Three awesome holiday desserts

Yesterday was the perfect Saturday.  It was snowing, I had a fire going, and I baked all day.  I was making bite-sized desserts for a party, all recipes I have never tried before.  Some how they all turned out great.  I did a nut, a sour fruit, and the most deadly of chocolate.  I cut the bar and brownies into 2 inch squares and arranged everything on a big silver platter.  There was a little something for every palate.

Pecan Tassies
Recipe courtesy of Martha Stewart

Ingredients:

(Dough)

• 1/2 cup pecans
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) cream cheese
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• Pinch of salt

(Filling)

• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Make the dough: Process pecans in a food processor until finely ground (you should have about 1/3 cup); set aside. Put cream cheese and butter into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until well blended. Add flour, ground pecans, and salt; mix just until dough comes together.

Roll dough into sixteen 1-inch balls, and press into bottoms and up sides of cups of mini-muffin tins.  You may need to use some flour on your hands to stop it from sticking to you.  Keep tart shells in the fridge while making the filling.

Make the filling: Whisk the egg, sugar, maple syrup, vanilla, butter, and salt in a small bowl. Stir in pecans. Spoon about 1 1/2 teaspoons filling into each muffin cup.

Bake pecan tassies until crust begins to turn golden, about 15 minutes. Let cool completely in tins on wire rack. Unmold. Pecan tassies can be stored in single layers in airtight containers up to 3 days.

Lemon Bars

Recipe courtesy of Recipe Connoisseur

Ingredients:

(Crust)

• ½ pound unsalted butter, room temperature
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ⅛ tsp. salt

(Filling)

• 6 large eggs
• 3 cups sugar
• 2½ tablespoons grated lemon zest, packed
• 1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 cup all-purpose flour

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
For the crust, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy in electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Combine the flour and salt and with mixer on low, add to sugar mixture until just combined. Gather dough into a ball and press into a 9 X 13 inch pan, pressing the edges up the sides about a ½ inch. Chill in freezer for 15 minutes.
Bake the crust for 15-20 minutes, until edges start to brown. Let cool while making filling.
Whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and flour. Pour over the crust and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the filling is set. Cool to room temperature before slicing.

Flourless Dark Chocolate Brownies with Queen Mother Icing

Recipe courtesy of Yammie's Gluten Freedom

Ingredients:  

(Brownies)

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 4 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup special dark cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons instant coffee powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

(Queen Mother Ganache)

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 4 tsp instant coffee
• 16 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips (2 2/3 cups)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking pan. Combine the sugars and oil and beat until well combined. Add in the eggs and whisk together. Mix the vanilla and instant coffee together until the coffee powder is dissolved and add to the egg/sugar/oil mixture. Beat for about two minutes. Stir together the cocoa and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the batter and blend until smooth. Pour into prepared pan and bake about 20 minutes.

While the brownies are cooling, make the queen mother ganache.  Heat the cream in a sauce pan over medium heat until bubbles form around the edge.  Whisk in instant coffee until dissolved, then add in chocolate and whisk about 30 seconds.  Now remove from the heat and continue to whisk until ganache is completely smooth.  Pour ganache over brownies and put in the freezer for about a half hour.  You want them to be chilled and set enough to cut without the knife catching in the chocolate.  The brownies are really moist and crumbly, and the ganache becomes like fudge so it wants to stick on the knife.  While you are cutting, keep wiping off the knife of excess chocolate to get a clean cut.  

Daphne's 1st birthday cake

I made this cake for my friend Sylvia's daughter's 1st birthday party.  It's lemon curd with cream cheese icing.  I like this cake because it's nice for summer and everyone really loves the zing of the lemon curd.  The cake itself is a pretty simple orange juice cake that is very moist and tastes great with any kind of icing.  In this case it really lets the lemon curd shine.  And who doesn't love cream cheese icing?  That also goes really well with lemon curd.  They have a complementary tang.

This cake needed to feed 25 people and I'm not super keen on double stacked sheet cakes so I used
2- 12" rounds and 2- 9" rounds.  I tripled the cake recipe, made one batch of lemon curd, and doubled the icing recipe.  I had the perfect amounts of everything- I like to have a little bit of everything left over in case I need to touch something up or just to save in the freezer.

I layered lemon curd in between the 2- 12"s and the 2- 9"s but between the 12" cake and the 9" cake I just spread a nice layer of cream cheese icing.  One thing that I did to make serving the cake easier is I put a tinfoil covered cardboard cake round in between the 9" and 12" cake layers.  This way the top cake can be cut and served, they can remove the cardboard round and then cut the bottom cake.  I put lemon curd on the very top, piped dots around the edges with the cream cheese icing, and wrote on top of the cake with melted butter and semisweet chocolate chips.  Lastly, I threw on some sliced strawberries for color.

