More Cookies

Wow, I've learned from my mistakes. The first being, remember that you substitute 1/2 crisco butter flavored for butter in the cookies. The second, don't roll out the cookies on a REALLY humid day. Both of these factors, went into my cutout cookies that I just got done making. They came out fine, and taste great, but were a pain. And I had to work really, really quickly!

I went back to the cutout cookie recipe I used two times ago. I still think I prefer the one I usually use, but I just can't get over all of the waste of the eggs in the recipe. I should try to figure out if I can just use 1 whole egg in place of 2 egg whites... I guess I'll have to look into it!

Birthday Cakes

I had a busy weekend of baking cakes. I had to do two Elmo birthday cakes.. They were so fun. I used the frozen buttercream transfer method and was very happy with the results. My only problem I had was that the cake recipes I used were for bundt pans and they sunk in the middle more then I would have liked. The taste was excellent though. Very moist! I will have to try to research it a bit further. I also, used a different buttercream and I had pros and cons to it. I'd maybe use it again with some changes. But you never know until you try, and I really liked not having to use meraigne powder.

So, here it is!

Buttercream

Well, I'm on a baking marathon the next month or so. I've got three orders, so it will definetely keep me busy. I made all of the buttercream for the cakes for this weekend. I tried a new recipe that is a crusting buttercream but elliminates the meraigne powder and uses dream whip instead. I didn't really see much difference, however, I haven't tried to do anything with it yet. I also made a batch of "buttery buttercream" to do the frozen buttercream transfer with. That I will start tonight along with baking the cakes.. So much to do, so little time. Of course, I'll post the finished product.

Back to Banana

Tomorrow Jeff and I have a wedding to go to so I thought I'd make some cookies for the babysitters. Since I have bananas in the freezer, I"m going to make chocolate chip banana cookies. These have to be one of my favorites. I do make the frosting for the top, but these are wonderfully soft, and almost like a cake! I'm going to eliminate the walnuts since my father in law can't have nuts and may add a few extra chocolate chips. I've been making these for years, and they are always a hit!

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes.aspx/chunky-banana-chocolate-chip-cookies

Catching Up

Well, I'm just catching up a bit. Seems like with the new house, I'm still baking, but just not getting my pictures uploaded. Here are some pictures of cookies I decorated for a graduation party. These were not my favorite of all I've ever made, but there were so many of them, I didn't have the time to focus on the detail. The chocolate cake is the darn good chocolate cake from the cake mix dr. Came out wonderful, it is such a good cake, I froze some to use to make ice cream blizzards. I forgot to take a picture of the cake out of the pan unfortuantely. The other picture is of a blueberry custard pie. I got the recipe from allrecipes.com. The pie was good. The custard part was good, but I think I'd have prefered a little more of a traditional custard then a sour cream based one. There was a hint of sour cream taste rather then sweetness. But the crumb topping and blueberry part were great. I also made a cream cheese pie crust to go with it. I noticed that these crusts brown so much better then store bought ones. I think I'm hooked on making my own pie crusts. Mmmm Pie! Enjoy!