Turtle Bread :)

A little while ago, I found the Betty Crocker website.  I now LOVE this website!!  I look there whenever I am in search of a recipe.  It's amazing.
Once I was looking and found the Turtle Bread recipe.  The cute little turtle looked soooo cute!!!  I couldn't wait to try this adorable looking bread.
So I got the recipe and headed to the kitchen!  I was cooking the rest of the dinner as well so I didn't have a whole lot of down time to try and make it perfect.
This is what it is SUPPOSED to look like:

Isn't it cute?
And this is what mine turned out to look like.....

So besides the fact that the head is not  perfectly round and the feet are kinda weird, the bread itself tasted good!
So if you would like this bread recipe, here it is from the Betty Crocker website.

Ingredients

2 1/2	to 3 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1	package quick active dry yeast
1	tablespoon sugar
1	teaspoon salt
1/2	cup water
1/3	cup milk
1	tablespoon butter or margarine
1	egg
2	raisins

Directions

1.	In large bowl, mix 1 1/2 cups of the flour, the yeast, sugar and salt; set aside.
2.	In 1-quart saucepan, heat water, milk and butter over medium heat, stirring occasionally, to 125°F to 130°F; stir into yeast mixture. Stir in egg. Stir in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle. On lightly floured surface, knead dough about 5 minutes or until smooth and springy. Cover and let rest 10 minutes.
3.	Lightly grease cookie sheet with shortening or spray with cooking spray. Shape a 2-inch piece of dough into a ball for turtle’s head. Shape 4 walnut-size pieces of dough into balls for feet. Shape 1 walnut-size piece of dough into tail. Shape remaining dough into ball for turtle body; place on cookie sheet and flatten slightly. Attach head, feet and tail by placing 1 end of each under edge of body to secure. Press raisins into head for eyes. Cover and let rise in warm place 20 minutes.
4.	Heat oven to 400°F. Make 1/4-inch-deep circular cut around top edge of body, then make crisscross cuts in center to look like a turtle's shell. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown.

--Brittany

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Sugar Cookies!

Hello.
I know it has been a LONG time since my first post.  I could sit here and make excuses why such as got busy with school, or haven't had time...but honestly, I have had PLENTY of time.  I just didn't take the time to blog about anything.  And it isn't that I haven't baked stuff cause believe me, I have.  Most of the stuff I would start taking pictures of the beginning stages, lots and lots of pictures...but then I would forget to take pictures of the ending stages, the ones that matter the most.  So that is basically why I haven't posted anything recently.  And since I don't really have any readers, I figured I wasn't disappointing anyone. Lol.

Ok...now on to the reason for my second post.  My aunt has her own blog called Cookie Crazie.  If you haven't looked at it you totally should head on over there. I have been following her blog for some time now.  I am always amazed at how wonderful her cookies are!  Once, my sister and I tried to make some cookies also but they didn't turn out very good....at ALL!  I vowed I would never try again.  But as I continued to look at my aunt's blog, and at other blogs I was re-inspired. So I researched to try and find the best recipe and tutorials and anything else that would help me out on this new adventure that I was heading out on.

There is a website that is called Cookiers-R-Us.  It is a fabulous place to ask questions and get answers and share ideas.  I found a cookie recipe here and asked some questions.  I found my icing recipe at University of Cookie which also helped me out.

So I had my cookie recipe, my icing recipe, now I just had to jump in and start cooking.
I made the cookie dough, rolled it out between two pieces of wax paper, stuck it in the freezer for a little while, crossed my fingers, cut out my shapes, placed them on the pan, stuck them in the oven, and set the timer.  During the ten minutes they were cooking, I kept wanting to peek a look inside the oven to see how they were turning out.  The anticipation was rising. And then...BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP...the timer went off!  I took the cookies out and the beautiful golden brown shapes that I had cut looked so delicious and I just wanted to gobble them up right there.  But with the little bit of self control I had I waited.

I made the icing and colored it.  I didn't know exactly what I was doing but I still wasn't going to give up.  I couldn't get BLACK icing...just a light grey.  But that was good enough for this time!  I tried to ice the cookies and, oh my, it is not as easy as it looks at all!  Fortunately, I believe I had pretty basic shapes and designs.  So I just iced away.

Would you like to see the pictures of my first sugar cookies (I don't count the very first attempt cause my sister was the one that made them more than me ;) I was there for support. lol) ??  Ok I will show you.

But please don't laugh.  This was my FIRST attempt.  Ok...here they are!

Ok so her is a duckie...it's kinda cute...right?

Here are some stars....They are kinda sloppy.   :/

These are my favorites out of the bunch....even though they still are not very good. Lol.

And lastly, we have some smiley faces.  They are kinda whacky shaped...lol.

So yeah, that was my first attempt at decorating suger cookies.  They tasted good to me too!  My mom and sister enjoyed them also!!!  So I say, even though it wasn't perfection, it was still a success!  ^_^

--Brittany

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