Rolled Sugar Cookies with Lemon

There are times when rolled cookies just do NOT come out the way you want them too.  They spread and fatten - like this hilarious pin on Pinterest - and it can be very frustrating.

However, I found this recipe that truly delivers on its name - The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies. 

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of just plain sugar cookies, so I added some lemon zest to freshen up the flavor and to make them more appealing to my citrus-loving fiance for his birthday.

I think Elliot liked them too. :)

Again, I used my 100-piece cookie cutters and loved the results.  The letters definitely look like children's refrigerator magnets. Haha. But we love babies, so that's okay with me.

Have a MERRY CHRISTMAS with Gingerbread Cookies!

I know I've been a terrible blogger, but as you can tell, I'm in the updating mood.

This past semester, I was generally too busy to bake, so as with anything you don't practice, I got a bit rusty.  I had a couple mishaps that definitely discouraged me from baking again... BUT thanks to my beloved GG's (Glendale Girls) - Hera and Christine, they helped restore my baking desires.

We decided to bake and decorate gingerbread cookies together in true Christmas spirit.

First, we used "Eileen's spicy gingerbread men" recipe and doubled the batch.  Substitutions:

1. Used butter instead of margarine (just cuz that's what I had on hand)
2. Used ground ginger instead of fresh ginger
3. I don't have nutmeg and cloves, but what I DO have is a "Pumpkin Pie Spice" blend that has a mix of ground nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon that I used instead

We rolled out the dough and used my 100-piece cookie cutters from Wal-Mart!

Next, we made a couple different colors (black, white, yellow, green, red) of frosting - just powdered sugar, water, and food coloring - in ziploc bags.

It definitely took us a couple tries to get used to the flow of the frosting and to get our creative juices flowing.

We had several .. interesting.. cookies, but plenty more adorable ones. 

We made stockings for each of our GG's and these were some of my favorites.

After a while, I got tired of doing just the same, typical gingerbread men, so I made some new characters.

Going clockwise, 

• Classic GB man by Christine
• Christine's elegant Christmas tree
• Christine's GB Lady in red
• My classy GB gentleman
• Hera's clean, cute Christmas tree
• Hera's sweet little GB girl
• Hera's uniformly executed plaid stocking
• My California-Christmas bikini-clad GB girl
• My Shrek GB Ogre (in honor of our Halloween costumes)
• And my favorite - my GB Little lad who loves berries and cream. hehe.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Jesus loves you. hehe.

Do you see what I see?

A tooth, a tooth folded in my sight,

From a cup that was filled with delight,

From a cup that was filled with delight!

hehe.

This was a half gingerbread latte + half pumpkin spice latte.  Delicious!
I love holiday Starbucks drinks.  So sad that they'll be gone soon :(

Lemon Bars

My fiance loves citrus-flavored desserts, so I made these for his birthday.

Nice, easy recipe found here. 

Only changes to the recipe:

1. I grated some lemon zest into the dough.  I was using the lemons for the juice, so why not make use of the rest of its goodness, right?
2. It was definitely difficult taking the lemon bars out of the pan even though I sprayed cooking oil on it.  So for next time I'm going to try laying down some greased wax paper first, which should hopefully help!