Here's lookin at me kid

Guilty Pleasure of the Weekend

Well, of course! I know I keep saying this, but "'Tis the Season!" I have been searching far and wide for recipes that taste just like the infamous Lofthouse cookies. I've even had baking marathons in which I mix up five different sugar cookie recipes and conduct double-blind studies with my friends and family. Well, this year my mother and I found the perfect combination in an old family recipe combined with a thick coat of Duncan Hynes frosting. Mix that that with Ghirardelli chocolate, and we're good to go! Now we're trying to see if we can make these cookies disappear....

Soft Sugar Cookies

2 c. sugar

1 c. margarine (I used ½ butter & ½ margarine.)

1 c. sour cream

2 eggs

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

6 c. flour

2 tsp. vanilla

Mix sugar and margarine; add sour cream and then the eggs--one at a time. Mix in vanilla, baking powder and soda.  Add the flour one cup at a time. The dough will be thick. Roll out thick.

Bake @ 350˚ and remove from oven before the bottoms are brown (so that they will be soft).  When you touch them, they should feel kind of firm.

Recipe makes about 4 dozen, depending on size.  Frost with a thick coating of Duncan Hynes vanilla frosting. The trick to getting them super soft is to store them in a closed container for two days. Don't cut them in too intricate of a shape or they will literally fall apart. They're that soft and delicious!

Guilty Pleasure

Okay, I know this is supposed to be the post for my guilty pleasure of the weekend... but it's officially the holidays, so I've made this the guilty pleasure of the month. I vow to have at least one cup of hot cocoa every day until Christmas. I think it's a worthy goal. What about you? What pleasures are you indulging in during the holidays?

(photo credit: chocokat)

Guilty Pleasure of the Weekend

We at the whole thing.  Correction- I ate the whole thing.  Thank the Lord in heaven that Phil doesn't really dig the cookie cake thing.  I find them to be absolutely horrible as well... (it's the ingredients I hate, not the tastiness!) but that doesn't stop me from eating the whole thing.  :D  I'm basically a walking contradiction.  Here's to Monday!  Cheers.

Guilty Pleasure of the Weekend

I mean really, it' more like a mess of laundry, purses, shoes, and jackets all over my house. I feel bad.  But not bad enough to clean it all up before my weekend of parties.  I have more important things to do!  Such as finish my Halloween costume, attend the Disney Princess party tonight with my "adult" friends (ha!), sleep in tomorrow morning, kill time on the internet, and of course attend all of the Halloween festivities on Saturday.  The cleaning will just have to wait until the fun is over.

What are you doing (or not doing!) this weekend?

Guilty Pleasure of the Weekend

We have soup, pizelles, and rosettes.  And those are really the only recipes that made the trip across the Atlantic to be passed down to me from my French great-grandparents. My dad is the rosette making king, and so we let him make them, and I sugar them. Someday I will learn how to make rosettes on my own, but for now, I will just enjoy the light and tasty crunch and the bonding experience with Pops. Oh, and the pleasant choking sensation that occurs when attempting laughing whilst eating the powdered sugar covered deliciousness.

Guilty Pleasure of the Weekend

Some of my favorite pleasures in life are pretty chocolate candies. I particularly enjoy when boy brings me french mints.  Although, this week I was in the produce section at the grocery store minding my own business... buying healthy green vegetables, when I spied and desired the candy collection in the corner. And I did not wait for boy to feel generous and kind. Instead, I just bagged up some chocolate and brought them home with me.

And the rest of the guilty part...?  Well, when boy got home from work, he had a bag of donuts for me. My favorite kind. Plain cake donuts. It was like I sensed the sugar coming my way, but I was just rushing it. I gotta stop rushing it. Golly. All in good time.

And to add some sheepishness to my guilt, I will admit to you right now that I actually had a photoshoot with my little pink chocolates. And I'm perfectly willing to share.

Guilty Pleasure of the Weekend

A pleasure?  Always.  A guilty pleasure?  Only when I make Phil watch it with me.  Followed by Anne of Avonlea, of course.  This is my number one plan of frivolousness for the weekend.  But I consider it to be purely necessary in order for my kindred spirit to know the single movie that has always touched my soul since the age of three. And of course, Phil earns brownie points for suggesting it as a date night activity.

Vanilla Peanut Butter Pie

Okay, this might make you giggle, or it might not.  In any case, I'm starting a new feature here on my blog where every Friday I'm posting my guilty pleasure of the weekend!  I think everyone should indulge in guilty pleasures (and to be honest, they rarely make me feel guilty, so I suppose I should just cut to the chase and call them pleasures...), and Friday's are a good time for them to help get the weekend started.

This weekend's pleasure is Peanut Butter cream pie.  But the guilty part of it is that I bought it from a bakery and stuck it on a pie plate as if it came from my kitchen!  I went into Amish country for this pie, so it wasn't completely effortless.  And Phil doesn't need to know where it came from, right...?

Any guilty pleasures in mind for your weekend?