Oh you know my co-workers need a treat this week before Valentine’s Day

. . . so I got busy with some very fun cookies -

It was all in the decorating and everyone had a great laugh.

You would not believe how long it took each person to pick out a cookie to eat!

Hello, they all TASTE the same!

LEMON SUGAR COOKIES

(adapted from a Good Housekeeping recipe)

1 lemon

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1-1/4 cup(s) sugar

1 cup unsalted room temperature butter

1 large egg

1 teaspoon each of lemon and vanilla extracts

Grate 1 to 2 tablespoons lemon peel and squeeze 1 tablespoon juice. Set peel and juice aside.

On waxed paper, combine flour, baking powder, and salt with a whisk. In a large bowl, with mixer on low speed, beat sugar and butter until blended. Increase speed to medium-high and beat for approx. 3 minutes or until light and creamy – frequently scraping the bowl. Reduce speed to low; beat in egg, lemon & vanilla extracts and lemon peel and juice until combined. Beat in flour mixture, just until mixed, occasionally scraping bowl. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces; flatten each into disk. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour or overnight, until firm enough to roll.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. On lightly floured surface, with floured rolling pin,

roll 1 disk of dough to 1/4-inch thickness. With floured heart shaped cookie cutters,

cut dough into as many cookies as possible –

cut off the pointy end of each heart shape; wrap and refrigerate trimmings to re-roll later.

Place cookies, about 1 inch apart, on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned.

Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool, about 10 minutes.

Repeat with remaining dough and trimmings.

Decorate with Royal Icing (see recipe below) made with lemon juice.

Allow frosting to dry completely before adding a second color, about 1 hour.

Store in tightly sealed container (with waxed paper between layers)

at room temperature up to 2 weeks or in freezer up to 3 months.

ROYAL ICING

(adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe)

Makes 2-1/3 cups

1 box confectioners’ sugar (1 pound)

5 tablespoons meringue (egg white) powder, or 2 large egg whites

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine sugar and meringue powder. Mixing on low speed, add a scant 1/2 cup lemon juice. For a thinner consistency, usually used for flooding, add more water. A thicker consistency is generally used for outlining and adding details. Mix until icing holds a ribbon-like trail on the surface of the mixture for 5 seconds when you raise the paddle.

Now you won’t find these cookies for sale at any WKF location, not even on our amazing web site – but we do have some wonderful chocolate covered strawberries to send with your roses this year -

decorated with dark, milk and white chocolate and packaged with red confetti and a white doily in a corsage box – made to order by our friends at the Blue Owl in Kimswick, MO – you’re gonna love them!  Available on our web site or in our stores – BY THE WAY we’ve got better prices on cash n carry roses than you’ll find at your local grocer – and our roses are FLORIST quality – we may arrange for strawberries on Valentine’s day – but we’re not stocking milk and eggs!

I’m a fan and subscriber to the King Arthur Flour newsletter -

every recipe I have ever tried has been wonderful.

Lately a ginger snap recipe came thru and since I had some around,

I finely diced some candied ginger and added it to the batter.

Then I poked a dark chocolate covered ginger candy into each one – voila, delish!

So, anyway,  here’s my take on their recipe

Gingersnaps – makes about sixty cookies

For the cookie dough

3/4 cup vegetable shortening*

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 large egg

1/3 cup molasses

2 1/3 cups unbleached all purpose flour

1 to 2 teaspoons ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

3/4 cup finely diced crystallized ginger

about 60 small pieces of dark chocolate covered candied ginger

For the coating

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Beat together the shortening, sugar, salt, and baking soda.

Beat in the egg, then the molasses.

Add the flour and spices, beating to make a smooth, fairly stiff dough.

Stir in the finely diced candied ginger

To make the coating, combine the sugar and cinnamon, and place in a shallow pan or dish.

Drop the dough in 1″ balls into the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

Roll the balls in the sugar to coat, then transfer them to the prepared baking sheets,

leaving at least 1-1/2″ between them.

Poke a chocolate covered candy into each cookie.

Bake the cookies for 11 minutes, for cookies that are crisp around the edges, and “bendy” in the center.

