12 Days of Christmas // Day 3 // Cinnamon Roll Cookies

Ack! Welcome to the third day of the blog party! Go HERE to visit Faith's blog and see the list of bloggers posting today with their awesome Chritmas posts!!

So for this post...you all get to see me attempt to try a new recipe! I had actually seen my friend already try to make it, and since they looked so good I decided to try them myself. And yep...as is typical when I'm in the kitchen, I encountered problems. BIG ones. But anyway. You'll get to that later. So! Onto some Cinnamon Roll Cookies!

So to start you will need: 

2 1/4 cup Flour 

3/4 cup White Sugar

3/4 cup Butter

1 Egg

1/2 tsp of Baking Powder

aaaand

2 teaspoons Vanilla

Take the butter and sugar and mix it together. And then beat it. Very well.

You'll know you've beat it enough when it becomes lighter and fluffier. Something like this.

Drop in that egg and mix it up. One key thing when making cookies is to make sure you stir it enough...but not too much. Otherwise it'll get all doughy and icky.

Once that egg's stirred in, stir in that oh so good smelling but awful tasting vanilla.

Dump in the flour (ok so don't actually dump in the flour. I was in a hurry and dumped it and...yep! Got flour aaaaaallll over me. That was fun xD) Anywayyyy...stir that in until just incorporated.

My dough was extremely dry (I'm blaming the extreme cold outside and inside cause really, our house is like a fridge...might I even say freezer? in winter) soooo I used my fingers to bring the dough together.

Once you've got the dough together into a ball, cut it in half and then leave it to rest while you get your filling. I mean, they are cinnamon roll cookies, so of course it needs a filling! For anyone who's made cinnamon rolls before, you probably already know what's in here.

Sooooo you will need:

2 tablespoons Butter (sofftened or melted, whatever's easier for you)
1/4 cup white Sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Gonna say now though...if you feel like you need more of any of those ingredients - go for it. I added more cinnamon to mine because *shrugs* You can never have too much cinnamon.

Excuse the peculiar rotation of my picture. Didn't quite upload properly xD)

Mix the cinnamon and sugar together and watch all those lovely swirls blend together.

Now for the fun part...aka the really messy part. Grab one of the balls of dough and place it on a mat or cutting board or parchment paper. Now, I tried it on a flexible cutting board we had - BIG mistake. My dough was waaaaay too crumbly and trying to roll it up was a HUGE mess because it kept cracking :/ SO...what I ended up doing was adding a liiiiitle water (very, very tiny bit) to my second ball of dough and letting it soften up a bit before rolling it out.

So yeah! Take a rolling pin and roll your dough out into a rectangle. Also...I reeeeaaaallly don't like it when recipes say by how many inches the length and width of said rectangle should be....because well...is it normal to have a ruler to measure your dough with or something? If it is...I shall admit then I am not normal. Cause yeahhhh....I've never rolled dough out exactly as the recipe says :P I just guesstimate. Since you're rolling UP the dough, you want to make sure it's not too thin otherwise you're gonna have a rather hard time.

Once the dough's rolled out to your desired thickness, length, and width, spread half of the butter (remember you have another ball you gotta roll out) all over the dough.

Then sprinkle on the cinnamon-sugar! Don't forget the edges...they don't want to be left out. 

Aaaannddd...as I mentioned earlier, after this you roll your dough up just like a cinnamon roll. Start at one end of the dough and begin to roll it up, moving along the dough until one roll is complete, and then going back over to do it. Rolling it tightly is KEY for the cookies to come out properly.

And taking a short break from ingredient pictures to show you my dear sister's face as she watched me dispair over my first roll since it cracked all the way up to the end xD

This here's the second ball of dough...softened and rolled out a liiiitle thicker than the second one. Also placed it on parchment paper which helps soooo much. It rolled waaaay better too.

After you've got your dough all rolled up, place it in the fridge and let it chill. For some recipes, you can skip the chilling, but for these ones, you MUST chill the dough. Otherwise you will completely lose the shape of your dough.

It also helps sooo much when you cut out your dough since it's all nice and firm. I think this was my favourite part of the recipe...cutting the dough into nice little swirly circles. So fun!

Lay your cookies on a baking tray and stick them in an oven preheated to 350 degrees F for 10-12 minutes. 

Once they're brown underneath, you'll know they're done. 

