Yellow Stars Sugar Cookies

I think I'm getting better at decorating! Hubby let me I purchased a #2 tip for outlining the other day at Ben Franklin... before this, I was using #4 tip because that's all that Wal-Mart had.  It was a lot easier to handle the #2 tip for the curves and decorations, and I liked using #4 to flood the middle.  It came out a lot better than the hearts.

However, my three followers may not know this but I am a new mommy, and I have a hard time finding the time to bake.  I either bake when BJ is sleeping or when HJ is home.  Well, this time, HJ was home but he was outside doing something in the yard.  After I got done outlining my stars, I filled in all of my cookies with the watered down icing and was about to spread out the icing... when BJ started crying!!! HJ tried to help and spread out my filling, but by the time he got there, most of my stars dried. I forgot to take pictures of those.  Well, actually, I purposely didn't take pictures of those because they turned out so bad!  But my nice ones came out pretty good.  Still not in sell-able condition but Im excited that I'm getting better.

I gave the nice stars to SIL as a present... and gave the rest of the junkie stars to MIL, FIL, and BIL. Lucky for me, they like sweets.  :-)

Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Cookies

Alright!  I made more yummy cookies... but they don't look very appealing!  I think I need to study how to take better blog pictures because every time I try to take pictures of my baking items, they resemble poop.  Oh gosh. Maybe I just like to make things that resemble poop because I have a newborn? Who knows....

Anyway, here's how my cookies turned out:

And here's the recipe:

Old Fashioned Peanut Butter Cookies

To make the Chocolate Covered Part:

Melt in a double boiler:*

1 Ghiradelli Chocolate Bar
1 Tbsp Butter

Dip cookies in after the chocolate is melted.

*I don't have a double boiler so I just boiled water in a large pot and melted the chocolate in a smaller pot on top of the boiling water.


I have to figure out how to make the chocolate harden more.  In order for the chocolate to harden, I had to stick the cookies in the fridge.  This worked fine, except whenever I took a cookie out of the fridge, it would condensate.  AND> I burned myself on the oven door!  I seem to have a bad habit of pulling the oven door half way and pulling my items out, and as I was trying to pull my cookie sheet out of the oven, I rested my arm on the inside of the oven door!  What a dummie.  Now I have a quarter-size black scar on my arm that I hope will go away in time.  HJ's burn mark is still on his leg from months ago...

At least the cookies turned out good! hehe.

Pink Heart Sugar Cookies

 I have been scouring blogs looking for baking ideas to try, and I found the perfect thing to try.  Easy, fun, yummy SUGAR COOKIES!  (Find the recipe here.)  It looked so easy, I told HJ I think I could start a business making these... I should have actually tried making it before I made this statement.  Decorative sugar cookies are harder than they look!  I told you I'd be honest in my posts, right? Well... look at my disaster:

Looks like a pile of poop I need practice!

Okay, so they actually tasted good, and they didn't all turn out that bad:

But, ahem, I still need practice. 

 HJ and I also discovered another problem.... who is going to eat all of these things I bake??? HJ is trying to watch his weight, and I'm still trying to lose the baby weight, so we don't want to eat sweets.  I don't want to make them and throw them away... what to do, what to do.  

First Post

Hi readers.  My name is Tracy and this is my second blog.  (My first blog is all about being a mommy.  You can find it here.)  In this blog, I will attempt to bake an assortment of goods from scratch.  I've always been a 'box cake' kind of girl... but since becoming a mom, the inner-homemaker in me has been begging to come out; so I figured, why not document my experiences?

I'll do my very best to create high-quality baked goods, but sometimes they won't turn out the way I wanted... and I'll make sure to be honest in my posts and let you know either way!