Sue's Kitchen: sugar cookies

Showing posts with label sugar cookies. Show all posts

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Don't bother me-the flour will be flying!

     JUST KIDDING! After tomorrow I am on vacation from work and can concentrate on baking cookies.....tons of cookies! Oh-and pecan tassies and bourbon balls and pumpkin cream cheese bread and cranberry orange pecan bread and more cookies. Then there's the buttercream frosting and sanding sugar and chocolate dipping and sprinkle sprinkling.
     After that's all done we package everything in mugs and bowls and on plates and platters...wrap them up in cellophane with ribbon and bows and string and tags...then send them all home with you!!!
     Hope to see you all here next week. Somebody has to come get all this stuff I'm making!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Enjoy Spring Sugar Cookies and Strawberry Rhubarb Pie!

Spring in Sue's Kitchen means buttercream frosted sugar cookies with all kinds of pretty sprinkles AND strawberry rhubarb pies. I'll have both plus more goodies at the last Columbus Winter Farmers' Market this Saturday, 10am-1pm. We're at the Clintonville Woman's Club. See you there!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Oakland Nursery Spring Fling-Come on Over!

     Well, its snowing right now and I'm so ready for spring. I know everyone else is too so I'm inviting you all to come to the Oakland Nursery Spring Fling this Saturday. Our Columbus Winter Farmers' Market vendors will be there holding a special spring market. Please come and at least pretend it is SPRING!
     I just made some Spring Carrot Lemon Bread with fresh lemon glaze and its not only pretty but tastey. Tomorrow I'll finish off the Butter Cream Iced Sugar Cookies and small Chicks-n-Bunnies Sugar Cookies, Skinny Jean Cookies, Biker Bars, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Oatmeal Raisin and Snickerdoodles too, Cranberry Scones, AND some mini Berry Pies.
     Sue's Kitchen will be celebrating spring whether its snowy and cold or not! So there, Mother Nature!

Monday, February 14, 2011

To Die For Buttercream Frosting

If you want delicious and pretty frosting for your special cupcakes, cakes and cookies, there is nothing as good as buttercream frosting. It's easy and you can color it any color your little heart desires.
Here is the very basic recipe I use for my cookies, cakes and cupcakes like the ones you see above:

Delicious Buttercream Frosting
2/3 cup butter-room temperature
4 cups confectioners' sugar
2 Tbsp. milk (or more to get spreading consistency)
1 tsp. vanilla (use clear if you want whiter frosting)

Beat the butter til creamy then add the sugar a little at a time. I usually end up with a sugar shower so be careful. You can add some milk a little at a time to help prevent this. After you've added the liquids beat the frosting for 2-3 minutes until its nice and fluffy and creamy and just the right consistency. If you're adding food coloring put it in when you add the vanilla. Gel colors are brighter. You can also get fluorescent colors now that are really bright-great for kids. Sanding sugar or Sprinkles top off your masterpieces and look like a real bakery pro came to your kitchen for the day.

Enjoy making something special for your sweetie this Valentine's Day and I'll see you soon!!
Sue

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

We had a wonderful market yesterday and I wanted to share some of my handmade Valentines with you. They went well with the pink buttercream frosted sugar cookies and triple chocolate brownies. Here are a few more:

Hope you all have a great Valentine's Day with those you love :)
Sue

Saturday, February 5, 2011

February 12th: Sue's Kitchen does "Valentine's Day"

How perfect! We're having a Farmers' Market 2 days before Valentine's Day!! I love this "Hallmark" Holiday and can't wait to start baking later this week. If you want something delicious and homemade for your Valentines, come to Sue's Kitchen. Here's what I'll be making for you:

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

Buttercream Frosted Heart Sugar Cookies (large singles and minis drizzled with chocolate)

Triple Chocolate Brownies

Cherry Pie (remembering Pres. Washington :)

And my signature cookies: chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, skinny jean and biker bars.

Complete your Valentine gift with a homemade card from Sue's Kitchen. Remember the market starts @10 am and we wrap up at 1pm. See you there!

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

What a Wonderful Holiday Season

Lots of baking and little blogging has been going on in Sue's Kitchen. After baking 60+pies for Thanksgiving the kitchen stayed humming for Christmas time baking. The pictures are from my annual "Christmas in the Country" Open House. We had a gorgeous winter day and many friends and family came to enjoy the hot spiced cider while shopping for gifts and goodies to enjoy for their parties. When it was all said and done I think Sue's Kitchen produced over 140+ dozen variety of Christmas cookies....and a few pumpkin rolls, dessert breads, pies and cakes. The cookies in the pictures are Gingerbread Men and Red Velvet Whoopie Pies.

Thanks to my friends, Bee (Cowtown Candies) and Gretel (Sunny Meadow Flower Farm) for their wonderful sweets and homemade soaps/salves they brought to the open house. Bee's fudge is the best in Central Ohio and Gretel's soaps smell so wonderful. Their packaging is so perfect, too! Gretel also brought some of her homemade jams and honey-YUM!!

Monday, March 8, 2010

St. Pat's and Spring coming to Worthington's Farmers' Market

It is so wonderful to have spring-like weather this week. It inspires me to break out the springtime table cloths, Easter chick and bunny cookie cutters and flowers...lots of flowers.

