Soft Orange Cookies with Orange Zested Glaze

We've been talking a lot about "girly" flavors at our house lately.  This is prompted by my husband's proclamation that mint chocolate chip ice cream is "girly".  Orange is also a girly flavor according to him (but cheesecake is not.  Don't ask me how that works.)

Anyways, I'm fine with that because it means I have two dozen of these all to myself; thank you very much.  Although it will probably shock you, I do believe in moderation.  Usually when I bake I sample a few bites and give the rest away.

Not these.

I have purposely lost count of how many I've eaten. (Although I am sick, and everyone knows you're supposed to have lots of Vitamin C when you've got a cold, so I'm pretty sure these cookies have lots of medicinal value.)

This is officially one of my favorite cookie recipes. These are soft and orangey and a bit floury (but in a good, filling, fabulously textured way).  I highly recommend them.

Annnnd... not to be snooty or anything.  But I'm a pretty good cookie judger.  I mean, I've been practicing for most of my life, so I think I'm a pretty reliable source. (Although if you're not female you might want to double-think this because husband didn't care for these much.  He preferred the Oreo Cheesecake cookies which totally weirded me out... I don't think cream cheese really belongs in cookies, you know?)

Anyways... try them and let me know what you think.

Happy Tuesday!

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Chocolate-dipped Pretzel Peanut Butter Bites

If I had to survive on one food for the rest of my life, it would be chocolate covered pretzels. (I'm pretty sure there are lots of scenarios that would require me to choose a single food source, so I figured this out long ago.)

So really, how could I not make these?

This treat combines chocolate pretzely goodness with mini Reeses cups.  These are a bit time consuming because they are dipped, but they are worth it.

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Birthday Rims

We have a birthday tradition at our house of waking up to a donut cake on the morning of your birthday.  We stick a candle in the top of the "cake", sing Happy Birthday, and dig in.  I think it's a great way to begin a birthday. (sugar = happiness in my world)

This year I thought Chase probably needed a birthday-rimmed glass of milk to go along with his donut cake.  These rims could easily be adapted for any holiday by varying the color of nonpareils/sprinkles.

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Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream

Do you like my ghetto cake picture?  Turns out in the craziness of Chase's birthday I completely forgot to take a picture of his six layer "bone" cake.  So you get a picture of a cake that's lost a layer, fallen on it's side, sat out for a day and a half, and been 75% devoured.  I should probably roll one of my sweatpant legs up right now, tie a bandana around my head, and ask people to call me "K-dizzle".  If you can overlook my ghetto-ness today I'll reward you with a fantastic chocolate frosting recipe.

homie.

This buttercream is great because it tastes nothing like butter.  You don't feel sick as you eat it or want to scrape most of it off.  This is a great go-to chocolate frosting recipe. Also, my dad told me over and over what a great chocolate cake this was, so I'd like to public thank Mr. Duncan Hines for his boxed Devil's Food mix (x2) in helping make the ultimate chocolate cake so ridiculously easy.

This recipe frosted my entire 6-layer cake (barely).  If you want to do great dollops of frosting on 24 cupcakes you should probably make the whole recipe; otherwise, half it because it makes loads. 

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Funfetti (Skeleton) Cupcakes

Parties are uncomfortable for me.  Partly because I'm socially awkward, and partly because people usually end up discussing things from the 80's or 90's like Chips (apparently a show and not a delicious snack) and funfetti cupcakes (apparently a rite of childhood passage).  Not having really grown up in this country, half the time I have no idea what's going on during these conversations, so I usually nod and smile and scan the room for something to stuff in my mouth so I don't have to say anything.

Would you believe me if I told you I'd never had a funfetti cupcake before last weekend?  I don't like sprinkles so the idea of them in cupcakes never really appealed to me. 

Turns out they're pretty good.


I made these for my little boy's 4th birthday.  He loves bones and skeletons and all kinds of "body" things.  I love seeing his face light up when I make him something special.  I'm thinking you should probably make these for Halloween with black/orange sprinkles inside and chocolate frosting under the skeleton topper.  (If you don't happen to have a body-loving 4 year old.)