Once they're cool, it's time for the next step that is crucial for any cinnamon roll to be a cinnamon roll. Don't know about you, but cinnamon rolls just aren't complete until they have...

ICING. Your icing is pretty simple to make, just milk and icing sugar and a little vanilla if you want it. Watch the consistency of your icing though, too thick and it won't drizzle nicely, but too thin and it'll just become invisible on your cookie! It must be just right, as Baby Bear would say ;)

And there! You're done! They make a great cookie for parties or just a snack at home! I was able to bring them to our church youth Christmas party, which was sooo fun ^_^

Let me know if you try this recipe at home! I'd love to see pictures of them :D And let me know how the rolling goes ;)

Do you like frosting on cinnamon roll cookies? 

What's one of your favourite Christmas cookies? 

You ready for Christmas??

10 More Days to Go!!! 

12 DoC // Sugar Cookies

You all ready for another family-favourite cookie recipe? ;) 

Don't forget to go to Faith's blog to see more Christmas posts! 

Random gingerbread house picture that some of you might have seen if you saw the video from yesterday ;)

So this recipe is super easy, even easier than the brown butter chocolate chip cookie recipe.  I will say though, this recipe makes a rather large amount of cookies. For our family, we only have to make one batch, but there is 10 of us. (ok, so 9 since the youngest can't eat cookies yet ;)) One batch makes about 5 dozen cookies. So if you want a smaller batch, I would suggest cutting it in half, or maybe in thirds. But if you've got a big family, hosting a party, or just love cookies....this should be right up your alley ;) 

Sugar Cookies 

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup butter softened 

2 cups white sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract 

5 cups of flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt 

Directions

Cream butter and sugar until smooth

Beat in eggs and vanilla 

Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt. 

Cover and chill for at least 1 hour (or overnight) 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. 

Roll out dough on floured surface to about 1/4 inch thickness

Cut into any kind of shape you'd like. (even if you don't have a cookie cutter in the shape you want, you can always form it with your fingers or use a knife to cut it out.) 

Place 1 inch apart on un-greased cookie sheet. 

Bake 6-8 minutes or until the bottom is a light golden brown. Cool completely. 

Sugar Cookie Frosting 

Ingredients

Icing sugar

Milk

Directions

Stir together until desired consistency. 

And now for the fun part....

Decorating!! ^_^ 

There's really no need for directions hear. Let your creativity flow! And remember, there can never be too many sprinkles ;) 

Do you like sugar cookies?
Which cookie designs did you like the best?

5 More Days 'Till Christmas!!!

12 DoC // Brown Butter Cookies!

It's cookie time! Ready for an amazing chocolate chip cookie recipe? It's a family favourite in this household! :) 

Random cookie picture I took a couple days ago ;) These aren't brown butter cookies, btw :P 

Oh yeah, and you should probably know, I may or may not have interspersed the recipe with comments of my own. Serious or silly, you'll get a mix. I think ;) I'll leave them in bold so you don't get confused :) 

Brown Butter Cookies 

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature 

1 cup packed light brown sugar

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon molasses 

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolks

1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans (optional) 

1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (not optional. Or else it wouldn't be a chocolate chip cookie, now would it? ;))

Coarse sea salt for sprinkling (optional. Do you like crunching salt with your cookies? Just wondering...) 

Directions

(this might look long and complicated, but don't worry, it's not that at all! You can do this!! :D) 

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. (see, not so hard! ;)) 

Start by browning 1/2 cup butter. In a medium skillet (or pot) melt butter over medium heat. Once the butter has melted completely, it will begin to foam and froth as it cooks. The butter will also crackle and pop. That's the water cooking out of the butter. Swirl the pan occasionally (whoops, you're supposed to swirl it? I never did that :P) and keep an eye on the melted butter. The butter will become very fragrant and brown bits will begin to form at the bottom of the pan. (Note: There are times when the butter will become so foamy, it is close to over-boiling, so make sure you watch it closely! Eagle's eye!) Once the bits are an amber brown, immediately remove pan from the heat and pour browned butter (bits and all) into a small bowl. Leaving the butter in the pan will burn it. Allow butter to cool. (this is probably the hardest part of the recipe. If you can conquer this, you can definitely do the rest of this recipe! *whispers* I burnt the butter black the first time I tried it :P) 

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or just a regular bowl if you don't mind having a sore arm after a ton of stirring) fitted with a paddle attachment, cream remaining /2 cup of butter with brown sugar. Cream on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. (then taste it, if you've a mind to ;)) Add the vanilla extract and molasses and beat until incorporated. 

