practice motherly type things last week. Julie and I that is. Ryan and Andy were uninterested.
Disclaimer: Neither one of us are in the, how should I say it...hmm..."family way." We just were visiting while rolling and cutting and mixing that its good to practice these things before we do actually have kids, so that we at least know what we are doing and don't have to learn and teach at the same time. Ok. Moving on.
So we persevered and did our first Christmas baking without our moms. (At least it was my first...I guess I shouldn't speak for Julie.)
We took on sugar cookies, peanut butter balls, and butter cream frosting.
We listened to Christmas music and baked. I really enjoyed it.
The cookie making was possibly the easiest and most successful recipe I have ever used. Not that I have made tons of cookies in my day, but hey...if Paula Dean says its good, then its good. Here is the link.
For some unknown reason, we couldn't get one batch off the pan. We can't decide if it was improperly greased or if it was the type of pan that ultimately caused the problem.
It was rough.
Finley thought all the excitement in the kitchen was great fun and wanted to get in on the fun. We aren't sure how he got into the powdered sugar, but he did.
Sadly, I didn't get pictures of the peanut butter balls, but that's ok, they weren't that great. They tasted good, but didn't get quite hard enough, and we had to pour the chocolate over the top. Next time we will try something different.
However, on a more positive note, the frosting was awesome! It came out perfectly.
Four ingredients - butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and a tid bit of whipping cream.
I would like to insert a thank you here.
THANK YOU!That is for the kind wedding guests that provided gift cards so that we could purchase the Kitchen Aid mixer.
The frosting was the perfect consistency of fluffy and spreadable, but also thick and tasty.
The recipe can be found here.
I would recommend it. And so would my dad...
He is a frosting connoisseur...self-proclaimed, but nonetheless, an aficionado.
We took him the leftovers to use on graham crackers.
But first, we colored it red and green and enticed the guys (with chips and salsa) to help us out in the decorating.
This one is Ryan's. He worked hard.
If you can correctly identify the frosting design, I will personally buy you your beverage of choice at Sonic. If several answer correctly, I will have an uninterested party (ie my dad) pick a number. So without further ado...
Happy guessing.