A Quick Hello
Posted by: sweetlizbakes on: January 26, 2012
Yes, yes…I’ve been extremely absent from the blog. I’m going to go ahead and blame it on the baby. If you’re a parent, you know what I mean when I say that your child is now your permanent excuse. But seriously, I’ve been quite busy with the little lady (teething, crawling, etc.). I promise I’ll be back very soon with some Valentine’s Day tutorials.
Nevertheless, I took a quick break from the mayhem today to share a great recipe that I came across the other day. I was going to visit my niece and nephew and needed to make sweets fast. These two are very big fans of my cookies and showing up twice in a row without treats would have been severely frowned upon. I came across these Easy Cake Mix Cookies from Sugarbelle and decided to give them a go. I figured they were worth trying since I had several boxes of cake mix just sitting, waiting in my pantry.
The results were pretty awesome. She’s not lying when she says that they’re the easiest cookies you’ll ever make. All the ingredients go straight into the mixing bowl – no need for separate bowls or utensils. She suggests rolling them in sprinkles, but my mix ended up too sticky to roll so I just topped each cookie dough ball with some sprinkles and they ended up spreading when the cookie flattened out in the oven. A word of advice: these babies spread quite a bit so make sure you give them lots of space.
If you’re in a hurry, or just in the mood for something tasty, go ahead and give them a try! You can find the recipe here.
And a very special thanks to Sugarbelle for sharing her recipe 
Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cookies {The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap}
Posted by: sweetlizbakes on: December 12, 2011
- In: Cookies
- 5 Comments
I’ve been super busy lately (ahem…holidays). The lack of a post in over a month is really, truly unforgivable. But part of that has been due to my participation in my FIRST EVER COOKIE SWAP!
Can you tell I’ve been excited to do one of these? 
This year, I participated in The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap of 2011! The rules were simple: make 3 dozen cookies/bars, send to 3 other bloggers, and then share your recipe with everyone. And in return, you’d receive 3 packages with different cookies. Let me tell you: I have NEVER been so excited to check my mail. Over 22,000 cookies were sent around the world because of this swap. How awesome is that? So far I’ve received 2 awesome shipments full of goodies. Once I receive the third, I’m going to dedicate a whole post to these awesome bloggers.
For my cookies, I decided to make Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cookies. I mean, who doesn’t love butterscotch? (This was probably also heavily influenced by the awesome batch of Butterscotch Brownies we received in the mail earlier on. Probably.)
My hubby really dug them and one of the recipient’s hubby dug them too. Must be the butterscotch that attracts hubbies. These cookies bake super big but stay super soft and scrumptious. And they’re loaded with chocolate and butterscotch chips. I ain’t fooling. Let’s get all up in there to see those chips!
Once they finished baking and cooling, I wrapped the cookies in pairs with wax paper in between them and placed them in goodie bags. Then I packaged them in holiday bins.
So go ahead, give them a try this holiday season. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed the cookie swap!
Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cookies
*Recipe adapted from The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook by Elinor Klivans
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temp
1 cup packed light brown sugar
12 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
22 ounces butterscotch chips
23 ounces chocolate chips
Make sure your rack is in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl and set aside.
Using your electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars together until smooth on medium speed. Make sure you scrape the sides of the mixer bowl if necessary. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until blended. Lower the mixing speed and slowly add the flour mixture until fully incorporated. Then add the butterscotch and chocolate chips in.
Drop the cookies on the cookie sheet. Your cookies should be 3 tablespoons big and set 3 inches apart. I managed to to fit 9 cookies per cookie sheet. Make sure you leave enough room because these cookies definitely enlarge while cooking. Bake the cookies for about 14 minutes, or until golden. Let them cool for 10 minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Makes about 36 cookies
I’d like to send out a big THANK YOU to Julie of the little kitchen and Lindsay of Love and Olive Oil for hosting the cookie swap and to all the bloggers that participated!
If you’d be interested in next year’s cookie swap, please feel free to visit this page to receive notifications.
