My A-HA! moment

Have you tried to make cake balls? Let's start with the name...as my cousin, Tara, wisely pointed out, "cake balls" is a little scary sounding. They are hereby renamed, "cake truffles." Much better!

OK...I was getting a little frustrated because my cake, um, truffles weren't smooth like I'd seen on some other blogs. Mine tasted good, but they were lumpy.

These are Gingerbread Truffles (really yummy!) made with a gingerbread mix, baked and mixed with chocolate frosting. My A-HA! moment....shortening! I added a 1/2 teaspoon of Crisco to the melted candy melts and stirred until it melted into the chocolate. (I melted them in a bowl over barely simmering water.)

Voila! Smoother coating...and much easier to work with! This time, I used a toothpick to dip the cake into the chocolate. This worked great, but I was left with an uncovered area on the top. My original idea was to flip it to be on the bottom, but that didn't work. Any suggestions? You can see how I covered it up with a dollop of chocolate on top and sprinkles. :)

I'll be out-of-pocket for a while...a little traveling and moving (yay!) is keeping our December busy, so MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone!!! Have a wonderful holiday!

Cookie packaging

Have you seen the cookie boxes from Martha Stewart? Oh my goodness....they are so cute! She has a few different designs. They are available at Michael's and WalMart (in the craft/fabric area)!

Here's the interior box...I love that little scalloped edge and there is a piece of polka-dot, waxed tissue paper for each box.

That box slides into the exterior box and it comes with pre-cut ribbon and a coordinating label.

When I went back to Michael's for more last weekend, they were sold out. :( So, if you see them and you're giving cookies this year, snatch them up while you can!!!

Christmas Ornaments

Some pics of Christmas ornament cookies...
I was going for a Tiffany-blue here, but I don't think it quite worked. I mixed Sky Blue and Leaf Green.
I think the gold sparkling sugar adds a lot to these cookies. They looked a little plain to me before adding it. (Now that I am typing above all those dots and squiggles, it seems funny to call them plain, but trust me here.) :)

Here's a picture of my "sanding sugar station." In the silver cup, I have a mix of meringue powder and water. With my kids' paintbrush, I paint on the mixture and sprinkle on the sanding sugar over a coffee filter. After a several cookies, I use the coffee filter kind of like a funnel to pour the excess sugar back into the container. It doesn't roll off like it would on a plate or a paper towel.

Ateco is the brand of meringue powder I use. It is difficult to find since Sur La Table quit carrying it (grrr!), but instead of driving down to the cake decorating store, I ordered it from Amazon. It ships from a different company and I was thrilled when I ordered it on a Monday and it arrived on Friday!!! I highly recommend it!

Next year...

Next year, I want to make these....
They are from Martha Stewart, of course! :) A whole tree in cookie ornaments would be so fun and I bet it would smell so good!

Will someone remind me next year? ;)

Frozen assets

My frozen assets! I love that sugar cookies can be frozen!

I have a lot of cookies that I want to give and mail next week, but I knew I wouldn't have time to do it all at once. So, last night while watching The Year Without a Santa Claus and Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys (not recommended, BTW...stick with the original), I baked cookies...over 70 of them.

The cookies were bagged in gallon-size freezer baggies, between layers of wax paper (did you know Thomas Edison invented that...what a great guy!). Then, these were placed in freezer-safe plastic containers and will be ready when I am ready to ice them.

To thaw, just take them out of the freezer about 2 hours or more before decorating. (Do not refrigerate.)

Cookies already decorated with royal icing can also be frozen! This is great if you're planning a big party, just make your cookies in advance and pop in the freezer. Again, take them out a few hours before you need them, and you are all set. If you've bagged them, leave the cookies in the bags to thaw.

A holiday stand-by

I haven't started my Christmas baking yet, but I'm sure I will make at least 1 dozen package cookies sometime this month.

I love this cookie...it's cheerful and makes a great gift for just about anyone. I've made THOUSANDS of this cookie over the past nine years...take a peek at some of the variations...

The squiggly lines were made by dragging a toothpick through wet icing. For the holly leaves (I like the ones in the top pic best), I piped dots of royal icing onto the dried flood icing and then added leaves with a food coloring pen (Americolor Gourmet Writers).

