Martha Stewart's White Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

Tomorrow my youngest turns 5 - a whole hand! - and he has both an anaphylactic allergy to peanuts/tree nuts and an obsession with Spider-Man. So homemade cupcakes with a Spider-Man theme are the treat to take to Kindergarten tomorrow.

Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Opening my copy of Martha Stewart's Cookies at random will most often yield this recipe, the spine is broken at this page from use.

This is not a cookie for the chocolate faint of heart. Don't eat one if you can "take or leave a chocolate cookie". This is a cookie for a chocolate craving.

Martha Stewart's Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies

I want to be Martha Stewart.

Not to have her wealth or power - although a little bit of money would be nice, don't get me wrong - but I want to cook and decorate and do all the homey things that she espouses. It's taken me a while to realize that I'm just too lazy to ever be Martha Stewart-like, but I like her recipes. And I've also realized that it takes a team of people to be "Martha Stewart".