Lemon Lavender Tea Cookies

My mom and her husband, Allen (aka Pepo), recently attended the Lavender Festival in Blanco, Texas and they sent me this wonderful lavender cookbook and culinary grade lavender.  I had no idea there were so many ways to cook with lavender.  I thought these Lemon Lavender Tea Cookies would be just perfect for Matilda's "Tea for 2" party and they definitely were just right!

These cookies are light and contain absolutely no eggs, so they are definitely more of a shortbread.  Be careful though, because the dough tasted so yummy that I'm surprised I even got some cookies out for the party!

Makes 24 cookies
From the "Local Flavor of Lavender" cookbook
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon dried culinary lavender
2 cups all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter (room temperature)
2/3 cup sugar
Zest of one lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon milk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

You will need to use dried culinary grade lavender for this recipe since that is what is suitable for human consumption.  Above is the lavender that was sent to me by my mom from the festival.

Finely chop 1 tablespoon of lavender.  If you have a coffee grinder used for grinding herbs, that would be a great thing to use or you could also use a food processor.  I opted for a basic knife.

Zest one lemon.  I like to use my microplane for zesting, but a box grater would work just as well.  Make sure you only zest the yellow part of the lemon.  The white can be pretty bitter.

Cream wet ingredients, lemon zest and sugar with a hand-mixer.  Then add in dry ingredients.  Stir until dough comes together.  It should not be dry, but not too sticky either.  If you think it is too dry, keep stirring, it will come together.

Place dough in refrigerator for 1-2 hours, until firm, or overnight.  Remove from refrigerator one hour before rolling out dough.  The next part is up to you.  You can make these like regular cookie cutter cookies and roll your dough 1/4" thickness and cut with a round or heart shaped cookie cutter.  Or you can do what we did, which was to roll the dough into two logs and slice the cookies, then coat them in sugar.  Either way, they will turn out great.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until cookies are slightly brown on the edges.  Transfer cookies to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

The dough can be made up to two days in advance and cookies can be baked one day in advance.  Freeze any leftover cookies for a sweet treat on another day!  These cookies will have your guests talking because they are delicious and a unique flavor.

The next time you have the ladies for tea or coffee, give these a try, they will love them, that is, if you don't eat all the dough first!

Things to do on Valentine's Day

if you forgot to make a dinner reservation! First, why not celebrate Valentines Day this weekend. I love this Romantic Valentines Day Picnic!

Make a romantic dinner at home, and don't forget the most important part, the dessert!

Doesn't this bittersweet chocolate mousse look divine?

Other thoughts: Go out for cocktails and skip dinner or catch a movie!!

photo and links: Brenda's wedding blog, martha stewart

related: DIY Make your own Valentine's Day cards

** enter the giveaway through 5pm EST today **

More ways to follow BB&B

shop * facebook * twitter * bloglovin * tumblr

Lemon Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

I love lemon.  I love lemon bars, lemon pound cake, lemon poppy seed muffins, and I REALLY love lemon cupcakes.  Here's a great recipe for lemon cupcakes with the best (in my opinion) cream cheese frosting!

Lemon Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

(Makes 24-30 cupcakes) 

Ingredients:
3 cups self-rising flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Cream cheese frosting (recipe below)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Beat sugar and softened butter together in a large mixing bowl.  Add eggs, vanilla extract and lemon zest.

Add the salt to the flour and add flour/salt to the wet ingredients (butter, eggs, sugar, ect), slowly.  Then add half the milk, then lemon juice and then the other half of the milk, beating the mixture in between.  Do not over-mix.

Line your muffin pan with cupcake liners.  Fill each muffin tin 3/4 full.  Place in oven.

Bake cupcakes for 18-21 minutes until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Allow to cool before removing from muffin pan.

Once the cupcakes have cooled completely, the next step is adding the frosting..........

Cream Cheese Frosting

(24 cupcakes)

Ingredients:

1/2 bar cream cheese, softened

4 tablespoons butter, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Beat cream cheese and butter together in a medium-sized mixing bowl, then add vanilla extract. Incorporate powdered sugar, slowly.  Beat until you've reached a nice, creamy consistency (see above).  

You can also add lemon juice or lemon zest to this frosting if you would prefer more lemon taste.

Finally, frost your cupcakes.......

And enjoy!

Cottage Mama's Note:  This frosting is SO delicious.  If you like lots of frosting, I would suggest doubling the recipe.  It's not too sweet and has a really great cream cheese flavor.  I also like to add extra coarse sugar on top for added crunch and sparkle.

Buckeyes: Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Balls

About a week ago on The Cottage Mama facebook page I had posed the question "What was everyone's favorite holiday cookie?".  Well, my husband was the first to chime in and said "Buckeyes"! 

And though I had not anticipated on him participating in our daily facebook chatter, I knew that I better get on top of making him his most favorite Christmas cookie!

