Lemon Sugar Cookie Bars

They say your taste buds change every seven years.  I don't know who 'they' are or if it's true, but lemon is a a taste I definitely acquired in my 30's....unfortunately I haven't dropped any of the things I like, so I just keep adding....I'd like to subtract something-like chocolate.
I digress.  Anyway, I was trying to think of a good dessert to bring for a pot luck style that included lasagna, and besides some obvious Italian choices (that don't travel well)...lemon seemed like a good choice.  I found a recipe for lemon bars where you make your own sugar cookies, but....I simplified it and just used a tube of store bought cookie dough and it was delicious.

Lemon Sugar Cookie Bars

PRINT HERE

Ingredients:  tube of sugar cookie dough (divided), 8 oz of cream cheese (softened), 1/4 c. lemon juice, 2 T lemon zest (divided), 1/2 c. sugar
Instructions:
Heat oven to 350.
1.  Take a 9x9 dish and cover the bottom with foil.  Spray foil with cookie spray.
2.  Press half of the cookie dough into the bottom of the pan evenly to form a crust.  Bake for about 25 minutes (until golden brown) in a 350 degree oven.
3.  While the crust cools beat together the cream cheese, lemon juice, 1 T of lemon zest, and sugar.  Pour over cooled crust.
4.  Top lemon mix with the second half of the cookie dough.  Crumble and spread all over the lemon filling evenly.  Bake at 350 for another 25 minutes (until cookie is browned on top).
5.  Top with last 1 T. of lemon zest.  Cool and slice.
*It took me two lemons to get enough lemon juice and zest for the dish.  
*By using the foil, you can lift it out of the pan easily for slicing.  

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

I made these last winter....during one of the four days of winter we get here in Texas.  When it's cold....all I want is spring.  I'm sure I could enjoy winter more if I were more equipped physically and mentally, but it's such a rare occurrence (at least lately)...it throws me for a loop.  But these lemon muffins....I'm pretty sure they don't need to be limited by a season!

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

PRINT ME

Ingredients:  1 yellow cake mix, 1 1/4 c. water, 1/3 c. vegetable oil, 3 eggs, 2 T poppy seeds, 1 T lemon extract
Instructions:
1.  Heat oven to 350.
2.  Grease 24 muffin cups, or line with paper baking cups.
3.  Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl until the cake mix is well incorporated and no longer lumpy.
4.  Fill cups to 2/3 cups full.  Bake 18-23 minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean with inserted.
*makes 24 muffins

Lemon Glazed Cookies

I made these for a lemon loving friend a few months ago when I dropped by to see her new baby.  They were really easy to put together and had a soft texture I really dug.  All you need is....

Lemon Glazed Cookies

PRINT HERE

Ingredients for Cookies:  Lemon Cake Mix, 2 eggs, 1/3 c. vegetable oil, 1/2 c. powdered sugar (set aside).

Ingredients for the Glaze:  1 1/2 T water, 3/4 c powdered sugar

Instructions for Cookies:  Mix the dry cake mix, 2 eggs, and 1/3 c. vegetable oil.  Grease a cookie sheet.  Roll the dough into 1 inch balls, flatted slightly and roll the top of the cookie in your powdered sugar.  Bake for 6 minutes at 350 degrees.  Cool.  

Instructions for Glaze:  Mix the water and powdered sugar (if it's too runny, add up to another 1/4 c. powdered sugar).  Drizzle over cooled cookies with a fork.  

Lemon Bread

We recently had a slew of snow days.  Anytime I see the forecast predicting snow, I know this usually means ice in Texas, which means=no school!  I go stock up on crafts and baked goods.  

I used to hate lemon flavored everything, but acquired the taste about 3 years ago.  Now, I can't quit.  I saw the recipe for this lemon bread and I put it on my 'snow day to do list.'  It was a really dense bread-think, pound cake, but it had a really subtle flavor.  The topping gave it a tang, so it was a great mix.  

If you are snowed it....or in the mood for lemons, here's a little something to add to the list!  

Lemon Bread Recipe

PRINT HERE

Ingredients:  1 T grated lemon peel (it took about 2 lemons for me), 4 1/2 t lemon juice (I used the same two lemons), 2 1/4 c flour, 1 1/2 t baking powder, 3/4 t salt, 1 1/4 c+2 T sugar, 3/4 c butter (softened), 3 eggs, 3/4 c milk

Instructions: 

1.  Great 9x5 inch loaf pan.  Prehead oven to 350

2.  Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and 1 1/4 c sugar.  Add the softened butter with a pastry blender until your mix looks like coarse crumbs.  Stir in lemon peel.  

3.  In a separate bowl mix eggs and milk.  Add to flour mix and stir until flour is moist.  

4.  Add the batter to the pan and bake for 1 hour (until tooth pick comes out clean).  

5.  Cool.  When cool take a small pot and add 41/2 t lemon juice, 2 T sugar over med heat and stir while it boils and starts to thicken.  Brush over the top of your bread. 

