A Not So Lazy Sunday Morning

This is how it usually works, I get onto baking kicks.  All I want to do is bake, bake, bake.  You might notice that when I blog I usually post multiple days in a row, and then nothing for a month.  That's just the way it goes.  I end up getting baked out and telling myself the next thing I make is coming from a box.  Don't worry, it doesn't, but you get what I mean.  So even after my foray into clafoutis yesterday I still wanted to do more baking. 

I still had a lot of rhubarb that I needed to use up so my first order of business was to make a rhubarb bread.  There were a lot fewer recipes out there for this than I thought there would be, but I was able to find one that looked good.  I ended up going with this recipe from allrecipes.com. 

I was worried at first that it was going to end up too sugary because people have a tendency to overcompensate for the tartness of the rhubarb, but I'm happy to announce it came out spectacular!

 While that was still in the oven I decided I wanted to bake some cookies too.  I hadn't made cookies for a long time and so the other day when I was at the library I picked up a copy of Martha Stewart's Cookies.  I've never been a huge Martha fan, but I've heard countless times that her recipes very rarely disappoint. I ended up making Citrus Cornmeal Shortbread.  Her original recipe calls for orange zest, but having no oranges on hand I went with lemon instead.  I helped the lemon flavor along by replacing the vanilla extract with lemon extract.

I'm not sure what led me to pick these cookies out (probably the pretty picture in the book, or the short ingredient list), because shortbread type cookies are not usually my favorite, but I'm glad I made them because they came out great; rich and buttery with a hint of lemon.   

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Citrus Cornmeal Shortbread:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup confectioner's sugar
• 2 teaspoons pure lemon extract
• The zest from 1 lemon
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons yellow cornmeal
• 1 tsp coarse salt

Mix together butter and confectioners sugar.  Add vanilla and zest and combine.

Add the flour, 2tbsp cornmeal and salt.  Mix everything together until its combined

Divide the dough in half and shape into a log.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 300F.  Place 1/4 cornmeal on a piece of parchment paper.  Roll the logs in the cornmeal until evenly coated. 

Cut the logs into 1/4 inch thick rounds.  Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown.

 The best part of my day of baking is that I discovered it is a friends birthday today (thank you facebook / Happy Birthday Laurel!) so I dropped her off a bag of cookies and a loaf of bread. 

 So far I don't feel baked out so who knows, maybe there will be more goodies to come shortly.

:)