More Fall Baking

I'm not really sure why . . . maybe it's the season change or maybe it's hormonal or maybe I'm just trying to show up Martha Stewart . . . but this week, I've been baking up a storm!

It all started with my attempt to make a pumpkin roll (remember the first time, the cake part turned out to be too thick, the second time I wussed out and made mini-cupcakes, and yesterday morning I dropped the cake on the floor immediately after removing it from the oven. Yeah, I was pissed.) And then last night, I felt the urge to bake some more, but since I wasn't having much luck making a pumpkin roll, I decided to make some sugar cookies instead.

I found this great set of Fall mini-cookie cutters during the Great Crap Closet Clean Out of 2009 - there were 3 different leaf cookie cutters, a pumpkin, an acorn, and an apple - that I'd been dieing to use, so tonight, I did. I pulled out some sugar cookie dough from the fridge (thanks, Pillsbury, for doing most of the work for me!) and began to roll, cut, bake, and ice. I think they turned out really cute . . .



I found this great recipe on allrecipes.com for the icing that I'm thrilled to share with y'all, because seriously, it was so easy to make, color, and it tastes super yummy. If you ever have the urge to decorate sugar cookies, this is the icing you need to use!

Sugar Cookie Icing

1 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons milk
2 teaspoons light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
assorted food coloring

In a small bowl, mix the sugar and milk until smooth.

Next, beat in the corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add a little more corn syrup.

Separate into bowls, add food coloring, and decorate your cookies.

This recipe doesn't make very much icing, so I doubled it and the perfect amount to decorate all of my leaves.

My first thought was to send these cookies to school with Boogie Bear this morning, but I already sent those mini-pumpkin roll cupcakes to school on Tuesday for his teachers to enjoy. I don't want them to think I'm on a secret mission to have them all gain weight this Fall. Although, if they did all gain a little weight, I'd . . . never mind. Maybe I'll save these for Mr. Bill to devour when he gets home from his business trip or maybe I will end up sending these to school with Boogie Bear.

You know, as I was cutting out the cookies and icing them, I couldn't help but think of my friend, Rosemary. She just moved to Tennessee and she promised to send me some pictures of the leaves changing. As many of y'all know, all we get in Houston are trees that pretty much go from green to brown with no reds, oranges, or yellows in between. I'm envious that she gets to enjoy such beauty this season!

Anyway, I had so much fun using that icing, that I may just bake some more cookies to ice later on this week - as always, I'll let y'all know!