Margarita Cake Balls

I made these recently for a friend of mine's birthday who likes A)  Mexican Food and B)  Lemon 'Stuff.'  These would be cute for a Fiesta Themed party.   I made a key lime/lemon cookie/cake ball that turned out to be really delicious (said the girl who doesn't like lemon-which is how I know it's tasty).  

I bought some lemon flavored cookies (you can buy the kind with the cream in the the middle, this pretty much works the same as oreo truffles).  I crushed up 1 cup of the cookies using a blender (doesn't have to be totally sandy, but pretty small chunks), and then I mixed in half a thing of softened cream cheese and about 1/4 t. lime flavoring.  

I mixed it all together...

Then I rolled it into balls (this made 10 balls, so use the whole bar of cream cheese would have made 20). I put these balls into the fridge to harden a bit (so it would be easy to roll in melted chocolate, I left it over night, but an hour or so would have done the trick).    

 I rolled these in melted white chocolate and added some 'festive' sprinkles...it would have been cut to stick with the green theme as well.  One trick....I roll these in chocolate with a fork, tap the fork on the side of the dish, add the sprinkles (these harden quickly when the melted chocolate hits the cold ball), and then I scoot it off the fork with the side of a knife.

I added these to a little margarita glass I bought at the dollar store.  

 I printed a little tag....

 ....ate all the cake balls that wouldn't fit (oops) and delivered the rest.  :O)

When Life Gives you Lemons....Package

 I saw the idea for turning brown paper bags into cute little deliver bags.  1825 filled theirs with their friend's favorite things for their birthday, and tied it up with strip....oooohhhh, sooooo, cute.  I died, and knew I had to uses these colors/packaging idea, so I pulled together similar items, and filled my own brown packages.  I brought these to friends recently, and with spring upon us, I decide to go with the yellow theme and make a lemon filled bag, plus....I had lemonades I had bought for an Easter craft that turned out differently than I had hoped!  I filled my bags with the lemonade, lemon drops, and baby lemon bundt cakes I posted about earlier this week.  Soooo yummy.  I added tags, and instead of the tape in the original tuturial, I ran some brown paper through my crinkle machine that I always forget I have, but always love using, added doilies, and ordred some yellow and white twine off etsy (I love twine so much, and I won't be happy until I acquire it in every color....two down).  These would also be great little gifts for Mother's Day, or summer parties.  My teammate and I brought a version of this to the administrative assistant team at work.  I'm just a fan of yellow these days.

Lemon Bundt Cake....Otherwise Known as the End of Any Dieting Attempts in My Life

I'll be posting a larger post that these little baby bundts were a part of, but these are so tasty, it needs it's very own post.  I made a lemon themed series of gifts recently, and I decided to make a dessert to add to the delivery.  I really thought I'd be safe making lemon flavored cake. I rarely eat lemon flavored snacks because I'm just not a fan.  Or should I say, I WASN'T a fan, until I tried this cake.  And then I tried some more.  And then I tried some more.  And then I decided not to try on any of my clothes, and to resort to spandex for the next 6-8 months.  It's just that good. 

Uhh, and good news, it's made from a box cake!  I found the recipe via a google search on all recipes, but here it is.....

Lemon Bundt Cake

Cake Ingredients:  1 (18.25 oz) package lemon cake mix (try to get the kind without the pudding mix b/c you are going to add pudding and this would make it really moist/need additional cooking time), 1 small package of INSTANT lemon pudding, 3/4 c. vegetable oil, 4 eggs, 1 cup lemon-flavored soda (I used sprite). 

Glaze Ingredients:  1/4 c. softened butter, 1/4 c. lemon juice, 2 c. powdered sugar

Instructions:  Heat oven to 325.  Grease and flour 10 inch bundt pan (I used a 6 piece mini bundt pan, and this made 12 little cakes.  Mix cake and pudding.  Stir in oil.  Beat in eggs one at a time.  Stir in soda.  Pour into pan and bake for 35 minutes (the mini cakes only took about 20 minutes).  Let the cakes cool.  Mix the three ingredients for the icing.  It was pretty thick, so I decided to put it in a ziplock, snip the edge and drizzle back and forth.  You could add more juice or water if you want it to be a glaze, but I liked this look.  It hardened. 

If you'd like a reason to ruin a diet, I highly suggest you try this cake out.  My mouth is, literally, watering at the moment just reliving this recipe. 

