The Kindness of Strangers

Good morning everyone!  I hope your weekends are going great…I know for me it’s been amazing to have a couple days off.  Those work weeks can get hard sometimes!

I have to admit something:  I’ve been pretty overwhelmed as of late.  There were a few weeks there where we weren’t sure how my Papa was doing, and when he passed away we traveled to Oklahoma for the funeral.  That was 2 weeks ago.  Last weekend we flew to Dallas because Nate was in a wedding of a good friend of his, which means the weekend was packed with activity and very little sleep.  This week at work was incredibly hectic, and for personal reasons (sorry, these aren’t going to be shared on the blog :)) I have been really struggling through some stuff.  All that to say that it’s been a hard month.

And so you can imagine WHY I broke down in tears when I received this guy in the mail from Dorry, one of the sweetest bloggers in the world:

I know I’ve said it a dozen times on here, but I love Colorado.  It feels like home to me.  But there are times where I dearly miss Texas, and now that I have an awesome cookie cutter with an outline of the state I could NOT be more excited!  Thank you so much for being so kind Dorry, you really touched my heart with this thoughtful gift! 🙂

Now clearly I had to make something with it, right?!  And I think that with my current stress levels chocolate is just the thing I need.

Chocolate (Texas-shaped) sugar cookies that is!

ROLLED CHOCOLATE SUGAR COOKIEs

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 cups flour (2 1/2 cups if you’re at altitude)
• 1/2 cup sifted cocoa powder
• 1 Tbsp instant coffee powder dissolved in 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt

Cream together butter and sugars.  Add the egg and coffee powder/vanilla mixture.  Sift together the dry ingredients, and add to the wet ingredients.  Mix until combined and there are no more dry spots in the dough.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours.  Once the dough is chilled all the way through cut it in quarters and, working quickly, roll each quarter (one at a time) into a 1/2-inch thick sheet.  Using whatever cookie cutter you’d like (or just use a knife and cut squares) cut the dough.  Move cookies to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a Silpat.  Bake at 350 for 8 minutes.  Let cool completely before icing.

For the icing I used this recipe (again!) from Pioneer Woman and just colored it with yellow food coloring.  You can just spread it on each cookie, but I thought cookie sandwiches were a good way to go 🙂

Y’all, the coffee makes ALL the difference in these cookies!  You just have this incredible depth of flavor that comes from it and the chocolate is so much more intense that way.

Just make sure you don’t eat too many though…I think the sugar high is sufficient without overwhelming loved ones with the caffeine high too!

Quick story:  last night we went to dinner with our friends Rhett and Rebecca, her mom, and their two little boys.  The oldest immediately befriended Nate and in the course of asking if Nate was enjoying dessert said, “This is so good it makes me wish my mouth was bigger!”

First of all, how cute is that?!  Not to mention true!  I think we have a future Food Network Star on our hands…

These guys were just like Oreos but better because they’re homemade.  And softer.  And even more delicious dipped in milk.  And, because I got one of the few Texas-shaped ones, they made my heart happy 🙂

Oh, and I wished my mouth was bigger.  MUCH bigger. 🙂