Lemon Ginger Cookies with Boysenberry Cream Cheese Frosting

This is my first entry in Bake at 350's Flavor Of The Month carnival. I missed out on the last one, which was pie, due to, well, life. But, I made it this time, and I'm excited to participate in the theme of lemon and/or lime. I chose lemon, mostly because I can't stand lime, but also because I have some good recipes with lemon in them. The following recipe is one I stumbled across recently, and fell in love with it. The frosting was something I concocted because I was in a crazy mood that day, and thought I'd be adventurous. I'm not sure how the adventure turned out, but the cookies are very good, and the frosting, while tasty, doesn't necessarily add to the cookie, though it doesn't take away from it by any stretch. As my husband put it, he's ambivalent about the frosting. But, it does make it look pretty :)

So, go check out the carnival over at Bake at 350, and if you have any lemon and/or lime recipes, go turn them in :)

Lemon Ginger Cookies

1 c. butter

2 c. brown sugar

2 eggs

1/3 c. dairy sour cream

1 tsp. lemon extract

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 1/2 c. sifted flour

2 tsp. soda

2 tsp. cream of tartar

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. ground ginger

Cream together first 7 ingredients until fluffy. Sift remaining ingredients together and add to creamed mixture, blending thoroughly. Drop from teaspoon 2 inches apart on lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) for 12 minutes or until done. Remove at once from pan. Delicious!! Yields: 6 dozen.

Boysenberry Cream Cheese Frosting

I took a half recipe of my favorite cream cheese frosting, and then melted down some boysenberry jam until it was runny. I then blended that into the frosting until it looked about right and I could taste the jam. I think I used only a few tablespoons.

The frosting is completely optional, you could even use a plain cream cheese frosting for these. I ended up topping them with some coarse sugar too, just to make them pretty.

Pillsbury You Be The Judge - And Win Prizes!

You have been invited to participate in the 44th Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest. For the first time, everyone gets a chance to vote on the final winning recipes. Every two weeks there will be a new pair of recipes to vote on. To help you decide who is worthy of your votes, please watch this short video.

On top of all the fun of drooling over new recipes, I have been given the opportunity of giving away not one, but TWO great little prize packs! In each prize pack you will find:

• A magazine featuring past Bake-Off recipes
• A Pillsbury Doughboy Giggle Doll (my kids would love that!)

So please, go watch the video, vote for the finalists, and enter the giveaway by answering one or both of these questions:

• What do you think makes a winning recipe
• If you've seen the Pillsbury Bake-Off before, what are some of your favorite past recipes?

Voting will close at midnight on Sunday, July 19th, central time. Winners will be chosen at random on Monday, July 20th, and announced later that day.

Please be sure to leave a way for me to contact you, or I will pick another winner. Good luck!

In my previous post, I said what could be better than Guns and Diamonds. Well, here's one for you, Guns and Roses.

While I think these gun turn in programs are a joke, as any person who wants a gun can get a gun on the black market, it's still an interesting contrast to the Guns and Diamonds program nearby.

Win $1000 Worth Of Knives!

I love a good kitchen knife, and the thought of winning a nice new fancy set is highly appealing. Most of my knives are sadly dull and bent and probably past their well-used prime.

Go check out the contest and sign up!

H/T No One Puts Cupcake In A Corner

Digital Grammar

I just read a great article about the use of digital penmanship. If you have a few minutes, take the time to read it.

If you have a few more minutes, this video was linked at the bottom of the article, but it's pretty cute on it's own.

This Is An Interesting Idea

Guns and Diamonds. What could be better?

I Never Knew

Did you know that Christopher Walken was a dancer? I didn't.

Check this out, it will show you a whole new side to Walken.

Global Warming At It's Best

The city of Rice Lake is asking everyone in town to continuously run a steady stream of water from at least one faucet until further notice.

Rice Lake Utilities manager Scott Reimer says the city is trying to avoid the costly damage of frozen pipes.

Reimer says wasting millions of gallons of water is something no one wants to do. But, Reimer says it's the lesser of two evils.

Source

I Love The Elderly

Especially when they're spunky like this.

101-Year-Old Woman Explains Secrets To Long Life

Cake Wrecks

Ah, what to say about Cake Wrecks. As funny as Lolcats, but tastier.

Iron Cupcake Milwaukee: Breakfast

Last night was the cupcake challenge. It was a blast meeting new people, and seeing all the great looking cupcakes. I managed to taste four out of the ten or so available. It seemed like there were a lot more than ten entries, but I think one or two people entered two or had a pretty little setup.

Out of all of the stiff competition, I managed to place third. Not bad for a first timer, 'eh?

Pop on over to No One Puts Cupcake In A Corner, Home of the Milwaukee Cupcake Queen, and host to Iron Cupcake Milwaukee. You can see pictures of most of the entries, as well as a lot of the people who were there. And oh yeah, there was a person from TMJ4 there taking video footage for a segment that will air Friday around 10:00 pm.

And wouldn't it figure, I managed to forget my camera. Thankfully, Sandy was there with hers and put a lot of pictures up on her blog. Go check it out!

So, here are my third place Apple Pancake Cupcakes, with Maple Glazed Walnuts.

