Super Soft Snickerdoodles

These Snicker-doodles are so soft and covered in cinnamon sugar.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, room temperature

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

1 egg yolk

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cream of tatar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 3/4 cup flour

Topping:

1.2 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon


Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Cover the cookie sheets with parchment paper. I bought parchment paper that is pre-cut in the exact size of a cookie sheet at Ralph's. It's awesome!

Combine the sugar and cinnamon topping ingredients in a shallow bowl and set aside.

In a stand mixer beat the butter and both sugars for about 2 minutes. Add in the vanilla, egg and yolk and beat on medium for an additional minute.

Add in the  baking soda, cream of tatar, salt and cinnamon. Beat for additional minute. Slowly add in the flour and mix until everything is just combined.

Using a cookie scoop make a round  ball and roll it in the cinnamon sugar. 

Place the cookie ball on the parchment paper lined cookie sheet about 2-inch apart.  I placed 6 cookies on each cookie sheet.

Bake for 10 -12 minutes. 

When the cookies come out of the oven they are a little puffy. After a minute or two they flatten out.

These Snicker-doodles are so soft  This wonderful recipe made 18 cookies. 

Shortbread Cookies with Miniature Chocolate Chips

Shortbread cookies are super simple to make and you just need 5 ingredients.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, room temperature

2/3 cup powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour

2/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions:

Beat butter and powdered sugar until it is light and fluffy. Stir in vanilla.

Add in the flour and stir in until it is combined. Fold in the mini chocolate chips.

I used a green bowl and green spatula. I apologize for the blah picture.

Transfer the dough to a gallon sized zipper top bag. Use a rolling pin and roll the dough to 1/4 thick. Refrigerate the dough for 1 to 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cut the dough into squares or rectangles. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. 

Once the cookies have cooled  they can be dipped into some melted chocolate and placed on some parchment paper to harden.

These cookies would be an awesome addition to an afternoon tea. 

Three Wise Men Cookies

I made some Three Wise Men cookies for the first graders.  Yesterday I made round sugar cookies. Once they cooled I put them in an air-tight container. This morning I decorated them.

This is my Melchior cookie. I don't spend a lot of time decorating cookies for 1st graders - they barely look at them before chowing them down.

These are my Caspar cookies. The jewels on the crown are mini m&m's.

The final cookie is Balthazar - the kids wanted to know why he had blue hair. I explained that it was a turban.

When I asked the kids if they knew what gifts the wise men brought the baby Jesus. Answer: Gold, Frankenstein and Myrtle. Frankenstein?

Pencil Cookies - A Back-to-School Treat

These cookies were so easy to make! Probably because you start with a store bought wafer cookie.

I bought my wafer cookies at Target. But I know they also carry them at grocery stores. Be sure to buy the vanilla flavor for this project,

Ingredients:

Vanilla wafer cookies

Pink chocolate disks

White chocolate disks

Mini chocolate chips

Directions:

Cut one side of the cookie into a point with a sharp knife.

Lay the pointy side of the cookie facing down on a large piece of foil or wax paper.

Melt some pink chcocolate disks. Put the melted chocolate into a zipper top bag and snip off a tiny corner and pipe the erasers.

Then melt some white chocolate and put it in a zipper bag and snip a corner. Pipe the white point and while the chocolate is till warm add the mini chocolate chip. 

Let the cookies dry and then they can be stacked into a box.

These were so simple to make! And while I was making them I thought they would be cute made into candles to celebrate the Feast Day of Saint Blaise. They would also be cute made into ties for Father's day. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful school year!

Pineapple Cookies

I made these Pineapple cookies over a 2 day period. I made the sugar cookies on Saturday night.

I used the Williams Sonoma sugar cookie recipe.  But Todd wants me to change the recipe and use pineapple extract instead of vanilla. So I am going to try that next time I make these cookies and post my revised recipe.

On Sunday morning before we went Jet Skiing - I frosted the cookies with the green stems and pineapple in a golden icing.

When we got home I melted some chocolate and put it into a zipper top bag. I twisted the chocolate onto one corner and sniped off a teeny tiny hole. I made diagonal lines in both directions and added the little dot into the tiny squares. 

When we came home from 5 o'clock mass the cookies were set and I was able to stack them! 