And, of course, there are dots! To learn more about adding dots, click here.

Last year, I decided to change up the bow a little and add sanding sugar. Here's how to do it. I thought plain packages with the sugar would be cute, but ended up reverting back to dotty ones. :)This year, I think a light blue and red package would be really sweet!

Finally, fall

It's is finally feeling like fall around here. As I type, it is 48 degrees outside and the high is expected to only reach 55!!! This is what I love....bring on the sweaters, jackets and boots! To go with our fall-like weather, we have some fall cookies! I made two versions of acorns and leaves...dotty and with GOLD sparkling sugar. I was in desperate need to update my acorns. You can see here...years ago, the first and only time I made them (with apples)...blah. I think my cookies turn out better if I try not to be so literal with them. Know what I mean? The dots make them fun...to me at least. Here's more info on applying dots. This gold sparkling sugar is so pretty. I found it online at sugarcraft.com. It comes in silver, too. I bought it for Christmas cookies, but couldn't wait to dig into it. I think these would be pretty with a monogram on the leaves for a fall wedding.Our dining room table was half covered in cookies (I have a hard time making one batch of cookies). A box went to our contest winner, a box to my nephew, 4 boxes with my husband for customers and one to the volunteers at the food pantry where my son & I work every Thursday. Someday, I'd like to do this. Lydia at The Perfect Pantry is the woman behind this wonderful idea!

Happy fall, everyone! I'm off to enjoy this weather while it lasts!

And the cookies go to....

.....KaseysKrazyMommy! Yay! Congrats...cookies are on the way! Thank you to everyone who entered!

And how is this for cool? Fellow Texan, Mandy, at Home with Mandy, had a giveaway on her blog celebrating her 100th post. I discovered last night that I won!!! Yee-haw! Take a look at these gorgeous martini glasses! Check out her blog, too...oh my, it's filled with delicious recipes and great step-by-step instructions. Thank you, Mandy...I can't wait to break them in! ;)

Are you ready for a GIVEAWAY?

Wednesday is Bake at 350's 1 year blogiversary! Woo-hoo! :) In celebration, I thought we'd have a little giveaway.

Leave a comment on this post....with either a link to your blog or an email address so I can contact you...and a winner will be chosen at random on November 19th. The prize is...a box of cookies! :) (US address only.)

I'll leave you with the cookies we're taking to the end-of-season baseball party this afternoon. (No, these are not the giveaway cookies!) Nothing fancy, but my son really wanted them to have the team name on them. The more I wrote "giants" last night, the stranger it looked. I had to come out of the kitchen and ask my husband..."is giants spelled G-I-ANTS?" It still looks weird!

Happy Veterans Day...Baking GALS, part 2

Happy Veterans Day to the soldiers (past & present) in our life...Dad, Bob, Jane, Nana :) and Mike. Thank you all for your service and sacrifice! These cookies are for Jason, our soldier through Operation Baking Gals. Coconut Snowballs from Everyday Food.... the recipe is posted on Martha's website, here.

If you like coconut, you'll love these. They remind me a little bit of Mexican Wedding Cookies. I think they would be a perfect addition to a cookie tray for the holidays!

I had to send a little chocolate! :) These are Chocolate Chip Shortbread Cookies. I was a little frustrated by the recipe, but they came out really yummy! They are topped with sparkling sugar, although it's hard to see in the picture, so they are pretty and sparkly! :)

Crisp Chocolate Chip Shortbread

(adapted from holiday cookies by Land O' Lakes)

3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 & 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
3 tablespoons sparkling or large grain sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and almond extract in large bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy. Reduce speed to low; add flour, cornstarch and salt. Beat until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Pat dough into an ungreased 15 x 10 x 1" cookie sheet. (This is where I had a problem. There was NO way I could get the dough to cover the entire sheet. Next time I make these, I will press the dough onto the bottom of a 13 x 9" pan and see if that works better.) Sprinkle with sparkling sugar and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until edges are lightly browned. Immediately cut into squares or triangles (I used a bench scraper). Remove from pan when cool.

