I love Easter. It really does herald in Spring here in the South. Most years, I am already a week or so into running the AC, and this year, I am using up the firewood trying to keep warm and pretend this rain is warm (it's not!).
I also love to make place card cookies. It's funny though, we never seem to get around to eating them! I sat down and ate mine the day after Easter, and you know what? It was delicious.
He was made for a shower...but bunnies!!!
An assortment for a cookie class.
These are for all of spring!
such a great cookie to use up lots of various colors icing!
Instead of platters, we sent the cookies out in baskets!
Sweet and simple. The most popular design this year!
And there are more, many more. Here's a link to some oldies. Always fun to look back on previous designs. Happy Easter!
So yes, I have done some Easter cookies. Here are a few examples, nothing new or exciting! The decorated ones are my traditional cookie recipe, and the tiny sanded ones are the lemon buttermilk cookies that one of my friends adores! I have a huge order coming up, just iced cookies, nothing show stopping. But my big news is the Spring Fling of cookiers I am heading to at the end of the month. I am so excited to learn from some of the most talented decorators out there! Have a blessed weekend!
Ah, Easter. A holiday of such promise. Last year I was tackling all kinds of Easter cookies. This year, I refined it a bit. However, as I was rolling and cutting I got to the end of the dough, had used all the cutters and realized I had no eggs! I had put the egg cookie cutter in the bucket of Shapes not Spring and Easter. The problem is when you are hoarding hundreds (yes, quite plural) of cookie cutters, you have to have some sort of system. Mine has a few issues, but I keep thinking "When I move..." Geez, this new, imagined house of mine is going to be pretty amazing if I it can do all the things I'm thinking will happen by simply moving. And then after I was elbow deep in royal icing, I came across the cutest assortment of Easter cutters. But I have a HUGE thing in my future, just wait til you see what I'm working on that I said, "No more Easter cookies."
I did these carrots for a friend...even her pooch got a personalized cookie. My kind of dog owner.
I made these bunnies last year, but when I saw this amazing post, I knew I had to have chubby cheeked bunnies. Sweet Sugar Belle is a very talented cookie designer who generously shares tips and techniques for decorating cookies. The bunnies are so cute!
I did a few colorful butterflies and some simple little daisies. Great colors for the springtime!
The "peeps" I did earlier, got a sanding sugar makeover. The colors are now a little more gentle. The lemon cookies have become part of my repertoire. They have been well received and stay soft. I need to make sure people know they are chock full of lemon zest, because you are apt to bump into that zest while munching them!
And finally, another graduation party. This is a sampling of the cookies for the girls done in their new school colors and a pennant too!
Looking forward to a family weekend. Happy Easter!
What happens when a baker posts on Facebook that the ovens are fired up and looking for baking ideas? Well, everyone tells you what they are craving. Last week an old friend piped up she loves lemon cookies. Hmm, me too. So I looked around and found a lemon buttermilk rolled cookie and decided to give it a whirl.
My quest started with a book I was gifted for Christmas, The Art of the Cookie by Shelly Kaldunski. It's a nice little book, great photos, to date I have only made one other cookie in it, the Chocolate Dipped Coconut Meringues. I would like to eat one of those right now... but I digress. Lemon Buttermilk Cookies
3 cups flour ¾ teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon cream of tartar ¼ salt ¾ cup unsalted butter, room temp 1 cup sugar 1 large egg 2 T grated lemon zest 3 T buttermilk 1 teaspoon lemon juice
Mix first four dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside. In a mixer, cream butter and sugar. Add egg and zest until well mixed. Add flour, mix and add buttermilk and lemon juice. When dough is mixed, wrap in plastic wrap and chill at least an hour. Roll out on a well floured surface and bake in a preheated 350° oven for about 12-15 minutes. I bake on convection so I bake at 340° for 7-9 minutes. Cool completely and ice as desired. I rolled and cut my cookies with small Easter cutters. I spread them with a little royal icing and then covered them in sanding sugar. They are sort of "Peep" like, and quite adorable. You can see the lemon zest in the cookies and because of the buttermilk, they have a little softer texture. I bagged up a bunch and mailed them off to Iowa to my friend. I froze the rest and will get to them closer to Easter. So, here you go, spring baking. What are ya waiting for? Get in there and bake!
