Sweet Mummy Cookies

Finally recovering from one of my most stressful and eventful weekends. Surprisingly, after all the cursing and faint whimpers here and there I wouldn't hesitate to do it again. My friends and family who witnessed me at my worst would probably call me crazy. Problem is it just felt too damn good seeing all those desserts all set out. It made me forget all the mayhem I had just been through the past month.

This month I worked with pie, cookies, and cake and each had there own little disaster. I was determined to have all 3 at my sister's Halloween party. High five to me cause all 3 were there. Made possible by an unhealthy intake amount of coffee and a sense of humor to help with the burn of all the fails. To keep it one recipe to a post the cake recipe will be posted separately.

I started the month out with some pumpkin pie dip which I can't see how you could ever go wrong with. In my earlier post I had pumpkin shaped crust and decided to make it easier on myself by making them circles and just drawing Jack's face of The Nightmare Before Christmas. I also found some cool silicone molds of leaves and pumpkins. I baked some of the pie mix with the molds and had some cool pumpkin pie shapes to serve with my pie dippers.

After I was done with my little adjustments I went on to start the cookies. I wanted to avoid doing the typical hard sugar cookie and it was downhill from there for about the next three tries. Finally at about 4th…no 5th…hell maybe 6th try it finally worked in my favor.

Prep: 30 minutes

Yield: About 30 cookies

Sweet Mummy Cookies

1 cup butter, room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 recipe for Vanilla Buttercream

Reeses pieces

1. Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, cream butter on medium speed and then add the 3/4 cup of sugar. Beat until light and fluffy.

2. Beat in eggs one at and time just until combined. Add in vanilla and almond extracts.

3. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture about a 1/4 cup at a time.

4. In a small bowl, combine the remaining sugar and cinnamon. With a small ice cream or 2 spoons grab a ball dough and dip bottom in sugar mixture. Warning, it will stick to your hands but since you bake I'm sure its safe to guess you don't mind getting a little messy with sweets. Place on cookie sheet 2 inches apart and bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly brown around edges.

5. Let cookies cool completely. While you wait for that you can start on the frosting.

Vanilla Buttercream

1 cups unsalted butter, room temperature

1 tablespoons vanilla extract

3 cups powdered sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1. With a paddle attachment whip butter until creamy. MIx in vanilla extract just until combined. Add sugar 1/4 cup at a time and beat on low to medium speed.

2. Now for the fun and easiest step. Place frosting in pastry bag with a small tip cut and zig zag away on cookie. Lastly add two Reeses pieces for the eyes and you have adorable yet simply done mummy cookies that all ages will appreciate.

Sweet Flukes

I mentioned how I wanted to avoid using same old sugar cookie recipe so I tried to switch it with my favorite cookie. Well Snickerdoodles taste great but they fail in the decorating department. Snickerdooldles have a nice flaky crust on top which creates an uneven surface that complicates the frosting step. Stubborn me of course gave it about 3 tries before finally accepting this cookie wasn't going to cut it.

I recently, bought The Dollop Book of Frosting and was determined to use one of their recipes, which I did. I just chose wrong the first 3 times. They had a salted caramel drizzle frosting that I attempted to make cobwebs with. Looked nice for about 10 seconds. At second 11 I was staring at a couple dozen sad drooping cobwebs.

Second 11

Once I came to my senses I stuck to simple buttercream and an extra soft version of sugar cookies. To have some part of my Snickerdoodle cookie I added the sugar and cinnamon dipping step. Even after all the downs in this recipe it surprisingly was the favorite at the party.