Lemon Curd Cake
Recipe from The Night Kitchen Bakery

• Lemon curd
• Yellow cake
• Cream cheese icing

Strawberry cake with jam and lemon curd

Question: What to do when you have a ton of fruit salad that's taking up all the room in your fridge? Aaaaaand you need to make a birthday cake for someone at your mom's work?

Answer: Strawberry cake with home-made strawberry and blueberry jam and lemon curd left over from the blueberry cake you made on Saturday!!

Strawberry Cake with Jam and Lemon Curd
Recipe adapted from Cooking by Moonlight

Ingredients:
(for the cake)

• 2 cups ap flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp baking powder

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
• 1 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups strawberries, mashed

(for the jam)

• 2 cups strawberries and blueberries (you can pretty much use any berry combo)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• water

Lemon Curd Recipe Here

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour 2 9-inch round cake pans.
Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder and set aside.
Mix together the softened butter and sugar until combined. (I let my butter soften in a dish on the stove while it's preheating). Then add the eggs and vanilla and stir to combine.
Pour the dry into the wet and stir until there are just a few small lumps. The batter will be stiff compared to many cake batters, that's okay... the strawberries will loosen it up.
Wash the strawberries and remove their green tops. Using a potato masher or fork mash the strawberries into strawberry soup. Pour the crushed strawberries, juices and all, into the cake batter and stir just until evenly distributed.
Pour the batter evenly into the two pans and use a knife or spatula to spread the batter evenly in the pans.
Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out with just a few small crumbs attached.

Make the lemon curd according to the directions in the above link.

Make the jam by putting the berries, sugar, and a splash of water in a saucepan and cooking over medium heat for about 25 minutes, stirring pretty often. Don't put the heat too high or it will burn the bottom of the pan.

Once the cake, jam, and curd are cool, cut each cake layer in 2 to yield 4 layers. Put lemon curd in between two layers and jam in one layer and on the top of the cake.

I think tomorrow I am going to sift a little powdered sugar on top just to be fancy, this cake really doesn't need an icing, it's got all kinds of delicious spreads going on. I could see a ganache or something since strawberry and chocolate go so well together but I'm going to let this one be for now.

Mini- muffin madness

Let the mini-muffin baking begin!! My mom's school is having a breakfast tomorrow and I am in charge of baking the muffins. Four kinds in two hours, the only thing that held me up was that I only have two mini-muffin pans and I was making the batter way faster than I could bake and cool the previous batch. So I got a little backed up, but they came out great! I also ran out of muffin papers so I had to start spraying the pans with Pam and you know how that goes when blueberries are involved.

Honey Orange Corn Muffin with Raspberry Jam
Adapted from Eat Good For Life

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/8 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• Zest 1 orange
• 1 tsp vanilla

• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• raspberry jam

Method:

Preheat oven to 450 and paper 2 mini-muffin tins.
Mix all wet ingredients in one bowl and all dry in another.
Pour dry into wet and combine, don't over-mix.
Fill 32 of the muffin cups half way full with batter, then spoon a dollop (about 1/2 tsp) of jam on top of the batter and then spoon more batter on top of the jam.
Don't use too much jam or it will just spill out all over the pan and burn.
Bake at 450 for 3 minutes, then turn down to 400 and bake another 6 minutes or so, until they bounce bak to the touch.

Chocolate Chip Muffins
Adapted from Crumbs and Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups ap flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

• 2 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup chocolate chips

Method:

Preheat oven to 450 and paper mini muffin tins.
Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl and all wet in another, then pour dry into wet and stir until just combined.
Stir in chocolate chips.
Fill as many cups as you can to the top, or a little over.
Put them in the oven at 450 for 3 mins, then turn down the oven to 400 and bake for another 6 mins or so.

Carrot Cinnamon Muffins
Adapted from My Fudo

Ingredients:

• 2 cups ap flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

• 2 1/2 cups grated carrots (one bag of baby carrots buzzed up in cuisinart)
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup canola oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Method:

Preheat oven to 450 and paper mini muffin pan.
Buzz up the carrots in your cuisinart or grate them, one bag of baby carrots yields about 2 1/2 cups.
Mix the carrots with the rest of the wet ingredients and set aside.
Mix all dry ingredients and add to wet, stir to combine.
Pour batter into prepared pan and bake on 450 for 3 mins.
Turn down oven to 400 and bake for another 6 mins or so.

