A Batch of Heaven

Welcome to our new adventure here on Patch of Heaven....cookies....however you want them! If you know the Gharing's you know we love to bake. Christmas is a diabetic nightmare here on our patch, but baking is something we love. There's something sweet, no pun intended, about mixing up a batch of your favorite cookie, pulling it from the oven and dunking those babies in ice cold milk. Good grief, I am drooling.

I had a bridal shower at work last month, that was a "forest" theme. They were getting married in Glacier National Forest and then camping for their honeymoon. At the time, I thought, what an odd theme for a bridal shower.....but look how cute these cookies are!

Those bears were so sweet, especially when their little heads were in my mouth.....anyway at the shower one of the ladies said, "You know you could sell these. "Blank" bakery sells them for almost 3.00 a piece". After she picked me up off the floor, I said "really??" And then she said "really". And then I was like....oh my gawd Becky look at her....wait this is not a Sir mix-alot song. She said that one of the office managers in my building was looking to do a cookie for Breast Cancer Awareness, maybe I would want to reach out to her. Can you tell she is the marketing person at my work?

So I did. I sent that manager an email and she responded that she would love to see what I could do. I told her that I would make her a few samples and bring them in for her to see. Fast forward a few weekends and this is what we came up with.

I think they look pretty good. I used a different cookie recipe than I normally use. It was a good thick cookie, which is great for shape cookies.

Here is the recipe I used:

2 large eggs
4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
4 tsp vanilla

Sift your flour and set aside. In your mixer, beat your butter, sugar, salt, eggs and vanilla together. Add in flour slowly. Chill for 30 minutes, roll and cut into your favorite shape. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.

You can add 1 1/2 cups of cocoa for chocolate. I bought unsweetened, so I added about another 1/2 cup sugar.

The dough was awesome, but once the cookies were pulled out they were not as sweet as this southerner would like. But once you get all that Royal Icing on there.....it was sweet enough.

I posted on Facebook if anyone was interested in cookies in the shape of your choice, just let me know. The magic of the Internet did its thing and I got 4 orders! Of course, I am going to use my own sugar cookie recipe, which I will share that at another time.

Tucker came up with the name, which I think is awesome, since Patch of Heaven has been our homestead name since seeing Disney's Home on the Range. (if you have not seen this movie, you need to~ it is great!)

We are really excited to start this new bakeventure, I just totally made that up.....