Back To School Cookies
Posted by: sweetlizbakes on: September 20, 2011
- In: Cookies
- 4 Comments
I love finding baking inspiration in everyday things. Especially cookies. So when I saw the cute school themed items at Jo-Ann Fabric & Craft Stores, I knew I had to make them into cookies.
I ended up making some cookies for my nieces and nephews.
I was pretty happy with how these turned out. Cute and simple.
I needed to ship them to Florida so I found some white boxes perfect for packaging. They were just the right size for the cookies. I wrapped each cookie individually and placed them in the boxes with some tissue paper to protect them.
The cookies arrived there safely and my nieces and nephews were super thrilled. Can’t ask for anything better!
We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat
Posted by: sweetlizbakes on: September 2, 2011
Yesterday, the lovely Jackie posted my tutorial for Shark Cupcakes on her blog, La Casa de Sweets. Today, I’ll show you how to make the shark fin cupcake toppers!
If the shark cookie toppers are too much work or if you want additional toppers to accompany them, these fin cookies are super easy to make! The best part is that you only need a simple heart cookie cutter to make these, like this one:
To make these toppers, you’ll need:
- Rolled cookie dough
- Heart cookie cutter
- Knife
- Craft picks or lollipop sticks
- Gray royal icing
- Piping bag with tip #3
- Cupcakes
- Buttercream tinted blue
- Spatula
Start by cutting out the heart shape.
With the heart shape flipped upside down, use your knife to cut the bottom off. It will look like this:
Using the heart cutter, cut an arc into the fin to shape the curved rear portion of the fin.
You’ll end up with a cookie shaped like this:
Gently insert a pick into the bottom of the shark fin. This will make your cookies more like cupcake toppers. I used Woodsies Craft Picks (they were the perfect size for the cupcakes) but you can use lollipop sticks as well – just make sure that the sticks are on the small side.
And now it’s time to decorate the fins!
Use the gray royal icing in your piping bag and outline the shark fin.
Immediately flood the gray outline. Let it dry for a couple of hours.
Now all you have to do is make some cupcakes and use your spatula to spread the buttercream on like waves.
And FIN!
*See what I did there?
EasyPeasy Shark Cupcakes
Posted by: sweetlizbakes on: September 1, 2011
Dying to take a bite out of some mouth-watering shark cupcakes? Head on over to La Casa de Sweets where I’ll show you how to make these fiercely delicious cupcake toppers. Not only are they tasty, they’re super easy to make as well – you only need your oval and star cookie cutters. If you’d like to know how to make the fin toppers, stop on by tomorrow for another easypeasy tutorial!
Thanks again to Jackie, for allowing me my very first guest post! She’s incredibly talented and has an adorable blog – make sure you go visit her!
For Mikey: Nutter Butter Chocolate Cupcakes
Posted by: sweetlizbakes on: August 29, 2011
These cupcakes are for Jennifer Perillo’s husband. He recently passed away from a heart attack. You can read her heart wrenching post here. I cannot even begin to imagine what Jennifer is going through. My heart goes out to her and her family. It saddens me that I had to come across her wonderful blog through such a tragedy.
Her husband loved peanut butter cream pie and she encouraged everyone to make a pie and share it within someone they love. I decided to make these cupcakes and share them with my niece and nephew.
She has received an amazing outpouring of support from the blogging community. I am not huge in the blogging community. I have never met any of the people whose blogs I read. But everyday, I check in to my favorite blogs and everyday, I am inspired by them. The support that she has received has made me proud to be a spectator in that great community.
I am very late in making these and even later in sharing them with all of you. But for anyone reading this, my hope is that you are as touched as I was and that it can remind you to hold on dearly to those that you love.
NUTTER BUTTER CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES
Makes 36 cupcakes
For the cupcakes you’ll need:
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
1 cup + 2 tbsp. heavy cream
1 cup butter melted
2 tsp. vanilla
4 tbsp. sour cream
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
2 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
A bag of Nutter Butter Bites
Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees. Line a cupcake pan with 12 cupcake liners. Using your mixer, whisk the eggs and sugar together until you get a smooth consistency. Add the milk, cream, butter, and vanilla and mix until combined. Then add the sour cream. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt together. All of your dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Place two Nutter Butter Bites on the bottom of each liner. Fill each liner with the batter 2/3 full. Bake for 15-18 minutes.
