As the weather turns cold (and occasionally dreary), we'll take little bursts of sunshine wherever we can get them -- especially if they're soft and sweet like these lemon-loaded cookies from Brown-Eyed Baker.
Lemon is often the perfect companion for butter, poppy seeds and, of course, vodka.
Made with lemon cake mix, lemon zest, lemon juice and lemon extract (as well as a few of the usual cookie suspects, like egg and confectioner's sugar), these "lemon burst cookies" are, like the Brown-Eyed Baker herself said, literally "bursting at the seams with bright lemon flavor."
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How can anyone not smile at the sight of these cookies? There's just something so positive about a little mound of sweet goodness, especially when it's homemade. Add to that a topping as fun as sprinkles or, better yet, whimsical sparkles of sugar, and all your troubles will melt away.
A simple recipe adapted by He Cooks She Cooks, this batch of sparkle cookies was made with flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, butter and sour cream, all rolled in an extra cup of sugar for that shimmery coating!
How to pack nutrition and flavor into kids' school lunches and home meals.
Cookie jars might be cute but they don't keep cookies fresh, so slip a zipper-lock bag inside.
Corn fiends who hate the cob can pick up a "Corn Zipper," which works just like a veggie peeler.
Wine deets: Messina Hoff's 2006 Gewürztraminer is a top 10 BBQ wine, Texan wines get play at the DrinkLocalWine.com event, and wine courses and tastings will be held at the Texas Sommelier Conference.
If you find it hard to figure out how much a sauce has reduced, a clean metal ruler can come in handy.
Max's Wine Dive's best-selling Kobe Beef Burger has been named one of the 50 best burgers in Texas.
When 8-year-old Asheville, North Carolina girl Wild Freeborn enlisted her dad's help to set up a cookie-selling website, all she wanted to do was hawk enough Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Patties to earn her troop a trip to summer camp. Sounds smart, right? After all, any savvy entrepreneur needs a website.
At first, Freeborn's strategy worked, reports Newsweek: She sold more than 700 boxes of cookies to local residents through the online form, delivering every box herself.
But some parents got mad, citing unfair advantage, and Girl Scout officials quickly demanded that Wildborn take the website down, pointing to the Girl Scouts of America's longstanding ban on online sales. "The safety of our girls is always our chief concern. Girl Scout Cookie activities are designed to be face-to-face learning experiences for the girls," says the Girl Scout website.
Many people see this ban as silly and archaic, since the point of selling Girl Scout cookies is to raise money and teach entrepreneurship to young girls. And the future of entrepreneurship is certainly in online marketing, not going door-to-door Avon Lady-style. I say the Girl Scouts should get with the times and not punish girls for using their smarts and taking advantage of their resources.
What do you think - should the Girl Scouts ban online cookie sales?
Valentine's Day, with its endless opportunities for both food AND crafts, is a big deal in Marthaland, where the chocolate strawberries are always hand-dipped and the decorative pink ribbons always cut on the diagonal. Check out Martha's adorable Lovebug cookies, which satisfy both the baker's sweet tooth and the decorator's need to go wild with the gel paste food coloring. The bugs' eyes are silver dragees and the spots are white dragees or white fruit imperial candies. The fuzzy insect heads are acheived with black or brown sanding sugar.
Other Martha-approved Valentine's treats include chocolate truffles, pink-on-pink strawberry cupcakes, heart-shaped raspberry Napoleons, mini heart-shaped cakes, heart-shaped merengues and massive chocolate cupcakes.
Seriously? Sweet potato and cheese cookies? That's what I thought when I saw this recipe too. But Dawn from Vanilla Sugar swears by them, and I'm inclined to believe her. I've always thought that the cheddar cheese + pie combo was highly underrated, so I can see how the sweet and savory flavors would work together much the same way in these cookies. Plus, since cheese has protein, you can eat the cookies for breakfast. Right? The recipe includes mashed sweet potatoes, shredded sharp cheddar, cinnamon, pecans and raisins. I won't have a chance to test these out myself until the weekend, so if anyone else tries them, please let me know how they taste!
Ever played a board game and started thinking about how well it would work in the world of food? I mean, beyond those interest-centric birthday cakes that are all the rage these days? Or the shot glass chess made to get you annihilated?
