Citrus Shortbread Cookies December 21, 2009

I’m finally back home in Arizona! Its so great to be in the desert again :).  Its also holiday time and that means I get to cook a lot.  My mom and I sat down and scoured through stacks of recipes and recipe books looking for foods we’d like to try.  This recipe was a magazine clipping and I unfortunately can’t figure out which magazine its from to give them credit.  My dad loves shortbread cookies and I had never attempted to bake that type before.  This citrus shortbread cookie seemed like the perfect way to kick off my holiday baking.

I had some trouble with the dough (or at least I thought I did).  It didn’t seem to be the consistency that I expected and I definitely didn’t use a rolling pin to shape the dough like the directions recommend.  My dough crumbled everywhere and I was lucky to get it all in one piece onto my cookie sheet.  Miraculously they baked up just fine and taste pretty darn good.  I also failed at the aesthetically pleasing “drizzle” effect on the icing.  I lost patience and just globbed it on top of each cookie.   (yes I realize that globbed is not a word).

Here’s the recipe so you can try this at home:

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter or margarine, softened

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 cups Gold Medal all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons grated lime peel

1 1/2 teaspoons grated orange peel

1 cup powdered sugar

1 or 2 tablespoons lime juice

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 F.  In large bowl, beat butter and granulated sugar with electric mixer or medium speed 2 to 3 minutes or until light and creamy.  Add flour, lime peel and orange peel.  Beat on low speed until mixture is blended.  Gather dough into a ball.

2. On lightly floured surface, roll dough into a 8×6 inch rectangle, about 1/2 inch thick. (If dough cracks around edges, press edges to smooth)  Cut into 12 (2 in) squares, then cut each square diagonally in half into triangles.  On ungreased cookie sheet, place triangles 1/2 inch apart.

3. Bake 12 to 17 minutes or until edges just begin to brown.  Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.  Cool completely, about 15 minutes.

4.  In small bowl, mix powdered sugar and lime juice with spoon until smooth and thin enough to drizzle.  Drizzle glaze over cookies. (24 cookies)

NUTRITION: (1 cookie) Calories 120 (from fat 50), Total Fat 6g, Cholesterol 15mg, Sodium 40mg, Total Carbohydrate 15g, Fiber 0g, Sugar 7g, Protein 1g.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COLLEEN September 17, 2009

Today is my roommate’s birthday so last night I spent the evening baking her a cake.  I had been wanting to try this recipe and this was the perfect opportunity.  I had to go out a buy a hand mixer because I didn’t already own one.  I’m slowly building my collection of kitchen tools so the foods I post here may get more difficult as I acquire the proper utensils to accomplish them.

For now, I’m post the photo I took this morning, later I will post photos of the inside (we haven’t cut the cake yet) and when I get my cookbook back from my boyfriend’s house I will post the recipe as well.

The cake is an Albanian Walnut cake with a Lemon glaze.  I baked two 8″ round cakes with glaze (the glaze gets cooked on/in) and then stacked them with a layer of lemon zest cream cheese frosting sandwiched between.  Then I frosted the cake in the same lemon zest cream cheese frosting and to decorated I got some food coloring spray paint and sprayed pink all over. Then I used purple and blue frosting for the writing and stars.  I’ll have to comment on how it tastes, at this point I’m hoping for the best as I’m not sure if I baked the cakes correctly in the first place. At least it looks nice 🙂