Its also almost St. Patrick's Day so this Saturday we will be decked out all in green, complete with shamrock decor and shamrock sprinkled sugar cookies.

At Sue's Kitchen we will also bring something that goes delightfully well with your morning coffee...Coffeecake! Look for Blueberry Cream Cheese and Apple Walnut Streusel coffeecake, cut and packaged in individual pieces (see the above pictures). If you can't

wait to partake, I will be sure to bring forks and napkins for you.

See you there!

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

"Christmas in the Country"

Every year I ask myself if I'm going to have another Christmas open house...I ponder the question awhile then decide, "YES!" I started having my open house in 2005 as a way to provide Christmas baked goodies for friends and family. We gather together and enjoy good food and hot spiced cider. Over the years it has grown and this year I was joined by friends Bee Katz of "Cowtown Candies", Gretel Adams of "Sunny Meadow Flower Farms" (you may have seen her on the cover of Columbus Monthly recently), and my sister-in-law, Becky Joseph. What wonderful handmade items they brought! Delicious fudge, cards with beautiful photography, lovely scented handmade soaps...........something for each of our senses!

While the open house is a lot of work and preparation, we sure have a good time being together. Isn't that what the season is for? Being together?

Here are the "Elves" who helped me prepare for my 4th annual "Christmas in the Country" Open House.

Thanks to my Mom (Effie), Cousin Vicki and friend LeAnn, we enjoyed a very successful day. Not pictured is my daughter Caitlin-thanks for all your help Cait!! We couldn't ask for better weather...sunshine, cool but not too cold, and no slippery roads! Thanks to everyone who came and enjoyed themselves. I'll share some pictures of the goodies we had for gift buying, parties, Santa's plate, etc. We had a "make your own cookie dozen" table which was a huge hit. We'll have to have a repeat performance next year.

I baked for so many hours I lost track. I do know I baked about 60 dozen various cookies and at least 25 dozen sugar cookies. There were also Cranberry Orange Breads, Pumpkin Spice Breads, Cocoa Banana Breads, and Old Fashioned Pecan Tassies. After the open house I baked some more.....pies, cookies, breads. I sure hope everyone enjoyed what they bought. I had fun not only baking everything but also making them look pretty and packaging them for your parties and gift giving. Above are Gingerbread Men, Chocolate Sugar Cookies with Peppermint Candy Cane Sprinkles, Cherry & Apricot Rugelage, Cherry Thumbprints drizzled with White Chocolate, Peanut Butter Blossoms, Chocolate Dipped Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Beautiful Buttercream Froster Sugar Cookies.

I'm hoping everyone had a wonderful Christmas and will have a safe and Happy New Year!

About Me

I grew up in the country in Ohio on the family farm baking alongside my Mom and Gramma…back when we grew huge vegetable gardens, foraged the fields and woods for summer’s blackberries, and picked tart cherries until the juice ran down our arms. We spent many a hot afternoon “putting up” gallons of transparent applesauce for our enjoyment later in the winter. Those hot summer afternoons were also just right for raising bread dough on Gramma’s dining room table, later to be hand-rolled into buns and slathered with butter when they emerged from the oven for us to eat. Now that I think about it, it seems only natural to me that one day, many years later I would decide to share my love of baking with others.

After leaving Ohio, moving around, going off to college and working as a nurse, my husband Jim and I came back to our family farm and built our home. We raised our two daughters, Sara and Caitlin, and have been fortunate to have our parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents and extended family close by. How blessed we are to have such wonderful family! Then about seven years ago I decided I wanted to do something to make extra money. Sara was going off to college and I thought this would help with expenses. Farmers’ Markets were just starting to become a popular Saturday morning venue for socializing, buying fresh produce and sampling all kinds of delectable goodies artisans, like myself, baked and brought to sell at the market. I visited our town’s market one day with my Mom and I thought to myself. “I can do this!” And so, our local farmers’ market is where I took a leap of faith and “Sue’s Kitchen” was born.

Each week as I set up my table and put out my pies and cookies I was amazed by how many people do not bake anymore. Is it our fast paced lives that prevent us from throwing flour and butter together to produce yummy cookies? Are fewer people being taught this art as they grow up? Or is it just too easy to hit the local supermarket and pick up a pre-packaged sweet to take home? Whatever the reason, I quickly found how much that lost art of baking is truly missed.

Baking with heirloom recipes has brought smiles to the faces of my customers over the years, especially my homemade pies with flakey crusts and fresh juicy fruit fillings. When I use the leftover pie dough for cinnamon sticks I find my customers have their own family story and nickname for these treats: “roley poley” “cinnamon rolls”,etc..Whatever the name, they say when they were kids they waited in anticipation for them to be done baking then devoured them while still warm. I remembered the cookies Mom baked for us kids and she gave me her Oatmeal Raisin cookie recipe, which I make every week. I always loved Gramma Rose’s Molasses Sugar cookies, which are a fall favorite. I am lucky to have her old wooden recipe box complete with all her handwritten recipes, tips and even some letters. Some interpretation is needed here and there to replace her “butter the size of an egg” with actual measurement.

Another summer farmer’s market season is just beginning along with the growing anticipation of what new to bake, how to reach out to more people and how to design my new logo and website with the help of my friend Linda and my daughter Sara. I hope you all enjoy the ongoing happenings from Sue’s Kitchen.

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