Apple Pancake Cupcakes

1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoon maple extract (this can be adjusted to your tastes, I just sort of kept adding)
1 cup buttermilk
1 apple, finely diced


Preheat oven to 300⁰F. Place liners in a 12 cup muffin tin.

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until it looks creamy. Beat in the egg and the extracts until the mixture is smooth.

Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, and stir until almost combined. Add the buttermilk and stir, again, until almost combined. Add the rest of the flour and the apples and stir until all the ingredients are mixed in.

Using a cookie scoop, fill the cupcake liners just under 2/3 full. You will probably have some leftover batter, and you can either fill more liners in another muffin tin to be cooked at the same time, or save it for the next batch. (**I am going to work on some of the ratios for this recipe and hopefully finish perfecting it. I will post changes then.)

Place the muffin tin into the oven and raise the temperature to 325⁰F. Bake for about 20-25 minutes, checking frequently during the last 5 to 10 minutes. Just take a quick peek, as they are a tad difficult to judge when they're done. They are very moist.

Let the cupcakes cool for 10 minutes, and then remove from the muffin pan. Cool completely before frosting.



Vanilla Icing


2 cups sifted powdered sugar
4 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
2 to 4 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine the ingredients with enough milk to the desired consistency.

To frost the cupcakes, place the frosting in a zip top bag, cut the tip off, and place a nice sized blob on top of the cupcake. It will spread out a bit over the next few minutes.



Maple Glazed Walnuts

2 cups walnut halves
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/8 teaspoon salt

Preheat a dry skillet over medium high heat. Add all ingredients and cook, stirring frequently, for about 3 minutes or until the walnuts are toasted and the syrup is caramelized. Spread out on waxed paper and allow to cool.

For garnishing the cupcakes, place one or two on top of the cupcakes in the center. Alternatively, you could also add some thinly sliced apples, and then top with walnuts.

Home Schooler's Fed Up Wish List

This is quite entertaining, if you have a few minutes, please watch. It's a nice look into the lives of home schoolers and the asinine comments people make when they find out what you're doing.

Looking At What I Read....

I thought it would be fun to look at all the sites that I tend to frequent, and check out their reading levels. Now, I really don't know how accurate this test is, and I can't seem to find any extra information on the way this one looks at the reading level. But, it's fun, and right now I'm feeling smart.

Real Effect High School
Real Debate Wisconsin High School
Fuzz Martin Junior High School
Boots and Sabers High School
The World According To Nick Junior High School
Silent E Speaks Junior High School
Rocks In My Dryer Elementary School
Orthogonal Thought High School
Cooking For Engineers Genius (Sometimes shows up as College Post Grad)
Papa Z's Views and Comments Junior High School
Rachel Lucas Elementary School
Vox Day High School

Now, some of these I'm not terribly surprised about, there's nothing massively outstanding about most of them, at least in the realm of higher thinking. A few that I am surprised about, Vox for one, seems to have an extremely intelligent group of followers, and I like his writing style. Rachel Lucas I also expected to be a little higher, what with her chemistry and all. Cooking For Engineers, now that one really threw me. I am on that site all the time, and while I understand a lot about cooking, I never felt that there was anything too far above my level of expertise in that area. I thought it was all pretty simple. Makes me wonder about what I read now.....

Wow, I Didn't Realize....

Movie Reviews

I really have to wonder how this thing works. What does it check to determine the readability? It's neat though. I didn't expect to get such a high readability level.

Especially after seeing Elliot's post over at From Where I Sit. Check him out. He's got some good stuff over there. At least, he does when I remember to check :)


After a bit of snooping, I decided to enter a few other blogs I do frequent, just to see what they were. I was expecting most of them to be doing better than I was, especially Fred. But, apparently not. That's just a little weird....

Eek! I Want One!

Fun With Henna

I have been experimenting a bit with henna lately. I started with a little kit, and that went well enough, but then I got into mixing my own. It seemed to work a little better, though the stain isn't quite as strong I don't think. I'll find out after tonight anyway.

So here is my first attempt at my own mix of henna paste, which involved the henna powder, lemon juice, honey and tea tree oil.

By the way, these are pictures of the applied henna while it's drying. I'll try to get the pictures tomorrow after I take the henna paste off, which will leave a lovely little pattern for about 2 weeks.

Side by Side


Toes

Right Foot

Left Foot (not as good as the other side, and somehow I managed to smudge one of the leaves)

And I just liked the way this shot turned out. I am definitely loving my new camera!

Fun Little Quiz

http://thepeoplescube.com/QuoteQuiz/index.php

H/T Silent E

Of Course, It's At 3 AM

A nice little lunar eclipse is scheduled tonight, between 3 and 4 am. It will start a little earlier than that, but that's when it will be in total eclipse. The cool thing, is that we're supposed to get a cool red hue. Check out the information here.

Alright, I did a little more research, and found out that for us in CST, the eclipse will start just before 8 pm. Check it out here.

H/T Sunspot Mike

Caption This

Taking a little bit from Fred, I thought this would be a fun little thing to do. A little Caption This every so often, just to spice things up a bit. So for our very first Caption This:




Picture courtesy Stuff On My Cat.

It's Like The Potter Puppets On Crack!