Sugar Cookies with Buttercream Icing {Cookie Exchange!}

This is one of my most cherished recipes.

Growing up, my mom was always volunteering for everything imaginable.  Need someone to sew costumes?  She'd sew.  Need someone to teach Sunday School or VBS?  She'd step in.  Need someone to be room mom?  There she was!

I always knew that my mom worked extremely hard to make things special for my brother and I.  Now that I'm juggling my own little family, I have even more respect for all the amazing things she did for us.  One of the things she was known for in her room mom days was her amazingly wonderful sugar cookies with buttercream icing.  These were made faithfully for just about every class party you could imagine.  I was always so proud to say "my mom made these" when all the kids lined up trying to grab an extra cookie.

So without further ado, here is her fabulous sugar cookie recipe.  I've made just a couple changes, switching out shortening and margarine to unsalted sweet cream butter.  Because butter only makes things better.  ;)

Mom's Sugar Cookies

3/4 cup of unsalted sweet cream butter, room temperature
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Add the butter, sugar, and eggs to a stand mixer (or a large bowl with hand beater) and beat until smooth.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.

With the mixer on low, gradually add the flour mixer until everything is well blended and the dough starts to pull away from the bowl.

Turn the dough out onto a well floured surface, and roll out to 1/4" thick.  Cut out cookies using cookie cutters of your choice, and lay cookies on an un-greased cookie sheet, about 1-2" apart.

Bake in 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes or until edges are just slightly turning golden.  Allow cookies to rest on baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling racks to cool completely.  Ice cookies once they are completely cooled.

Buttercream Icing

2/3 cup unsalted sweet cream butter, room temperature
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon milk
food coloring (optional)

Place butter in a stand mixer (or large bowl with hand beaters) and beat until smooth.  With the mixer on low, slowly add the sifted confectioner's sugar until it is all incorporated well.  Add the milk and vanilla while beating on medium-low.  Once the icing is a smooth consistency, you may add food coloring if you like.  If the icing becomes too watery due to too much food coloring, add a little more sifted confectioner's sugar until the consistency becomes a little more stiff.

You can use the icing to "butter" your cookies and then add sprinkles on top, toss it in a Ziploc bag with a corner cut to pipe easy designs onto the cookies, or use decorating bags and tips to make more intricate designs.  Keep it as simple as or make it as fancy as you like.

Enjoy!

P.S. For todiefor Gingersnap cookies, these are an oldie but a goodie. :)

P.P.S I'm linking up today with Edie at Life In Grace!  Head over to her beautiful blog to see more wonderful cookie recipes. :)

Ma's Buttermilk Pie

Edie at Life in Grace hosted a lovely linky party this week with all kinds of recipes for goodies.  You must, must, MUST check it out.  But only after you put your fat pants on first.  I intended to join in, but the week got away from me.  Sooo...I'm linking up now!  Better fashionably late than never, right?  ;)

Without further ado, I give you {drum roll please....}

Ma's Buttermilk Pie

This is a family recipe if ever there was one, and it is my Christmas gift to you my friends.  Ma is my Great-Grandmother on my Daddy's side...my Daddy's Mother's Mother.  I never had the pleasure of meeting Ma, but her legacy of good home cooking has been passed down to me and I am eternally grateful.  Here is her recipe, as was handed down to me, for the pie which must be present at all our family functions from Thanksgiving to New Year's. 

Ingredients:

3 eggs {just stir up}
2 cups sugar
2 heaping tablespoons flour {table spoon off the table, heaping with as much as spoon will hold} 
1 stick margarine melted {don't tell Ma, but I use unsalted butter instead!}
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt {I use kosher...it's easier to pinch ;) }

Mix ingredients in order given.  Pour into one 10" unbaked pie shell {or double recipe and use three 8" or 9" shells}.  Bake for 1 hour at 325 degrees or until done. 

It's best if you let it cool to room temperature before cutting into it.  But...who am I kidding?  We always make 2...just because we can't let it cool and end up "tasting" half the pie every. single. year.

Now get your fat pants out and enjoy!!

Planning for the Holidays

This is my favorite time of year, hands down.

