Sugar Cookies with Sugar Cookie Frosting

To be exact - Kraft Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies with Frosting. I know that's where we got this recipe. We've had it for years. I recall Emilynn making this a number of years ago, so it is easy enough for kids to make, although I spent 3 hours making them last time, but I'm not a speedy cookie maker. It says prep is 20 minutes and the total is 1 hour 40 minutes, including refrigeration. Those must be speedy cookie makers who throw all the cookies into the oven at once.

Ingredients: 
Cookies:
1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese, softened 
1 cup powdered sugar 
3/4 cup butter, softened 
1/2 teaspoon vanilla 
2 cups flour 
1/2 teaspoon baking soda 
extra flour

Frosting:

4 cups confectioner's sugar

½ cup shortening

5 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

food coloring (optional)

Directions: 

Cookies:

1. Beat cream cheese, sugar, butter and vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add flour and baking soda; mix well.  
2. Refrigerate 1 hour.  
3. Preheat oven to 325. 
4. To shape, generously flour a surface.
5. Take about one fist of dough, roll into a ball, then squash flat onto the surface. Roll out the dough to a thin sheet.
6. Use your favorite cookie cutters to make seasonal shapes, or geeky shapes, or just geometrical shapes.
7. Bake for 8 - 12 minutes. 
8. Let cool before frosting. Decorate your cookies to your pleasure.

Frosting:

1. Meanwhile, prepare the frosting.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the confectioner's sugar and shortening until smooth. 
3. Gradually mix in the milk and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth and stiff, about 5 minutes. 
4. Color with food coloring if desired.

Notes:

• Supposedly makes about 3 dozen, but that depends on the shapes you make and their sizes.
• I also use as much of the dough as possible. I take the bits that don't make it into the shapes, and add it to the fresh dough to roll out. This helps stretch the number of cookies you can make.
• In my opinion, sugar cookie making is boring. But add friends and family and it is a joy. 

Dessert: Peanut Butter Frosting

I had this frosting on my birthday cake. The cake could be more chocolatey, but the frosting was fantastic! 

Ingredients:

1 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup vegan margarine
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
3 tbsp soy milk

Directions:

1. Whisk or blend together all ingredients until smooth and creamy, adding more or less soy milk to achieve the desired consistency. 

Other Details:

• Original Recipe

Dessert: Tweed Cake

Ryan saw this and decided to make it mid-October. A great cake that is really rich, and while it has 3 components, each component is not that difficult, so overall probably an intermediate cake recipe.

Ingredients:
Cake

3 cups flour

4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

4 eggs separated, whites & yolks

1/3 cup sugar

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup milk

1 ounce dark chocolate, grated

Vanilla Frosting

1 1/2 cups butter

6 1/2 cups icing sugar

2 tbsp vanilla extract

3 tbsp milk

Chocolate Ganache

2 cups chocolate chips

1/2 cup whipping cream

Directions:
Cake

1. Grease, flour and line the bottom of two 9 or 10 inch cake pans with parchment paper. 
2. Sift together and set aside flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. Beat the egg whites and sugar with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Set aside.
4. Cream together butter and sugar. Add egg yolks and beat until creamy. 
5. Add the flour mixture in 3 equal portions alternating with milk. Add the milk in two equal portions in between the flour mixture additions, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Do mot over mix.
6. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites and sugar.When the egg whites are almost incorporated fold in dark chocolate.
7. Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 20-25 minutes at 325ºF or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Be careful not to over bake the cake portion. Cool completely on a wire rack. Top with vanilla frosting.

Vanilla Frosting

1. Cream together butter, icing sugar, vanilla extract, and milk.
2. You may add a little milk a teaspoon at a time, if the frosting seems too stiff to be spreadable. This should be quite a thick frosting with plenty of vanilla flavor. You can add a little more or less mik or icing sugar to get it to a proper thick but spreadable consistency. Frost the middle and sides of the cake and chill for a couple of hours before adding the chocolate ganache finishing layer.

Chocolate Ganache

1. Melt together in a double boiler over low heat the chocolate chips and whipping cream.
2. Cool to lukewarm and spread quickly over the chilled frosting. Let the chocolate set before cutting and serving. 

Other Details:

• Original Recipe
• 12 servings gives a good size piece that is enough but not too much

Dessert: Frosted Pumpkin Cookies

The Clever Housewife started following me on twitter, and her pumpkin donuts recipe intrigued me. We conversed, and she directed me to these pumpkin cookies. You already know how I love all things pumpkin. The cookies were already vegan, and I "veganized" the frosting, which turned out well. These are quite easy.