Once the brown butter has cooled slightly, pour the butter (brown bits and all!) into the creamed butter and sugar mixture. Add the granulated sugar and cream for 2 minutes, until well incorporated. Add the egg and egg yolk and beat for 1 minute more. 

Stop the mixer and scrape the bottom of the bowl to ensure that everything is evenly mixed. Add the flour mixture (forgot about this, didn't ya? you didn't lose it, right? ;) all at once to the butter mixture and beat on low speed until the flour is just incorporated. (To minimize the mess that will inevitably occur unless you have a cover on your bowl...place a dishcloth, a clean dishcloth, around the bowl. That way the flour stays inside. Like it's supposed to) Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and use a spatula to fold in pecans and chocolate chips. 

Spoon batter onto a piece of parchment paper and wrap into a disk or cylinder. Allow to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. 

Place racks in the centre and upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees f. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop dough by whatever size you'd like. (I tend to use ice cream scoops, and then splitting those in half. Makes a good size ;)) Sprinkle with salt (if you're using it, that is) Be sure to leave about 2 inches of space between each cookie. 

Bake for 12-14 minutes or until cookies are golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes. Serve warm or allow to cool completely. Cookies are best enjoyed within a few days. Duh. 

And voila! 

I'm not kidding, these are like one of THE best chocolate chip cookies ever. You gotta try them! :D 

If you make them, let me know! Send some pictures, tell me if you liked them, (or if you didn't like them), was the recipe hard? ;) 

Now I've got to run...gotta make a batch of these for a party today!! ^_^ 

July Highlights

It's the end of July. We're 7/12 of the way through 2016! O_o Seems like time's just flying by, but with great memories being made too ;) 

Here are some things that happened this month 

Life

It's been busy. Well, busy and then at times not-so-busy either. You know where one day is just packed with things to do and then the next day there's nothing so that it often times comes close to the point of utter boredom? That's what this July has been like. It had its exciting days and its dull days :D But I will say this, the dull days were blessings in disguise. It provided days of relaxation and time to read! 

The very first day of July was CANADA  DAY!!!! 

Super fun day, may I just say! We had a few church friends over for a Canada Day party, as well as Tiger Lily and 'them girls' book study ;) 

Here are a few pics from that day: 

The book study group

Another day this month, we had more friends over from church. To make sure they didn't get lost, Mom asked Tiger Lily and I to add some balloons to the mailbox. Of course, you know Tiger Lily wouldn't do something as tame as that. She insisted we do this instead: 

Let me assure you, no one passed our house this time :P 

Swimming pool fun! :) 

Mmmm...coconut butter tarts. SO good! They're like regular butter tarts, except
no raisins inside, and coconut on the top :) 

We also made a ton of bread. 3-4 batches maybe? Which made over 240 rolls.
Like I said, lots of bread ;) 

God blessed us with some absolutely gorgeous days of sunshine. Thank you, Lord!

And we played with sparklers! I finally figured out why the shutter speed should be slower in low light. These pictures are not at all great, but I figured you might want to see some of the crazy things we did ;)

An attempt at writing "Canada"

I don't know if you can see Toblerone's face in the background. Back left corner ;)

Watermelon. It's the fruit of the summer. SO so good! Probably my favourite fruit ever :D

We had family summer days too. The best part of living at our house is that it's kind of already a cottage. So in the summer, we stay right where we are instead of heading out to a cottage! 

I love the reactions of everyone in this photo. Some look like they're jumping off a building, one just casually walks in, one is trying to look cool, others just . . . jump ;)

A purely random photo of Tiger Lily. It's perspective, guys. 

Enjoying the water! 

One day Mom made her oh-so-delicious fresh fruit smoothies

to go with Dad's steak and green Caesar salad. Anyone hungry? ;)

Oh yeah, and someone discovered the power of scissors. . .

We also went to the amusement park quite a few times this summer.

He's so darn cute! :D 

The day we went with our cousins, we got chased by geese who believed that our pizza belonged to them. They came right up to us and hissed! I don't think I've ever seen such bold geese before.