I don't know about you but I love the relief of cooler weather after a scorching, hot summer.  That, coupled with celebrations spaced out every 3 weeks or so, makes for a very fun time of year.

This is also the time of year when I feel most pressured to make everything perfect.  The Type-A Monster in me comes out to rear her ugly head.  I must cook Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner e.x.a.c.t.l.y. as my Granny did all her years.  My New Year's luncheon must look just like my Mema's, because it won't be New Year's without the right foods.  I must bake and take cookies to all my neighbors, and send Christmas cards to everyone in my address book because that's what my mother has done all her years.  It goes on and on and on.

In addition, I have a new friend...the Must Be A Perfect Mommy Monster, who is challenging me to make my son's 1st birthday picture perfect.  Of course, if I fail he will find some way to blame his angst-filled teenage years on the time when I didn't throw him the perfect 1st birthday party.  {I'm kidding here, y'all know that right?}

It should come as no surprise that I have decided I don't want to entertain these Monsters this holiday season.  In an effort to keep type-A thoughts at bay, I am doing the following:

Splitting Thanksgiving dinner with my mom and aunt.  Many hands make light work.  This is a lesson I learned last year, when the Kiddo and I were past our due date, and I physically could not cook Thanksgiving dinner.  Instead, they brought Thanksgiving to me.  It is so freeing to choose not to care about the food being perfect, and instead, to care infinitely more about who is at my table, and enjoying my time spent with loved ones.  Granny would so approve.

Keeping Kiddo's birthday party realistic.  Food?  Check.  Keeping it simple with burgers.  Cake?  Check.  Friends and Relations?  Check.  Throw in some streamers and maybe a crafty pennant banner and some grocery store balloons and we're good.  I did not spend hours searching for the perfect invitations.  I designed them myself {BTW, easy to do even if all you have is Word}, saved the file as a .JPG, and had them printed at Walgreens for about $5.  I even used envelopes I already had.  Done.

I am not putting up my tree on Black Friday.  This is huge for me...I am the one who hates to see decorations before Thanksgiving, but the minute Thanksgiving has passed, I am out at the tree lot looking for a good one.  I am trying something new this year...delayed gratification.  I want to savor Thanksgiving and the Kiddo's birthday before decking my halls this year.  {However, I must admit that I have already introduced Christmas carols to the Kiddo's bedtime routine.  I can't help myself on that one.  ;) }
 

I am shopping/shipping gifts early this year.  And I'm having the mailman deliver my boxes and pick them up, too.  No waiting in line with a toddler on my hip to send something at the last minute.

 Last year's advent wreath.

I will focus on new and old traditions and making memories.  I will still bake, and craft, and make things merry, but this year we are celebrating Advent by doing a Jesse Tree.  I want to teach my son about why we celebrate Christmas...and I know that I need to be reminded daily, too.  Will the Kiddo remember this Christmas?  No.  But I will.  :)

I'm curious now - what are you doing to celebrate this year...and what have you decided is okay to let go of this year?

Better Late Than Never!

Many exciting things happened in December 2010.  Here is a quick recap…

My wonderful baby boy (and the reason for my lapse in blogging) was born December 1, 2010.  9 lb. 2 oz., 21.5".

Our Christmas card photo…yes this was taken 3 days after the Kiddo was born.  I did my hair and make-up just before it was taken, and strategically cropped it to hide the swelling from my IVs and the baby weight.  Also, you should know that I cried many postpartum tears that morning and again after we took pictures.  Please don't think that you should be up to taking pictures 3 days after having a baby…I sure didn't and was insane to do this!

My brother, his girlfriend, Emily, and their 2 dogs, Carson and Margo, came for a visit...it was Emily's first visit to Texas...you can't visit without seeing the Alamo!  And eating Tex-Mex...which tasted a lot better when I was pregnant!

We had our annual family Christmas celebration at my aunt's house, and my Mema got to meet the Kiddo for the first time.

 

We had a very quiet New Year's Eve and celebrated both New Year's Day and our little one's first month anniversary.  It's hard to believe my baby is already one month old...he's getting so big so fast!

 

I hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas.  Here's to new and exciting things to come in 2011!