Ingredients:
Cookies:

1 cup all vegetable shortening
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups pumpkin (about 1 15 oz can)
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

Frosting:
3 tbs vegan butter
4 tsp almond milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
3/4 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Mix first 7 ingredients until smooth. 
2. Drop onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes. 

For frosting: 

1. Dissolve first three ingredients in saucepan. 
2. Cool, then stir in powdered sugar and vanilla.
3.  Frost cookies while the cookies are still hot.

Other details:

• The original recipe called for 1 cup butterscotch chips, but I left them out. It also called for milk (assumed dairy) and butter (assumed dairy) in the frosting.
•  Makes about 3 dozen. (I got about 44 out, but I just used a large spoon.)

Dessert: Geeky Hostess's Pumpkin Ale Cupcakes with Pumpkin Spice Frosting

I'm a sucker for pumpkin. Last year, this blog posted many of my favorite pumpkin recipes. This one from Geeky Hostess was fun. 

Ingredients:

Cupcakes
1 box yellow cake mix
1 cup canned pumpkin
3/4 cup pumpkin ale
2 eggs
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Pumpkin Spice-Cream Cheese Frosting
8 ounces cream cheese, cold
5 TBS unsalted butter, room temperature
2 tsps vanilla
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tsps pumpkin spice (more or less as desired)

Directions:

Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
3. Spoon batter into cupcake liners until 2/3 full.
4. Bake cupcakes for 19-23 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
5. \Cool completely.
6. Frost and decorate!

Pumpkin Spice-Cream Cheese Frosting

1. Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth.
2. Add in 1/3 of the powdered sugar at a time, mixing until smooth.
3. Add in pumpkin spice, mixing until fully blended.
4. This recipe will give you stiff frosting that is easily piped onto a cupcake. Cut a hole in the bottom corner of a plastic bag, and fill with the frosting. Frost cupcakes then top with a quick shake of pumpkin spice.

Other Notes:

• Original Recipe

Dessert: Easy Vanilla Frosting

You may not want to make this as it's own dessert. But every time I make cupcakes, I need a quick and easy vanilla frosting recipe. This is the one I go-to.

Vanilla Frosting on some chocolate cupcakes.

Ingredients:

4 cups Powdered Sugar

4 tablespoons Butter, softened

1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract

4-6 tablespoons of Whole Milk

food coloring (optional)

Directions:

1. In your mixing bowl add the powdered sugar, butter and vanilla. Turn your mixer on medium low and slowly add your whole milk. Adding more milk if needed. Increase the speed to medium until fluffy.
2. For special occasions, tint the frosting with food color!

Other Notes:

• Makes about 2 cups

Dessert: Red Velvet Brownies with White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

I made these for a friend who's favorite cake is a red velvet cake. I didn't have time to make the red velvet cake I've previously posted when she came to visit, so I tried these. They were a hit with her and every one else.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (8 tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
2 oz red food coloring or 2 teaspoons if you are using the gel kind
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt

For the white chocolate buttercream frosting:
1/2 cup (8 tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
4 oz good-quality white chocolate (not chips), melted
1 – 2 tbsp heavy cream
1/2 cup cream cheese

Directions:
To make the brownies:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour an 8″x8″ baking pan.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes (mine looked like puffy snow). Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition, then stir in 2 teaspoons of vanilla. With the mixer off, add in the sifted cocoa (to avoid any lumps that sometimes happens with cocoa) and food coloring, then turn the mixer to medium and beat the two mixtures together until they are one uniform color. Slowly add in the flour and salt and mix on medium-low speed, just until combined. Do not overmix.
3. Remove the bowl from the mixer and stir up the batter with a rubber spatula once or twice just to ensure all of the flour has incorporated from the sides of the bowl and there isn’t anything stuck on the bottom of the bowl.
4. You’ll want one uniformly colored (red) batter.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the brownies. Allow brownies to completely cool in the pan on a baking rack, about 45-60 minutes. For prettier brownies, remove the entire batch from the pan to a cutting board, cut into 12 bars, THEN frost, and serve.

To make the frosting:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter until soft and fluffy then beat in the vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add in powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time; allow the sugar to mix in before adding the next 1/2 cup. Once all of the sugar has been added, beat on medium speed for 30 seconds and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add in the melted white chocolate and cream cheese and beat on medium speed until incorporated. (The original recipe did not include cream cheese, but it just wasn’t red velvet to me without the cream cheese frosting). With the mixer on low, add in heavy cream 1 tbsp at a time and beat at medium speed until the frosting has reached your desired consistency.

Other Details:

• Original Recipe from How Sweet Eats
• {Note: This makes a lot of frosting – I might try halving the frosting recipe next time} I actually did half it and it was good