Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Bakin' Friends - December Edition



It's the last day of 2013 and while many of you are writing about your reflections of the year and writing out your New Year's resolutions, I'm over here thinking about the amazing cookies I received for the December edition of BAKIN' FRIENDS!  This month, the secret ingredient was Cardamom.  It's not a spice I often see used, but it's one that reminds of the Holiday's!




Seriously, I can't even begin to say enough things about how wonderful these cookies were.  Quite possibly one of my new favorite cookies and definitely one I'll be throwing into my cookie rotation ;)




This month's goodies came to me from Anne over at Bakin' Friends!  She's super sweet and SUPER talented!!  She sent me some Cardamom Orange Sugar Cookies and my gosh, we're they tasty, not to mention, beautifully deocrated!  I think between my hubby, parents and me, we had half of these eaten the day I received them! 




Thank you so much, Anne for the delicious treats!!




Cardamom Orange Sugar Cookies
by Laureen King from ArtandtheKitchen

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups softened butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 vanilla bean, opened and seeds scraped out
2 egg + 1 egg yolk
1 1/2 tsp. orange zest
3 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. salt

Instructions
Sift together flour, salt and cardamom.  Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar together until fluffy {about 5 minutes}.  Add vanilla bean and orange zest and mix well.  Add eggs and combine well.  Slowly add the flour a bit at a time.

Separate dough into 2 separate pieces.  Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.*  When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.  On floured work surface, roll disk out to 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness.  Cut out with cookie cutter shape of your choice and transfer to baking sheet.

Bake 8-10 minutes (just until edges start to brown).  Cool completely and decorate with Royal Icing.  Makes approximately 3 dozen cookies (depending on cookie cutter shape).

*I always roll out my dough to 1/4 thickness between 2 sheets of wax paper then chill it on cookie sheets instead of how the recipe reads.  Once chilled, you can go ahead and cute out your shapes; there's no need to do in on a floured surface.  I had to add about 3/4 to 1 cup more flour to the recipe because the dough was way too loose to roll out.

ENJOY!

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Interested in joining?

Check out my "{Bakin' Friends}" tab at the top of my blog and/or email me, Leah at leahmarie.mackenzie@gmail.com for details!  

If you want to join for January, you need to email me leahmarie.mackenzie@gmail.com by JANUARY 4th with Bakin Friends in the subject line and containing the following info.:
First/Last name
Email address
Blog Name/URL {if applicable}

Hope everyone enjoys the LAST day in 2013!  Stay safe!

Cheers!

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