Bring on the Leaves

Looking outside my window, I see rain, rain, rain...and it's still humid and sticky (i.e., always a bad hair day), which is much more common for my fancy with a Georgia summer. Every year, sometime in late August, I get this angst down inside for the refreshing, cool days of autumn. You know the kind. When the crisp mornings give way to the warm afternoon sunshine followed by the delightfully cool and refreshing evening air.

Not only is autumn a season ruled by college football, mountain hiking, and my favorite sweatshirt and jeans, but, it is the season for pumpkin everything! (Can you see the grin from ear to ear??) It's true. I covet a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks like nobody's business. And, pumpkin scones, pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting, pumpkin pie...you get the picture.

But, even more than that, I just plain love the season of fall. The leaves, the sunsets, the freshness in the air, the holidays (who doesn't love two months in a row with days designated for eating?), and the decorations. Oh, the decorations make me giddy. The oranges, and browns, and reds and yellow.

Simply put: I love everything about autumn.

In my longing for these long days of summer to end, I couldn't pass up the 50% off sale at my local Hobby Lobby on autumn leaf cookie cutters and decided to engage in a little baking therapy (every girl needs it now and then). With my orange food coloring and chocolate sprinkles in hand, I headed home to listen to the sweet hum of the mixer and whip up some yummy treats.

Of course, I had to start with the sugar cookie recipe to end all recipes - the Fungirl cookie recipe with Fungirl icing. (Note: this recipe belongs to one of my dear friends from college, and she brings a plate to every Fungirl event because we devour them.) I proceeded to spend the next two hours rolling dough, baking, cooling, frosting and decorating until I collapsed in a satisfied heap covered in flour at the end of the evening.

Just try and convince me life gets better than that.

For those wondering, yes, more dough made it into the oven than into my mouth (come on, I had to make sure they tasted right). The result was deliciously soft cookies, perfectly baked and frosted with creamy orange frosting kissed with chocolate sprinkles. (I threw in a few chocolate ones too.)




My air conditioning is still running, but all I'm thinking is "bring on the leaves!"

Fungirl Sugar Cookies

1/2 Cup butter
1 Cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1 and 3/4 Cup flour
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla.

Mix the flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to the sugar mixture.

Cover and chill.

Roll out cookies into desired shapes and bake for 8-10 minutes at 400 degrees. (Don't let them get too done!)


Fungirl Icing

1/4 Cup soft butter
1 pound powdered sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
3 to 4 tsp. milk
food coloring

Mix all ingredients together in the order given. Frost completely cooled cookies as desired!