Mini Gingerbread Cookies: Autumn Leaves

Posted in food & flavor & recipes by Rosemary Lynn

It’s Fall! So I made my Mini Soft Iced Gingerbread Cookies, but instead of tiny Christmas shapes, I made autumn leaves.

Mostly because I love these flavors alllllll season long. Not just in December.

Look at all the yumminess!

Cinnamon, ginger, molasses…. this is a good lookin’ list.

It’s starting to come together now.

I love showing all the flavors that combine to make these cookies so special.

I used the smallest of the nesting cookie cutters from the Wilton Leaves and Acorns 9-Piece Cookie Cutter Set.

Which, incidentally, I also used to make my Fall French Toast.

So many cookies!

My kids helped me make these. They loved cutting them all out.

My girls also helped me to decorate them. We dipped them into the icing, which is quicker than spreading it on.

(Make sure to click on the recipe link to see the full directions.)

Yum!

I used regular chocolate sprinkles for some, but to get the yellow and orange combination, I had to pick the ghosts out of the Wilton Halloween Ghost Mix Sprinkles.

It’s amazingly difficult to find sprinkles in Thanksgiving/Autumn colors in the stores. But the Ghost Mix is pretty easy to find around October.

So once again, here is the recipe:

Mini Soft Iced Gingerbread Cookies

Happy Baking!

6Sep2016

Dark Chocolate Dipped Brown Sugar Cinnamon Cookie Bars

Posted in food & flavor & recipes by Rosemary Lynn

I’ve been wanting to make cinnamon cookies for awhile. And, apparently, my new obsession is dipping things in chocolate.

This particular recipe is a thick, cake-like cookie with a strong hint of cinnamon and an emphasis on brown sugar.

And the chocolate just makes it incredibly amazing.

Plus – and this is my favorite part – that thick cookie soaks up warm coffee like it was born for it. It’s like the perfect breakfast. (And dessert. And snack.)

All the good stuff.

Theoretically you could use light brown sugar … but then you’d be missing out on the extra oomph of molasses.

We’re getting there…

Coming together…

(I’m getting excited.)

Not that I promote eating raw cookie dough or anything but… ohmygosh this stuff is like a gooey pile of heaven.

But it’s a little sticky too, so use nonstick cooking spray to coat your hands before spreading it in the pan.

It will be thin, but that’s okay – it’s gonna rise. Just make sure there are no holes allowing the pan to show through.

Yum! Good stuff right here.

Don’t overbake it, though. I probably could have cooked this one right here about a minute less, since it’s going to keep cooking just a little when you pull it out. The cookie needs to cool completely in the pan.

When you cut your cookies, they will present a nicer display if you trim off the crispy edges.

You can see my “edges” in the photo above. They were a little larger than necessary, but, you know, those were the parts that didn’t make it to the pot luck. ;)

You could dip them into chocolate any way you want, but I certainly recommend using dark chocolate. It has a nice deep flavor that complements the cookie.

I like the way it looks when you dip the corner, but technically you could dip just the bottoms or a full half of the cookie instead.

Or drizzle the chocolate over it.

Were you still thinking about those “edges” I mentioned? Here they are (above). I drizzled the leftover chocolate over them. For parties I think the dipped corners are gorgeous, but the drizzle does the job too.

Did I mention these were amazing with coffee?

Did I only mention it once? ‘Cause these are uh-mazing with coffee.

(Even if you accidentally put too much creamer in your coffee. Still amazing.)

Dark Chocolate Dipped Brown Sugar Cinnamon Cookie Bars

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoons sea salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
10 oz. dark chocolate (I used Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Melting Wafers)

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a 15 by 10-inch jelly roll pan, or baking sheet with sides, with parchment paper.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars. Stir in the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time. Add in the flour mixture, a little at a time, until fully combined.

Spread the dough onto the baking sheet. It is easier to work with if you lightly coat the parchment paper and your hands (or spoon) with nonstick cooking spray. The dough will be a little wet and it will be very thin in the pan.

