. Whenever I decorate with buttercream, my cakes come out looking like grocery store cakes.  Oh well.  Lemon cake with vanilla buttercream. Good luck, guys!

Good morning! I got back from CookieCon 2014 yesterday, and thought I'd post a quick note today before I start in on spring cleaning.  Joy! Anyhoo, CookieCon was quite an event.  It ran from March 20 - March 22, 2014. I saw some drop-dead gorgeous cookies, met lots of new and interesting cookie people, and got to visit downtown Salt Lake City, Utah.  And I bought lots of stuff.  But I needed all of it. Really. Like this t-shirt: And this apron: And a handful of stencils, a couple cookie cutters, and some disco dust. The swag bags were awesome. They included oodles of amazing things, including boxes galore from BRP Box Shop !  I love pretty boxes, don't you?  I roomed with a lovely lady I met online on the Cookiers R Us forum, katydoescookies (we just call her Katy). On Friday night Katy and I met up with some of the other forum ladies and had dinner, then we all went back to the hotel and had a cookie tasting party i...

Happy New Year! Not much cooking over here lately...we decided to do a juice fast/cleanse/detox to start the year off right. Hubby and I went a little off track during the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I mean, cookies.  Need I say more? We're now on day 8 of a 10-day juice fast. I thought I would take this opportunity to share some of our juice recipes with you.  Aunt Louanne, please avert your eyes. We'll start with the classics...Mean Green. You may notice that we got a new juicer.  Mom's 1984 Oster wasn't working for us anymore.  After conducting some exhaustive research on the internet, Hubby decided we HAD to have an upright masticating juicer.  I like it.  It's a workhorse for sure. Meen Green (original recipe) consists of: 6 leaves kale 4 ribs celery 1 cucumber 2 apples 1/2 lemon (peeled) knob of ginger Chop them up, juice them, and voila: Doesn't it just scream "Healthy"?  I like it now, but it took a while. ...

My husband is going thorough cheese withdrawal.  It ain't pretty.  But we found a pretty good plant-based vegetable lasagna recipe to help him work through it. It's a lot of work to make it, I'm not going to lie.  But the recipe makes a TON, so you only have to make it once to eat it two or even three times. Or more.  Seriously. Start by prepping your veggies!  It took about an hour for me to chop/thaw/mash all of these veggies. The weird looking thing on the bottom left is mashed sweet potatoes.  That's the first thing you'll want to do.  Peel, chop, steam and mash two sweet potatoes. In the meantime, chop an onion, two carrots, one head of broccoli, and two red bell peppers. Slice 8 ounces of button mushrooms and 8 roma tomatoes (when I went shopping they only had three roma tomatoes, so I had to go with regular tomatoes. I used two...they were large). Thaw 16 ounces of spinach and a few cups of corn. While you're at it, cook a la...