Soft Honey Sugar Cookies

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Soft Honey Sugar Cookies

*3/4 cup Butter or Shortening
*1 1/2 cups Granulated Sugar
*3 tablespoons Honey
*1 cup Whipping Cream or Canned Milk or (1/2 cup Sour Cream and 1/2 Cup Milk)
*1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract
*1 teaspoon Salt
*4 cups All-purpose Flour
*4 teaspoons Baking Powder

Pre-heat oven to 350*F.

Cream together in stand mixer: Butter, sugar, honey, cream, vanilla and salt

Whisk together in bowl: Flour and baking powder

Combine in stand mixer and mix well and (scrapping down the sides of the bowl occasionally) forms a soft dough ball.

Hint: Refrigeration of the dough will always make the cookies roll, cut and cook a little better; also using a cooled baking sheet with each batch of cookies helps too!

Roll out cookie dough using half the dough at a time, so not to over work the dough and cut cookies with a round cookie cutter or cookie cutter of your choice.

Place cookies on a Silpat covered half baking sheet or cookie sheet of your choice sprayed with cooking spray or covered with parchment paper.

Bake for 8-10 minutes or when edges barely start to turn brown. Also depends on the size of cookie.

Hint: I’ve always usually mixed my cookies by hand but my daughter is a pastry chef and mixes everything in stand mixer but either way works great!

Glac’e Icing or Royal type Icing

1 pound of Powdered Sugar (3 3/4 cup)
6 tablespoons Whipping Cream or Whole Milk plus 1 tablespoon of water (You can use other milk but you will have to add more powdered sugar)

Whisk together 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 white frosting and if you want an Almond extract use in the cookie dough too.

Use this recipe for glazing cookies and the piping of the outside of cookies. The piping the edge helps contain the frosting when you will be filling in the center of the cookie.

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

This Glac’e Icing recipe is adapted from Toba Garret you can find her at Our Best Bites

See Sweetopia for spiderweb instructions

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Enjoy!

Jessica and Lindy

Halloween Dinner Party II

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Last night we had our Halloween Dinner Party these are pictures of the food items we had and links to some recipes but most items on our Halloween menu are self-explanatory. I hope you will try them at your next Halloween Party!

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These are Turkey Steaks that we cooked in the oven and used for the base of our Mashed Potato Ghosts we used peas for the eyes.

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These I ghost that I drew and poked through a pile of Powdered Doughnuts

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These are a Butterfinger Frosted Cupcakes you can find the recipe here.with a Brownie base.  I used the same brownie recipe I used for the Brownie Pops you can find the recipe here.

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Pumpkin Cupcakes with a Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting, you can find the recipe here.

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This is Apple Cider from Apples from my sister Heidi’s Apple tree and My Red Delicious Apple tree. (It turned out to be Yummy!)

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These glasses I dipped the rim in Corn Syrup and then in Raw Sugar, let them dry a bit and then you can add your favorite drink.

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Grilled Cheese Sandwiches cut with cookie Cutter into Bat shape etc…

Spinach Soup Crock Pot Style

Sauté:

*2 tablespoons Butter
*1 medium onion, chopped
*2 Cloves of Garlic

Add:

*1 large Potato, cut into about 1 inch pieces
*4 cups Chicken Broth

Combine the above ingredients in medium size Crock Pot and cook for about 3-4 hours on low until potatoes are tender.

Add:

* 8 ounces Baby Spinach Leaves, washed and dried, cook 1-2 minutes longer or until the leaves wilt.
* Salt and Pepper to taste.

Use a Immersion Blender to purée the soup until smooth, careful not to splash it on yourself because it is very Hot!

Top and serve with your favorite Cheese, we used Mozzarella.

Recipe adapted from Annies-eats

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See Halloween Dinner Party for more recipes and treats.

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Enjoy!

Lindy and Jessica

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