Fantastic, delicious, and easy!

So when my husband goes away to work for long periods of time (like his 60 day trip he is currently on) I try and send him baked goodies. Well I was blessed not to long ago by my wonderful mother in law who got me a Kitchenaid Mixer! I have wanted one for about 10 years and I have to say, IT WAS WORTH EVERY MINUTE I WAITED! That being said, I am constantly trying to find new things to make and sending my husband a goodie package was one of them. I need to make cookies that will last in an airtight container for at least a weeks time and they have to taste good. I am a picky cookie person myself as I do not like like a dry cookie. It has to be moist and not all crumbly. So while searching for said new recipes I came across a blogger's site that is officially my favorite and an inspiration to me and my kitchen! http://bakeat350.blogspot.com/ is a great place for cookies! I used her recipe for homemade oreos and while I did not make them as thick as she did, they came out TASTY! (I copied this from her amazing website so that I didn't mess it up lol). I would like to change this recipe a tad as I personally feel the chocolate level is not up to par...granted they are beyond heavenly but I want some more chocolate all up in my cookie experience. I will update more on that when I do it! Oh yes, and I did not had the espresso as I did not have any and I didn't want to chance them coming out with any coffee taste since my husband does not like coffee at all...I know crazy right?! ANYWAYS....

Chocolate Cut-Out Cookies
{modified from Cookie Craft}

2 & 1/2 c. all-purpose, unbleached flour
1/2 c. dutch-process cocoa (natural is OK, too)
1 tsp instant espresso powder
1/2 tsp. coarse salt
1 c. unsalted butter
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk together the flour,cocoa, espresso powder and salt; set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light an fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla until well combined.

In 3 additions, add the flour mixture at low speed. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl as needed.

Roll the dough on a lightly floured and cocoa-ed surface. (I mixed the 2 of these, then spread on my rolling surface, on my rolling pin, and used it to dip my cookie cutters.)

Cut the cookies with a cookie cutter and if necessary, using a scraper.

Freeze cut cookies five minutes.

Bake 8 minutes. Let cool completely.

Here was my adventure!


Cut and ready to be put on a baking sheet! The tool I used for this:
It lets me transfer cookies from the counter to the baking sheet with ease =)

Now I have never made Royal Icing before so this was an interesting experience for me. There are lots of different ways to make royal icing I am finding out, but I will do a separate blog about that! So here are the finished cookies!

And here is my brutal attempt at piping letters...which I should have known wasn't going to be all that pretty when I could barely trace the outline of my heart shaped cookies ha.


So while they look like someone who has never done this before has done this...go figure...they taste out of this world. I am going to mess around with different combo's of filling for these bad boys and shapes/decorating. I will keep you updated on how that goes. I also want to start messing around with cupcakes but I think I need to master the cookie first. Then I will move on!