Hello and Happy New Year. I hope you all had a beautiful holiday season. Here is a new nail polish video for you. I also wanted to let you know that I am running an Art Journal & Journaling Challenge this month it starts 1-26, lasts for 30 days, and is free. If you are interested in joining sign up here.
Chewy Sugar Cookies have become a go to staple in my cookie world since I first made them a few years ago. I like to roll them in coloured sugar around Christmas it makes them look very festive. The big bonus is they are easy to make and you don’t have to roll anything out and dirty cookie cutters to get a yummy cookie.
I can kind of go wild and eat way too many of them, that and the chocolate peppermint cookies, love those things. So if you need an easy cookie for a cookie exchange or just for you I highly recommend this sugar cookie recipe.
Just so you all know I’ll be on blogcation until the 7th of January. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. See you next year!
Chewy Sugar cookies from Fine Cooking
3/4 cup sugar
4 oz. (1/2 cup) room temperature butter
2 tablespoons shortening
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 drops almond extract (1/8 teaspoon)
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
sanding sugar any colour your heart desires.
Preheat oven to 350. Cream together butter, sugar, salt, and shortening. Add egg corn syrup, and extracts, mix well. Add the dry ingredients and make sure it all mixed up well. Roll into 1 inch balls and roll in sugar. Don’t put them too close together as they do do spread a bit. Bake at 350 for 10 to 11 minutes.
Hello there my lovelies. It’s been a few weeks since I um blogged anything for you. It’s been a bit crazy on my end. Since My Queen of Wands has started to take off with my Get Crystal for 2015. I got slammed with readings before Thanksgiving. Very exciting but it threw things off balance.
I haven’t even painted my nails in an age and I miss it. These two polishes have been waiting for me for a month now.
This recipe comes from my Grandma Hartmann. It has to be one of my favorite sugar cookie recipes. Usually I make this at Christmas and that’s it. But I was in my cookie cutters looking for something and came across my Halloween cutters. That’s when I thought to myself I need to use these, so I made sugar cookies using my bat, ghost, cat, pumpkin, and a couple of others an owl and an acorn.
There’s nothing fancy about them. It’s about that soft texture and some frosting. There’s no royal frosting here or extreme decorations. Although I was wishing I had some Halloween sprinkles, going to have to pick some up. I have tried them with all butter and they get too crispy they lose that softness. So I do half butter and half shortening these days.
I made a double batch which worked out well as we were able to give a bunch to a neighbor who helped us out that day. Recipe is for a single batch and how many you get really just depends on how big the cookie cutters are.
Pumpkin Face Cookies
3/4 cup shortening: half shortening and half butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
Cream the above together and
Stir in:
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Mix until incorporated.
Chill for one hour or make the day before. Preheat oven to 350. Roll out dough using flour if needed to keep from sticking. Cut out your cookies, place them on a baking tray and bake for 9 to 10 minutes.
Frosting
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon water
food colouring
Dump it all in a bowl and stir. If too thick add more water, too thing add more powdered sugar. Frankly I don’t really measure it all that well. I tend to just pour in my vanilla, toss in a pinch of slat and scoop some powdered sugar into the bowl and fiddle with it until it’s the consistency I want it. I end up making five batches of this for a double batch. I like to have a variety of colours.
Ick-A-Bod-Y by China Glaze is probably my most used Halloween polish and favorite. It’s black and orange with glitter, what’s not to like? I came across some nail stickers my friend who lives in Japan sent me so I slapped a pumpkin on. My other hand has a bat but that doesn’t really show up well. I was going for another sticker but the bat popped off so I used it.
I am so behind this week, I’m updating a favorite recipe. Because it’s that’ good and I still love this muffin recipe. Be back next week with a new blog or video.
Bibliographies are one of my favorite things to read, they also lead to some really good books. Which is how I found the gem The Joy of Muffins: the International Muffin Cookbook by Genevieve Farrow and Diane Dreher. This book is in The Domestic Goddess bibliography and you can find it on Amazon if you want to pick up a copy. It has a wide range of muffins to try: sweet, savory, and everything in between, this cookbook has a lot to offer for such a slender volume. Somehow I seem to have accumulated too many sesame seeds. I have a couple pounds of sesame floating around right now, that is a ton of seeds.
My main concern when I decided to make these muffins was the amount of sesame seeds in them. Would they be too noticeable? Too seedy? My fears were unfounded, the sesame seeds add a pleasant crunch and a lovely nutty favor. I can’t stop eating them!
Syrian Sesame Muffins
1-1/2 cups flour
1-1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup toasted sesame seeds
1 egg
1-1/4 cups buttermilk
4 tablespoons melted butter
1 tablespoon sesame oil
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, sugars, and seeds together. Whisk the egg into the buttermilk, butter, and sesame oil. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet. Mix until mixture is moist. Spoon into muffin tins. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.
My first introduction to Applesauce cookies was by my friend Lara. We were hanging around her house and decided to make cookies. While we were making the cookies her little sister disappeared we found her in the downstairs bathroom. The toddler had Lara’s stop nail biting potion. The little girl was licking the applicator and saying yuck, every time she licked it. She just kept licking and yucking.
But back to the cookies. I’d never had Applesauce cookies but I liked them a lot and being a child didn’t think about getting the recipe. Years latter I wished I’d had gotten that recipe. I’ve tried several applesauce cookie recipes but they were boring and not anything I felt like making again. Finally I found one I like. So here it is!
Applesauce Cookies
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup shortening
1 cup applesauce
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
Preheat oven to 350. Cream together brown sugar and shortening until smooth. Stir in eggs and applesauce, making sure it is well incorporated. Add dry ingredients next and mix well. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheet.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes
Mine turned out a little big, they spread. Go smaller than you think you need to.
I think this was from Allrecipes.
I found this lurking in my mom’s recipe box. I don’t think she ever made them. She doesn’t think she ever made them or who gave this to her. I doubled the recipe and am giving to you that way. This recipe while really yummy does not make very many cookies.
These are simple to make and the cheesy yumminess of them is so good. They melt in your mouth. The cream cheese adds a nice tang and the vanilla fills in the rest. I will definitely be making these again.
Cream Cheese Cookies
1/2 pound butter (8 oz)
8 oz. Cream Cheese
Mix them together and add:
18 Tablespoons Sugar
2 cup flour
2 teaspoon vanilla
Mix until well incorporated. Roll cookies into ball and flatten cookies with wet finger tips until thin. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or edges are slightly brown.
Cake Haze 