Spring Has Sprung

With the first day of spring behind us, I have officially survived another midwest winter.  Rochester had record amounts of snow this year (of course) and the snow was piled about 4 feet high in our front yard.  Most of the mailboxes down are street were barely peaking above the snowline for several months.  But after about a week of temperatures in the 40’s (yay!) the snow melted surprisingly quickly.  Even with a surprise snow storm that laid down a couple of inches earlier this week, we can now see almost all of the front lawn.

So, what’ s a person to do when the thought of spring is in the air?  Make spring themed cookies of course! Perhaps I did get a bit ahead of myself with the Easter shapes — but hey, I just couldn’t resist.

Now I can’t even count the number of cut out cookies that I frosted while at the bakery.  But honestly, I have to confess that I really haven’t ever made them at home. So I have been perusing the internet to find a good recipe to use.  In the end, I decided to try half a recipe that I found on the internet and half a recipe from a book that I have.  I then conducted my very own taste test to see which recipe was best.  Hands down, the recipe from Toba Garrett was the favorite.

For cookie icing, I managed to find a recipe very similar to what the bakery used.  I LOVE baking in my new kitchen because I can sit at the bar in the kitchen while doing my decorating and still see what’s going on in the living room. I had so much fun decorating that I can’t wait to make some more.  It was definitely a good way to say WELCOME SPRING!