let the creative juices flow

Or in my case, the creative sugary royal icing and cookie cutters!

First let me just say that I am actually getting this posted ON THE RIGHT DAY!!! Usually I run a day or two behind with these things. I try, I really do, but somehow the day always seems to get away from me. So I'm pretty excited. Okay, onto the challenge. The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

I have to admit, when I first saw the challenge, I wasn't quite sure if I was ready to do sugar cookies again. As you may recall, last May I was hired to cater these cookies for my son's preschool graduation.
350+ cookies to be exact, and while I truly enjoyed the opportunity...I also steered clear of sugar cookies for awhile! But I quickly got excited about the challenge. We were supposed to decorate the cookies in a way to tell about what September means to you. This was hard, because for us, September has lots going on. My hubby and I both have birthdays, the boys are both in school (one kindergarten and one at preschool for the first time), and its also the beginning of all those fun fall outdoor activities. We have been doing a lot of outdoor stuff this month - hiking, apple picking, going to cider mills, etc. so this is the theme I went with.

The recipe we used was okay, and the cookies tasted good, but I am still a fan of my "go to" recipe that I used for both the baby shower and the butterflies. It's my all time favorite and I don't know that I'll ever find one that I like better. I found this recipe to be a little dry and hard to roll out - but that could have been an error on my part.

To decorate I whipped up some royal icing. I like this method of decorating sugar cookies because it gets nice and hard so you can store them easily and they look great all packaged up.

After the icing was (mostly) dry, the boys enjoyed their cookies for dessert.

The husband and I enjoyed one as well. Sorry for the lighting...it was dark out and my kitchen doesn't have the best light. If you want the recipe that we used, you can check it out HERE.