Madeleine Cookies

I have been watching the French Open although my two favorite players are not playing this year (Roger and Maria). However, in honor of the French Open I made some Madeleine cookies. I used Martha Stewarts recipe and they were surprisingly easy to make and I had all of the recipe items in my pantry and fridge.

Ingredients:

4 eggs

1/4 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup flour

14 cup butter, melted and cooled

confectioner's sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray the pans with a baking spray.

Beat the eggs, salt and sugar in your stand mixer on low for approximately 8 minutes. Add the vanilla. Stir in the flour and lastly add the cooled butter.

Fill each cavity with the batter and bake in the preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes.

Pop the Madelines out of the molds.

Sift some confectioners sugar over the Madeleines. The perfect snack to eat while watching the French Open! Bon Appetit!

Earth Day Cookies

Tomorrow - April 22nd is Earth Day. Everyday should be Earth Day! Reuse, recycle, repurpose. These cookies were so simple to make. Using your favorite sugar cookie recipe and blue and green gel food coloring.

You can find gel food coloring at any craft or party store.

I made a batch of sugar cookie dough and divided the dough in half.

Kneed the blue gel food coloring onto one half of the dough and the green food coloring onto the other half. Gel food coloring will also stain your hands - I put my hands into plastic bags while I kneed the food coloring int each dough ball.

To make the cookies simply take a good pinch of blue and a good pinch of green and roll them into little balls.

The cookies come out of the oven looking like the Earth! 

Don't these cookies look adorable? After I made them I had the brilliant idea that I should have made them into hearts — which would have translated to "love the earth." 

Mini m&m Cookies

Today was gray and drizzly so I decided to bake! I found this bag of mini m&m's in my pantry and made these yummy little cookies.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, browned and brought back to room temperature

1 cup +2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons vanilla

2 large eggs, room temperature

bag of mini m&m's

Directions:

In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking soda and salt - set aside.

Place one stick of butter into a small saucepan and over medium heat stir until the butter is completely melted and starting to brown. Remove from heat and add the remaining stick of butter. Stir constantly until the second stick of butter is melted.

Pour the melted butter into a heat proof bowl and place the bowl into the refrigerator for about an hour.

You will know when the butter is room temperature by pressing your finger into the top and if it makes an indentation on the butter you are good to go!

After an hour pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees and line 2 or 3 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In the bowl of a stand mixer combine the room temperature browned butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar and mix until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Add the vanilla and eggs, one at a time.  Add the flour mixture in slowly and beat until the flour mixture is completely combined. Remove the bowl from the stand and hand mix in the miniature m&m's.

Form small balls about the size of a tablespoon. And place them on the prepared cookie sheets.

Bake the cookies - one cookie sheet at a time for 6-7 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheets for a few minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

These were the perfect cookies to make on a cloudy, gray, drizzling day!

I wonder how long these cookies will last!

Substitute teaching 1st Grade Religion Class This Week

Jesus said come follow me and I will make you fishermen of men Luke 5:1-11.

This is first grade so to reiterate the lesson I made the kids these little graham cracker treats. These were super simple to make! I just spread 3/4 of the graham cracker with blue tinted melted white chocolate. While the chocolate was wet I sprinkled some graham cracker crumbs on the bottom of the graham cracker and added the goldfish with little sprinkle balls.

The kids loved the graham cracker treats. I used cinnamon graham crackers which made them so sweet. 

We also learned about St. Blaise because the feast day of St. Blaise was February 3rd.  To reiterate the lesson of St. Blaise I made the kids some candle cookies. We watched a short movie about the life of St. Blaise and since he is the patron Saint of throat disorders Monsignor John came by the classroom and blessed the children's throats. It was adorable.

I simply cut a small marshmallow on the diagonal. Press the sticky portion of the marshmallow into sprinkles and using melted white chocolate adhere the marshmallow to Pirouette cookie. Adding a few white chocolate candle type drippings. They dried on a piece of wax paper.

Once the chocolate is dry they can be packaged into pretzel bags. The kids loved taking home a little reminder treat of St. Blaise.

This week we also started learning a little bit about Lent. Ash Wednesday is next week on February 10th. It is so early this year. 

God Bless all of these darling first graders.