Lemon Butter Cookies

Happy Mother's Day to all you mums out there! In honor of our wonderful mothers, we decided to post a delicious recipe that we hope you will love! They are called Lemon Butter Cookies; a Parisian cookie recipe that Andrea just adores! It is a small, light, and delicious cookie that we thought would be perfect for our moms and just so happens to go extremely well with tea!
So please, go bake these cookies for your mom!

Bon Appetite!

Brooke and Andrea

Ingredients:

2 sticks butter

2/3 cups confectioners' sugar

2 large egg yolks

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups flour

Grated zest of 1 to 1~1/2 lemons (to taste)

Pinch of salt

1/2 cup of sugar (for coating)

Instructions:

1. Put butter in mixer and beat until smooth.

Add powdered sugar and beat again until smooth and silky. (Ooh! We just love the word silky!)

Beat in one of the egg yolks.

Then add salt, vanilla, and lemon zest.

Reduce mixer speed to low and beat in flour.

Put dough on a counter and form it into a ball.

Divide in halves and chill for 30 min. (You may need to let it chillax in fridge longer than 30 min. The colder it is, the better it works.)

2. After it's nice refreshing time in the fridge, take the dough out and form it into a 1" thick rope.

Wrap the "logs" in plastic wrap and once again chill in the fridge for 2 hrs. This also presents a wonderful opportunity for YOU to chill at the same time your dough does. (We highly recommend reading a good book, such as: The Percy Jackson Series~Rick Riordan, Little Women~Louisa May Alcott, Heist Society~Ally Carter, and Pride and Prejudice~Jane Austin )

3. Preheat the oven to 350* F and line two baking sheets with wax paper.

4. Sugar Coating:

Whisk remaining egg yolks until smooth enough to use as a glaze.

Spread sugar on a piece of wax paper.

Brush the now relaxed and cool dough "logs" with the egg yolk.

And now roll the dough logs in sugar. (C'mon. Admit it. You love this step. Everyone does.)

Carefully slice the logs into 1/4 inch, wafer-like cookies. (The colder the logs are the better this works.)

Place them on the baking sheets.

5. Bake for 12 min. DO NOT BAKE UNTIL BROWN! These cookies are just meant to be golden.

Take out of the oven and enjoy!! (We do recommend a nice cup of Sleepy Time tea with this! (Umm... Well, at least Andrea does. Brooke REALLY does NOT like tea...)

Bon Appetite!

Because I feel that in the heavens above

The angels, whispering one to another,

Can find among their burning terms of love,

None so devotional as that of "Mother".

~Edger Allen Poe

Blueberry Cupcakes with Lemon Frosting

Okay, so you all should be really proud of us!!! We FINALLY got together and made something!! Unfortunately, we discovered we were quite out of practice! Ok. Confession time. We forgot the eggs. BUT, we remembered just in time, so it did not affect our cupcakes! Another thing we discovered is that Brooke is queen of Zest Virginia! NO KIDDING! That girl can zest some lemons!! On that note, Andrea was shunned from Zest Virginia, seeing as she can't zest a lemon to save her life... While squeezing the lemons, Andrea dropped her lemon in the juice 3 times, and we quickly realized that Andrea was incapable of doing that either... It was SO bad, Andrea and lemons shouldn't even go in the same sentence. Nevertheless, the cupcakes turned out fabulous! We hope that you will try them! :)

~Bon Appetite!

P.S. Happy Spring!

Cupcake Recipe:

1 stick unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/3 cup milk

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups blueberry (fresh or frozen)

1. Preheat the oven to 350*F. Insert liners into a medium cupcake pan

2. With an electric mixer on medium speed, cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until fluffy about 3-5 minutes. Add the eggs to the creamed mixture and beat well.

3. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

4. Beat portions of dry ingredients into creamed mixture, alternating with milk. Mix for 3 minutes. Mix in vanilla.

5. With spatula fold in blueberries.

6.Fill cupcake liners 1/2 to 3/4 full with batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center of cupcakes come out clean.

7. Cool cupcakes in the pan.

Frosting Recipe:

4 cups powdered sugar

1 stick unsalted butter

3 tbs. lemon zest *see story above!

1/2 cup lemon juice freshly squeezed
few drops of yellow food coloring (optional)

1. In a large bowl cream together the sugar and butter with an electric mixer until smooth. Mix in the lemon juice, lemon zest, and food coloring until spreading consistency is achieved.

Castella, Krystina. Crazy About Cupcakes.

We're BAAACK!!

Get ready cuz we're back and better than ever, baby!!!
More posts to follow!!

~Bon Appetite!

NUTCRACKER!!!!!

Hey everyone!!!

Wow!! We cant believe it has been more than three months since we last posted!! How embarrassing!! We know there really is no excuse, however let us tell you why we havent been posting... The answer is simple....DANCE!!! Nutcracker season is our biggest and busiest season so we have been up to our heads in rehearsals, classes, costume fittings, mini rehearsals, and pictures!! As some of you might now and others who probably dont...this weekend is the BIG weekend!!! Yes, thats right you guessed it...this weekend is Nutcracker 2010!! We are so excited!! Shows are all sold out and everything is finally ready!! We have been preparing since July so we are all super pumped!! If you dont already know we are both extra excited this year since we both are lead roles: Andrea is Dew Drop and Brooke is Clara. Wish us Luck!! Hopefully after this weekend we can pick up blogging again especially with all the fun holiday baking right around the corner!!

We hope you are having a wonderful almost Christmas break and are baking lots of yummy good stuff to eat!!

We love you all!!