Cute Cookies

I am obsessed with cookies at the moment. I have seen the most beautiful cookies lately and I'm just passionate about cookies right now, I want to try and bake and decorate ever single one I see. I want to bake them for home, I want to bake them for friends, party favors, for the dog, anything at all.

For my niece's first communion we decided to give dress cookies as a favor. Much like these ones in the picture, but not the same ones. I had no time to take pictures of my niece's. I think cookies make a great gift and if they look beautiful as well as being delicious, even better!

I got these great wedding cake cookie cutters (I'm pretty sure everyone has them) that also come with a stencil so the cake looks decorated! Of course I had to try all 3 stencils.

This one's cute but not my favorite.

This is my favorite!!


The sugar cookie recipe I use is the best one I've tasted. And you won't believe where I got it from, the back of a Wilton's sugar cookie cutter box! I know! Unbelievable.

You will need:

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 F. In mixer bowl, cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and extracts. Mix flour, baking powder and salt, add to the butter mixture 1 cup at a time mixing after each addition. Do not chill dough. Divide dough into 2 balls. On a floured surface, roll each ball in a circle approx. 12 inches in diameter and 1/8 inch thick. Dip cookie cutter in fluor before each use. Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet 6-7 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies. 4 dozen!!!!!!!


These are topped with Marshmallow Fondant and Royal Icing. You can find both of these recipes here and here.

Enjoy!!

First Communion Cupcakes

I don't know if you know this but I have 5 nieces. Yes, FIVE! So you can imagine that when I have to bake them something it's never easy. They all have different tastes, the mothers want different things and they're always adding on at the last minute.

This year, today in fact, two of my nieces have their first communion, so we had been thinking about their favors for a while and what to make them. Well, my sister saw these really really cute cupcakes in Bakerella's blog and she just flipped! She wanted them, had to have them.

The catch was that she wanted them with Buttercream, not fondant, but also they had to be packed in individual bags. Impossible! So what we did was fill them up with buttercream and just top them off with marshmallow fondant so they would look great and taste even better!

I used this great MMF recipe from Cake Journal which comes out perfect every time.

Aren't they the cutest thing ever?

They came out great and delicious. My sister's going to love them, my niece is going to flip out and all the other parents are going to hate my sister when all the little kids dressed in perfect white are covered in chocolate! Hehe.

I also had to make 50 cookie favors for my other niece, but for those I will probably post tomorrow since I didn't have time to take pictures yesterday...