Tuesday, January 11, 2011

New Project: Knitted Baby Blanket

Heirloom Blanket

Yup, a baby blanket. Not for me though! A friend is having a little girl in May and I wanted to make her something cute (cause homemade baby things are the cutest!). And I've been wanting to make a blanket. We (mom and I) found this pattern in a book called "Vintage Knits for Modern Babies". So many cute patterns! So far this one has been pretty easy, once you get the pattern down. I'm using this yarn called "Snuggly Wuggly Mini Dots"! :) It's white with bright pink and lavender dots. When I'm finished, I'll put up a picture of it!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Molasses-Spice Lemon Cookies

Delicious cookies! I could probably eat all of them by myself! I don't have a picture of them, but google image them and you can find some good pictures.

P.S. They're sandwich cookies!

Molasses-Spice Lemon Cookies:
2 cups all purpose four
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup dark molasses
1 large egg
15 tablespoons unsalted butter
12 tablespoons melted and cooled,
3 tablespoons softened
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 cups confectioner's sugar

1. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt and cloves in bowl. In separate bowl, whisk 1 1/2 cups sugar, molasses, egg and melted butter together until combined. Add flour mixture to butter mixture and stir until incorporated. Chill until dough is firm, 1 hour.

2. Adjust over racks to upper middle and lower middle positions and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Place remaining 1/2 cup sugar in bowl. Roll dough into 3/4 inch balls, toss balls in sugar, then place 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheet. Bake until tops are just beginning to crack, 8-10 minutes, switching and rotating sheets halfway through baking. Cool 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

3. Combine remaining 3 tablespoons butter, lemon juice and confectioner's sugar in bowl and whisk until smooth. Spread heaping teaspoon filling over bottoms of half of cooled cookies. Top with remaining cookies and let filling set, 1 hour.

We had some issues with the filling spilling out of the cookies, I guess if you add more confectioner's sugar, it'll probably be more stiff. But it does harden up after a little while.