Baking Shenanigans 2015...

So far, this year has been insanely busy on the baking front. I did have a few weeks in January to recover from the holidays, but I still got to bake up some pretty fun stuff.

1. First birthday cookies in pink and gold.
2. 6th birthday bowling themed cookies.
3. Norman North semi formal invite cookies.
4. Frozen themed birthday cake.
5. Frozen themed birthday cookies.
6. Matilda Jane open house cookies.
7. German chocolate cake for my fabulous father-in-law.
8. Birthday cookies for two of my favorite kids' mimi.
9. 60th birthday golf themed cookies.

1. Birthday cupcakes cookies with polka dots.
2. Personalized valentines cookies.
3. Thank you cookies for nurses.
4. Burger cupcakes and love cookies for Josh's cousin Jennifer's wedding shower.
5. More birthday cupcakes with polka dots.
6. Elephant baby shower cookies.
7. Valentine cookies!
8. Wedding shower cookies.
9. Grey and yellow chevron birthday cupcake cookies.

1. Fire truck themed 3rd birthday cookies.
2. 50 Shades of Grey birthday sugar cookies.
3. Winnie the Pooh birthday sugar cookies.
4. My favorite Frozen sugar cookies so far.
5. Ninjago birthday cookies for my nephew Haden, and Japanese cookies that say Paige for my niece's 16th birthday.
6. Cookies I donated for a local church.
7. Cookies for my friend Kristy who headed to Arizona for a marathon.
8. Wedding shower cookies, love the white on white.
9. My biggest order to date, cookies for the OU College of Arts & Science's gala.

This is not everything that has been happening this year, but it's a lot of it. It hasn't been too easy keeping up with all of it, but it has sure been fun making goodies. I am glad to have a few days to catch my breath and catch up on my DVR and get a little blogging done. I promised my girls that I would make them some chocolate chip cookies this weekend. They have been feeling a little neglected lately.

I am looking forward to what is coming up for March. 

Running in 2015...

After three super busy days at my day job, and not much baking going on, I decided to try out a new recipe last night.

Dark chocolate shortbread cookies. I have wanted to make shortbread cookies forever and I finally got a chance to.  I found a recipe and gave it a try. I was very surprised that the recipe didn't call for eggs. I even googled it to make sure it hadn't been left off the recipe.  Nope, no eggs. I baked them, dipped them in semi sweet chocolate and added some sprinkles. Nothing says celebration like sprinkles. 

Josh and I bundled up, packed up some cookies and headed to Jerry and Tiffany's to run in the new year. It's officially a tradition, two years in a row. 

Worst selfie ever, but it was cold and we were out there. No wind though, so that was good. 

We took a shoefie after. We even got dog feet in the shot. Hunter ran in the new year with us. 

If you are going to take a shoefie, you must take a selfie too! Tiffany, Jerry, Patti, me and Josh. It was a great way to end 2014 and start 2015. Looking forward to the miles ahead. 

Baking in 2014...

This has been a big year for me when it comes to baking. Back in January I was thinking that I would be done with baking, but then February rolled around and after an order for 100 Valentine sugar cookies it has just taken off from there. We have also learned what happens to Penny when she eats a dozen sugar cookies. She is okay for the first 24 hours, but after that it's gas and discomfort for Crazy Penny.

There was a little re-branding, with my new name and logo. It was not easy coming up with my new name, Sugar Shenanigans, I really feel like I have grown into my new name. (Plus I LOVE the word shenanigans.)

We have slowly turned out breakfast nook into my baking area.

I now own two Kitchen aid mixers.

I am the proud owner of a bun rack. Really, it makes me laugh every time I say it. I wonder if that will wear off.

These are just a few the Shenanigans of 2014...

1. Olaf/Frozen cookies for Avery
2. Sock Monkey cookies, I am sad I didn't make these for Carson when she was younger.
3. Love and Dragon Flies for Dan & Judy's anniversary
4. Ice Cream and Cupcakes
5. Flowers, and the first cookies I sent in the mail.
6. Ladybugs, Cows and love.
7. Pokemon for my girls' birthday.
8. Dr. Seuss cookies, I can't wait to make more of these.
9. Peeps! Way better than actual Peeps, in my opinion.

1. Superhero cookies for a 3-year-old's birthday
2. More love cookies for an engagement party.
3. Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!
4. Angels and gold starts. I really love these angels.
5. Arkansas cookies, I love the hog cookies. I made OU, OSU and WVU cookies too.
6. Elf on a Shelf. My kids missed the whole elf on the shelf craze, and I was nervous about these cookies, but they turned out great.
7. Thanksgiving. Love the turkeys made with flower cookie cutters.
8. Music theme cookies.
9. Pigeon cookies, my kids are too old for this character, but I hear the books are very popular. These cookies were a big hit with the kindergarten class.

There have also been a few cakes and cupcakes sprinkled in here and there.

German chocolate cake for my father-in-law's birthday. Seriously, I think I used up every dish in my kitchen with this one.

Dark chocolate nutella cake for my mother-in-law's birthday. (I see a theme developing here.)

I have tried out some new things this year. I aspire to make macaroons. I did make one batch and I think they turned out good.