Bake for 20 to 22 minutes. Place pan on a cooling rack and allow cookies to cool fully in pan.

Slice the cookies into bars by first trimming off the crispy edges. Cut three rows lengthwise, then slice those pieces about an inch thick. You’ll have about 4 dozen cookies that measure about 1 by 3 inches.

Melt the chocolate according to the package directions. Dip each cookie into the chocolate then place the cookie onto parchment or waxed paper to allow chocolate to set. Store covered.

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Click below for the free printable PDF recipe with photos:

Dark Chocolate Dipped Brown Sugar Cinnamon Cookie Bars

Happy Baking!

Save

3Sep2016

Ginger Cookie Truffles

Posted in food & flavor & recipes by Rosemary Lynn

So the other day I was sitting there thinking: if people make Oreo Truffles all the time, can I make truffles out of other cookies too?

The answer is OH VERY YES.

And the more specific answer would be DUDE IF YOU LIKE SPICE COOKIES/CAKE AT ALL YOU TOTALLY HAVE TO TRY THESE RIGHT NOW.

I chose these ingredients because I’m a big fan of spice cakes and gingerbread cookies and things like that. My mom can practically live off of ginger snaps. And fall is on its way. (Or maybe it’s already here. I’m not sure: I live in Florida.)

Anyway, these truffles are basically a combination of cookie crumbs and cream cheese smushed together and dipped into white chocolate.

Then, for a fun touch, drizzled with a little cinnamon chocolate. Just ’cause.

It took me a little bit of forever to crush up all the cookies because my food processor broke, but it wasn’t difficult.

I like these ginger thins because they’re pretty crispy, which made for great crumbs.

I’m sure you could substitute a different cookie, but you might have to adjust your amounts, and – you know – these ginger thin cookies are incredible so why would you??

Unless you come up with something better – then please let me know. Food is my favorite type of experiment. ;)

Oh, and if you’re wondering, I picked up all of my ingredients at Walmart. But you can also get them online if you can’t find these things locally. I totally swear by those Ghirardelli wafers. They seriously rock both in the ease-of-use and taste categories.

The end result?

A silky smooth creamy center exploding with spice and encased in a mildly sweet chocolate that’s decorated with just a hint of cinnamon.

They look good and taste even better.

Ginger Cookie Truffles

Ingredients:

10.5 oz. (2 boxes) Anna’s Swedish Thins or other ginger cookies
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
10 oz. white chocolate (I used Ghirardelli White Melting Wafers)
1-2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (optional)

Crumble the ginger cookies in a food processor or by hand until finely ground.

Mix the cream cheese into the cookie crumbs until well combined and smooth.

Scoop out large teaspoonfuls of the cookie mix and shape into balls. Place the balls on a tray lined with parchment paper or tin foil. Freeze for 10 to 15 minutes.

Melt the white chocolate according to the package directions, stirring until smooth. Take out the cookie balls and dip them into the chocolate using a fork, one at a time, until fully coated. Shake the fork to allow excess chocolate to drip back into the bowl. Set the truffles on a sheet of parchment or waxed paper until chocolate hardens, using the side of a second fork to push the truffle off the first fork.

When all the truffles are done, sprinkle a teaspoon or two of cinnamon into the remaining chocolate, depending on how much chocolate is left, and stir to combine. Then use a clean fork to drizzle the cinnamon chocolate over the truffles.

Allow to fully set, then store in the refrigerator.

Makes about 2 dozen.

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Click here to print the free PDF of the recipe:

Ginger Cookie Truffles

Happy Eating!

4Jul2016

July 4th Fireworks Painting and Cookies

Posted in activities for kids, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

Happy Fourth of July!

This year, my kids and I did a painting activity and a cookie project that mimicked fireworks. First, we stamped fireworks with toilet paper rolls, and then we baked some chocolate cookies and iced them in patterns to represent bursts of color.

