Fall is here!

I can't help myself. With the first crisp snap in the Fall air, I'm thinking all about the season and what it brings with it. All the colors, smells, and tastes. The family and holidays. I just finished reading the most beautiful depiction of the holidays in Wendell Berry's "Hannah Coulter." So good that I had to go back a read it again! I will post the excerpt for you to read here closer to the holidays.

To officially usher in the start of fall, I decided to celebrate with some fall cookies. I actually found this recipe posted somewhere on the web as a Christmas cookies recipe but it was a perfect excuse to use my maple leaf cookie cutters. And whether it's for fall or spring or Christmas, you can use this recipe with your kids and they will love it!



Painted Sugar Cookies

• 2/3 cp shortening
• 3/4 cp sugar
• 1 tsp lemon or orange zest
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• 4 tsp milk
• 2 cp flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt.

Cream the first 4 ingredients. Add the egg and milk. Sift the dry ingredients and then mix to make a batter. Roll out on a floured counter and cut with cutters.

Egg yolk "paint"

for each color you will need to mix the following:

• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp water
• food coloring*

Paint the cookies with a new paint brush or one that you have only used for food stuffs before! Then bake at 350 until right before they start to brown. The original recipe, called for piping white icing to define the shapes but I just mixed a little bit of powdered sugar and milk to make a clear glaze. They are delicious leaving them as is. 

*If you are worried they will turn out like a muddy mess resembling those paintings they do at school, only offer colors of the same family that will blend well. 

Red + yellow + orange

blue + green + yellow

blue + red + purple

yellow + blue + green