I think the theme is chocolate and not in-laws.

It's been a year full of baking, and I hope that 2015 brings even more.

A Little Shenanigans...

I feel like I have been baking non-stop lately! That is not complaining at all, but I have been super busy. I thought I would take a break from running and show off some of the cookies I have been baking up...

There have been lots of football cookies, including OSU (gasp!), WVU and Arkansas. I will be sad to see football season go.

I love cupcakes, and I especially love cupcake sugar cookies!

Sometimes the design I have in my head doesn't actually translate in reality, and the cookies I made before these roses are definitely in that category. Multiple cookie cutters to get the shape I wanted made these not the easiest cookies I have made, but they sure turned out cute.

Custom cookies for a shower. I was so happy with how these turned out. I always say I am not very artistic, but I was amazed that I could take an invitation and get parts of it to translate into a cookie. Not the easiest to make, but the end product was one I was very happy with.

The horse shoes on these cookies were royal icing transfers that I made myself. Another pat myself on the back moment. I had to make them a little shimmery with gold edible dust, they were for a little girl's birthday party after all.

October is breast cancer awareness month, and I was super excited when my older sister asked me to make cookies to go along with her Halloween costume. Here theme was "Fight Like a Girl" and she gave out these individually wrapped goodies.

Lastly, for today, it is always someone's birthday, right? These were last minute cookies done for a birthday. I am a big fan of sugar cookies to celebrate birthdays. Okay, to celebrate any day, really.

 

 

So that's just a bit of what has been happening in my kitchen lately. I am hoping to find more time to blog about all the shenanigans. (I really love the word Shenanigans!)

Let's Talk About Food...

I haven't done a WIAW post in a while. Who am I kidding really? I have seriously been neglecting my blog most of 2014. There has been stuff going on, running and baking and family stuff.

Let's talk about the food. I think I am a pretty boring food person. I eat the same things over and over again. No wonder Carson is like that, maybe it's hereditary? 

I have rediscovered my love for avocado egg salad sandwiches. It's a great post long run food. 

We have had a couple of recent trips to Blu for their fabulous blue cheese chips. They are the best!

I have switched up my soup of the week a couple of times and went with orzo with veggies the other week. Yum!

Back to my soup of the week last week with roasted red pepper and barley. Where have red peppers been all my life? Why would anyone waste their time with green bell peppers? Red peppers are the best!

I have not neglected my family in the cookie department. Even with all the sugar cookies and cakes lately, I have still made versions of my chocolate chip cookies pretty consistently for them for the last few months. Nothing says love like homemade cookies. One of my biggest compliments lately was a friend's son who said he wanted to come with her to stop by my house because I always have cookies. Cookies with wine? Even better. 

Do beverages count as food? After a 21 mile long run I think they do. This was my ice bath beverage bar. The Svelte protein shake was so good! So chocolatey and delicious. Hot tea to warm me up while sitting in the ice and a tall glass of Nuun to rehydrate. 

Last night while the meat eaters in my house had steak I had couscous with roasted sweet potatoes, zucchini, mushrooms, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. I'm so glad I prepped these on Sunday. It was fast and filling. 

So there you have it. I have been eating a lot lately. Marathon training makes me hungry!

WIAW, What Did I Take Pictures Of...

I haven't done a WIAW post in ages. I usually have trouble taking pictures of everything I eat in one day. But I do eat the same thing a lot.

I have eaten a few cookies lately, but I have bakes a ton of sugar cookies lately. Based on the number I have made I have eaten only a few. More on the cookies later, but here is one picture of some that I made last night.

I did a little post half marathon carb loading on Sunday night, mostly because spaghetti is so easy to make and I was able to talk Josh into making the garlic bread. Mush to the disappointment of the teenagers. I threw in some steamed Brussels sprouts with mine.

Tonight the family had steak for dinner so I opted for a baked sweet potato with black beans, cheese and salsa. Steamed broccoli and Brussels sprouts on the side.

This has been one of my favorite meals lately. Let's call it a BBQ ranch veggie burger wrap with cheese and lettuce. A side of baked curly fries to go with it.

I have been making a pot of soup watch week for the past few months. Makes packing my lunch extremely simple. I have taken to just starting with a good soup base and then throwing in whatever sounds good that week. I decided on this soup during our half marathon Sunday morning. Navy bean and potato. Yum! I used my immersion blender on part of ot and the beans and potatoes thickened the soup quite nicely.

So there you have it, finally a WIAW post. It's been a little crazy with all the cookie making, but I have still had some yummy eats.

 

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New Chocolate Chip Cookies...

The last few weeks I have discovered that I love avocados.

I have eaten quite a few of these hard boiled egg and avocado sandwiches on the way to work the last few weeks. Yummy. I have been looking for new ways to incorporate avocados into other meals during the day.

I saw a reipe for Avocado Chocolate Chip Cookies on Eat, Live, Run. This blog post got me thinking about how to incorporate avocados into my own chocolate chip cookies.

When I got home from the race expo yesterday afternoon I decided to put my knowledge of chocolate chip cookies to the test and whipped up my own avocado infused chocolate chip cookies.

