Tea & Cookie…

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baking, cookies, recipes, tea

A balanced life is tea in one hand and a cookie in the other.

My Quick & Easy Shortbread Cookies

• 1 cup butter (or margarine)
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp. baking powder
• Optional: lemon zest, lime zest, cinnamon or chai spices, etc.

Preheat oven to 350F. Cream butter, gradually adding icing sugar. Mix the flour, salt and baking powder in a separate bowl. Add it to the butter/icing mixture. Roll out the dough on a floured surface, and cut into shapes as desired. Bake 10-15 minutes or until lightly brown.

Happy Monday!

CFFC: Sense of Taste

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baking, birthday, cake, CFFC, cookies, cooking, food, food photography, Photo Challenge, photography

People who love to eat are always the best people. – Julia Child

Cookies are made with butter and love.

Only the pure in heart can make a good soup. – Ludwig Beethoven

If God had intended us to follow recipes, He wouldn’t have given us grandmothers. – Linda Hemley

A party without cake is just a meeting!

Strawberries are what make life taste wonderful. ― Anthony T. Hincks

Because everything is better with bacon, right?

Happy Wednesday!

This is my post for Cee Nuener’s Fun Foto Challenge: Sense of Taste

We Did It!

Tags

cookies, humour, Valentine's Day

We are Valentine’s Day survivors. It’s that one holiday between Christmas chocolate and Easter chocolate, that I tend to despise. Too many bad experiences that make me want to cry out “Bah…humbug!”

Yesterday I did the same things I do every year. I wore black to honour my funny valentine. I mocked the sappy songs on the radio with gusto. And I ate pizza…with extra cheese and bacon!

But I had decided, in a last ditch effort to not totally destroy my teenager’s faith in all things lovey-dovey, I would try to have a better attitude. Or at least, not make sarcastic comments and gagging sounds. Also, I  baked cookies.

Pink, heart-shaped, fru-fru shortbread cookies. And then I showered him with effusive hugs and kisses, and melodramatic expression of affection, until he begged me to stop.

To all the lovers out there – good for you! To the rest of us…celebrate! It’s over for another year and it’s the weekend. Make it a good one! 😉

 

 

 

What’s In My Cup: Caramel Shortbread

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#whatsinmycup, cookies, sweets, tea, what's in my cup

Shortbread cookies may not be the most searched for Christmas cookie recipe in 2018, but I did my own research in a place known for amazing home cooks – a church potluck!

On Friday night, several trays of home baked goodies lined the kitchen pass, and let me tell you, the shortbread cookies disappeared faster than my family when I tell them it’s time to clean the guinea pig’s cage!

They haven’t lasted long in my house either. I have to bake more before Christmas, and I am worried I might outgrow my new plaid skirt.

Thankfully I treated myself to a single emergency sachet of David’s Caramel Shortbread tea. It’s an herbal tea blend composed of apples, raisins, elderberries, willow bark, almonds, hazelnuts, sour cherries, raspberries, and sweetened with stevia extract and brown sugar.

While it may not be as satisfying as the real thing, the melt-in-your-mouth buttery sweetness of this tea was still decadent, and I could easily enjoy it again.

No matter how bad your day is, when you start talking about cookies or cakes or pies, or you bring someone cookies, there’s just not bad news. The worst news is, ‘Hey, there’s sugar in that.’ Christina Tosi

p.s. This tea won’t cling to your wobbly bits! 😉

Happy Monday!

“Sole Mate” Cookies

Tags

baking, cookies, humour, shoe puns, shoes, sweets

“Your cookies are not well-heeled” joked Hubby, before wisely leaving the kitchen.

I was trying to apply icing to my high-heel shaped sugar cookies…and it was not going well. I even bought red icing for the occasion. But the icing was hard to squeeze (even after I cleaned the rock hard year old icing out of my icing tip – oops!) and it didn’t spread well either. The texture reminded me of red wax. It tended to roll unevenly over the surface of the cookie but not stick to it. So instead of pretty red shoes, I had shoes that looked like someone had bled out all over them after a grisly, murderous attack.

I thought I could solve the problem by using the French vanilla icing I found in the fridge, and then pipe red icing as an embellishment. But while the white icing smeared smoothly, I kept breaking the cookies. I had only saved 16 cookies – 2 for each table – and they were disappearing fast!

I had lost my cool the night before and ended up cleaning up a big mess (meanwhile the guinea pigs were contained but not in their cage so I had another big mess – ugh!).  And I was struggling to not have a different kind of meltdown, one that would end with me sitting on the kitchen floor and sobbing…so Hubby was wise to step out of the kitchen (before I booted him out).

I can’t say that I’m head over in heels in love with them, but I am hoping they will lift some soles!