Both of these things were done on dark backgrounds to make it look like our paint and sugar fireworks were exploding against a nighttime sky.

Even threw in some glitter (edible and not-so-much) for a little extra spark!

First up: the painting project.

We reused some toilet paper rolls by transforming them into stamps.

To make the firework-shaped stamps, cut slits around one side of the cardboard roll, making the incisions about a quarter-inch wide (my kids made a few slivers; don’t aim for uniformity here), and then bend back the strips against the palm of your hand to make the pieces stick out.

I put some red, white, and blue (washable) paint into three small paper plates, and we dipped the stamps into the plates and then pressed them into the paper to make our fireworks.

To get a neat effect, overlap your stamps.

After you’ve covered your paper in fireworks, sprinkle with glitter for a fun sparkly touch!

Allow the paint to dry before shaking off the excess glitter and displaying your art.

These cookies were not only fun to make – they were delicious too!

Just like the painting activity, we used the red, white, and blue colors against a dark background (in this case chocolate) to represent the fireworks bursting against a night sky.

We used the recipe that I made for my Chocolate Almond Mummy Cookies, but I made double the batch of icing.

You don’t actually NEED to double the icing – the recipe already makes plenty – but I wanted to make extra, double, totally sure that we’d still have enough icing if my girls ended up squirting most of it onto the counter instead of the cookies.

It turned out, one batch probably would have been more than enough . . . except that one of my containers burst and half of the blue icing spilled out onto a couple of cookies.

But that’s an anomaly. (Hopefully.)

When you make the icing, be sure to stir it well until there are no lumps and it drips easily from the fork or spoon in thin ribbons.

Not watery – just thin. If it’s too thick or clumpy it will clog your spout.

I used my Wilton Candy Making Decorating Bottles. Mine are quite old but they ~~usually work fine~~ only sometimes explode. (But seriously, this is the first time I’ve had a problem.) I’ve been meaning to pick up some new ones anyway. They’re pretty easy to clean and my girls just love using them.

But if you don’t have bottles like these, you could just as easily put the icing into three separate plastic baggies and snip off the ends to squeeze out the patterns.

If you’re using the bottles, I poured the white icing into them and then mixed in the food coloring with a wooden skewer, the kind used for making shish kabobs. You could do the same with the baggies, or, if you’re not lazy like me, you could put the icing into three bowls and add the red and blue food coloring to two of them, and mix them before pouring them into the containers.

I made the icing while the cookies were in the oven. You could make it much earlier in the day, but the longer it sits, the more likely to thicken and then you’ll have to worry about mixing in more water or stirring it to thin it again.

As you can see, we took the easy way out with these “cut out” cookies: no cookie cutters. We just sliced them up with a pizza cutter. Easy Peasy. Re-roll and slice again.

(If you’re wondering, that’s cocoa powder sprinkled over the counter to keep the dough from sticking, which you can use instead of flour when making chocolate cookies.)

We made the cookies into rectangles or large squares, all slightly different. Once baked and fully cooled, I spread some waxed paper to catch the drippings and we all drizzled the icing onto the cookies, overlapping the colors, in a bit of a star burst pattern so that they would kind of look like fireworks exploding.

And, before the icing could harden, we added some white sparkling sugar to add a little extra spark to our cookies and to match the glitter on our paintings.

Again, you can find the cookie recipe on my post for Chocolate Almond Mummy Cookies.

Happy Fourth!

7Apr2016

Triple Chocolate Spice Cookies

Posted in food & flavor & recipes by Rosemary Lynn

If you like chocolate and you like Spice Cookies, then you’re going to agree with me that these cookies are Uh-MAZING!!

They’re gooey and chocolately and bursting with fragrant flavor! A total hit with everyone who has tried them. Well … the ones I was willing to share! ;)

They’re loosely based off of the Land O’ Lakes Chocolate Chai Latte cookies. I like how those had a soft chocolate cookie base, are flavored with spices, filled with chunks of chocolate, and iced with a cinnamon glaze.

