Lemon Bars

This recipe came from a cookbook my mom recently sent me called "Cooking with the Horse & Buggy People II." The book is full of delicious, whole-food recipes and sweet anecdotes from the people who submitted the recipes.

These came out truly fantastic! I'm still getting used to having a gas oven and using an oven thermometer (our oven doesn't "beep" whenever it is preheated, we just have to keep an eye on it). At any rate, these tasted great the next day! I do recommend making this dessert a day ahead so it has enough time to congeal and form more firm squares.

Lemon Bars

Makes 12 squares

Ingredients:

Crust:

2 c flour

1/4 c powdered sugar

1 c butter, softened

Filling:

2 c sugar

4 Tbsp flour

4 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

4 eggs, beaten fluffy

Procedure:

1. Mix the crust ingredients together and press into a 2 L/2.2 quart glass pan (the pyrex size that is smaller than a 9"x13" but is not as small as an 8"x8"). Bake the crust at 325F for 20 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, prepare the filling. Mix the sugar, flour and lemon juice until well combined. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

3. Pour the filling over the hot crust, and bake at 325F for 25 minutes. A crust will form on the top of the bars, and the edges should be a light brown.

4. After removing the bars from the oven, dust them with powdered sugar while still hot.

5. After allowing the bars to cool, cut into squares and serve with tea (iced or hot) for a refreshing dessert!

Lavender Honey Bunches

I know, I know. Lavender in food is strange and mildly frightening. One thing that science has taught me to do is to be unafraid of failure in experiments. Most of the time, things don't really work out in science. You try all of the obvious solutions, only to find that the most left-field answer, one you couldn't even possibly fathom on your own is the solution that actually works. Welcome to the world of high throughput screening. That's another story, for another time.

On to lavender, and all things weird

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I didn't know lavender is used in cooking and baking, but evidently, it's actually well accepted, particularly in the foo-foo gourmet world. Lavender-lemon tea cakes, lavender spiced leg of lamb, lavender iced tea, lavender sugar, lavender pizza dough...and the list goes on.

Here's a recipe I found on a lavender supplier's website, Purple Haze, that I thought sounded interesting. If you don't have lavender on hand, these honey bunches would still be delicious!

Lavender Honey Bunches:

Ingredients:

3 cups oats (I just used rolled oats, but you could use quick oats too)
2 cups sweeten flaked coconut
1 c all purpose flour
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup butter
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp dried culinary lavender

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Combine oats, coconut and flour in a large bowl, mixing thoroughly.

3. In a sauce pan, heat butter, sugar, honey and lavender, stirring ge ntly and frequently. Bring the mixture to a boil, then immediately pour into the dry ingredients. Combine thoroughly.

4. Now, you have one of two options. I baked these as "cookies", plopped them on a cookie sheet and allowed them to flatten out (and boy, do they flatten out!). The second option is to add about a spoonful to a regular sized muffin tin to get the "bunches" effect. You may also be able to make cute mini-bunches by using a mini muffin tin, but you'd have to check them frequently, as I'm not sure of the proper cooking time. For either of the first two options, pop them in the oven for about 12-15 minutes or until the edges are slightly brown.


5. Allow them to cool for at least 15 minutes on the pan before you try to move them.

Enjoy!

Strawberry Jam Filled Shortbreads

Oh. my. gosh. This recipe was kind of a disaster. It did, however, turn out to be delicious, which is why I'm sharing it with you. The photos look a little wacky (too dark and stuff), but I'm not trying to impress today. After I made vanilla-chai shortbread cookies, I was really impressed how something not terribly sweet could be so satisfying to my sweet tooth.

I was on a mission to make a "cute" cookie for a co-worker who spent about 4-5 days of her time trying to teach me how to work with radioactive material, while not allowing myself to be radioactive. She was successful, thankfully :). This recipe caught my eye on Tastespotting, and I thought it would be the perfect treat. Little did I know that Tony would have to console me and do damage control to even get a few decent looking cookies.

