Pretty Cookies with Raspberry Filling

A tea party can be fun, especially if you enjoy using pretty china tea things, including tea pots, cups and saucers, and little plates. I recently had tea with a very good friend and she loved the fact that I baked really pretty cookies to go with the tea, served on a tiered plate with all the nice china.

You don't really need to bake cookies to enjoy tea with a friend. I often use packaged cookies from the market, but this time I didn't. I baked a simple sugar cookie, cut it with a fluted round cutter, then cut the center out of half of them with a smaller fluted round cutter. Once baked and cooled, I piped vanilla buttercream just inside the edge of the whole cookies, filled the center with a thin layer of raspberry jam. Next I sifted a small amount of confectioners sugar over the cutouts. The final touch was top the raspberry/buttercream whole cookies with the cutout cookies. You could use another flavor of jam or some lemon curd instead of the raspberry jam for another take on these lovely cookies. The cookies themselves are crisp the first day, giving a nice contrast to the soft jam and buttercream. If you store them longer, the cookies soften a bit, but they are still delicious! You also don't need to have a tea party to enjoy these cookies!

When making the cookies, know that the dough tends to be soft, but you really don't want to overwork it. Be generous with the flour on your work surface and rolling pin so that the dough doesn't stick too much. I slid a small offset spatula under the cookies to make sure they were loosened before I moved them to the baking sheet with a larger spatula that supported them fully. I baked the cutout part, too, and iced small hearts with buttercream on them. A small bite is sometimes as good as a fancy one. Some of the filled ones ended up without powdered sugar since Sweetie doesn't really like powdered sugar.

Enjoy the cookies and do consider having a tea party. It's particularly nice during the winter to have a little party to lift our spirits and give us an excuse to invite a friend over.

Fancy Tea Cookies  

1 cup butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
1 egg
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
about 2-3 tablespoons confectioners sugar
1 cup vanilla buttercream
1 - 1 1/2 cups raspberry jam (or other flavor jam or lemon curd)

    With butter or margarine at room temperature, beat butter or margarine in large bowl, then beat in sugar and egg until fluffy. Sift dry ingredients together and add to first mixture. Mix well. Roll dough to 1/8 inch thickness, cut with round cookie cutters. Place on lightly buttered cookie sheets. Use a smaller round cutter to cut out the middle of half of the cookies. Bake in a 400 F. oven for 7- 8 minutes. If dough sticks while rolling, chill briefly. 

    After cookies have cooled, use a small fine-mesh strainer to sift a small amount of the confectioners sugar over the cut-out cookies. Pipe a thin line of buttercream near the edge of the full cookies, then fill the center with a thin layer of the raspberry jam. Top with the cut-out cookies, pushing down gently to seal the layers together. Serve.  Makes 2 - 4 dozen cookies depending on the size of the round cutters.

Remembering Phyllis with Lemon Cookies

Phyllis Welsh was a lady, a kind and thoughtful woman, a diehard Giant's fan, a bit of a mischief maker now and then, and my friend, as well as a P.E.O. sister. She is gone now, after a brief illness.

This coming Wednesday we will gather to remember her, along with her family, and along with friends from the Model T Club that she and her husband started, along with friends from her church and along with neighbors and many others. She loved to entertain and people were drawn to her love of people and of life.

For the gathering I'm bringing cookies. The star shape is one of the shapes of P.E.O. so the cookies are stars. P.E.O. is a 150 year old group that raises funds for scholarships for women. There are chapters all over the U.S. and Canada and Phyllis was probably the member who most embodied our goals and aspirations for ourselves. I will miss her a lot and I know there are many others who will, too.

You may want to try these delicious cookies. They are plain rolled cookies but the lemon adds a bright note to them, perfect for the return of daylight savings time. That's right, time to set our clocks forward when we go to bed tonight if you live in most of the U.S.

Meyer lemons are wonderful for this cookies, but regular lemons you find at the market are fine, too. In a pinch, you can use lemon extract.

This recipe is one that my mother got from an old friend of the family, Irene Johnston. The cookies are simple and not too sweet. With the addition of Meyer lemon zest and juice they have some zing. Irene’s recipe didn’t have the salt and had nutmeg instead of the vanilla extract. Adding the lemon was my idea. Bake just until the outer edges of the cookie begin to brown for the best cookies. For these stars that meant when the tips of the stars were just beginning to brown a little.

You can use any shape cutter you like and you can decorate them any way you like, but this lemon glaze is easy and adds another kick of lemon.

The dough is usually pretty easy to roll out. If the dough seems too crumbly, add a little bit (1-2 tablespoons) of milk. If it's too sticky to roll out, try chilling it first.

Meyer Lemon Sugar Cookies
by Irene Johnston

1 cup butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
Mix the above ingredients together until creamy.
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
zest from ½ a medium Meyer lemon (or use regular lemon…it’s delish, too)

Mix the flour, baking soda, salt and zest together. Combine with the butter mixture. If too dry, add mile, one tablespoon at a time until dough forms.

Roll the dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut with cookie cutters. Place unbaked cookies on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 400 degrees F. until lightly browned, about 6-7 minutes. (If dough sticks while rolling, refrigerate briefly). Remove from oven when done, cool on baking sheet a minute, then cool on cake rack until fully cooled.

After cookies have cooled, can be frosted and decorated as desired.