So I made this recipe to incorporate those elements, but with all the individual ingredients instead of starting with a cake mix. Cake mixes differ a lot, and I wanted to know exactly what was going into my cookies. Plus this way the cookies all turn out the same, unlike if you have a different cake mix on hand from the last time.

I played around with the measurements until I found something I loved, including adding more spice into mine. I picked out spices I liked and measured them out, instead of using using a drink mix like the Chai cookies.

Because, really, I’m far too unorganized to have a specific cake and drink mix on hand whenever I decide to make these. All of the ingredients I use here are things I usually have in the pantry. Except if I’ve forgotten to stock up on powdered milk, but that’s shelf stable, so I usually keep that around, too.

(Scroll down for the printable PDF of the recipe.)

It looks like a lot of ingredients, but once you get everything set up, it’s super simple to whip up a batch.

And you can see that I used milk chocolate for these. I suppose you could use semi-sweet or dark, but I like the way the softer and gentler milk chocolate chips contrast with the rest of the cookie.

The chips are one part of the “Triple” chocolates for which I named these. Aside from the cookie itself, there is also chocolate in the icing. :)

Would you just LOOK at all that FLAVOR!?

The dough is coming together…

A little thick, but that makes for soft, puffy cookies!

Scoop it out onto parchment paper or on a pan like this that releases the cookies easily.

The just-baked cookies.

See that moisture in the cracks? Get ready for some moist, fudgy goodness!

And the icing ingredients.

I made this icing with both cocoa powder and cinnamon for maximum chocolatey-spicy flavor.

The icing consistency is ready when it easily drips from the fork or spoon in thick ribbons.

Drizzle the icing over the cooled cookies by dipping the fork back into the icing then waving it back and forth above the cookies.

Wait until the icing hardens completely to eat them. The slight crunch of the icing makes a wonderful combination with the soft cookies.

Store them covered, and if you’ve waited until the icing is completely cooled (doesn’t smoosh and melt apart when you press it with your finger), then you shouldn’t even need to separate the layers of cookies with paper or anything. Just throw the ones you didn’t consume immediately into a container.

Triple Chocolate Spice Cookies

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup instant nonfat dry milk powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons milk
2 cups milk chocolate chips

Icing:
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 to 5 tablespoons water

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°). Combine the first 11 ingredients in a large bowl with a whisk or fork. Add in the butter, eggs, and milk and blend with a mixer on medium speed until fully combined. Stir in the milk chocolate chips by hand. The dough should hold together but be thick. Scoop rounded teaspoons of dough onto cookie sheets, about two inches apart. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. The cracks in the cookies will still look moist when they are done. Allow to cool on cookie sheets for two minutes, then transfer to cooling racks and allow to cool completely.

Using a fork, combine the powdered sugar, cocoa powder, and cinnamon in a bowl. Add in 3 tablespoons of water, stirring well until icing is smooth. Add a teaspoon more of water at a time until the icing drips from the fork in thin, unbroken ribbons. Line your workspace with waxed paper beneath the cooled cookies, and use the fork to drizzle the icing over the cookies. Allow icing to harden completely and store cookies covered. Makes four dozen.

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Click here to print the free PDF version of the recipe:

Triple Chocolate Spice Cookies

Happy Baking!

12Oct2015

Candy Corn Shaped Honey Cookies

Posted in food & flavor & recipes, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

Candy Corn Shaped Honey Cookies

These candy corn cookies are amazing. Seriously.

And not just because they’re shaped and colored like candy corn, though that is pretty awesome. But I also developed a new recipe that includes honey.

That’s right: honey.

And why not? Candy corn is made with honey. So even though I’d made cookies that looked like these in the past with sugar cookie dough, I wanted to try something a little different this year.