In Appreciation of Our Bus(zzzzz)y Administration Team: Lemon Honey Cupcakes

I saw this recipe for lemon-honey cupcakes with lemon-honey icing in a Woman's Day magazine about a month ago. I wasn't as interested in the flavor combo as I was in the Peanut M&M bumble bee flying around it's hive. I 'needed' to make these, and conveniently, we also needed to appreciate our administrative assistants this week b/c they:
A) Should be appreciated, and
B) The calendar said it was time, plus
C) They put up with people like me.
D) This brings us back to...
A) They should be appreciated.
They are 'busy bees." At least, that's the angle I went with to justify why this was the 'right project.'
I halved the recipe for the cupcakes (listed at the end of this post) that said it made 24 cupcakes. I was only making enough for three people (it made 11 b/c I like to fill 'em up real full). I made the full icing recipe b/c I like a lot of icing to work with on desserts. If I made the full cupcake recipe, I'd double the icing. I also used melted chocolate to make the bumble bee stripes and eyes instead of the suggested materials. I think I'll go with their suggestions next time b/c my ziplock/melted chocolate was a tad messy. Or was that my piping skills? Here's my first of about 16 bees. They did get slightly better, but nobody is going to be paying me to make these anytime soon, so I'm OK with imperfection, messy lines, etc. I also used some Reese's hard shell egg candies I had from Easter instead of PB M&Ms. I ate all the other colors of Reese's that weren't yellow. Eating the other colors was an important step. Don't forget it, or your cupcakes won't turn out.

Does this bee make my hand look fat? Or, maybe that's all the other colored Reese's I ate?
....back to the project...
Pick your favorite method of bee creation if you choose to make these, and then tell me what it is b/c I need help. Oh man, do I need help on so many levels.
Next up...'my' dozen cupcakes. My dozen=11.

Puffy. Puffy is good. They smelled good too. Smelly, puffy, goodness.
Next, I iced. I sprinkled. I 'bee-dazzled.' Sorry, it had to come out. I can't be held responsible for these sort of comments. It's just how God made me.

This has nothing to do with anything, but I did snag a cloche at the store when I was buying some supplies for a project I'm creating next week. I just wanted to know how it would look. I've seen these all over the web, and I was feeling left out...

I'm better now that I'm part of the 'in' crowd. I may use this cloche in every post from now on, because I can. Maybe not.
But really...
No project is complete (this month) without chalkboard paint. What does this have to do with anything? Nothing! It comes out black, and black is good for a bee project. That was my justification. I went to get trivets to hold the cupcakes, but they were a little pricey, so I slid next door to the Dollar Tree, and found these plates on 'sale' for 50 cents each. Did you know they have sales at the DOLLAR store? I didn't.

I sprayed them with chalkboard paint, b/c it's kinda my thing. They look better black, and now they can also double as a fun catch all tray you can write messages on...OR something to throw at me if I get too annoying in my request for help.




How did they taste? I don't like lemon desserts too much, but I gave the extra to my Mom, and she liked it. I took a small bite, everything tasted fresh, and lemony. This is a good/bad thing-depending on your taste preference!
Here is the full cupcake recipe. (Makes 24 if you aren't me. If you are me-makes 22. If you are me, we need to talk.)
INGREDIENTS
Cupcakes
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp each baking powder and baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 T grated lemon zest
4 T lemon juice
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup honey
1/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
Lemon-Honey Frosting
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 T grated lemon zest
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
7 t lemon juice
4-5 drops yellow food color
Bumblebee
Tootsie Roll (I used melted semi-sweet chocolate.)
Yellow peanut M&M
Brown food marker (I used melted semi-sweet chocolate.)
Clear spice drop candies
Small cookie cutter (I just molded the spice drops with my (clean) hands.)
PREPARATION
1. Cupcakes: Heat oven to 350°F. Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.
I just combined steps 2-4 and mixed them all at once with a spoon. They turned out fine, but if you like to be particular about your baking....follow their instructions...
2. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl to blend. Whisk sour cream, milk, lemon zest and juice in a small bowl until well mixed.
3. Beat butter, honey and sugar in large bowl with an electric mixer 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until blended.
4. With mixer on low speed, beat in half the flour mixture, then the sour cream mixture. Beat in remaining flour mixture until just combined.
5. Spoon about 1/4 cup batter into each muffin cup. Bake 18 to 20 minutes until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
I also just combined all the frosting ingredients, and mixed with a mixer, but here are the magazine's instructions...
6. Frosting: Beat butter, honey, and lemon zest in large bowl with an electric mixer until creamed, about 2 minutes. On low speed, beat in confectioners’ sugar until blended. Beat in lemon juice and a few drops food color until mixture is fluffy and pale yellow.
7. Spoon into a large ziplock bag, snip off one corner and pipe honey comb on top. (I also had to 'snip' my corner a little bigger after my first attempt, my 'comb' had too many layers, and even doubling the recipe I was running short, but with a bigger cut, it seemed to go further with fewer 'layers', weird, but true.)
P.s. I should say at this point I thought this cupcake would be super duper cute inside a mason jar. I got some kitchen tongs out and slowly lowered one inside. I added some black and white dotted ribbon to the outside, and decorated the lid. It looked awful. My mason jars have failed me. :Frantically searching for a therapist who can conduct an emergency session.:
Linking To: 
Entertain Exchange


Funky Junk A Vision to Remember

Chocolate Sundaes Keeping it Simple Sweet Thursdays