Too Soon

Last month, I thought it would be a good idea to bake some autumn-themed cookies.



Turns out I was wrong.

It wasn't because the cookies weren't tasty. On the contrary--my mother's recipe, which I think was her grandmother's recipe, is amazing, and it has a secret family ingredient. The cookies were delicious.

No, baking cookies in mid-September was a bad idea because it was just too soon. I tried to rush autumn. And because of it, I ended up giving up on the cookies.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning shall we?

A couple days before I baked/gave up on the aforementioned cookies, I found some really cute leaves & acorns cookie cutters at a discount store, along with some autumn sprinkles. I was so excited to use them that I went home and immediately mixed up a batch of sugar cookie dough.



Hmmm, that's a tad bit embarrassing. What a mess my counter was that day! I had yet to put away all the bowls I'd gotten from my grandma's house, along with a few other recent acquisitions. Oh well, that doesn't matter. What's important is that you can see how cool my AQUA-COLORED measuring spoons and cups are!! Oh yeah!!!

Sorry. I really like aqua.

Anywho....

The sugar cookie dough needed at least an hour to chill, so into the fridge it went. And at about the same time, the clouds, the beautiful, wonderful clouds that had fooled me into thinking that Fall was just around the corner, burned off and the sun came out and I lost my will to bake. So the dough stayed put for a while.

Two days, to be exact.

I wasn't sure if the dough would still be workable after two days, or if it would be tough. I didn't know if it was even safe to use after two days. I usually have a hard time waiting just one hour after I've mixed up a batch of sugar cookie dough, so this was uncharted territory for me.

But it was fine. Whew.

When it came time to roll out the dough and use my new cookie cutters, my pastry cloth was nowhere to be found. That really annoyed me because 1) I hate rolling out cookies without a pastry cloth and 2) that was the second pastry cloth I'd misplaced. Grrr. I couldn't even use a tea towel as a substitute because the few that I have were dirty.

So I rolled out the dough sans pastry cloth...



...and, much to my surprise, the world didn't come to an end. ;)

The cookie cutters came with three different designs, with two sizes of each design: regular-sized and mini. I cut out regular-sized acorns and leaves, and then used the mini-acorn one with my boys, letting them cut out several cookies apiece. I then added some orange sprinkles to the tops of the mini-acorns (yeah, I know, acorns are brown) before sliding them into the oven. The larger acorns, along with the leaves, were left unadorned. The plan was to frost them with homemade icing.



As the cookies cooled, my five-year-old noticed that the orange acorns did not look like acorns, but rather much like Goldfish crackers.



Yeah, I can see that.

As for the other cookies, they didn't get any special decorations. Nothing. I ran out of steam, just as I had two days prior when I mixed up the dough. I had zero desire to make icing. I had zero desire to buy icing. By that point, I just didn't give a darn about icing.

But it's ok. The un-iced cookies didn't last more than 24 hours. Two little boys+one husband=quickly emptied cookie jar.



And that's the way I like it. :)