We interrupt the scheduled blog post to bring you...cheesecake!

I'll post part 2 of our cookie shipment later, but I had to post this cheesecake we had last night first. It is SO good!
This is a recipe form Martha Stewart Living magazine...No-Bake Spiderweb Cheesecake. I never got around to making it before Halloween, so I added squiggles on top instead of a spiderweb. Ganache has a different consistency than the royal icing I'm used to...you can see where my hand got a little shaky piping. (I think that means I have to make it again? Just for practice!) :) After trying it, my son declared that it should be called "dream cake." It's really that good...and rich...and not fat free! :) I'll be making this the next time we have company.

Operations Baking GALS, cookies on the way

Cookies are on the way to our soldier....a Marine stationed on the USS Essex. Our baking team, Dani's Delightful Darlings (through Operation Baking Gals), has 18 members. It's really exciting to think about how many soldiers on that ship will have some love from home in a week or two. (There are over 20 teams total, with 6 to 26 members each...that's a lot of baking!)

My son & I spent most of yesterday baking. Here's part 1 of our shipment:

Gingerbread Biscotti...

I tried to pick cookies that would ship well and hopefully taste fresh when they arrived. This recipe is from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion: The Essential Cookie Cookbook. If you don't own this book, I highly recommend it. It doesn't have a lot of pictures, but very detailed instructions and illustrations.

The recipe is actually on the King Arthur website. It seems daunting with 2 baking times, but really takes less time than rolling dough and decorating cookies. :)

My kitchen...house, actually...smelled like Christmas while these were baking. Absolute heaven!
Of course, taste testing is essential! ;) These were perfect with a cup of chai tea! See those vanilla beans in there? I used vanilla bean paste in place of the vanilla extract.
I've posted this recipe before for 1-2-3-4 Peanut Butter Cookies. They are delicious and from the same cookbook.

Stay tuned for part 2 of our shipment. Godspeed to our soldier...and we are thankful to all our service men and women and their families for their enormous sacrifice!

Baseball (?) season

Yes, it's still baseball season here in Texas. Our family was scheduled to bring snacks to my son's game yesterday. When I sold cookies, baseball cookies were probably the cookies I made the most. Texas is not just football country!

I realized Halloween night as I was getting ready to ice these, that I was out of disposable icing bags....my own personal Halloween horror!!! Rather than run out, dodging trick-or-treaters, I used gallon freezer baggies. In a pinch, they worked, although they were not as easy to use as the icing bags. My advice...baggies are for emergency icing situations only! :)

To make the baseball mitts:

• Using a #3 tip, outline around the edge of a baseball mitt cookie in dark brown icing....you'll make the "fingers" later. (AmeriColor Chocolate Brown)
• Thin medium brown icing with water to a syrup-y consistency and cover with a damp towel. Let sit several minutes. (AmeriColor Chocolate Brown)
• Run a rubber spatula gently through the icing to pop any bubbles that have formed on top. Pour into a squeeze bottle.
• Fill in the cookie with the flood icing. Let dry 1 hour or more.
• Again with the dark brown icing and #3 tip, pipe the details including the fingers on the mitt.
• In red icing, with a #3 tip, pipe the remaining details. (AmeriColor Super Red)

Sweet Tombstones...and a BRUSH WITH MARTHA!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

First, here are the tombstones, or headstones, for Halloween. These were fun to make. I don't know if you can tell, but the flowers are supposed to be wilted like an old neglected grave.
I used AmeriColor Gourmet Writers (food coloring pens) to write the names.
....and here they are all bagged up and ready. My husband is taking some to his customers today. :)
OK....so a "brush with Martha." Really, it's not so much HER, but as close as I'll ever get. :) Do you read Martha's Everyday Food blog? It's called Dinner Tonight, and is one of the blogs in my google reader. Well, today they have a link to some of their "favorite creations" from a gallery of creepy treats submitted by readers.

Guess who had 2 cookies make the list....ME!!! This just makes my day! Is it sad that I had to get up and do a little "happy dance" when I saw them? Maybe...probably! :)

See if you can spot them. And, have a wonderfully sweet and spooky Halloween! BOO!