Oh, and have you ever heard of the "Peach Basket"? Where you throw a ball into a basket and if you get it in, you win a prize? It's extremely hard to do. And I'd never seen a person ever get a ball into the basket. Until my daring brother, Ironman, decided to give it a try, threw the ball with a flick of his hand and BAM! Into the basket it went, and there it stayed. We seriously all went crazy.

But then to top it all off, Spiderman tried it too and got it straight in on his first try! I mean, what even?! XD

At the end of the day: 

Our house is going to be overrun by stuffed toys soon. . . :P 

I also joined a photography community group with Landry this month, and my assignment was using artificial lights in portraits. Snow White was my willing test subject :) 

Special Events

Snow White's EIGHTH birthday! Really, she's growing so fast! I can hardly believe it was only eight years ago that I held a tiny little baby. Where have the years gone?!

She's been interested in baking for awhile, so this year I asked her if she wanted to help bake her cake. She eagerly agreed. 

She did a fantastic job and the end result was these two delicious chocolate cakes!

I frosted and decorated them later, and then - oh then the fun began ;) 

Her goal was to blow out all eight candles at once.

She got very close the first try, but there was still that one candle that persisted in staying lit. So Dad lit them all up again and she blew them out again. And again. And again. And again.

I love the way her eyes sparkle in this one! :D 

Getting advice on the best way to blow them out ;) 

On her fifth (or was it sixth?) try, she got 'em all out! Yippee!! :D

In the Blogosphere

Okay, so has anyone noticed the new, and rather scary, button that Blogger has added to the followers tab? UNFOLLOW. It's like just asking you to unfollow someone :P 

On the bright side, if you're not following a blog, then it's a nice 'Follow' button instead. But still. . . ;) 

Oh, oh, oh, okay guys. An absolutely amazing thing happened this month! I found two bloggers who are both in Landry Academy, and one of them I've even met at Landry Camp. Isn't that SO cool?! I'm seriously so excited and when I first found Hosanna's blog, I just stared at the screen for a minute or two and thought "I - I - I've met her before!!! I didn't know she had a blog!!!!" ;P Having a hard time expressing exactly how excited I am . . . 

And their blogs are amazing, can I just say. You can check them out here: 

Hannah E. at Completely for Him

Hosanna Emily at Having a Heart Like His

Oh yes! More exciting news! I was positively delighted one day to open my kindle and find the gorgeous golden cover of Five Magic Spindles at the top of my list! Just finished reading it recently :D Gonna write a review for it soon, Lord willing ;) 

Annndddd....Ivy Rose released her book, The Old River Road earlier this month too! It's like Laura Ingalls Wilder and Janette Oke mashed together! Amazing combination, if you ask me ;) If you haven't read it already, you should totally do so now!

You can find it on Amazon

Or add on Goodreads

Not only that, but Jesseca Wheaton also released her new book, The Silent Blade too! (all these books being released this month! so much fun! ^_^) It's set in medieval time, but it does not go "Royal family happy, princess gets captured, handsome knight in shining armour goes to rescue her, big fight, knight is going to lose, but he doesn't  (of course), brings princess home, they get married, the end" No indeedy, it's not like that at all! It's waaaayyyy more than just that. I'm not going to go into a big spiel on how amazing this book is, because I already did in another post :P If you're interested, you can read my review HERE

You can find The Silent Blade on Amazon here, Goodreads here, and Createspace here

Baking

This month didn't have THAT much baking in it. Just 250 bread rolls, 2 dozen or so cupcakes and 2 cakes. Not a lot, right? ;) 

For Canada Day, I made a chocolate sheet cake, slathered it in whipped cream, and layered it in sweet, glossy red strawberries in the pattern of a Canada flag. 

The cupcakes and bread rolls I didn't take a picture of, but the bread rolls were for the summer get-togethers we had at our house, and the cupcakes, for a surprise birthday party Tiger Lily, several other girls from church, and I threw for our friend's 17th birthday! 

For Snow White's birthday cake, well, you saw the baking pictures. For the frosting, I used buttercream.There was a video on decorating cakes with flowers, so I decided to try that. It wasn't perfect, and it ended up taking around 3-4 hours to decorate, but it was worth it! She loved it :D 

Books Read

I'm just going to say now, this is way more books than I expected to read this month. I kind of want to make up for not reading so much during the school year, and well, yeah. There were so many good books to read! 

