Cream Cheese Filled Snickerdoodles

Yeah, they are as good as you think they will be. Delicious!! A friend on Facebook posted the link to these cookies-

http://cookiesandcups.com/cream-cheese-filled-snickerdoodles/

I saw the recipe and knew I had to make them!! There is A LOT of prep, but the final product is worth it.

These are the instructions with my small variations. You can see the whole ingredient list and all the pretty cookie pictures at her website.

1.Make the cream cheese filling by mixing the cream cheese, 1/4 cup sugar and 2 tsp vanilla. I used my hand mixer for this. (I didn't use a mixer, just a fork)
2.Cover the cream cheese mixture and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
3.Preheat oven to 400°
4.Cream butter and 1 1/2 cup sugar until fluffy.
5.Add eggs and 1 tsp vanilla. Mix until combined.
6.On low speed mix in your flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt. Set dough to the side.
7.In a small bowl combine remaining 1/4 cup sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon, set that aside as well.
8.Remove the cream cheese mixture from the refrigerator.
I did steps 9 and 10 a little differently. I made the first ball with these instructions, but then I changed it up slightly. For each cookie, I made a ball of dough, then smushed the middle down to make a disk shape. Then I put a small amount of the cream cheese mixture in the middle, and closed up the ball, sealing the edges.
9.For each cookie you will need 2 flattened balls of dough, 1 Tbsp each. (The flattened disk will be approx 2″ in diameter)
10.Place 1 tsp of the cream cheese mixture on top of one of the flattened dough disks. Then place the other flattened dough on top of the cream cheese. Pinch the edges together to seal.

11.Carefully form into a ball and roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place on a plate as you finish making each and refrigerate. Before baking the cookies they should chill for 15 minutes.
12.When the dough is chilled bake on a parchment lined baking sheet 2″ apart for 8 minutes.
13.Transfer to wire rack to cool.

Legacy

My family is selling my grandpa's house. They close on it today. It's not a normal house. My grandpa was an architect. He designed this huge strange house and built it in Van Buren, Arkansas. It's all concrete and glass. Very Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater.

My grandpa died in 1999, leaving my grandma in this huge strange house all by herself. I honestly never thought they would sell it.

But here we are. I haven't been to the house in many many years (due to this military life). But it breaks my heart that I cant go back to it, to visit my grandpa's house.

My grandmother is understandably having a hard time letting go. But as my mother told her, the house isn't Carl's legacy, as she pointed to the youngest grandchild, 17 month old Dara. Carl wouldn't care about the house. It's just a house. It's not the home it once was. Carl would care about his 10 grand kids and their futures. As we do with most architects, we personalize the houses they design, that they put all this effort into. But as my mother said, it's just a house. One design from his 40 years of being an architect. It's not him. And holding on to it wont solve anything. It wont bring Carl back, or bring us any closer to him. It's a sad day for the family. But instead of titling this post sad day, I titled it Legacy. Because that's the big picture I want to remember today. It's not the material possessions that matter. It's family. It's all about family. My grandpa started something BIG that has trickled down to all of us gradkids. I need to live my life to make him proud. I need to be his captain, always.

Movie Review: The Help

If you've read The Help, you must go see this movie! Here's the website's synopsis:

Based on one of the most talked about books in years and a #1 New York Times best-selling phenomenon, “The Help” stars Emma Stone (“Easy A”) as Skeeter, Academy Award®–nominated Viola Davis (“Doubt”) as Aibileen and Octavia Spencer as Minny—three very different, extraordinary women in Mississippi during the 1960s, who build an unlikely friendship around a secret writing project that breaks societal rules and puts them all at risk. From their improbable alliance a remarkable sisterhood emerges, instilling all of them with the courage to transcend the lines that define them, and the realization that sometimes those lines are made to be crossed —even if it means bringing everyone in town face-to-face with the changing times. Deeply moving, filled with poignancy, humor and hope, “The Help” is a timeless and universal story about the ability to create change.

If I were you, I would read the book first. But I love to compare books to movies, usually to my disappointment. Everyone knows the only truly good book-to-movie couple, To Kill a Mockingbird. All other book-to-movie couples have to attempt to be that good. My usual problem with going from books to movies is the casting. It's a big annoyance for me. The latest series to do this is Twilight. Amongst other problems, their casting annoyed the crap out of me. I wouldn't have casted half of those people in their films. But no one asked me of course.

But I think they casted The Help excellently. I was kind of apprehensive of Emma Stone being Skeeter, but only minutes into the movie, Emma was Skeeter.

They of course left out a few parts of the book, but nothing too obvious. And it's hard to fit a whole book into a 2 hour movie. All in all, I loved it. Definitely a movie I will be buying.

Giveaway over at Modern Meets Traditional

Hey everyone! I just wanted to share a giveaway I found out about over at Modern Meets Traditional. Shanon Renee makes these signs. Arent they awesome? You can read the story and enter the giveaway on her blog HERE.