Whenever I am asked what food I would bring with me to a desert island, I always have to answer "COOKIES!"  Hands down my favorite food to eat, and also my favorite treat to bake.  Christmastime is a great excuse to get my bake on and I take full advantage!

Several years ago, we started a cookie decorating tradition, just for 5 of us.  I bake a bunch of cut-out cookies and we spend hours listening to Christmas music, making a huge mess of icing and sprinkles, taste-testing our creations, and just soaking up some family togetherness.

I bake the cookies a day or so in advance.  These recipes are in my recipe binder from years ago, and I don't even remember where I found them!  They are tried and true, hard to mess up, quick, easy and don't require refrigeration before baking.  My kind of cookies!

You can see from the stains on the pages how much love they have been given (and how much love we have received from eating them!).

I follow this recipe pretty closely, with the exception of salted vs unsalted butter.  Am I alone in liking a bit of a saltier sweet?

Also, no need to freeze them for five minutes, but go ahead and do it if you're a rule-follower.

For the icing, I mix powdered sugar with milk until it's a good consistency.  Go easy on the milk!  Much easier to add a bit more milk than to run out to the store to buy more powdered sugar.  We use a variety of food coloring to make fun colors.  I put them in individual ramekins or plastic cups and we use plastic knives to spread the icing on the cookies.  We have accumulated lots of sprinkles over the years, so I just add a few new ones as needed. ​

 I bought disposable cookie sheets this year and that turned out to be a great idea!  When finished, we just threw them in the recycle bin with all of the sprinkle mess! 

We always have so much fun doing this together!  Even our pup joined in this year.  I hope you give these recipes a try and share them with your family too!  Merry Christmas!  XO

,Hi everyone! Over quarantine, I've had a lot of extra time on my hands. I was looking for things to bake, because I didn't really feel like making the classic brownies or sugar cookies. I looked all around the internet for cool recipes, and that's when I started baking more complicated pastries, like macaroons and a chocolate souffle. My friend Olivia also really likes baking, and around the time that school started, I saw how her treats were decorated all cute, and I wanted to try out decorating. My brother asked me to make a "Giant Cookie," as we call it in the Sallaberry household, and I saw that as the perfect opportunity to make a fall-themed decorated cookie. I hope you enjoy the recipe too!

Love,
Molly

Molly's Cookie Cake
2 sticks of butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1 can white icing
Gel food coloring

Cream butter and brown sugar.  Add egg and vanilla.  Add flour and salt and mix until combined.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Dump batter on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.  Put another piece of parchment on top and roll the cookie dough out until it is about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick.  It won't be a perfect circle, and that's okay!  Bake at 350 until just barely browned (it takes about 12-15 minutes in our oven).

When finished, let cool and decorate with icing.  An inspirational message is encouraged!  XO

**This recipe is adapted from The Pioneer Woman's recipe for Spreads.

Last school year was the first year I had a day off with no one at home with me and all three kids in the same school.  Thursdays were MY DAY to finally do something for myself.  You know what most Thursdays consisted of?  Me missing my kids and surprising them after school with fun treats!

A friend of mine taught me how to do this back in high school, and I have been making them ever since.  My kids LOVE when I make these fun cupcakes.  Here's how you do it!

1 cake mix, any flavor
eggs
oil
water
12 ice cream cake cones
1 can frosting, any flavor
sprinkles, of course!

Preheat oven according to cake mix directions.  Cover a 9x13 pan tightly with foil and use the tip of some scissors to cut 12 small slits, and push the ice cream cones through the openings.
Mix the cake mix, eggs, oil and water according to the directions on the box. Fill the ice cream cones halfway with batter and bake according to the recipe directions.   Allow to cool completely and then decorate with icing and sprinkles!

Surprise your kids with these someday and let me know what they think!  ENJOY!  XO