Wordless Wednesday

More Birthday Cake

Three month birthday cake for my nephew James.  White cake, American buttercream frosting, colored fondant rings. 

Rolled Butter Cookies

 

For some reason this year, I have had a hard time getting into the Christmas season.  It's only three weeks away, and I have made no preparations.  Usually most of my Christmas gifts are purchased and I have decorated my house, but not yet this year.  Then yesterday, it snowed.  A beautiful wet stick to the ground snow.  Now it feels like winter, now if feels like Christmastime.  It's time to start baking!

These cookies are the version of sugar cookies my husband's grandmother always used to make.  They are delicious and buttery.  They are good plain, but we prefer them with the powdered sugar glaze.

Rolled Butter Cookies
3 cups flour-sifted
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 cup butter at room temperature
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Put flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.  Cut in softened butter with a pastry blender until the particles are fine.  (I actually usually do this in my food processor, but a pastry blender by hand will do just fine.)  After the butter is mixed in, add the egg, milk, and vanilla.  Mix thoroughly.  Refrigerate for at least one hour or up to three days.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface until it's 1/8 inch thick.  Cut into shapes as desired.

Bake at 400 degrees for 5-8 minutes.

Cool completely.

Frost with a mixture of 2 cups powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon vanilla and 5-6 tablespoons milk.

Add sprinkles!

Wordless Wednesday

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

So I made these pumpkin whoopie pies a few weeks ago and I was totally amazed at how easy they were.  They turned out to be such cute little cakey cookies with a delicious cream cheese frosting.  But then, the weirdest thing happened.  I put them in an airtight container overnight and when I opened the container to serve them the next evening, they were watery.  As in there was liquid all over the bottom of the container.  I have no idea what happened.  Any ideas??  Is that a pumpkin thing? 

Wordless Wednesday

Chocolate Pecan Pie

I am addicted to cookbooks.  Oftentimes, I like reading them and looking at the pictures, daydreaming about baking for hours.  I really love church cookbooks.  Man, those ladies (and gents) can bake.  Those spiral bound collections of everyone's family recipes are fantastic.

This chocolate pecan pie is from my mother in law's church cookbook.  I tweaked it a little bit, the original recipe only had pecans for garnish and I love pecans so I amped up the amount of pecans.

Chocolate Pecan Pie adapted from A Taste of Asbury
1 9 inch pie shell-honestly, I used Pillsbury's ready to use crust, I was in a time pinch
Filling:
1 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup pecan halves

Beat together the corn syrup, sugar, butter, vanilla, and eggs.  Mix in chocolate chips and pecans.  Pour into pie shell.  Bake for an hour at 325 degrees or until the filling is set.  Allow to cool because the combination of corn syrup and hot chocolate chips will burn your mouth like none other.