Lacy Cookies

  I'm afraid I've been procrastinating. Yesterday, I was supposed to be setting the sleeves in on the sloper* I'm working on, but I made cookies instead.

  It might have been a distraction, but since it was something I've wanted to try for quite a while, it was a good one. I've never been fond of plain sugar cookies, but I love how they are so easy to decorate. These cookies are also easy to decorate, but are much tastier... lemon poppyseed cookies! I used this recipe from Sweet Sugar Belle. I happened across it by accident, possibly from Pinterest, and I'm so glad I found it! They are nice and soft, sweet but not too sweet, with a hint of lemon. I didn't have any lemon baker's emulsion, so I used 2 teaspoons lemon extract plus 1 teaspoon lemon juice, which worked well.

  They were a lot of fun to decorate, in spite of my decorating imperfections. Considering that I haven't held an icing bag in years, and I have only decorated cookies once since I was a kid, I'm giving myself a pass this time. I used this recipe for icing, with a teaspoon of lemon extract added. I'm not fond of royal icing because it gets so hard, and this is a good substitute. It dries firm, but is still easy to bite through. It is a lot shinier than royal icing though, which I actually dislike.

  Now I want to go make cookies again, and we've hardly begun eating these ones!

  *A sloper is a basic pattern piece from which other designs can be made, usually perfectly fitting just the person for whom it was drafted... in this case, me. Mine is nowhere near perfectly fitting yet, although it hugely improves on my first attempt. I need to lengthen the center front, remove width from center front, lift the sleeve at the shoulder, remove ease from the sleeve front and add it to the back, and smooth the armscye. So much to do! I'd rather eat cookies! =)

Thanks for stopping by!