*Side note: I'm going to try to not incorporate any pictures in the instructions portion of the recipes anymore, unless I hear loud objections. I figure that this way, if you want to print out the recipe, you don't have to copy and paste into a document file a bunch of times. I wish I had a fancy food blog that had a link to "print this recipe," but Lord knows I don't have the time or energy to figure such a thing out.

Here's the story:

Ingredients:
*These were all tanslated from metric, which may inherently be the issue with the recipe not going as planned. Here's the original post, and you can do the convertin' yourself if you don't trust me, or use your kitchen scale.

7 Tbs butter, softened
0.44 c sugar (I used a little less than 1/2 cup)
1 2/3 c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 egg, beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup strawberry jam (or whatever jam is your favorite)
1/2 Tbs saigon cinnamon (or any cinnamon you have) to sprinkle on top

Procedure:

1. Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl with a wooden spoon until thoroughly mixed.

2. Add flour and baking powder (which should be sifted together), until combined. Finally, add in the egg and vanilla until incorporated. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and stick in the fridge for about an hour.
*This is where I believe I went wrong. I should have known to let it go a little bit longer, instead I was left with a frustrating, sticky mess. Don't be like me. Exert some patience.

**At this point, you want to start warming your oven up to 325F.

3. Divide the chilled dough into two lumps. Roll out one half with a rolling pin, until it's about a half inch or less thick. Place on a greased cookie sheet.

4. Spread the jam evenly over the entire surface.

5. Roll out the second half the same way, and place delicately on top of the jam-covered dough, attempting to have all of the edges match. Since my dough was not chilled enough, this was a little challenging. I may or may not have thrown my hands up in the air and made Tony finish this step.

6. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on top of the shortbread, if desired.

7. Pop in the oven. The original recipe suggested for 15 minutes, but I found I had to bake mine for roughly 25 minutes--just keep an eye on it until the edges become golden.

8. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking tray for about 5-10 minutes. Cut into shapes (I chose squares, but you could also use a cookie cutter or cut them into diagonals), and serve!

Vanilla Chai Shortbread Cookies

Well, the cookies have all surely been eaten by now, and I'm not in danger of ruining a surprise...so here's the recipe!

Vanilla beans are intimidating, particularly if you've only ever used one once before. They are strange looking little devils, and surprisingly, require a sharp knife and a steady hand to open. I wrote an earlier post to help those who may be like me--a vanilla bean novice.

These shortbread cookies are great with tea--actually they were inspired by the Bigelow Vanilla Chai tea! This recipe has gone through several adaptations, but the original recipe is a Martha Stewart Special, from her holiday 2008 magazine. They're not too sweet, and not overpowered with vanilla or chai. They're originally designed to be used with a cookie press, but since that is one of the few kitchen gadgets I don't own--I opted to roll them into balls and press them flat instead.

Alrighty, let's get to it.

Ingredients:

1 Vanilla bean, split and seeds removed

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

2 chai tea bags (any flavor would work)

2 tsp vanilla extract

Procedure:

1. Prep the vanilla bean. If you are not used to doing this, it may take a few minutes...

2. Grind the tea to a fine powder. No one wants a big o' leaf in the middle of their cookie. I used a mortar and pestle, but you could just place the contents of the tea bags in between 2 pieces of waxed paper and use a heavy object (meat tenderizer) to grind to a powder.

3. Whisk the salt and flour together.

4. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla bean seeds in a mixer on medium speed until the mixture is light and fluffy. I swear if I could, I would have eaten it just like this on toast. Or with a spoon...ahem. Doesn't it look great??

5. Add the egg, vanilla extract and chai tea to the mixture, and fully incorporate.

6. Then, add the flour to the wet mixture with the mixer set on a slow speed, until everything is all mixed together.

7. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Start preheating the oven to 350 F.

8. Form small balls with the cookies, flatten slightly dip the top in turbinado (raw) sugar if desired, and place on a greased cookie sheet a few inches apart from one another.

9. Bake for about 15 minutes, turning the cookie sheet halfway through, or until the cookies begin to brown slightly.

Voila! Enjoy!