Have fun with your sugar cookies

I wasn't going to post today, but I saw a website that needs to be shared!

www.thecookiecuttershop.com

Also worth mentioning is Martha Stewart's Cookie of the Day, which is where I found this awesome cookie cutter site.

Ok, so for a while, Martha Stewart's been having a cookie recipe every day; I think this started out to get everyone excited for her new Cookie Cookbook (yes, of course I already own it!). Last week, she switched to cupcake for cupcake week (which has gotten me all into cupcakes, but they're difficult to transport, especially compared to cookies, so I tend to bake cupcakes seldomly), but now we're back on cookies. Some of them are kind of cool and unusual, like peanut butter and jelly bars, but some of them are like today's, umbrella cookies. I have a problem with showcasing these cookies as a great new recipe. Why? Because they are your basic sugar cookie, cut with a fancy new cutter. This is not a new cookie, this is a new shape. Any bozo can go get a fantastic set of unusual cookie cutters, and make shoe cookies, giraffe cookies, butterfly cookies, the list goes on and on, from the same slab of rolled-out dough!

However, even with this opinion, I'm a sucker for cookies of fun and interesting shapes, especially because that's when you can go kind of nuts (in a good way) with icing them. And that's why I'm excited about thecookiecuttershop.com. I've never seen cutters in some of the shapes they offer, and I'm totally ready to just buy a whole bunch (specifically, the t-shirt, one of the dresses (#O1061), and the glass slipper under the "Unusual" category, and some of the cat ones). One could have a blast with the t-shirts, assuming you have good, relatively stiff frosting (not runny icing, unless you have a stiffer-frosting border piped on the cookie) and a plethora of decorating tools.

So, I'll post back if I order some of these, and let you know if they're as wonderful as they seem.

Until then, I have plans to alter the Nestle's Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe- I want make them a bit chewier, and the plan I have is the following:
current recipe includes:
1cup of butter
3/4cup of granulated sugar
3/4cup of brown sugar
2 eggs
and other stuff- vanilla and dry ingredients, and of course, chocolate chips.

My idea to make a chewier cookie:
1 cup of butter (or perhaps 1/2cup of butter and 1/2cup of shortening)
3/4cup brown sugar
1/2cup of granulated sugar
1/4cup of honey
1 egg
and the other stuff.

I base my hypothesis that this will give me a chewier cookie on the quality and ingredients of the Exotic Spice Cookies I mentioned in the Beer Cookie post. I'm not entirely sure if it'll turn out as I'd like, I think I need some food science courses (maybe I should go back to school for that once I finish this degree. hmm? kidding)

I had planned to try these amazing cupcakes tonight, but I think I'll be in lab too late for cupcakes, so those will have to wait a little longer.