Party Cupcakes

I made some cupcakes for my mother in law's birthday party this weekend.  I used the modification for 'The Perfect Cupcake Recipe (using a mix)"  and made a quick Marshmallow Buttercream Frosting. (For the frosting I used less butter in the mix but only 1.5 sticks rather than 2 whole sticks. I wouldn't go much less than that because it will change the consistency.)

After making a ridiculous mistake (not adding water) my cupcakes turned out disastrous.  The lesson: Don't bake while distracted by children.

Thanks to my brother running to the store for some replacement ingredients I was able to make another batch and they were really good.

After the cupcakes were cooled, I piped on the frosting using a 1M star tip and by starting in the middle and swirling it outward you get a flower/rose look to your frosting.  You can find some good general cupcake decorating tutorials HERE.

Rainbow Cookies

In my daughter's Cubbie (AWANA) workbook, the verse for the week was "All Your words are true...". The story focused on God keeping His promises and the story of Noah's Ark.  The rainbow at the end of the story represents God keeping his promise to Noah.

The workbook has suggested activities for home study/practice and this week's was making rainbow cookies.  There were no instructions but I figured it couldn't be that hard.

I made a basic sugar cookie recipe. I also didn't have the forethought to take pictures of the process but it was pretty simple.

SUGAR COOKIES

1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1 3/4 cups flour
1 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt

mix the wet (butter sugar, egg, vanilla) then mix in the dry ingredients.

At this point, I separated the dough into 6 small bowls and used the basic 4 pack of food coloring to make the colors. I would suggest adding a bit more to red and a little less to the purple bowl.

For red =8-10 drops of red food coloring
For orange +6 yellow 2-3 drops of red
For yellow = 8-10 drops of yellow
For green = 8 drops green
For blue = 8-10 drops blue
For purple = 6 drops red 2-3 drops blue

(adjust for desired colors orange and yellow are pretty similar so make the orange darker so the baked version shows contrast)

Flour a board and lay out a sheet of plastic wrap on a flat surface or baking sheet ready for the rolled out dough.  I started with red and found that it was much easier to shape using my hands than using a rolling pin but go ahead and do what works for you.  I shaped the red into an oblong shape about 8 inches by 4 inches.  The goal is more for the depth of about 1/4 of an inch.  I repeated with orange, yellow, green, blue and purple layering each on top of the other on the plastic wrap.  Then I rolled all the colors into a log shape so the red was surrounding the outside of all the colors, and wrapped it in the plastic wrap then let it sit in the refrigerator for 1.5-2 hours.

When ready, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.   Unwrap the log and cut into 1/4 inch-1/2 inch slices and lay out on a cookie sheet leaving about 1.5-2 inches between.  Cook for 12-15 minutes.  makes 18-24 cookies depending on size.