Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

I've been hearing a lot of talk about the U.S. birthrate being down, but you would never know it based on my friends and family. Lots of new babies have been born around here lately - to friends and family alike.

To celebrate the latest baby girl, I made some playful sugar and spice cookies. I wanted to do something fun that I could manage on a weeknight.

The "golden-brown" edges on the lollipops are just my oven's way of saying, "Gotcha!"

The spice component consisted of chai tea cookies with buttercream icing. I omitted the crystallized ginger and instead used sanding sugar as a decorative center for my cut-out flowers. These cookies are very crispy and with the buttercream icing they become truly addictive. You have been warned.

For the sugar, I made a basic sugar cookie recipe and then divided it up into three equal parts, coloring each with white, pink, and purple food coloring. I couldn't begin to detail the process anywhere near as well as SweetSugarBelle does, so please check out her post for more details on how to twist the dough into these cookie lollipops.

The results were tasty, fun and not as much work as you might think. What a rare treat!

 - Jenn

Marsh Madness

As Jenny already explained, cooking and baking have long been creative outlets for both of us, but they have become especially meaningful during this period of extended unemployment. When we pour our time and energy into a batch of persnickety cookies or an obscene amount of pickled jalapeno peppers, we can step back to check out our results and declare, “We kicked these cookies’ asses,” or, “My throat is still burning, but these peppers are a-m-a-z-i-n-g!” We delight in these culinary accomplishments—whether they are simply delicious or delicious simply, or even first-time failures yielding useful lessons for future endeavors.

It’s the perfect time of the year to use holiday gifts as an excuse for cooking and baking everything that strikes our fancy. I am already looking forward to my next project day with Jenny, and I am sure we will have to deal with our usual problem: not enough hours in the day to make all the things we would like. 

Last week was a busy one. In addition to our pickling project, we had a large marshmallow project to tackle for a baby shower. Jenny has become a bit of a marshmallow-making expert since her first experiments with them last winter. I had committed myself (and Jenny!) to making enough marshmallows to bag up and give to fifty baby shower attendees as favors. The marshmallows were to accompany packets of hot cocoa, so they didn’t constitute the entire favor, but there were still a lot of marshmallows needed.  Jenny showed up at my house with her trusty saucier pan, some extra casserole pans, and an impressively large bottle of red food coloring. We made four pans of speckled vanilla bean marshmallows and three pans of swirled red and white peppermint marshmallows.  Jenny ended up doing most of the work on these marshmallows because she was in the zone and I had some family drop by for lunch.

Now they have to set up overnight

I owe her big time, but look how cute they turned out! They taste even better than they look.

Still life with vanilla bean marshmallows

Peppermint swirls

The Final product

- Jenn