Easter Cookies

This post is short and sweet, much like the two little buddies who will be sharing the Easter cookies I'm baking this weekend (pictured with this post, the cookies I made last night for a friend).  The recipe is one I use all the time, from The Food Network's Alton Brown.  It's as simple as can be.  You mix up flour, baking powder, and salt.  Separately, you mix butter, sugar, an egg, a little bit of milk, and vanilla extract.  Mix it all together and let the dough hang out in the fridge for an hour or so.  It rolls out beautifully (I like to roll cut out cookies a little thick, about 3/8 of an inch), bake at 350 degrees F until they just begin to show a little color on the edges, cool, and decorate.  It's a lot of fun. The original recipe, from an earlier post, is linked here.  And I've also added a photo of the same cookies from Easter two years ago, when we gathered in Katie's kitchen to produce a basket-full of beautiful treats!

From Easter 2010 - so much fun to make!

These are a bit of work, but worth it.  If you're baking this weekend, have a great time.  I wish all of you a lovely spring weekend, whether  you honor Easter, Passover, or another meaningful springtime ritual.  Enjoy this time with your family and friends.

And speaking of family, here are Hank and Pete yesterday morning:  I stopped in before leaving for work, and they were enjoying breakfast in their "toy" room:

...so mesmerized by Curious George
that they didn't even notice me!

Hot Cross Buns and King Arthur Flour

I have childhood memories of hot cross buns.  They came in a box with a cellophane window, and there were six. This was a problem because there were nine of us in our house.  Hot cross buns remind me of Easter and spring time and warm weather.  Visions of green grass, yellow and purple eggs, and Easter bonnets come to mind as well.  When we were little kids, we got new shoes twice a year, for the beginning of school and at Easter time.  My parents would line all seven kids up at the shoe store, one of those foot-measuring devices came out, and there were boxes everywhere.  The girls usually got patent leather Mary Janes for Easter and saddle shoes for school, and I don't remember what the boys got, but we were loving our new shoes!  How my parents were able to do that, I can't imagine.  Seven pairs of shoes for dress and seven pairs of sneakers for playing all at one shot.  There were no discount shoe stores then.  If you wanted shoes, you went to the shoe store.  In Saratoga, we went to Sundial Shoes on the corner of Church and Clinton.  Mr. Izzo was there forever, and knew every family well.  If I remember correctly (which sometimes I do not) he had an index card for every pair of feet. I even took Joe and Katie there for their first pairs of shoes, in the days when all babies wore the stiff white walking shoes which some people (like my mother) later bronzed.  My brother Michael's baby shoes were the only pair bronzed in our family.  The six siblings that followed, no bronzing. 

In honor of Easter memories and hot cross buns, below you will find a link to their recipe for this spring-time treat from King Arthur Flour.  I love KAF because I read the Web site's blog story about its flour (very interesting) and vow now only to buy KAF even if it is $1.00 more than other brands for a 5 lb. bag.  It's worth it.  Their Web site is great.  They have a host of witty baker-bloggers and I love their products. 

Hot Cross Buns recipe and photo credit from KAF: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/easy-hot-cross-buns-recipe