And the honey really pushed them over the edge. They were soft and sweet and smelled as delicious as they tasted.

Candy Corn Shaped Honey Cookies

So, first things first. You gotta make the dough.

Once you have the dough, split it into three balls and add yellow food coloring to one and orange to another while leaving one plain.

Then you stack the dough in layers in a bread pan and refrigerate it for a couple of hours. You can stack them in which ever order you choose, too. I went with white-yellow-orange, but most candy corn is actually colored white-orange-yellow. Not that it really matters, though. Everyone who saw these instantly recognized them for what they were.

Candy Corn Shaped Honey Cookies

When the dough is chilled, you’ll turn it out of the bread pan and cut it into thick slices, just like a loaf of bread. Then each slice will be cut into six or seven triangles by alternating the direction of your knife.

Candy Corn Shaped Honey Cookies

And don’t worry about it looking perfect. I gave my 3yo and 5yo butter knives and let them have at it, too.

When my 3yo pretty much shredded the dough, I just gently squeezed a few of those pieces together to form something that resembled a triangle.

(Incidentally, if you’re wondering why she’s wearing band-aids in the photo, well, those are for decoration. That’s just how we roll.)

Candy Corn Shaped Honey Cookies

Put the cookies on cookie sheets with a little space between them. They don’t spread much.

And you should use parchment paper lined sheets, unless you have something like these pans in the photos, which keep things from sticking.

Candy Corn Shaped Honey Cookies

And there you have it: beautiful, smooth, sweet cookies that are perfect for Fall!

Candy Corn Shaped Honey Cookies

Candy Corn Shaped Honey Cookies

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar, and egg with a mixer until creamy. Add the honey and vanilla and mix until well blended. Gradually add the flour mixture.

Move dough onto counter and cut into three pieces. Leave one piece plain and, using food coloring, dye the second piece yellow and the third piece orange. Knead the color into the dough, using extra flour to coat your hands so the dough doesn’t stick.

Line a 9 x 5 inch bread pan with plastic wrap. Press the dough into the pan one color at a time, spreading each layer across the entire pan. Refrigerate for at least two hours.

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Remove the dough from the bread pan and cut it into ¼-inch to ½-inch thick slices. Cut each slice into six triangles. Place cookies on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper and bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Let sit on baking sheet for two minutes, then remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Store covered. Makes about 6 dozen, depending on the thickness of the cookies.

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Click here for the free printable PDF version of the recipe:

Candy Corn Shaped Honey Cookies

Happy Baking!

Roaming Rosie Signature

8Oct2015

Oreo Ghosts

Posted in food & flavor & recipes, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

These are a super cute way to add a little Halloween fun to snack time!

Since a bag of Oreos is a dangerous thing, I don’t like to keep them in the house too often… but I’ll buy the small packs now and then for fun stuff like this.

To make the ghosts, first you need to open the cookies while trying to keep all of the icing on one side. Then use a small paring knife to carve off a bit to give a swirl movement to the sides of the ghost, and then make circle shapes for eyes and a mouth. Scrape up and off the extra pieces. And, you know, “discard” them… somehow… ;)

Then serve up the ghosts to your excited Little Ones!

Happy Halloween!

21Aug2015

ABC Teacher Thank You Tags and Cut Out Cookies (Free Printable)

Posted in food & flavor & recipes, free worksheets & printables by Rosemary Lynn

Well, now that the school year is starting again, I am reminded that I never posted about the Teacher Thank You tags that I made for my kids’ teachers at the end of the last school year.

Better late than never, amiright?

Anyway, I printed these up so that we could make some letter-shaped sugar cookies for their teachers and put them in little baggies. This way the teachers would get a gift the girls made themselves and one that wouldn’t take up a bunch of space somewhere.

These tags obviously work best for teachers in preschool or kindergarten, but I think they would be pretty cute to give to a high school teacher too….. or is that just me??

