Happy Valentine’s Day {Sugar Cookies}

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

I must say that I have never been a fan of Valentine’s Day.  Whether I was single, dating or married, the purpose of the day was lost on me.  All purposes save one.  The delicious factor.  You know what I mean.  Chocolates.  Desserts.  And of course, cookies.

With sugar cookies on the brain lately, I finally sat down and decorated sugar cookies for friends.  My experience has been that most cut-out decorated sugar cookies have lacked great flavor.  Well, not these.  These cookies are perfect.  Full of flavor and tender crumb.  The cookies are not overly sweet, which works well when paired with the royal icing, which let’s admit may not be the most delicious thing to put on top of a cookie.

And, as a novice at the decorated sugar cookie, I fully expected my cookies to be imperfect and composed of minor, superficial blemishes.  However, with a superior base product, I would gladly eat and share these cookies with my family and friends.

Sugar Cookies
–  from Annie’s Eats

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 and 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 and 1/2 cup sifted flour

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Cream butter until fluffy and add powdered sugar until fully incorporated and light.
3. Add egg, almond extract, vanilla extract, salt and flour to the butter mixture until well blended (in that order).
4. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least two hours, until the dough has firmed up.
5. Once chilled, on a lightly floured surface, roll out the cookie dough to a 1/4 inch thickness.  If your dough keeps sticking, I suggest alternating between flour and powdered sugar to powder to the surface.  This way you won’t run the risk of adding too much flour to the mixture.
6. After rolling, cut out your desired shapes with cookie cutters.  Transfer the cookies to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
7. Bake for 8-10 minutes until only barely browned on the bottom.  You do not want to brown these cookies.
8. Allow the cookies to cool on a cooling rack completely before decorating.  If you don’t intend on decorating right away, store in an airtight container until it is time to decorate.

Baby Shower Goods

I have been in a work-related whirlwind for the past three weeks.  The end of this whole mess was marked by the most fantabulous baby shower I have ever received.  Well, I’m not one for surprises and I wanted to be involved.  I donated my baking abilities.  Remember the smorgasbord?

After a grueling three weeks of response writing, which at the end included a grand total of 600 complied documents, 60 of which were my written product, I went on a baking spree.

Meet the results.  (Lemon Blossoms from here; Goat Cheese Terrine from here; Mexican Wedding Cookies from here.)

And, some additional items.  (Pumpkin bread and chocolate cookies – recipes to come)

My mom made Southwestern Egg Rolls – yep, she’s that awesome, and my MIL made her famous chicken salad sandwiches on croissant.

It was foodie heaven.

And presents and decorations heaven.

I must say that this really did mark the beginning of nesting and preparing for the new baby’s arrival.  I have had baby on the brain night and day.  I plan on balancing that out with more baking.  🙂

How do you unwind?  Do you cook your stress away?

How I Do Art

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I’ve been stalking most of the internet for house decor purchases lately.

I have some wall space to the right of my fireplace where I knew I wanted to hang some framed art – something that really represented Binks and I.

I found the perfect frames for the area at West Elm.

Most of my stalking revolves around Etsy.  Quite coincidentally, I found poordogfarm and I really fell in love with two pieces in particular.

I always refer to Binks as a Little Bird.

And he refers to me an as Elephant.

(Let’s say when we were dating, I took great offense to this at first because I thought he was just calling me fat.  But, after finding out the reasons, I realized how special it really is.  Plus, if he was making jokes, I’ll just squash that little bird with one leg.)

The classic prints look perfect in the frames.

I can’t wait to hang them up this weekend.

Where and how do you art?  Do you stalk Etsy?  What are some of your favorite Etsy sellers?