Buckeyes

Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Balls

25-30 individual balls

Ingredients:

1.5 cups creamy peanut butter

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 cups powdered sugar

4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Directions:

Mix the peanut butter, softened butter, vanilla extract and powdered sugar in a large mixing bowl.  Lay a piece of wax paper or parchment paper onto a cookie sheet.  Roll balls of peanut butter mixture and place on cookie sheet.  Dip your hands in water to avoid too much stickiness.  Once you have used up all of your dough and made the balls.  Place them on the cookie sheet in the freezer for about an hour.

Prepare your double-boiler on the stove.  If you do not have a double boiler, fill your saucepan with about 3-4 inches of water and place a heat-proof glass bowl on top.  Place chocolate chips and vegetable oil into the top of your double boiler.  Allow chocolate to melt completely (stirring occassionally).

Next drop balls into chocolate and coat completely.  To make true buckeyes, you leave the top of the peanut butter ball exposed, but I find this to be a little more time consuming, so I just coat them completely.  Place chocolate covered balls back on wax paper on cookie sheet.  Once all balls are coated, return to the freezer for an additional 30 minutes.

Store buckeyes in the refrigerator and remove before serving. Enjoy!

My mother in law adds some paraffin wax to the chocolate mixture, this will thin it out and make it go farther.  Personally, that's just not for me, so I just use the vegetable oil for sort of the same thing.  If you use paraffin, omit the vegetable oil.

I had some extra chocolate left over in my double boiler, so I dropped in a bunch of pretzels to coat them with chocolate as well.  Before the pretzels set, I sprinkled them with fine red sugar and coarse white sugar.

Happy Holiday Cookie Season!

Individual Pecan Bread Pudding

We spent this past Sunday celebrating Father's Day at my in-laws.  We had a fabulous dinner (shrimp, chicken and steak) and my mother-in-law made my father-in-law his favorite dessert (fruit soaked in Grand Marnier) and I made my husband a new recipe for Pecan Bread Pudding.

I'm usually not a huge fan of bread pudding, but this turned out great!  This is my version of a Paula Deen bread pudding (let's just say mine has a whole lot less sugar.....if you can believe that).  The pecans and brown sugar on top added a lot of extra crunch - serve it with vanilla ice cream and you've got heaven on a plate!!
 

Pecan Bread Pudding

Serves 8-12

Ingredients:

3/4 loaf french bread, cut into 1" cubes or 4-5 cups

5 eggs

1 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup light brown sugar

1 cup chopped pecans

1/2 stick butter, softened

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine eggs, sugar and cinnamon.  Add bread and toss to coat.  Allow the bread and egg mixture to sit for 10 - 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine brown sugar, chopped pecans and butter.  Mix together to make sort of a crumble.

Get out a muffin pan or pop-over tray.  Coat with cooking spray.  Stuff the egg soaked bread pieces into each muffin holder.  After you have filled all of the muffin holders, sprinkle the brown sugar/pecan mixture on top (divide evenly among all 12).

Place muffin tray on top of a baking sheet (just in case any of the brown sugar spills over).  Bake for 20-25 minutes, until top is golden brown and bubbling.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.  If you really like sweet stuff, take it over the top by drizzling caramel sauce on top and sprinkle with powdered sugar.  Enjoy!

Cottage Mama's Note:  I didn't have my camera at my in-laws so this is not the actual picture of my bread pudding that I made this past Sunday, but I promise it looked VERY similar!

Homemade Cranberry Granola

I'm a huge fan of granola or anything with oats for that matter, especially oatmeal cookies!!  This afternoon I decided to try my hand at making my own homemade granola from scratch.  I just put the ingredients together that I enjoy and luckily it turned out (you never know when you are making up your own recipe)!

So if you have an extra minutes one of these days, whip up a big batch of this yummy granola for you and your family.  First of all this recipe will make your house smell A-mazing! It's also great for breakfast, served with milk or over yogurt, makes a healthy crunchy snaking food, and would be "oh so good" on top of some vanilla ice cream!

The Cottage Mama's Homemade Granola

Ingredients:

3 cups traditional oats

1 cup shredded coconut (sweetened)

1/2 cup pecan pieces

1/4 cup walnut pieces

3/4 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup honey (I used really good local honey)

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon cinnamon (I love cinnamon, so if you don't, you may want to use less)

1/2 cup brown sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  

In a medium sized mixing bowl combine the following; oats, coconut, pecan pieces, walnut pieces, honey, and vegetable oil.  Mix until thoroughly combined.

Once combined, spread mixture out onto a large baking sheet.  Place baking sheet in the oven for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Oat mixture is ready to come out of the oven once it has reached a nice, toasted golden color.