Along with an avocado, I also added ground oats and flax seed. Of course, I had to use semi sweet and dark chocolate chips. I mean, they are chocolate chip cookies after all. I baked the first dozen to see how they baked, and discovered that they don't flatten on their own. They remained in the same shape. I flattened out the rest of them before they went in the oven, and that was a little messy. The dough was a little sticky.

I just have to say, these cookies are amazing. You can't taste the avocado, and the texture with the ground oats and flax seed is fantastic. They are moist and chewy and chocolaty. The girls and Josh all really like them, and had no idea they had an avocado in them until I revealed my secret ingredient. Now I can't wait to see where else my beloved avocados will turn up.

Stick around and I will let you know.

 

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Best Day Ever...

I cannot type that without thinking about Spongebob Squarepants. My girls used to love watching Spongebob with their dad. I can hear him singing about the best day ever.

Friday was probably not really my best day ever, but it sure was a good one. I took the day off from work so I could get ready for Beer Sprocket on Saturday, so really my Friday sort of started when I got off work on Thursday.

I headed from work to my favorite local running store for a ladies night. They had wine, talk about my second favorite physical activity yoga, and had sports bra fittings.

One of my favorite four-year-olds was there. (It was a girls night.)

Avery learned that your "girls" are you boobies. She is the cutest. She loved the Nuun lemonade cupcakes I made, and she wanted to share her water with Lance.

I had a sports bra fitting and I have decided my next sports bra will be the Rebound Racer by Moving Comfort.

I got home and got to baking. I started with chocolate chip and Nutella with white chocolate chips.

I made the cookies smaller than I normally do, they were more of a bite sized cookie. Because of this I baked them a little differently, because of that the Nutella cookies didn't turn out like I wanted them to. I decided to leave those cookies at home.

I got up Friday morning and got to baking again. I rolled out two batches of sugar cookies and two batches of chocolate sugar cookies. I had the last batch in the oven when I left to go take the Friday morning hot yoga class at the yoga studio I have been going to. There is almost nothing I love more than a yoga class at a time that I normally wouldn't be able to go to. It was a great class, my arms were worn out by all the vinyasas.

After yoga, I made a couple batches of Sweeties, and then all that was left to do was make the chocolate frosting for the chocolate sugar cookies and the frosting for the regular sugar cookies. Other than a blister on my hand from scooping out over 600 cookies in 24 hours, and a sore hand the whole thing was very uneventful. All the cookies were done by the time I would have been getting off work Friday afternoon.

The cookies were ready to rest overnight before I boxed them up on Saturday morning.

Does this look like 600 cookies? Well it was about 580 or so. Not too bad for a days work.

 

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Not Everything in the Kitchen Has Been Bad...

I have had a few failures in the kitchen recently. It has not been all bad.

I did make some awesome Nuuncakes this weekend. I also made some blueberry muffins on Sunday morning.

We were at Sprouts on Saturday afternoon and I picked up some fresh blueberries. I promised Carson I would make some blueberry muffins on Sunday morning.

What is it about fresh baked blueberry muffins? They were very good. My family doesn't get as excited about muffins as they do about cookies and cupcakes. Maybe I should put a little buttercream on these and they would get a warmer reception. I have said before that muffins are cupcakes that are not living up to their full potential. Might have to not do the streusel topping if I'm going to go with buttercream.

Beer Sprocket is coming up this weekend and I am still working out the plan in my head. I am thinking I'm going to be doing cookies this year, change it up a bit. I did a little searchig and actually found a recipe for a cokie that uses a cherry fruit ale; I had to give it a try.

These were ok, not bad, but not fabulous. Definitely not Beer Sprocket worthy. These did turn out better that my other kitchen disasters today. Oh well, the thing with a new recipe is that there's always a chance that you just aren't going to love it, that's why you should always ave a practice run.

I did learn that the cleaning setting on my oven works wonders. I probably won't wait four years to use it again. It really stunk up the house and made it a bit smokey. We ended up heading to the movies and the grocery store while the four and a half hour process was going on. We even put the dogs in the garage so they didn't die from smoke inhalation. They were a bit freaked out by that.

Who knew that my oven could be so clean? Certainly not me. Have you even cleaned your oven with Easy Off? The self cleaning setting is a much better option. Just make plans to be out of the house when you use it.

 

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A Little More Baking...

I have been on quite the baking kick again. It's kinda nice. I made some of my triple chocolate chip cookies to take to Kendra's birthday party Friday night. These are packed with semi-sweet, dark chocolate and milk chocolate M&Ms. I say if one kind of chocolate is good, three is even better.

I baked up these cupcakes Sunday, but I will tell you more about them later. Just know that they were yummy.

I saw the recipe for Peanut Butter-Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips on the Brown Eyed Baker's blog a while ago. I never managed to have ay overly ripe bananas to use in the recipe, but tody I finally did. So I whipped up the batter.

I poured the batter in a lined loaf pan.

And I baked it up until it was golden brown and beautiful.

I have not had a chance to taste it yet, but based on the smells coming out of my kitchen, I think this recipe is going to have to be repeated.

 

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