Lavender Pepper Cookies

I was a bit skeptical about my ability to experience lavender as anything but a fragrance. I've been putting off using it for a while, but tonight was the night to give it a shot.

The lavender taste in these is strong enough to stand out, but not so much so that it was offensive. The pepper leaves a lingering spice that is an interesting and new experience for me in a cookie. I probably wouldn't make these too often, but they'd be a nice change of pace from your average chocolate chip or peanut butter cookie.

To achieve the lavender taste, I made some lavender sugar. The smell was overwhelmingly perfumey to the point where I was more or less choking in a purple haze, minus the purple.

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Lavender Sugar

3/4 c sugar
1 3/4 tbsp dried lavender
1/2 tsp ground pepper

Using food processor, grind up ingredients. I can't exactly tell you when it's done. I probably didn't do it for more than 30 total seconds on pulse.

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The actual cookie recipe Fannie Farmer's Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie recipe.  I've used it in a variety of ways in the past because it's a pretty good base cookie to toy with.

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Lavender Pepper Cookies

1/2 c butter
lavender sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp milk
1 1/4 c flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp ground pepper

Cream butter until light and fluffy. Beat in lavender sugar. Add egg and vanilla and beat thoroughly. Add milk. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt and mix into butter mixture. In small bowl, mix together sugar and pepper. Spoon batter onto buttered cookie sheet about 1 inch apart. Sprinkle with sugar/pepper mixture and flatten slightly with fingers.  Bake at 375 degrees for about 9 minutes. Makes 22 2.5 inch cookies.

A note: These cookies flatten right out, so make sure you don't place them too close together. Also, they don't necessarily come out perfectly round.

Chocolate Sugar Cookies with Orange Decorator's Frosting

These are the teeniest tiniest little cookies. I don't know why I made them so small, but they are the perfect, pop-in-your-mouth size.

As you can see, these are about half frosting. I think it gives a much needed moisture to these otherwise dry cookies.What I discovered in making these is that I'm really not a fan of cocoa powder. It just doesn't taste right when I'm looking for a chocolaty treat. I do, however, still enjoy citrus sweets in just about every way.

The recipe for these cookies comes straight from Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cookbook. The only difference is, I apparently made them bigger than she wanted because I ended up with about 20 less cookies that the recipe said I'd get. These are meant to be super small.

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Old Fashioned Chocolate Sugar Cookies

1/2 c butter
3/4 c sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp milk
1 1/4 c flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/3 c cocoa powder

Cream butter until soft and fluffy. Beat in sugar. Add egg and vanilla and beat thoroughly. Add milk. Sift together flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa powder in separate bowl and stir into butter mixture. Mix well and arrange by teaspoon on buttered cookie sheet about one inch apart. Bake at 325 degrees for 8-11 minutes. Makes 50-60 (I got 32)

Note: These don't flatten out very much while baking, so if you're looking for a thinner cookie, flatten slightly with your fingers or a fork before putting in the oven.

Second note: This mixture is a little bit too think to spoon on, so I found it easier (though messier) to just roll them into balls my hand.

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The frosting on these is an altered version of my Christmas cookie frosting. I wanted orange frosting. This was, indeed, that, but it could be much better. I'll work on that another time.

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Orange Decorator's Frosting

2 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 c sugar
1 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp orange zest

Cream butter and vanilla until soft. Blend in sugar, juice and zest.

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So school is starting up in less than a week and I'm not sure what that's going to leave me with for baking time. If I had to guess, I'd say little to none. But! I'm not too worried about it. I'll do what I can to keep this going without massive gaps between updates.

(My birthday is next week, too. Happy birthday me.)

Roll Out Sugar Cookies, Christmas Style

When my mother and I make cookies for Christmas, they always look more or less like this. This is our signature look, you know. Most of our Christmas cookie cutters have disappeared or become generally misshapen in the years that we've had them, so we always have round ones now. Also, it seems that we attempt to make up for our lack of decorating skills by seeing how much frosting we can get on each cookie.

 

Okay, so I tried Fannie Farmer's Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie recipe for this. They aren't bad, but take more flour than the recipe calls for if you actually want to roll them out.

The frosting is from somewhere, I'm sure, but I got the recipe off of a little paper that's been taped inside the cupboard for as long as I remember. It needed a little bit more milk than it called for, but then again, our frosting was a little on the running side, so exercise judgment.

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Roll Out Sugar Cookies

1 c butter
1 1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp milk
3 c flour (plus some amount)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder

Cream butter until light and fluffy. Beat in sugar. Add egg and vanilla and beat thoroughly. Add milk. Sift together flour, salt and baking powder, then stir in. Chill overnight (or until you think it's ready I guess). Roll out 1/4 inch thick, cut out, and bake on buttered cookie sheet for 8 minutes at 350 degrees. I used tinfoil rather than butter because I thought it would make more and was planning to do it assembly line style. Makes 36 cookies (2.75 inch diameter)


Decorator's Frosting

2 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c powdered sugar
1 tbsp milk (plus maybe a tsp more or so)

Cream butter until soft. Blend in sugar, milk and vanilla.

I made four batches of this. Making two will give you enough to frost 36 cookies, making four gives you enough to do that and pipe on a bunch more. So what we did was make two batches, frost all the cookies, make two more and separate them in half, colored one half green and the other half red (and added 1/4 tsp strawberry extract to make a nice hint of flavor). Then we piped ourselves silly. Voila! Christmas cookies.