Mother's Day Brunch

For Mother's Day in Chicago, Katie flew in from NYC to spend the weekend with our Momma. We planned a light brunch to celebrate the lovely ladies in our lives. We made banana bread waffles + plain waffles served with peach or blueberry compote and fresh vanilla whipped cream. We also had scrambled eggs, bacon, fresh fruit, blueberry scones, Intelligentsia coffee + mimosas. For dessert (because we can never miss an opportunity to eat dessert) we enjoyed a yellow layer cake with raspberry frosting. This frosting is delicious and is especially great on chocolate cake. My Aunt Judy once told me that doilies can make anything look good, so... I displayed my cake on top of my new reusable doilies from Ikea.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there! I'm lucky to have such amazing women in my life!

Raspberry Frosting:

1/2 cup margarine

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

3 1/2- 4 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1-2 tbsp milk or cream

1-2 tbsp raspberry preserves

Whip all the ingredients together, adding the raspberry preserves in last. Add as much or as little of the preserves as you would like until it reaches the taste and color you desire.

Shout out to Julia for her superb waffle iron skills!

Cookie Nine and Ten: Peanut Butter Kisses and Peanut Butter Thumbprints

I came up with our idea to do the "12 cookies of christmas" and I will be the first to admit that it did not go as planned. I have been completely overwhelmed in the past couple of weeks with work, holiday parties, a wedding and entertaining some visiting friends. Tonight, I needed to make two more cookies before Christmas so I decided on a quick but tasty holiday cookie - the peanut butter kiss. This cookie is nothing fancy but its a no-fail recipe, straight off the Hershey Kiss bag. I ended up running out of chocolate kisses and decided to fill the rest of the cookies with jam to make a sort of pb&j cookie. It turned out to be quite the time saver, one dough for two deeelicious cookies. Holiday cookies in a flash...


Peanut Butter Kiss/ Jam Thumbprints
From Hershey's.com

1/2 cup butter, softened (the original recipe uses shortening)
3/4 cup creamy Peanut Butter (I used jif)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp milk
1 tap vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
Granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Beat together butter and peanut butter. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl and set aside. Add sugars to peanut butter mixture and beat until fluffy. Mix in the egg, milk and vanilla, beat well. Stir in the flour mixture. Scoop dough into 1-inch balls and roll into granulated sugar. Bake for 8 minutes. Immediately after removing from the oven press a Hershey kiss into the center, let cool.

For the thumbprints:
Scoop the dough into 1-inch balls and place on cookie sheet. Using your thumb gently press into the center of each cookie to make a small indentation. Bake for 8 minutes. Once the cookies have cooled pipe or spoon jam into the center.

Cookie One: Raspberry Ribbons

Again, apologies for the terrible photo quality. Camera was nowhere to be found and iPhone had to suffice.

Raspberry Ribbons, the pretty little melt-in-your-mouth cookies. I think these could be one of my favorite treats that are served during the holidays, with their slight tangy flavor and small size. I am definitely a one-bite cookie kind of girl.

That being said, these cookies aren't the easiest to make on your first try. This isn't because they don't taste right; it's actually because it's rather difficult to get them to look right. As I was getting ready to place the cookies in the oven, I noticed that they looked nothing like ribbons. In fact, they looked more like snakes that had just eaten a small child, with a huge bulge in the middle and extremely thin ends. I tried to smash them into shape, but it wasn't as easy as I thought. So I baked them anyway and trusted in the art of creative slicing to try and get the cookies to look somewhat uniform. As you can see from the picture, I did a pretty good job with the cutting, but the glazing and jam placement was a completely separate challenge for me... a challenge that I apparently lost.

But they still tasted delicious! That's half the battle, right?

Raspberry Ribbon Cookies

• 1 cup butter (no substitutes), softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup raspberry jam
• 
  
• GLAZE:
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 2 tablespoons evaporated milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 
  
• 1. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well.
• 
  
• 2. Divide dough into four portions; shape each into a 10-in. x 2-1/2-in. log. Place 4 in. apart on greased or foil-lined baking sheets. Make a 1/2-in. depression down the center of each log. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes.
• 
  
• 3. Fill depressions with jam. Bake 10-15 minutes longer or until lightly browned. Cool for 2 minutes. Remove to a cutting board; cut into 3/4-in. slices. Place on wire racks.
• 
  
• 4. In a small bowl, combine glaze ingredients until smooth. Drizzle over warm cookies. cool completely.