Plus, I left a spot for your kids to sign the tags. And that photo at the top of the post? That scribble is actually how my 3yo was signing her name at the time. I just wrote out her name on the back so that the teacher could remember who it was from.

All you have to do is print out the tags, punch a hole in them, and tie them to whatever gift you’re giving.

I picked up these snack baggies at Target and the string at the dollar store.

We made A B C cookies to match the tags.

Well, actually, we made A, B, C, D, and then the first letters of both of my girls’ names.

And we used these Wilton cookie cutters.

And the recipe I used was the same one I made last year to make some autumn leaves.

I just used different cutters and icing colors this time around.

I love baking with my girls. They enjoy being in the kitchen and cooking is a great way to learn all kinds of concepts, though mostly we just enjoy eating the food we make. :)

Remember to roll out the dough extra thick so that you get nice, soft cookies.

And don’t over-bake them – they’ll appear “almost” done when they’re actually done.

Mix up the icing using some Meringue Powder to make it nice and shiny.

This stuff is great. It smells good and it lasts forever.

You can do just one color. If you do multiple colors, please remember that you don’t need a lot of food coloring in each dish. Unless you want super bold colors, like mine.

I had intended to go for a pastel look….. but I didn’t get there, obviously. Can I blame it on my kids? They WERE the ones distracting me after all…….

Anyway, the best way to ice them cookies is by just dipping them into the bowl of icing.

Make sure you stir the bowl between each cookie and let the excess drip off (or scrape it off the sides with the fork if it’s a LOT of excess).

Then just put them on the racks and let the icing harden.

See how thick they are?

*drool*

It makes plenty. So you’ll totally be able to save some for yourselves. Store the extras in a covered container.

And feel free to experiment with the icing – my 5yo did a few tie-dyed cookies.

So, first, here are is the PDF of the printable tags:

ABC Teacher Thank You Tags

And here is the cookie recipe that I used. It’s the same one I used to make some colorful autumn leaves (scroll down for printable PDF):

Soft Sugar Cookies with Icing

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla (or almond) extract
1/3 cup sour cream
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Icing:
2 cups confectionery sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons meringue powder
1 teaspoon vanilla (or 1/2 teaspoon almond) extract
3 to 4 tablespoons water

Cream together the butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy. Mix in the egg, sour cream, and extract until smooth. In a small bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder, then slowly mix into the wet ingredients until just combined. Do not over mix. Separate the dough in half and roll each piece out between two sheets of waxed paper to a thickness of about 1/2 inch. Refrigerate dough for an hour.

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Remove dough from refrigerator and cut out desired shapes with cookie cutters. Gently gather scraps and reroll on a floured surface. Place cookies an inch apart on parchment lined cookie sheets and bake for 9 to 11 minutes. Do not over bake! Take them out when they appear just about to be done, and before they brown. Let cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

Mix all of the icing ingredients together with a fork. Start with 3 tablespoons of water and add more, about a 1/2 teaspoon at a time, until you reach a consistency where a thick line of icing slowly and smoothly drips off of the fork when lifted from the bowl. Dye it your desired color, dividing it between separate bowls first if using multiple colors.

Dip the tops of the completely cooled cookies into the icing. Gently pull out the cookie and use a fork or skewer to scrape off excess icing without touching the cookie itself. Set cookie on top of a wire rack that’s positioned over waxed paper or foil and allow to harden completely, letting the cookies sit for at least an hour. Store covered.

**********

And click here for the free, printable PDF:

Soft Sugar Cookies with Icing

There you go! Happy Gifting (…and eating!)

26Jul2015

Zebra Zoo Cookies

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities, food & flavor & recipes by Rosemary Lynn

Aren’t these CUTE???

I didn’t come up with the idea all on my own – I have my daughter’s last years preschool teachers to thank for it! At the end of the school year, they sent home a “cookbook” of all the recipes they’d made. My daughter was excited to flip through it and I let her pick out which recipe she’d like to remake first.

She picked the Zebra Zoos.