Blueberry Lemon Muffins
Adapted from Kitchen Lane

Ingredients:

• 2 cups ap flour
• 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• zest of one lemon

• 2 cups blueberries

Method:

Preheat oven to 450 and paper your mini-muffin pans.
Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl and all wet in another, add dry to wet and combine.
Mix in blueberries, don't over-mix batter.
Pour into prepared pan and bake at 450 for 3 mins.
Turn oven down to 400 and bake another 7 mins or so, until muffins bounce back to the touch.

Notes:

*Some of the batters came out a little bit wetter or dryer than I like, if it was too wet I added a little bit of ap flour, and if too dry I added a little extra milk.

**I have been baking my muffins starting out really hot for a few mins and then turning them down to finish because it makes them get big and crusty on top and nice and high.

Blueberry lemon curd cake

I made this cake for my friend's BBQ. It didn't last long!  Instead of the lemon cream I used lemon curd and it was what made the cake. I got a little confused by this recipe and ended up reading it wrong and not baking enough cake to make all 4 layers, so I suggest doubling this recipe and baking it in two 9-inch pans, then cutting each one in 2 to yield 4 layers.

Blueberry Lemon Curd Cake
Adapted from Lu Lu's Sweet Secrets


Cake Ingredients: (makes 1/2 the cake- double this recipe for 2 cakes/ 4 layers once cut)

• 1 1/2 cups flour, sifted
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• 4 large egg whites, room temperature
• 2 cups fresh Blueberries

Lemon Curd Recipe Here

Whipped Cream Ingredients:

• 2 cups heavycream, cold
• 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 and grease two 9" cake pans.
Mix flour, b powder, and salt in small bowl, set aside.
Mix 1/4 cup of the sugar, milk, oil, vanilla, lemon juice, and zest in, bowl set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer beat egg whites until foamy then slowly add the remaining 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar, beat until the eggs hold stiff peaks.
Fold half the flour mixture into milk mixture, then fold in 1/3 of the egg whites, then more flour, then whites and flour two more times until all folded in.
Add blueberries and divide the batter between the 2 prepared pans.
Bake for 30 minutes and test the center with a toothpick.
Add addition time in 3 min intervals until toothpick comes out clean.

Make lemon curd while cake is baking.

Once cake layers are completely cool you can cut each in half horizontally and spread the cooled lemon curd between each layer.

Make the whipped cream by beating the cream until it starts to stiffen.
Add the 10x sugar and vanilla and beat until it is firm.

The whipped cream gets dumped on top of the cake and then with a long off-set knife grab some from the top and apply to the sides. It doesn't have to be perfectly smooth, leave it a little lumpy and rustic.

Whole Wheat Orange Olive Oil Rosemary Muffins

From a random fruity cake recipe- that looked delicious- I was inspired to make this muffin. I was just going to bake the cake in muffin tins, with peaches or something, but muffins with fruit in them don't hold up more than a couple of days in the fridge. They start to get soft and mushy from the water in the fruit.

The inspiration came from The Eccentric Cook's apricot breakfast cake. Interestingly enough, I just read an article in Lucky Peach Magazine about how terrible the commercially grown apricots that are available to us taste compared to the ones they have in Europe and Asia. Ours look really pretty but are completely tasteless. So I got rid of the fruit all together, backed off on the sugar, used half whole wheat flour, olive oil instead of butter, OJ and milk instead of just milk, and threw in some rosemary from my garden to compliment the orange. Also, I have perfected the baking temp to get the ultimate crusty muffin.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup olive oil
1 cup OJ
1/2 cup milk
zest from 2 oranges
zest and juice from 1 lemon
big handful of brown sugar
5 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla

2 cups ap flour
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons salt

big handful of fresh rosemary, chopped

Method:

Preheat oven to 450, grease 12 cup muffin pan.
Mix all wet ingredients in one bowl and all dry in another bowl.
Add dry to wet and stir til almost combined.
Add rosemary and mix the rest of the way.
Pour batter into muffin pan and bake on 450 for 7 minutes.
Turn oven down to 375 and bake about 8 more minutes, until muffins are done in the middle- check with a knife.

Muffin Thursday: Lemon Thyme Date Muffins

These are really excellent muffins. The recipe was for a loaf cake but I didn't feel like waiting that long for them to bake so I made muffins instead. Plus they're easier to share this way. :-)

This recipe comes from The Dinner Vine. I changed the whole eggs to yolks and the original recipe called for blackberries but I used dates instead.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
6 egg yolks
3 tsp lemon zest
2 tsp chopped, FRESH thyme
2 cups chopped dates
1/4 cup 2% milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup extra virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)

Method:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and prepare muffin pan with papers.
In small bowl, combine dry ingredients: flour, soda, salt, set aside.
In another bowl combine eggs, lemon zest, and sugar, beating well.
Add vanilla.
Beat in milk.
Add oil, gradually, mixing until incorporated.
Add dry ingredients, only stirring lightly.
Now gently stir in dates and thyme until combined.
Bake in muffin pan for about 20 min or until they bounce back to the touch.

