Bee Gingerbread Cookies

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Pioneer Day is in just few days. We are getting ready by making these yummy fun Bee themed gingerbread cookies.

Bee & Beehive Gingerbread Cookies

Cream together in bowl until light and fluffy:

*1/3 cup Brown Sugar
*1\3 cup Butter, Margarine or Shortening

Beat into above Mixture the Molasses and egg until combine:

*2\3 cup Molasses
*1 unbeaten Egg

Whisk together the dry ingredients and add to the above mixture:

*3 cups Flour, save 1/2 cup to add slowly as needed
*1 tablespoon Baking Powder
*1 1\2 teaspoon Ground Ginger
*1/2 teaspoon Salt

Add a few tablespoons of water if need to form into 4 individual balls wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate 2 hours. When ready to roll out dough, removing one ball of Gingerbread dough from the refrigerator at a time and roll out into the thickness desired (I like cut about 1/4 inch plus) and cut into Gingerbread shapes, stars, etc… (If you want to use cookies for ornaments for a tree or  hang them on drinking glass etc… Punch a hole in the top of the cookies with a straw before baking.)

Pre-heat oven 350*F. and bake the cookies on a greased cookie sheet/half baking sheet for about 7-10 Minutes careful not to over bake. Remove Cookies from oven and let cookies cool slightly on cooking Sheet before removing.

Glac’e Icing or Royal type Icing

*1 pound of Powdered Sugar (3 and 3/4 cup)
* 6 tablespoons Whole Milk or (I used 5 tablespoons whipping cream 1 tablespoon water it worked extremely well) you can use other milk but you will have to use more powdered sugar

Whisk together in a stand mixer on medium speed, the milk and powdered sugar until smooth no lumps.
Now stir in the light corn syrup and extract.

*6 tablespoon Light Corn Syrup (1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons)
*1 teaspoon Vanilla extract, use clear Vanilla extract if you need a white frosting and if you want an Almond Flavor use an Almond extract and use it in the cookie dough too.

Use this recipe for glazing cookies and the piping of the outside of cookies. Piping helps contain the frosting while pipe filling in the center of the cookie.

Use a pastry bag for each color of frosting you want to use, small round tip for piping around the edge and then I used a plastic bottle with a tip lid to fill in the center of the cookies which had a larger opening.

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Have a great day!

Lindy

Campfire Cupcakes and S’more Treats

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Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

*3/4 cup All-purpose Flour
*3/4 cup Cake Flour
*1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder
*1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
*1 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
*1/2 cup Butter, room temperature
*1 1/3 cups Sugar
*2 Eggs, room temperature
*1 teaspoon Vanilla
*1/2 cup Milk plus 2 tablespoons
**12-14 Gold Cupcake Liners

Preheat oven 350*F.

Whisk together the dry ingredients in bowl. Then in electric mixer, mixing bowl, cream together the sugar and butter and beat in eggs, one egg at a time. Add milk and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients about a 1/2 a cup at a time until creamed mixture and mix until smooth.

Bake cupcakes in cupcake liners in muffin tin filling them 3/4 full and bake for 25 minutes or until done. Cool, frost and decorate.

Cupcake recipe Adapted from Martha Stewart

Frosting:

*6 ounces Cream Cheese, room temperature
*1/4 cup Butter, room temperature
*1/2 pound (8 ounces) confectioners’ Sugar, more if needed
*1 tablespoon Brown Sugar
*1 1/2 teaspoons Vanilla
*1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon

Cream together cream cheese and butter and mix together in mixer sugars, vanilla and cinnamon until fluffy/smooth. Use a decorating bag with tip of your choice and pipe frosting onto cupcake and decorate with “fire orange” hard spun sugar.

Frosting recipe adapted from Recipe Girl

Orange Hard Spun Sugar

*1 cup Sugar
*2 tablespoons Light Corn Syrup
*2 tablespoons water

**2 teaspoons Orange extract, or flavoring of your choice

**Food coloring, 1/2 teaspoon Orange or until color you desire

Combine the sugar, light corn syrup on medium heat and bring to a boil, now without stirring (we used a coated cast Iron pot). **(Flavoring and coloring are added after your candy is done cooking) cook to hardball stage.

Making hard candy takes about 25 minutes to cook so be patient and use a candy thermometer to cook to the right temperature. 300 to 310*F. (149 to 154*C), you could also test it by dropping some drops of the Candy syrup into a cup of cold water, it should form a very hardball.

Remove pot/pan from heat. Using a Silpat lined cooking sheet dip fork into hot candy mixture, holding the fork high above a marble rolling pin on Silpat drizzle hot candy back and forth making thin strings of hard spun sugar. (Be very careful this candy is very hot and messy.)Make sure you have newspaper or large non-stick counter space to collect the candy mess.) Make the strings into piles of spun sugar. See picture below. It’s nice to have two people for this process.

Also see The Curvy Carrot

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Enjoy!

Jessica and Lindy