Immediately after you remove the oat mixture from the oven add the brown sugar and stir to combine.  This will allow the sugar to melt into the granola.

After the granola has cooled add your dried cranberries.  Store granola in an air-tight container and enjoy!!

Cottage Mama's Note:  You can change up the ingredients easily with this recipe.  Add any type of dried fruit you like (i.e. raisins, apricots, apples, cherries) and feel free to change up the type of nuts you use as well.

Classic Sugar Cookies

Today I baked Christmas sugar cookies with my two girls.  Well, mostly with my older daughter, Savannah.  Matilda (my 5-month old) sat in her boppy chair and watched us - she was there for moral support.

I wasn't quite sure how this was going to go.  I liked the idea of doing something Christmasy with Savannah, but when I say she is my older daughter......she's not that much older at only 21-months.  Anyway, I thought we would give it a whirl - if things started to go south, I would just abort the mission - no harm done.

I made the sugar cookie dough while the girls napped and let it chill in the fridge for a couple hours.  Then I rolled out the cookies and off we went.  To my surprise, Savannah did AWESOME!!  I showed her how to use the cookie cutters and she followed my instructions perfectly.  Then I showed her how to use sprinkles which she thought was great fun!  As each batch came out of the oven, she had to try a cookie to make sure we didn't have any faulty batches - even more fun!!!  All the while, shouting, "yay, yay"!!  She had a blast and so did I.  Here's my little budding chef in the kitchen:

She had to try one of her cookies!!  I just think she looks adorable in her apron - it says "Please Kiss the Cook!" - how could I not kiss that little face!?

Very precise with her decorating.

Using the snowman cookie cutter (that was her favorite)!

I had such a great time teaching her the ways in the kitchen and I can't wait to do it again!  I'm not sure if you have a great sugar cookie recipe, so if not, here is my Classic Sugar Cookie recipe (comes from The Chopping Block Cooking School in downtown Chicago):

Classic Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

5 ounces (10 tbs) unsalted butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt with a whisk.  In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until creamy.  Add egg and vanilla.  Add flour mixture until combined, then divide the dough into 2 disks and chill 2 hours or overnight.

Roll dough and cut into shapes.  Bake on un-greased cookie sheets in a preheated 350 degree oven until edges are golden, about 7-9 minutes.  Cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool completely.  Decorate as desired.

Makes 2-3 dozen cookies.

Cottage Mama's Note:  If you plan to decorate your cookies with colored sugars (like we did) then brush the top of the cookies with egg white before adding sugar (do all of this prior to baking).  If you plan to decorate with frosting, wait until cookies have fully cooled.

Cinnamon Apples & Halloween Playgroup

Blog Contributor:  Jane (Cottage Mama's Mama)


My Mom and I have VERY similar taste - in just about everything - food, clothes, music, jewelry, ect.  A lot of my interests and hobbies were set into motion by her while I was growing up.  I may not have showed a ton of interest in sewing, crafting, and cooking as a high schooler (I was too busy singing and dancing), but I know she definitely has had a huge influence on the woman I am today.


My Mom used to make us the most amazing costumes for Halloween.  Some of my favorites were Daisy Duck, a Fat Clown, a Bird, a Bunny, Comedy & Tragedy, and many more.  She would spend so much time on our costumes and I always felt SO special at school wearing something that my Mama had made for me.  I think that is why I feel it is so important for me to personally make my children's costumes.  Even as young as Savannah is, I want her to look back and know that I wanted to take the time to make her a very special costume for my very special girl.


On Tuesday we attended our Halloween playgroup get together and my friend Danica (www.floradanicaphotography.com ) took these pictures.  Though, I'm sure she will die that I posted the one of Savannah since it's blurry (she's such a perfectionist), but she's an amazing photographer, so pay no attention to the blurriness.  Here's a little glimpse of my sweet Savannah in her Halloween costume that I made for her (she's eating in this picture, of course :-):

And here's my little penguin Matilda - I did not make her costume this year - she's only 3.5 months and not really ready for a  "real" costume yet (but cute nevertheless):

And here's the group shot:

So back to my Mom.......when she sent me this recipe today (that my Grandpa Bill sent her) and she said it was awesome, I just knew I had to share it with you all.  So, I haven't personally tried it, but at have the utmost confidence in my Mom's taste, so here goes:

Grandpa Bill's Cinnamon Apples

¼ cup butter

4 large or 5 medium tart apples, peeled and sliced ¼ inch thick

¾ cup water

1 T cornstarch

½ cup brown sugar

1 T cinnamon

• Melt butter over medium heat in large skillet. 
• Sauté apples 6-8 minutes until tender. 
• Dissolve cornstarch in water and add to apples. Stir in brown sugar and cinnamon and cook until thickened.  Simmer 2-3 minutes.
• Serve over ice cream for dessert and/or waffles in the morning!

Yummy!!