This recipe isn't really "homemade" because it uses a boxed mix, but it lets you add your own sprinkles to a white mix, so you can use any color or combination you want.

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White Chocolate Cherry Shortbread

This was definitely my favorite new cookie recipe of the Christmas season.  I honestly don't know why I gave any of them away.  While I'm not a big cherry OR white chocolate OR almond flavoring fan... something about this combination just stunned me.  

Also- do you want to know what's a little bit ridiculous?  At the time I made these I had like SEVEN pounds of Walker's shortbread in my pantry.  Seriously, the big Costco tin costs like twenty dollars and has NINE full packages of cookies in it.  

I still made these.

And I didn't regret it for an instant.

Oh, and by the way, there's only one package of Walker's shortbread left in that tin.

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Christmas Eve Chocolate Cherry Mice

Is it weird that mice remind me of Christmas?  I think it has something to do with going to the Nutcracker every December with my dad.  In case you didn't know, I was basically destined to be a professional ballerina.  Unfortunately my sense of rhythm didn't get the memo or something. 

At any rate, our kids loved these and I think we will be making them every Christmas eve from now on. They are best fresh so I recommend making them day-of.

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Chocolate Peppermint Crinkles

I'm trying sooo hard to get caught up on Christmas recipes before Valentine's day rolls around.  It's a little bit hard when your kid is STILL out of school.  Whose idea was THAT?  I mean he only goes to preschool for 4 hours a week but it's sure killing me to have two toddlers home alldayeveryday.  Is this how it feels when your kids are off for summer vacation?  Seriously.  Somebody needs to invent a daycare "holiday camp" where you can send kids when they're off-school and they're supposed to be on "vacation".  And since it would be called "holiday camp" no one would be like: "Wow, you're a lazy butt mom because you don't want your kids home 24/7 to spend quality time with you".  Instead they'd be like: "Awww.  You're so nice to let them do that, I bet your kids love it!"   And secretly you'd be nodding inside thinking about how you're going to be able to vacuum in peace without anybody using the cord as a lasso or chasing after you with the sucker piece while you scream that dead spiders live in there.

It could be a moneymaker!

For best results, this dough should rest in your fridge overnight, so keep that in mind before you make it. The dough can be made up to 4 days in advance. Also- you can omit the peppermint extract if you'd like to make the plain chocolate version of these.

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New Year's Pop Rocks Rims

Have you noticed I'm into rims lately?  Mostly because they're so quick and so easy and kids flip for them.  We used Martinelli's with watermelon pop rocks today.  I don't personally care for the carbonated drink WITH the carbonated candy, but the kids are all about it. Next time I'll pair mine with a non-carbonated punch instead.  I like to do my rims deep so the kids get more pop-rockety-goodness, but you can do sophisticated super thin rims if you like.  These can be adapted for all holidays and occasions just by varying the color scheme.

This has been a great year for my family and I'm so pleased to have been able to share some pieces of our lives with you.  Best wishes for a wonderful 2012 to you all!

PS- In case you're wondering if that's a super huge bag of poprocks...  The wine glass is actually super small.  It's the perfect size for our 4 year old who gets to use it at Christmas and New Years so he can feel all sophisticated-like.  I bought it at World Market.

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Chocolate-Dipped Candycanes (Stirring sticks!)

When I was in high school my friend and I used to pay visits to places like the firestation.  Sometimes we would take cookies and sometimes we would take a paper and a pen on assignment for a non-existent "school project" where we had to ask questions like, "Do you have a dalmation?"  Mostly we were there for the eye candy and the potential of getting to use the firepole. 

Now that I am old and married and entirely uninterested in firemen or feigning school projects but still a little interested in firepoles, I am more aware and thankful for the sacrifice of public works figures like these. And I feel like at Christmastime all these people should get SOMETHING.

These candy canes are fantastic for that because they're cheap. (A box of 12 candy canes is like 98 cents and everyone knows that chocolate isn't actually bought, but magically appears in your pantry.) Also they are super cute.  So that is why I love to give these as gifts. 

And the potential of someday getting an offer to slide down the firepole.

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