Lemonade Cookies

Today Joe and I went to a birthday party for my soon to be nieces and nephew, Talia, Gianna and Vincenzo. For the party I decided to re-attempt to make the "fruit dream" cookies that I royally screwed up last summer : http://shan-thecookiemonster.blogspot.com/2010/08/cookie-mishaphey-nobodys-perfect.html

This time around however, I decided to use lemonade mix instead of weird strawberry crystal light. It was a good call.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup drink mix
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
colored sugar

Blend together your butter, shortening, sugar and drink mix. Add in your dry ingredients and mix until well blended, scraping down the sides of the bowl.

Refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes or so until it's easy to handle, then roll it into 1-inch balls. Roll in your colored sugar.

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes, then let cool on a baking sheet.

These came out tangy, sweet and pretty damn yummy! I think they'd be great for a summer picnic. Too bad it’s still February. Wishful thinking I guess!

Happy Baking!

Cinnamon Brownies

Happy Weekend! I’m heading up to the mountains today for a little skiing with some of my favorite family members, I wasn’t really planning on baking anything, but you know me with the bringing-baked-goods-everywhere-I-go nonsense.

So I whipped up some from scratch brownies.

Recipe here: http://shan-thecookiemonster.blogspot.com/2010/04/never-make-brownies-from-box-again.html

Seriously, if you’re still making brownies from a box, give these a shot. It’s really really just as easy, with no cheating involved :)

I added about a teaspoon of cinnamon and topped these with some mini chocolate chips to jazz them up a bit. They go great with a scoop of Vanilla ice cream.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Cookie Hearts for my Valentine :)

Happy Valentine's Day Blog-Folk! My hubby-to-be and I decided to have a frugal Valentine's this year, due to the wedding planning, but I wanted to do something little and special, like whip up some of his favorite cookies. And make them heart shaped. :) Enter White Chocolate Macadamia Nut heaven.

I rolled out the standard dough, then used cookie cutters to shape the cookies into hearts. They're not the prettiest hearts that ever were....but you get the idea ;)

For the Recipe: http://shan-thecookiemonster.blogspot.com/2010/07/white-chocolate-macadamia-nut-cookies.html

I packed up my little hearts in a pretty box, and wrapped them up for my Valentine :)

Note the roses in the background that he sent me at work. Awwiees....

I also made some plain old regular-shaped cookies to share with my co-workers tommorrow :)

In other baking news......Last week I failed miserably at making a lemon cake for my friend Crystal's Birthday. Looks kind of burnt right? But it was liquid in the middle and fell apart. So sad.....

Good thing it's the thought that counts! I think I'll stick to cookies!

Happy Baking!

Cocoa Oatmeal Cookies

On this lazy Saturday afternoon I felt like baking some cookies :) Instead of going out and buying more ingredients, I thought I'd try to make a dent in my current stores, and kinda make something up to use up some random stuff that's been laying around for a while. Mainly oats and walnuts. This is what I came up with:

Indecipherable right? It's a good thing I blog because most of my handwritten recipes are gibberish.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

dash salt

1.5 cups oats

1/2 cup walnuts

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Blend together your better and sugars. then add in your eggs and vanilla. Scape down the sides of the bowls occasionally to keep things even.

Next add in all of your dry ingredients (excluding the oats, nuts, and chocolate chips).

Next add in your oats, mix until well blended. Then finally add in your nuts and chocolate chips.

Roll into tablespoon sized balls and place on a lined cookie sheet. bake for 10 minutes at 350.

These are very yummy! The oats and nuts are really the star of the show, it tastes like a more delicious version of a granola bar.

I'm usually not a huge fan of nuts in my baked goods, but I think after my last couple of baking efforts, I may need to revise that opinion.

Enjoy! Happy Baking!

P.S. I added these cookies to a "linky party" on another great baking blog. Check it out for some cool ideas! http://sweet-as-sugar-cookies.blogspot.com/

50th Blog Post! Cardomom Cookies

Greetings blog readers! It's my 50th blog post. yay! I'm so glad that after a year I've been able to share some of my baking adventures with you. Thanks for reading :)

Today I went to the mailbox in the middle of the hundredth winter storm of the year (it feels like it anyway) and I found a package from my fellow food-blogger and college buddy Wilcox! Inside was a nifty little tool that I have often wished for, a sifter! She is so thoughtful and wonderful! She also sent me heart shaped marshmallows that I can't stop eating. Check out her blog at www.morecheesemorechocolate.com.

Clearly I had to use my new tool right away! SO I decided to try out a recipe I've been eyeing for a while. Cardamom cookies.

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
¾ cups confectioner’s sugar, plus more for dusting
1 tsp almond extract
1 ¾ cup flour
½ cup chopped walnuts
1 tsp ground cardamom
pinch salt

Start off my mixing together the butter and sugar. In a separate bowl, mix together your dry ingredients.

Slowly add your dry ingredients to the butter mixture.

Form the dough into 1 inch balls.

Bake at 350 for about 13 minutes….

Let the cookies cool for a bit on a wire rack. The dust them with some powdered sugar.

Look at the lovely, even, snow-like powdered sugar dust. Sweet relief. This is so much prettier than my usual clumps. Thanks Wilcox!!!