Meyer Lemon Glaze
Zest from ½ a lemon
1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
juice from Meyer lemon, heated for one minute in the microwave

Place zest and confectioners’ sugar in a bowl. Whisk in a little of the lemon juice. Add dribbles of the juice until a glaze is formed. If too thin, add a little more sugar; if too thick whisk in more lemon juice. Reserve left over juice for another use.

Using small offset spatula, ice tops of each cookie. Set on cake rack to dry.

Mothers Day is Coming

Hard to believe, but it is almost May. Not only that, Mothers Day is a bit early this year, since it is on Sunday, May 11 th. Now you might already have the perfect gift picked out, or even purchased, but it's also possible that you have no idea what to get Mom.

If she likes to cook and bake, consider giving her my beautiful cookbook Classic Comfort Food, full of delicious recipes and lovely photos. I created it for my Mom for Mothers Day last year. You know if it is good enough for my Mom it is probably good enough for yours, too.

There are classics like biscuits, soda bread, waffles, fried chicken, coconut cake, sugar cookies and more!

Now the great part...you can get $10 off the book if you order it through Blurb by May 2, 2013. That should get it to you just in time for the big day, since they will ship it either to you or to your Mom...whatever address you give them.

To order through Blurb and get that $10 off, click HERE or on the image of the book at the top right of this blog (in the web version). At checkout be sure to put in SHARING10 for the promotion code to get that discount. Don't delay...May 2nd will be here so quickly and Mothers Day is just around the corner.

Also, you can buy a copy just for yourself, or as a Graduation gift (perfect of a grad who will be living in their own place with a kitchen now), or as a gift for a wedding, too. Just use SHARING10 for the promotion code and you are good to go and save $10 on the book.

Not exactly a give-away, but a good deal for a wonderful cookbook!

Hugs and kisses, Elle

Remembering Ray

I was going to blog about sourdough herb bread, but that will have to wait until next month. Yeah, like tomorrow or the next day. :)

Today, being Halloween, otherwise know as All Hallows Eve, seems like the right time to talk about someone who has died recently. When someone dies it is difficult for the family and close friends, both because they miss the departed, but also because there really isn't much you can do to comfort those closest to them. You can send flowers and cards, call and give hugs, but nothing lightens the grief for long. That is not a bad thing, really. Grief is one way we honor the dead. How sad if you depart this world and no one grieves for you.

Ray G led a long and full life. He and his wife, my dear friend and sister-of-the-heart W, had over 60 years together and were blessed with children, grand children, and great grand children. None of that helps right now. Ray was the sweetest guy...loving, generous, with a great sense of humor, gentle, quiet, intelligent. He will be greatly missed.

One of the things that we can do is to bring food...always appealing to a food blogger. For the gathering at their home after the funeral we've been asked to bring finger foods. I'm making two cookie recipes from the cookbook I created after my Dad died...making the cookbook was my way of grieving for Dad. It's called Family Food and has lots of the recipes from my childhood. The first cookies, Saucepan Fruit Bars, is really easy, makes a lot and is a wonderful, buttery, lightly spiced bar cookies with dried currants and raisins. There is a yummy lemon glaze on top. They work well for receptions because they can be cut in little squares or bars, they don't crumble, but are moist and very tasty. The recipe is from my Mom, Nancy.

The second recipe is for rolled sugar cookies which have just a hint of nutmeg. The recipe is from Mrs. Johnston, a good friend of my Mom and Dad's. They can be cut with any cookie cutter shape and iced or sprinkled with colored sugar, or even left plain. This would be a great recipe for Christmas cookies because the cookies are the perfect canvas for decorations.

I used a heart cutter and a star shape. I iced the hearts with a lemon juice, confectioners sugar glaze & sprinkled them with colored sprinkles. It was fun seeing the random way the colors landed on the glaze. For the stars, I mixed some unsweetened cocoa into the lemon glaze...I love chocolate and lemon together...then sprinkled chocolate sprinkles over the iced stars. Usually I don't enjoy cutting out cookies and decorating them, but today it was rainy and it was a fun project. Hope the folks coming to honor Ray tomorrow will enjoy them.

Saucepan Fruit Bars
Possibly also called Dundee Cookies

1/2 cup melted butter (1 stick)

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs (or use egg substitute)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups sifted all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon EACH cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 cup currants

1 cup raisins

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add sugar and the eggs, beaten, stir well to blend.
3) Add sifted dry ingredients and buttermilk. Mix well.
4) Stir in fruit. Mix well.
5) Spread in greased pan 15” x 10” x 1 “
6) Bake about 25 minutes. Remove from oven. Brush with glaze of a mixture of 1 cup confectioners sugar, 4 teaspoons lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon lemon rind.
7) Cool in pan. Cut into 2” x 1” bars. Makes about 45.



Rolled Sugar Cookies
Cut out sugar cookies, a recipe from I. Johnston

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

Cream the butter in a large mixing bowl, add the sugar and egg and mix well.
In another bowl mix together the flour, baking soda and nutmeg. Add that mixture to the butter mixture and mix to blend thoroughly. If dough is too sticky to roll, chill until firm enough to roll.
Roll dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut with cookie cutters. Place on greased cookie sheets. Bake at 400 degrees until lightly browned, about 7-8 minutes. After cookies have cooled, can be frosted & decorated as desired