Questions



I have really been at a cross roads in my life lately. I know that food is my passion and that I'm more or less discontent with my current work situation. But I also feel stuck, almost immobile about the idea of changing it. There are so many things to consider in a drastic life change like what I am thinking about and I don't even know where to start. So I'm starting here. I think I could use some help from the blogging community. If you have started your own business or changed your career to work with food what was the lightbulb moment? What about money, security, stability? I guess with the way the economy is they are much harder questions to answer than it was before. I have the confidence about my food and the drive to make it but I don't know where to start. It was just my Dad's 60th birthday and I guess I'm just wondering what I want to do with my life for the next 35 years. There is this big idea that money equals success and I don't think that is necessarily the case but money does make life easier at times. Why does everything have to be a double edged sword?


Back to my Dad's Birthday, ever since I made him the lemon cookies last year I haven't heard the end of it. When am I going to make them again and he really likes them etc. Plus some not so nice comments about how the girl scout cookies have changed. So this year I made them for him and decided to change up some of them.

Lemon Sandwich Cookies

Ingredients
2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened
1 cup of powdered sugar
1 tablespoon of lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 cups of AP Flour
2 tablespoons of granulated sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350. In the bowl of a mixer beat butter, powdered sugar, lemon zest and salt until combined and smooth. Place the mixer on low and slowly add the flour the dough will be very stiff. Do not over mix the dough stop mixing when just combined and finish mixing by hand.
Turn the dough out onto plastic wrap and form into a disk, wrap and chill until firm at least 1 hour but up to 3 days. Once chilled unwrap the dough and place on lightly floured piece of parchment paper and roll out with a floured rolling pin until about 1/8 of an inch thick. If the dough cracks let it warm up. If you chill it longer than a few hours you will probably have to let it sit out at room temperature for 30 minutes or more.
Cut out cookies with a 1 1/2 inch round cutter, and only re roll the scraps once. Place an inch apart on a baking sheet and sprinkle with the granulated sugar. Bake until they barely start to brown. The original recipe says 15-20 minutes but mine only took 12 minutes. Once baked transfer to a cooling rack to completely cool.

Creamy Lemon Filling

Ingredients
4oz of softened cream cheese
1 tablespoon of lemon zest
1 - 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar

In a bowl mix together the cream cheese and the lemon zest until smooth then gradually add the sugar until it forms the consistency you are looking for and whisk until smooth.


To make the raspberry lemon filling I added 3 tablespoons of melted good quality seedless raspberry preserves and mixed that into half of the filling.


To make the sandwiches put about 1 teaspoon of filling between 2 cookies.

Popular Posts