Lemon Curd Cake

Happy Birthday Jenn!!

This is the quintessential spring cake. For some reason it's a big hit at baby showers. If you like lemon, this is the only cake for you. The flavor combinations are perfect, the cake is subtle and lets the lemon curd and cream cheese icing shine. And you know I love that it's the easiest damn cake in the entire world to make. I made the lemon curd, cake, and cream cheese icing in an hour plus baking time. AN HOUR. Just get yourself organized and use your kitchen aid well and you too can bust out the perfect cake in one hour. This doesn't include my favorite part though- assembling the cake and decorating it. That can take me about 30 minutes. It all depends on how fancy we're getting with the decorations.

Yellow Cake Recipe Here

Lemon Curd Recipe Here

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

8 oz cream cheese
8 oz butter (2 sticks) @ room temp
1 tsp vanilla
3 c powdered sugar

Method:

Cream the butter and cream cheese in your electric mixer.
Add the vanilla.
Add the powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time. Watch out cuz it's going to blow all over the place. That's why you're adding it 1/2 cup at a time. I add it when the mixer is off and then turn it on low and mix between each addition.

Assembling the cake:

Everything should be room temp or slightly still chilled from the fridge- basically don't ice a hot cake and don't use hot lemon curd. Let it all cool down.
Cut each of your cakes in 2 horizontally giving you 4 total layers. (I've been really into 4 layers lately).
Give the cream cheese icing a quick beat in the mixer to get it nice and fluffy- don't just ice with it right out of the fridge.
Ice the sides with a light layer of icing first- a base coat if you will. Just get it all covered.
In between each layer of cake spread cream cheese icing and then lemon curd on top of that.
On the very top, again, icing then lemon curd so that the top is yellow and we can write on the curd with icing.
I'm leaving the sides of this cake un-iced so you can see the layers.
Then I just did a little piping around the top edge and embellished a little.

The traditional way to assemble this cake is leave it in 2 layers, put lemon curd in the middle, ice the outsides and the top with cream cheese and then put a final coat of curd over the top of the cake. The white icing under the curd makes it look very yellow.

Have fun with it, decorate with strawberries or fresh flowers or icing roses. Swiss dots are fun too. You can also add a little food coloring to some of the icing and write on the cake, cream cheese icing is a good consistency for that.

Lemon Poppy Seed Doughnuts with Maxine

Today my friend Maxine and I made Lemon Poppy Seed Doughnuts. It's a basic muffin recipe that we baked in the Wilton doughnut pan. The original recipe called for sour cream but we just subbed extra milk instead. We also changed the milk from whole to 2% since that's what my aunt Nan left in the fridge. Here is the link to the original recipe.

Maxine is so good at zesting lemons!! She also helped me make lemon curd for a cake I'm making later this week. We're planning on baking again this Thursday and I'm thinking pumpkin granola bars. I have to remember to buy pumpkin. And an assortment of nuts. Look for Maxine in the future, we're thinking of making this collaboration a regular thing.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoon 2% milk
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
zest of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon poppy seeds

For the icing:
juice of 1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Method:

Preheat oven to 400.
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In large bowl, or stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar, until light and fluffy - about 1 minute. Add egg, lemon zest, and poppy seeds. Beat to combine, scrapping down the bowl as needed. Then add milk to mixture and then add flour and beat just til combined. Do not over mix.

Grease your doughnut pan and fill the cups just below the rim. Bake about 12 to 15 minutes or until they bounce back to the touch. Knock them out of the pan and let them cool.

Combine powdered sugar and lemon zest into bowl with whisk and drizzle the icing over top of the doughnuts.
Enjoy!!

Sweet Potato Hummus

Mom wanted an interesting hummus recipe so I found this one on taste spotting. Original recipe found here.

Ingredients:

2 medium sweet potatoes- peeled, diced, and microwaved til they are smashable
1 can garbanzo beans (15.5 oz), rinsed
1/4 C fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/4 C tahini sauce
1/4 or more extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling on top of hummus
2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 clove minced garlic
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
1/2 tsp. paprika garnish (optional)

Method:

Cook your sweet potatoes (I microwaved mine for around 8 mins)
Combine cooked potatoes and all other ingredients except paprika garnish in a cuisinart or blender.
Add olive oil a few tbsp at a time until you get the consistency you want.
You can also use water to thin it.
Garnish with paprika and a tbsp of olive oil.