Now, they actually did theirs a little differently, so this is my version.

Below are all our store-bought ingredients that make this super simple to set up. It’s the type of project where you can buy everything ahead of time and stick all the stuff in the back of the pantry until a rainy day.

You’ll need:

Graham Crackers

Vanilla Cake Icing

Animal Cracker Cookies

Black Candy Melts OR Chocolate Chips

The first step is to spread the icing over the graham crackers.

You don’t need a lot. And you don’t need your Little Ones overdosing on sugar, so you may need to gently offer to help them smooth it out a bit. :)

Melt the candy melts in the microwave according to the package directions within a small baggy (preferably freezer weight), then snip the corner off to drizzle the candy back and forth over the white icing.

This will make the appearance of the zebra stripes, which is where the treat gets its name.

Why did I use candy melts instead of chocolate chips?

First of all: the black candy melts are darker than the chocolate chips. Black instead of brown, so more zebra-like. Also, I wanted the flavor of them to match the icing. The candy melts have a vanilla flavor, like white chocolate.

[hint: you can usually buy the candy melts at Michaels with a coupon.]

Then attach a few cookies by pressing them into the black candy melt stripes before the stripes have a chance to set. (So, right after you draw on the stripes.)

Then enjoy!

Oh….. and it would behoove you to remember to coat your workspace with waxed or parchment paper first. Just sayin’.

1Jun2015

Lemon Oatmeal Cookies

Posted in food & flavor & recipes by Rosemary Lynn

Lemon Oatmeal Cookies

At first, I wasn’t really sure how these Lemon Oatmeal Cookies were going to turn out, but – on the heels of my Easy Iced Lemon Cake Mix Cookies – I was still on a lemon kick and wanted to try something a little different.

Luckily, these were a hit.

They’re a bit thick, but soft and deliciously lemony.

You also only really need one lemon to make them, but I threw a few more into the photos since I had them on hand.

Lemon Oatmeal Cookies

If you like lemon and oatmeal, these are a must.

Plus, if you don’t really like icing {I could practically live off of icing} you could still eat them without it. I like how the icing adds a tart sweetness to an otherwise mellow cookie.

Lemon Oatmeal Cookies

The icing can be stirred together in two minutes while the cookies are cooling.

Just don’t put those lemon seeds into the icing. :)

Lemon Oatmeal Cookies

You could flatten the cookies more, I suppose, but I liked the thickness of them.

It makes them softer.

And the powdered sugar on the bottom of the glass that you use to flatten the dough adds a nice, subtle sweetness.

Lemon Oatmeal Cookies

Again, if you didn’t want the extra lemon flavor in the icing, you could just top the cookies with a sprinkle of powdered sugar right before serving.

I like the icing, though, for a few reasons. Aside from the nice flavor, it also make the cookies ready-to-eat right out of the bag or tub that you keep them in.

Which is especially nice if you’re bringing them to a pot luck or something similar.

And, really, they’d be wonderful at a brunch event.

Lemon Oatmeal Cookies

Lemon Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 ½ cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 egg
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 cup powdered sugar (for dusting)

Icing:

1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon fresh-squeezed lemon juice
3 to 5 teaspoons water

Beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the flour, oats, egg, lemon zest, and vanilla and mix well. Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Put the 1/8 cup powdered sugar in a small dish.

Shape dough into 1-inch balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten the cookies by dipping the bottom of a drinking glass in the powdered sugar and pressing the glass down on the dough.

Bake cookies for 11 to 13 minutes or until the edges begin to turn golden brown.

Cool for one minute on the cookie sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Combine the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and 2 teaspoons of water in a small bowl. Stir with a fork, adding a half-teaspoon of water at a time until you reach your desired consistency. It should drip slowly but smoothly from the fork.

Drizzle the icing over the cooled cookies and allow it to set. Store covered. Makes about 2 dozen.

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Click to print the free PDF version of the recipe: