Lemonade Cookies

Who's ready for spring? We definitely are! One thing that is great in the spring is sitting out in the sunshine, reading a good book, and drinking lemonade. So lemonade cookies seemed like the perfect spring cookie.

These cookies were delicious and would be perfect to take on a spring picnic or just to eat as a snack on a spring afternoon. Not only are they delicious, but they are really easy to make and it doesn't have very many ingredients either. Everything you need can be seen in this picture:

Below is a picture of the creamed butter and sugar and eggs:

After adding the eggs, we added some yellow food coloring, just to make the cookies have that yellow color that is normally associated with the lemon flavor, so after adding in the food coloring, here is what the batter looked like:

After adding in the flour, the batter did become a little bit less yellow,but it still looked pretty yellow:

Below are some pictures of the cookies. We were going to take these pictures outside in a little picnic scene which would have been super cute, but it decided to be a nice and warm 38 degrees outside. Needless to say, we took the pictures inside. :)

Lemonade Cookie recipe:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• yellow food coloring
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/3 cup thawed lemonade concentrate
• 1/2 cup thawed lemonade concentrate (to brush on top)
• powdered sugar (to dust on top)

1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addiction. Add yellow food coloring and mix well.
2. Combine flour and baking soda. Add to the butter/sugar mixture alternately with the 1/3 cup lemonade concentrate, beating well after each addition. 
3. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 8 minutes. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack. Brush with lemonade concentrate. Sprinkle with remaining sugar. Cool and enjoy! 

Recipe slightly adapted from Taste of Home. 

What is your favorite part about spring? We love the flowers and warmer weather! 

Let us know in the comments below or on instagram if you tried this recipe!

Brown Sugar Cookies

These cookies are one of the best we have ever made! We needed cookies to share with a group of friends, but one person doesn't like chocolate (how did two chocolate addicts lovers become friends with someone who can't even stand the smell of chocolate? The world will never know...). We stumbled across the recipe for these cookies and thought they sounded scrumptious! Our friends ate about four cookies each and absolutely loved them. A few of the girls were even craving the cookies the next day! That is how good they are!

The taste of brown sugar in cookies is so much better than that of regular white sugar. There is just something about brown sugar in cookies that we cannot resist! 

On top of having brown sugar these cookies use browned butter. What could be better?!? Browned butter is kind of like nutty caramel.  Browned butter is tricky to make. One minute is not close to being done then two seconds later it is burnt. We managed not to burn our butter the two times we have made these cookies, but we have burnt it before.... :(

We added chocolate chips to a few of the cookies before we baked them, and we think that this recipe made really really good chocolate chip cookies! Trust us, you will not be disappointed if you add chocolate chips!

You can find the recipe here!! When you make these cookies let us know on instagram, twitter, or in the comments! We hope you love these cookies as much as we do.

Lemon Cupcakes

Who's ready for summer? We are, that's for sure! It's been nice out these last couple of days, and it really has us wanting the warm weather and summer desserts. To celebrate the spring like weather, we made some lemon cupcakes with strawberry frosting. The hardest part of making these delicious cupcakes was zesting and juicing the lemons (because we had to do it by hand)!

The recipe that we used was a Sally's Baking Addiction recipe, which you will find here. She uses raspberry frosting, but we used strawberry frosting. We simply made butter cream frosting with about a 1/4 cup of strawberry jam added.

 We used homemade strawberry jam, but store bought would work just as well! Also, we added our strawberry jam in the creaming of the butter stage of making the frosting.

What is your favorite part about spring? What is your favorite spring dessert that we should make? Let us know!

Indoor S'mores!!

S'mores are one of the best things about a campfire! If, like us, you think it is too cold and snowy to go outside and make a fire so that you can enjoy a s'more (although we did do this yesterday because it was finally not ridiculously cold and we wanted to cook on a fire we are crazy), then you should make these! They are easy, don't require an oven (or a campfire), and taste so good!

 This recipe has only golden graham cereal, chocolate chips, marshmallows, corn syrup, butter, and vanilla. Nothing fancy!   

 This is what the butter, marshmallows, chocolate chips, and corn syrup should look like when they are melted.

 At the end, you can stir in extra mini marshmallows, but we didn't have any left over. :(

 These bars are really sticky when you try to press them into the pan, so make sure you butter your hands or the spatula you are using!!

 Th recipe we used actually came off of the Golden Grahams box!! Without further a due, here is the recipe:

 Ingredients:

• 8 cups Golden Graham cereal
• 5 cups miniature marshmallows
• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (original recipe calls for milk chocolate. We used semi-sweet, so use whatever kind you like the best. )
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 5 tablespoons butter 
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (We actually forgot to add this and we couldn't tell a difference)
• 1 cup miniature marshmallows for mixing in at the end,optional

Directions:

1. Butter a 9x13 inch pan.
2. Measure cereal into a large bowl.
3. Melt marshmallows, chocolate chips, corn syrup, and butter in a saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.
4. Pour chocolate mixture over the cereal. Quickly toss to coat evenly (this stuff gets thick and sticky really fast, so mix everything together quickly so that it doesn't get too thick to do so). Stir in the extra marshmallow, if desired.
5. Press into prepared pan. Let stand uncovered for at least an hour (You can also refrigerate them, which makes the bars a little firmer. This is what we do.)
6. Cut into bars and try not to eat them all...we didn't eat all of them... maybe only half of them :)

Let us know what you think of these! What is your favorite part of camping/ camp fires? We love when we come inside and our clothes smell like campfire. Someone should bottle this smell! They could be rich (or are we the only ones who like that smell?)!

Caramel Brownie Sandwiches

These sandwich cookies are seriously the bomb! They combine some of the best things the dessert world has to offer: caramel, frosting, chocolate, and brownies. The only thing missing is peanut butter. Hmmm.... maybe we will have to work on that. Anyway, these might be a little more work than your normal brownie recipe, but they are totally worth it.  

 The cookies have all of the good things about a brownie, the chewy edges (Georgia's favorite) and fudgy center (Ashley's favorite).

 If you wanted to, you could just bake brownies and put the frosting on them, but that wouldn't be as fun. :)

We made a few changes to a brownie recipe that we usually use in order to get these cookies just right. 

Brownie Ingredients:

5 1/2 Tbsp cocoa powder

1/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp boiling water

1 ounce dark chocolate chips

2 Tbsp butter, melted

1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 cups sugar

3/4 cups plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a cookie sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
2. Whisk cocoa and boiling water together in a large bowl until smooth. Add the chocolate chips and whisk until melted. Whisk in butter and oil. 
3. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. Continue to whisk until smooth. Whisk in sugar until fully incorporated. 
4. Using a spatula, fold in the flour and salt. Make sure you don't over mix the batter.
5. Put in the refrigerator for about five minutes. Use a tablespoon to scoop onto your prepared sheet and bake for fourteen minutes. The edges of the cookies should be set and the centers should be soft. Cool for about 10 or 15 minutes before removing from the pan. We found it easiest to gently peel the cookies off of the pan by lifting the mat rather than use a spatula to take the cookies off.  Keep the batter in the refrigerator while the other cookies bake.

For the frosting (this makes way more than you need, but extras never hurt):

1/4 cup butter, softened

caramel sauce

1/2 tsp

pinch of salt

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

milk to make the consistency you want

1. Cream the butter. Add the caramel sauce until it has the right amount of caramel taste for you and mix until combined. Add salt and vanilla and mix until incorporated.
2. Add the powdered sugar a little at a time until well mixed.
3. Add the milk and mix until the frosting reaches the consistency you like (we used about two tablespoons).

To assemble:

1. Pick two cookies that are about the same size. Smear some frosting on one cookie, and place the other cookie on top.
2. Devour and enjoy the cookies. 
3. Share the few you left with very lucky friends or family..... :)