Bake for 13 minutes, for cookies that are crisp/crunchy all the way through.

(I baked for 8 minutes then rotated the pan and baked for 7 more minutes.)

Remove the cookies from the oven, and cool right on the pan, or on a rack.

Cool completely, then store tightly wrapped, at room temperature.

I only baked 24 and rolled and stuffed the remaining batter and put the balls on waxed paper on a cookie sheet in the freezer and will bag them when they are hard.  I’ll have to get back to you on how the chocolate holds up!

Here is a photo of one of this summer’s moonflowers -(remember the seed pods in the basket above?  Nothing works better to pretty up a chain link fence! And the hummingbirds love the flowers.  But, then again, it was a lot of work today to cut those vines away.  I think I’ll plan on something else next year, maybe something I find in the spring at the Walter Knoll Florist garden center!

Got your holiday shopping started?  We’ve got our holiday features up!  Gifts from Walter Knoll are great for corporate gift giving! Check out our poinsettias – better than anything you’ll get at the big box hardware stores!  We also have any size gourmet gift basket you could want!

I love my little kitchen torch – but had never used it for anything but creme brulee and you know creme brulee is not something you should eat a lot of . . .

I made these little lemon cookies one day and thought, hmm, why not decorate them with a bit of carmelized sugar!

Lemon Crème Brulee Cookies

1 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter
3 ounces cream cheese
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups flour
2 tablespoons freshly minced thyme leaves (optional)

Place the sugar in the bowl of a food processor, and process until it’s very finely ground, about 1 minute. Add 3/4 cup butter and cream cheese, and pulse until just blended.
Add the lemon zest, lemon juice, vanilla, and salt and pulse briefly. Add the flour (and thyme if you are using) and pulse until just blended. Roll dough into two logs about 1-2 inches in diameter, wrap in waxed paper, then stuff into an old paper towel tube and chill until firm.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut 1/4″ slices from the log of dough and place them on a cookie sheet.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes, until browning slightly around the edges. Remove cookies to rack to cool.

When cookies have cooled, put them all back onto the sheet pan and sprinkle each cookie with about ½ tsp of sugar – get your handy torch out and fire away –

You can also freeze your log of dough, refrigerate until firm, remove from paper towel tube and wrap in plastic wrap. You don’t even have to thaw the log before you slice and bake!

This little trick of using a ruler or any flat edged piece of something firm is great for forming a smooth even log – and the paper towel tube keeps the log round while it hardens up in the fridge.

Although you won’t find these cookies for sale at WKF – we do have lots of sweet offerings – always welcome for any occasion!

Man, it’s hard to do my usual bake-a-thon for the holidays now that I work in a Flower Shop.  Christmas is one of our big holidays and we’re all putting in a lot of hours in getting those flowers and centerpieces and gifts out for you. There’s lots of extra help though, and the busy busy busyness of it all is intoxicating.

I did over last weekend manage to make up a couple batches of cookie dough which I rolled into logs, wrapped in wax paper and stored in the fridge in paper towel cardboards (you save those, right?) so they stay in a log shape and don’t flatten on one side.

I have only packaged one gift of cookies for my friends Mary and Bill, but I’ll be taking lots of cookies to work on Sunday when everyone will be working. After all, what’s a Walter Knoll Floral Holiday without Di’s cookies and spicy cheese wafies?

I’m going to share this amazing chocolate cookie recipe with you, not sure where I picked it up, somewhere on the internet, but these are the best chocolate cookies you’ll ever eat!

Dark Dark Dark Dark Chocolate Cookies
Makes about 100.

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup Dutch cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter, 2 cups sugar, and eggs on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add vanilla, and mix to combine. Gradually add dry ingredients, and combine with mixer on low speed. Roll dough into 1 to 1-1/2 inch logs, wrap in waxed paper, stuff into a paper towel cardboard and chill until dough is firm, about 1 hour or as long as a week.
When ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with Silpat baking mats. Cut logs into quarter inch slices. Place on prepared baking sheets about 1 1/2 inches apart.

Bake until they just quit being shiny, about 8 minutes. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

My cool neighbor Joe tests all my cookies out and these dark dark dark chocolates got a big thumbs up out of him!