For the frosting you’ll need:
1 1/2 cups softened butter
18 oz. of peanut butter
3 tsp. vanilla
7 tbsp. milk
8-10 cups of powdered sugar
With your electric mixer, cream the butter and peanut butter together until you get a smooth consistency. On the lowest speed, slowly add the powdered sugar. Then slowly add the milk and vanilla to the mix. Mix until you get a smooth frosting. If it is too thick, feel free to add more milk. If it is too runny, feel free to add more powdered sugar.
Finish by frosting your cupcakes. I ran out of Nutter Butter Bites but if you have extra, feel free to experiment. Try crushing some up and adding it to the frosting. Or, top each cupcake with one. In my opinion, you can never have too much peanut butter (unless you’re allergic, of course).
*Adapted from Jessica’s recipe at How Sweet It Is. Another wonderful blog I’ve recently found and fallen in love with.
Baby, Baby, Baby
Posted by: sweetlizbakes on: August 18, 2011
I made these for my husband’s coworker. Friday was her last day of work before her little bundle arrives. Before I had Jude, she threw a baby shower for us and made us some lasagna – the least I could do was make her some cookies!
I had a hard time with these though – my piping just wasn’t quite right. Have any of you ever had one of those days? Where you baking/decorating just isn’t right? So frustrating…
The good news is: I found a fantastic chocolate cookie recipe. I had been looking for a while and was pretty tentative about trying any recipes. But…when I saw how much of a fan Callye of The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle was of this chocolate recipe, I knew I had to try it. The cookies are chewy, delicious, and are perfect to decorate. The smell alone of these bad boys baking in my oven was well worth it!
Green & White Cupcake Tower
Posted by: sweetlizbakes on: August 9, 2011
- In: Cupcakes
- 2 Comments
I had the honor of making a cupcake tower for a wedding this past weekend. The bride wanted green and white as the main colors with flower and leaf accents.
Red velvet with almond buttercream, mint chocolate filled with chocolate mousse and topped with mint buttercream, and vanilla filled with strawberry pudding and topped with strawberry buttercream. The leaves and flowers are a mix of fondant and gumpaste, with edible beads and disco dust. All topped with a mint chocolate cake decorated with mint buttercream and a fondant/gumpaste flower.
Congratulations Danielle & Craig!
Sesame Street Cookies
Posted by: sweetlizbakes on: August 8, 2011
Remember my niece and nephew who adore Elmo? They turned two this past weekend and I made some Elmo and Cookie Monster cookies for their birthday party. Only this time, I had actual Elmo and Cookie Monster cookie cutters to work with. I tried making some Zoe cookies with the Elmo cutter but I didn’t realize that Elmo’s eyes were much higher than Zoe’s. Oh well.
Although these were more on the plain side and I was a bit rushed in making them, I was very happy with how they turned out. The colors are so bright, I can’t help but smile. I did, however, run into numerous problems with the royal icing. You can’t really tell with these pictures, but the cookies (especially the Cookie Monster ones) have lots of spots on them. Caused by either the butter soaking through or the humidity we’ve had around here. I’ve read several posts online about avoiding spots on cookies. This post by Sweetopia was especially helpful. I may try to bake my cookies just a tad longer or invest in another dehumidifier to avoid this problem in the future – it’s terribly frustrating!
The twins loved them! Apparently when my husband brought the cookies into their house, they had a fit until they could have one. And that’s all that matters!
Luau Cookies
Posted by: sweetlizbakes on: August 3, 2011
- In: Cookies
- 2 Comments
This past weekend, we attended a luau party in Oscoda, MI. Our friends’ parents were hosting the shindig.
Naturally, I brought cookies along. I’ve been practicing on my cookies so much lately that I’ve been taking every opportunity to give cookies to people! I dare say it’s become a little obsession now
I was very happy with the way these turned out – the colors look so vibrant and inviting together!
Flickr photos
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