House of Secrets - Tracie Peterson

Across the Years - Tracie Peterson

Brides of the West - Virginia Bylin

Space Kitties -E Kaiser Writes, A.J. Bakke, S.R. Bakke, Valerie Howard, Brittany Jennings, Cheyanne Marie, Steve Mathisen, Lesa McKee, Cynthia Port, Jesse Rice (actually read this last month, but I forgot to add it to the list, so just put it on here ;)) 

The Silent Blade - Jesseca Wheaton

Home at Last - Rebekah Morris

Sad Cypress - Agatha Christie

The Perfect Maid - Agatha Christie 

Daughter of Light - Morgan L. Busse

Failstate - John W. Otte 

A Modern Cinderella or, The Little Old Shoe and Other Stories - Louisa May Alcott

Rustlers - Rebekah Morris

Love’s Enduring Promise - Janette Oke

The Graham Quartet and the Mysterious Stranger - Rebekah Morris

Son of Truth - Morgan L. Busse 

Heir of Hope - Morgan L. Busse 

Stephen - Rebekah Morris

The Ice Cutter’s Daughter - Tracie Peterson

Shiloh Season - Phyliis Reynolds Naylor 

Saving Shiloh - Phillis Reynolds Naylor 

A Caribbean Mystery - Agatha Christie

The Amish Midwife - Mindy Starns Clark

Five Magic Spindles - Rachel Kavociny, Kathryn McConaughy, 

Grace Mullins, Michelle Pennington, Ashley Stangl 

Jack and Jill - Louisa May Alcott 

Revelations

My two favourite authors from this month would probably be Rebekah Morris and Morgan L. Busse. I've totally fallen in love with Triple Creek Ranch and its characters. It's a great series and Tiger Lily and I are waiting very impatiently for TCR-6 :D The Followers of the Word trilogy is thought-provoking, but at the same time really interesting and fun too. 

Books Bought

Space Kitties (prize for Writing Contest, paperback)

The Beloved Land (gift, paperback)

Son of Truth 

Heir of Hope 

Home at Last

Rustlers

Stephen

Set Free 

Through the Tunnel (paperback)

Gift from the Storm (paperback)

Five Magic Spindles

Flower Fables

Jack and Jill

Rose in Bloom

Mountain-Laurel and Maidenhair

Kitty’s Class Day and Other Stories

A Modern Cinderella or, The Little Old Shoe and Other Stories

Five Little Peppers At School

Five Little Peppers Grown Up

Five Little Peppers Abroad

Five Little Peppers Midway

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

(okay, so the books in italics didn't actually cost anything, so it doesn't count as being bought. It was on Amazon, and since they were so old and already in the public domain, they were free ;)) 

Great Posts 
Some posts that really stuck out for me this month were: 
A Change of Heart: It has to be God
Miracles Still Happen Today
The Future Before You

Goals

I've seen this hopping around the blogosphere before, and decided to give it a try ;) 

One thing that I came up with last month, but didn't post about was: 

Commenting on posts sooner (which could be considered a very broad word, I know, but I have this bad habit of putting it off, and then turning around and finding tons of posts to comment on ;)) // I think I did better this month. There are a few posts that I think I might have missed, but at least it wasn't a whole ton. What do you think? Did I comment on your blog enough? ;) If I didn't, you gotta tell me, so I know ^_^ 

Now here are some goals for this month (both blogging and everyday life goals)
Write at least 5,000 words and blogging don't count ;) (I know, I know, that's probably a really small amount of words. But I'm getting there! xD Besides, let's start small first. Then we'll grow bigger ;)
Reach 30 followers (you guys are going to have to help me with that! Can't do this without ya! ^_^)
Complete the "By the Book" Tag (I haven't forgotten about this, RebekahAshleigh, promise!!)
Finish memorizing Romans 6
Be prepared for school ('cause really, waking up at 9 in the morning is not a good way to start the school year!)
Read at least 10 books (we'll see how well that goes, considering school starts in a few weeks, and I'm counselling at a camp)

Oh, and on that note, do you think you could all pray for me? I find myself creating more stress than need be, especially when a load of responsibility is put on me. This year at a kids' camp, I'm really praying that the counselling will go well, I'll be patient and helpful, and that I'll be able to find ways to tell the Gospel to the children. If you could pray for me, that would be greatly appreciated :)


And that about wraps up this month! I know this post got kinda long, so if you were able to reach the end, thank you so much! :D

What are some of the highlights from your July?