Lemon Poppy Seed Sugar Cookies

I have been a naughty baker. I wanted to bake. Really ...I did.

The other night, a friend called and asked if I had anything chocolaty in my freezer or fridge. After I said "no" an extreme wave of guilt and neglect washed over me. That's the worst feeling for an avid baker/gift giver. Unfortunately, my oven was cold and bare.

The truth is, I started speed walking/jogging with a friend. We do a minimum of 21 miles a week. This is double the miles I was accustomed to. We started this little endeavor about 5 weeks ago. I am truly enjoying the extra miles added to my week. The only downside is that it leaves little time for mindless snacking.

Therefore, I have been baking less frequently. Trust me, I have tons of recipes bookmarked/highlighted/printed ...just waiting to get made. I finally, got around to one of the said recipes.

Over the holidays, I checked out several baking books from the library. One of the books was Baking Illustrated from the editors of Cook's Illustrated. In the "cookie" section of the book was a recipe for lemon poppy seed cookies.

The cookies have the traditional soft sugar element you would expect. The twist is the light lemon essence accompanied with the poppy seeds. One thing I noticed with the first batch that went into the oven is that they spread and became misshapen. That's a big "no-no" here. I quickly fixed that by placing the cookies in the freezer for 10 minutes before baking. After that, they were perfect circles.

Print: LEMON POPPY SEED SUGAR COOKIES

Hugs & Kisses

Well look at this. I have actually managed to post a recipe before the “holiday” is even here. Are you shocked? I am. My friends were even more shocked when I presented them with their gift and announced “Happy Valentine’s Day”! ( Feb. 8) The idea of “hugs & kisses” is originally from the Martha Stewart Magazine (Feb. 2005). In the magazine she used an “x” cookie cutter and an “o” cookie cutter to make the “hugs & kisses”. I paid a visit to my local baking supply store looking for the said letters when I came across the perfect cutter. A cookie cutter that had merged together the x & o. Perfection.

After purchasing my cookie cutter, I made a quick stop at my craft store for ribbon and paper roses. I have to admit, that gift wrapping my cookies was the best part of the whole process. But enough about gift wrapping, let us move on to the baking!

The vanilla cookies are plain old sugar cookies with sanding sugar. Don’t get me wrong they taste fantastic. The thing is, everyone has their own favorite personal sugar cookie recipe that they love to use. So, go right ahead and use your own recipe if you like. The chocolate recipe was delicious! The one and only down side was, that it was hard to work with. The cookies “cut-out” best when the dough is cold. And I was constantly rolling and refrigerating it. I spent way too much time trying to cut-out the chocolate cookies.

In the end cookies were worth all the extra effort and hard work. Especially when my friends realized that I had gift wrapped “hugs & kisses” for them.