Caesar Dressing

I like this recipe for classic caesar dressing. It's not one of those creamy ones, more an intensely garlicy olive oily one. It's also really easy and besides the anchovies I had all of the ingredients laying around. Of course, it's a Martha. Original recipe can be found here. The only change I made was to add a little parmesan cheese.

Ingredients:

2 garlic cloves
4 anchovy fillets
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons parmesan cheese

Method:

Combine all ingredients in your cuisinart or a blender and enjoy!

Martha Stewart Gold Standards

So let me share with you a few Martha Recipes that I have made many times with good results. These cookies are delish and always come out great- unlike a very crappy corn muffin recipe of hers that I tried the other week. I ended up feeding that one to the neighbor dogs. Very disappointing Martha. I am in the process of finding a new cornmeal recipe that will make a bangin muffin. I have one to try later this week possibly. But I digress... back to Martha:

Healthy Oatmeal Cookie:

This cookie is for anyone who likes a honey taste. It is also made with oil instead of butter so it's a dense, heart-healthy cookie.

Ingredients

1/2 cup whole-wheat flour (spooned and leveled)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour, (spooned and leveled)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup packed dark-brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup rolled oats (not quick-cooking)
1/2 cup dried currants or raisins

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together flours and baking powder; set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together oil, sugar, egg, and vanilla. Add flour mixture, and stir to combine; mix in oats and currants.
Using two tablespoons of dough per cookie, roll into balls; place on two baking sheets lined with parchment paper, 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake until lightly browned, 15 to 17 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through.
Cool 5 minutes on sheets, then transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Lemon Cornmeal Cookie:

I have made this cookie a hundred times. It is a huge fave at work, even with non-sweet lovers. It's really easy to make and comes out perfect every time. Sometimes I add chocolate chips to it as well.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, (spooned and leveled)
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, very soft
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, lemon zest, and salt.
In a large bowl, mix butter, sugar, and egg until combined. Gradually add dry ingredients until moistened.
Pinch off and roll dough into balls, each equal to 1 1/2 tablespoons; place on 2 baking sheets, about 2 inches apart. With fingers, flatten balls to 3/4-inch thickness.
Bake until lightly browned around edges, 20 to 25 minutes; transfer to racks to cool completely.

Outrageous Chocolate Cookies:

These cookies are a lot like a "brownie cookie" so I have made them on request for my best friend, Lauren. This is a recipe that takes melted chocolate and chocolate chips, if you replace a couple of Tbsp of flour with cocoa powder they would be a triple chocolate treat!! This is big crowd pleaser too but I tend to make them sparingly because I bake on a budget and they require a lot of chocolate. You could probably do the cocoa and melted chocolate and leave out the chocolate chips at the end and they would still be great while saving some choco-money.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, (spooned and leveled)
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, very soft
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, lemon zest, and salt.
In a large bowl, mix butter, sugar, and egg until combined. Gradually add dry ingredients until moistened.
Pinch off and roll dough into balls, each equal to 1 1/2 tablespoons; place on 2 baking sheets, about 2 inches apart. With fingers, flatten balls to 3/4-inch thickness.
Bake until lightly browned around edges, 20 to 25 minutes; transfer to racks to cool completely.

Cook's Note

Don't worry if the batter seems thin. It should look more like a brownie batter than a cookie dough.

Photo Credits: Martha Stewart

Lemon Curd

This is a really easy recipe from Fabulous Foods. I like it because you just use a heavy bottom sauce pan rather than a double boiler blah blah blah. Double boilers are annoying and good for burning yourself.

Ingredients
6 tablespoons butter
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup sugar

Directions
In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until well combined, about 2 minutes. Slowly add the eggs and egg yolks. beat for another minute then mix in the lemon juice and zest. Don't worry if the mixture looks curdled like in the photo, it will smooth out when it cooks like in the photo above.
Transfer the mixture to a heavy based saucepan and cook over low heat until it looks smooth. Increase heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens, about 12-15 minutes. You will know its ready when it will leave a path on the back of a sppon or register 170°F on a candy thermometer. Do not let the mixture boil!
Makes about 2 cups Transfer cooked curd to a bowl and press plastic wrap on the surface to keep a skin from forming. The curd will thicken as it cook, so chill completely in the refrigerator. It should last for about a week, covered tightly, in the refrigerator.

Photo Credit: Fabulous Foods