Baking Day!

Saturday we decided to do some of our Christmas baking. I mixed up some cookie dough in the morning, and the afternoon we got busy! I am pretty sure I had more dough on the floor than in cookie form, but hey, isn't that what it's all about??!! Of course it is, it's not about making a huuuuge mess of the kitchen, and spending hours cleaning it up.

It's all about the smiles you get as you make the mess:) And by the way, we used the cookie cutters that I got in my giveaway box from the all-wonderful Rachelle!!! We had so much fun using all the cookie cutters:) The first batch we rolled too thin, which made them crispy. The second batch I made today with the daycare kids (can you say CRAZY?? Honestly, WHO would choose to bake cookies with 9 children?? Hmmm???) was much better, I didn't roll it out so thin, therefore a much softer cookie. Yumm!

Soft Sugar Cookies

3 3/4 C all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 C butter

1 1/2 C. sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Cream together the softened butter and sugar, add eggs one at a time, then vanilla. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, gradually add to the butter mixture. Shape into a large ball, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours. Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness, cut out with cookie cutters, bake at 400 degrees for 6-8 minutes.

Today I also managed to make some toffee, and peppermint biscotti! I will be posting both recipes this week. I cannot wait for tomorrow morning to enjoy the biscotti with my steamy mug of coffee:)

Linking up to:

Tasty Tuesday

Tempt My Tummy Tuesday

Pumpkin Cookies

Today was our daycare Halloween party which was fun, but also a lot of work and a lot of hyper little costumed kids screaming and crying because it took me 45 minutes to get them dressed only to have them rip them off right after I took pics. *sigh* Besides that, it was fun!

I made a pumpkin shaped pizza for lunch, played Halloween bingo and pin the nose on the Jack-O-Lantern. For prizes I made them all Halloween bookmarks, gotta love free printables online!! And for dessert, I found this FABULOUS recipe for Pumpkin Cookies that are really incredible. Very moist and flavorful, I made a normal cream cheese frosting to frost them with, and then let the kids frost them and add some Halloween sprinkles. What fun (and mess:) they had!!

Super Soft Pumpkin Cookies
1 C. Butter, softened
1 C. sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 C. canned pumpkin puree
2 C. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 pkg instant vanilla pudding

Preheat oven to 350 and grease cookie sheets. In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla, stir in pumpkin puree. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and pudding; gradually add to pumpkin mixture. Using cookie scoop, or spoon, shape dough into balls and place two inches apart on cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until edges are golden brown.

For the cream cheese frosting, mix together 1/4 C softened butter, 1/2 pkg softened cream cheese, 1/4 tsp vanilla and 1 C. powdered sugar. Add enough milk to the right consistency.

Rachel said these would be perfect for breakfast, and I think she's right, would be better with a steaming hot cup of coffee??!! Have a wonderful and SAFE Halloween everyone!!