Lime-Glazed Sugar Cookies and Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays! After a lovely most-of-December, polar vortex-like temps are upon us.  Paul is working and the store is open right up until Christmas, but the rest of us are staying in until temps climb to more respectable levels. Fortunately, we have a lot of crafts and projects to keep us busy. Last year we made cookies and brought them out to all of the people working in Cedarburg on the 24th. The kids made me promise that we would do it again this year. So, we are working on cookies and dipped pretzels for our cookie bags.

Baking with the kids these days is so much less messy than it used to be. Which really brings home the fact that they are growing up. I was watching them glaze cookies yesterday and couldn’t believe how well they did it and how little mess was made.  Honestly, it was bittersweet, no pun intended. These days I enjoy doing more activities with them without it turning quickly into inattention, followed by major cleanup, executed by me. But their competence and independence also signals the end of an era.

I usually have little patience for the overly sentimental, but I guess I’m not immune. The growth of ones children puts the passage of time into sharp relief like nothing else. There is also a whole new world of fun, interesting conversations, complex personalities and a web of inter-family relationships developing. A lot to love and celebrate. 

Finding a cookie that we can all get behind is definitely something to celebrate. Sugar cookies with lime glaze. These little guys are sweet and tart and Christmasy with a little sophistication. But most importantly, we all love them! They are also simple. So simple! I like to make all of my cookie dough in the food processor. I find that it’s so much easier to dump everything in and let the processor mix it for you. It also eliminates the need to soften butter and therefore, to plan ahead.

I don’t refrigerate the dough before rolling out. I hate trying to roll out rock hard dough. With these, I find that if the butter is not too soft, the dough stays cool enough to roll out and cut out right after processing. No waiting! No listening to little people complain about having to wait!  I take the cut out cookies, put them on a cookie sheet and freeze for 10 minutes before slipping into the oven. It could not be easier. Once we roll and re-roll the dough a few times, I shape the remaining dough into a log and keep it in the freezer. They make great cut-and-bake cookies. 

Sugar Cookies with Lime Glaze 

For the Sugar Cookies 

1 cup sugar

2 ½ cups flour

¼ tsp baking powder 

½ tsp salt

1 ½ sticks butter

1 egg 

2 tsp vanilla extract

For the Lime Glaze 

Juice and zest of 1-2 limes (Depending on size)

1-2 cups powdered sugar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F

Place sugar in food processor and process a few seconds

Add flour, salt, baking powder and process about 15 seconds

Add butter, egg and vanilla and process until sandy in texture

Roll out onto a floured surface or piece of parchment and knead until the dough forms a ball

Roll out into a sheet and cut out into desired shapes

Place on baking sheet and freeze for 10 minutes 

Bake for 15 minutes until the top and edges just begin to turn light brown. 

Remove from oven and cool completely on rack.

Glaze cooled cookies and allow glaze to set before eating. 

We’ve had many a tantrum over which cookies to make and who gets to decide. So, finding that everyone loves these is a gift.  I think we should make them our Barry-family Christmas Cookie. We have so much more than cookies to be grateful for this year. We are especially grateful for Cedarburg and Greater Milwaukee, and Long Grove and Greater Chicago for supporting our family business. We are so incredibly grateful for our health, our family and all of our friends who are like family.  Wishing you all a wonderful Holiday Season and a Happy New Year! xoxo

4 Bumps and a Birthday Cake

The Irish have some weird traditions, I have to tell you. Have you ever heard of “Birthday Bumps”?  Birthday bumps are a tradition in Ireland where the birthday person is taken by the arms and legs and bounced up and down in the air with their head touching the floor the same number of times as their years of life. While I think my kids (including the birthday girl)  would have really enjoyed it if we bumped Noelle on her birthday, she’s gotten too big for me to do this without fear of dropping her on her head. Instead, I baked her a cake and let her lick the spoon.

These two were so excited about the cake and the birthday.

At her age (or any age), all you really need to make a birthday special is CAKE. Even though I didn’t know how to change a diaper until I had my first child, somehow I knew how important cakes were going to be to my kids. Before I had my oldest, Emmett, I bought all of the equipment necessary to make a layer cake. After he was born, I studied cake decorating youtube videos so that I would be ready for his 1st birthday.  Ever since, I’ve been making each of my kids a homemade cake for their birthdays.  Sometimes they tell me what flavor or theme they want months in advance, and just as with Halloween costumes, they change their minds at the last minute, requiring me to start from square one.   

This year, Noelle surprised me by sticking to the Chocolate on Chocolate “Lollipop” themed cake which she requested back in October. Paul thought I was going to make the cake look like a Lollipop. I told him that he’s clearly been watching too much of the Great British Bakeoff and who does he think I am anyway?  I made something much, much easier and all of the kids loved it. 

I decided to use a recipe from the amazing book Zoe Bakes Cakes, which I was able to download from the library. Amazingly, I followed the recipes exactly for both the frosting and the cake and I’m not sorry! I topped it with her fave, lollipops and a caramel apple, and a lollipop candle. She was in heaven. And it reminded me how little it takes to make their special day feel truly special. 

It looks wonky here but once it gets covered with frosting it will all even out.

I just spread it on thick and don’t worry about what it looks like. I’ll fix it later.

After smoothing things out a bit.

Don’t you just want to eat this with a spoon?

I made chocolate shavings that I put on the top. I tried to put them on the sides but just gave up. The frosting was too set by then and I was afraid I was going to ruin the cake by messing with it anymore. I bought the lollipops from Ashley’s and the candied apple from Sweettrio in Grafton. Love both shops! So many sweet treats!

 If you want to make this cake, the recipe is here. I scaled the cake recipe down by half to make a 4-layer 6-inch cake and I made ⅔ of the frosting recipe, which was EXACTLY enough. Emmett helped me with the math. Everyone helped me eat the tops of the cake layers after I leveled them. I cannot believe my baby is 4 years old! 

 Happy December everyone! I know it’s a busy time and I hope you are enjoying it.  I’ve been doing all of my Christmas shopping locally which has been really fun. We’ve shopped everywhere in Cedarburg, but also Grafton, Port Washington and other places close by and it’s been a great way to see more of the area. There are so many unique places to shop right here in our community. And for those of you who have shopped with us in Long Grove, Crystal Lake or here in Cedarburg, THANK YOU. It means so much to us that you have supported our family business. Whether you’ve been coming in for decades, or just once, we appreciate you. Happy Holidays!