One of my favorite cookbooks is more like a tribute book to great chefs. It's called My Last Supper and chefs tell what they would want for their last meal. I can't decide what my main course would be, but I can promise you I will choose my sugar cookies for dessert without a doubt. They are my all time favorite. This week we decided to shoot a few Flip videos (Flip is a very cool video camera) and sugar cookies for Spring seemed like the perfect project. The video runs 4 minutes, and we think it's a great first attempt! The sugar cookie recipe I use I cut off a bag of Pillsbury flour about 15 years ago. However, I have altered it, surprise! The dough is easily doubled or tripled, freezes beautifully raw, freezes equally well cooked and unfrosted. I usually make a good number of batches at Christmas and freeze dough for Valentines. However after the blog where I cleaned out the freezer in front of God and you, I am really keeping the frozen inventory on the low side. I used my new SideSwipe blade in my Kitchen Aid and have to say I love, love it. Creams butter in a jiffy and no scraping the bowl down. I also have to give a shout out to the Dough Bands. Basically they are giant rubber bands that come in varying widths and you put them on the rolling pin and it keeps your dough at the perfect thickness. No slanted cookies, and works as well for pie and pastry dough. Of course I use a Silpat so nothing sticks, but you have to watch them like a hawk. A minute too long and they'll be a little too brown, not inedible, and nothing a good coating of icing can't hide.
The icing is always a little controversial. I love royal icing because it dries like a rock, holds it shapes and absorbs color, however, it isn't really tasty, just very sweet. I found an old Wilton book and made the icing recipe from it. It will harden your arteries just reading it, but it was yummy, made great decorations, took color well and was the absolute perfect flavor for these cookies. I'll never go back. I added Meringue Powder (Wilton) to give the icing a little firmness as it dried and this is the only time I will tell you to use...are you ready?...Clear Artificial Vanilla (also from Wilton). I know, wonders never cease. But who wants to ruin that snow white frosting with brown vanilla? Exactly.
You can see from the video clip I used an assortment of icing colors. Paste food coloring will give you great color saturation and you can start with a small dab on a toothpick and add more to get it darker. If you have those little squeeze bottles of coloring from the supermarket, throw them out, it's just not worth it. Wilton sells disposable pastry bags in bulk, no washing the vinyl bags! I divide the icing and use a coupler on each bag so I can change out the tips for stars, writing, grass, outlining, whatever. You can pick up a starter kit of tips and a starter pack of paste colors and if you watch the Sunday paper, you can nab a coupon or look for a Wilton sale at the big craft retailers like Michael's, Hobby Lobby or JoAnn's and start buying the necessary stuff that you will use forever.
Buttermilk Sugar Cookies 1 cup sugar 1 cup butter, softened 3 Tablespoons buttermilk 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 egg 3 cups flour 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder ½ teaspoon salt
Cream butter and sugar. Add buttermilk, vanilla and egg. In a separate bowl sift dry ingredients and add to mixer until well combined. Place dough on plastic wrap and shape into a flat disc. Refrigerate at least an hour or freeze in a zippered plastic bag. Preheat oven to 400° If dough is frozen, thaw completely in fridge. Remove disc from fridge and divide in 4 pieces. Use one piece at a time and keep remaining dough in fridge. Generously flour work space with flour and roll cookies to 1/8" thickness. Bake cookies on Silpat with a couple of inches between cookies. Bake for about 3 minutes and switch from front to back, top shelf to lower shelf and bake about 3 minutes more. Watch closely. Once you find the perfect time, all sheets should bake the same because all the cookies are the same thickness if you use dough bands. Cool on Silpat on racks, and then move directly to rack. Cookies can be frozen when cool, or get ready to decorate. Old Wilton Icing 1 cup white crisco 1 pound, about 4 cups powdered sugar 1 teaspoon Wilton clear vanilla extract milk, anywhere from 1-5 Tablespoons 1 Tablespoon Wilton Meringue Powder 2 Tablespoons warm water
In a stand mixer bowl, place meringue powder in warm water to dissolve a little. Add the Crisco and whip for a good 3 minutes, add vanilla and add powdered sugar a cup at a time. Add milk as needed to make icing the right consistency. If you are piping it, you want it a little firmer. If you are simply using a spatula, the icing can be softer. I always have extra powdered sugar on hand to thicken it if needed. Decorate the cookies as desired, and let the frosting firm up before packing into airtight containers.