It seems that Settlers of Catan has done just that. Food was just about the last thing I was thinking of the few times I played it. (I was more in the "When will it be over?" camp.) Nevertheless, here we are -- Settlers of Catan pizza, gingerbread cookies (above), and cupcakes. We're not just talking food inspired by the game -- but food that actually mimics it.
Now if only we could get a completely edible Scrabble game...
Say hello to flatty and softy. Both come from the same batch of cookies, yet one is flat as all hell, and one is nicely shaped, and doesn't reveal the wonderful sea of butterscotch inside.
I've made many cookies over the years. Some I've loved; some I've hated. Sometimes something goes wrong. But I've never had a batch pull out two different results. I was trying out Accidental Hedonist's Butterscotch Cookies, taking out the nuts (hello, allergies) and adding in some extra chips. The dough looked delicious -- the perfect cold dough for the adult mouth with its sugar sweetness cut by wonderful dark rum flavor.
Then they went in the oven, and bled into hard, flat discs. The flavor was excellent, but the shape was not. So, I tried firming up the batter in the fridge for round two. They turned out exactly the same. I began to consider rejigging the recipe for next time. However, I had four cookies left over, so I put those on a piece of old parchment, waited for the other round to finish, and baked them last. Voila! Perfect cookies.
Can silicone baking mats really wreak havoc on a cookie? That's the only difference between the three batches. Share your thoughts below!
Most candy cane cookie recipes turn tasty sugar into candy cane shapes, but why do that when you can put your piles of real candy canes to good use and make some Christmas Day cookies?
This recipe for Candy Cane Cookies isn't your normal cookie treat, but it's delicious, and easy to prepare. Even better, it'll make use of your pile of candy, and allow the kids to wield a hammer and smash things. Trust me -- they'll love it, and it's perfectly safe with supervision. Just put the candy canes in a zip lock bag and get to work!
Unlike most recipes, these cookies call for powdered sugar, and that helps to give a nice, powdery inside to contrast the hard, slightly melted candy canes coating it. This is also a great way to use jars of peppermint snow. The recipe calls for finely crushed canes, but coarse chunks work just fine.
With one simple cookie dough recipe, Lucy Waverman morphs it into fruitcake squares, plus chocolate, thumbprint, pinwheels, and toffee cookies.
If you're looking for a good melting cheese, try Raclette -- melted over baby potatoes, sliced meat, and gherkins, in fondue, on pizzas, or gourmet nachos.
The economy might be suffering, but Vancouver's restaurant industry continues to expand -- this time with Twisted Fork Bistro...
... and also Miku, brought to North America by the Toro Corp.
Usually when I'm itching for a dose of butterscotch, I'll whip up my favorite chocolate chip recipe and substitute butterscotch chips for the chocolate. But last night I was in the mood to try something different. Accidental Hedonist's recent Butterscotch Sundae Cookie post came to mind, but I couldn't remember which blog I saw it on. Google blog searching finally led me to it, as well as Double Butterscotch Cookies (The Taste of Home Cookbook) over at Baking Blonde. Which to do first?
I tackled the double butterscotch, which you can see above. Whether baked light or dark, these cookies are delicious. I made a few substitutions -- all butter rather than half butter/half shortening, I left out the nuts, and I used butterscotch chips rather than toffee bits. They're firm, but soft and chewy with great sugary flavor that's rich, but won't give you that stomach-churning rotted gut if you have two or three.
I didn't roll and slice the dough since I prefer the puffier texture, like the recipe suggests, but I might next time. I'm scheming up a way to have creamy waves of butterscotch in the cookies, rather than chips, to perfectly match the creamy cookie. If you've got a butterscotch cookie to rival this, please share it below! Some people want the perfect chocolate chip cookie, but some of us prefer that irresistible butterscotch.
Pascale La Draulec gushes about the ease and allure of a retro cookie swap shindig -- one that could overload even the Cookie Monster with dozens upon dozens of cookies.
But if you want something a little friendlier on your midsection, you might want to try kiss-theming your holiday celebrations. Pucker up!
Valentine's Day, with its endless opportunities for both food AND crafts, is a big deal in Marthaland, where the chocolate strawberries are always hand-dipped and the decorative pink ribbons always cut on the diagonal. Check out 
Pascale La Draulec gushes about the ease and allure of a 
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