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Category Archives: LuLu’s Classics

Slice and Bake Sugar Cookies with ALL of the fillings!

15 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Baking, Cookies, Desserts, LuLu's Classics

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candied ginger, cranberry, Dried Cranberries, ginger, orange, orange zest, Slice and Bake, sugar cookies, White Chcolate

Slice and Bake

After a few disastrous cookie decorating experiences, I vowed that my last sugar cookies of 2015 would be really low maintenance – aka no piping or pastry art required. Then I thought, do you even have to roll out the dough with this cookie recipe? What if we added fun ingredients to the dough instead of making frosting?

Slice and Bake

Enter my fall-themed slice and bake sugar cookies – white chocolate, dried cranberries, candied ginger, and a touch of orange zest. I was SO happy with the end result. It turns out this classic sugar cookie recipe works great as a “slice and bake” cookie palette as well. For someone like me who will leave sugar cookie dough in the freezer for months just to avoid the task of rolling out the dough then decorating the cookies, this may be a much better way to go in the future. With this new take on sugar cookies, all you have to do is be patient waiting for the dough to chill, then you slice and bake and you are DONE!

Slice and Bake

I wanted these cookies to feel somewhat festive, and I thought adding white chocolate, dried cranberries, candied ginger and orange zest was a good way to go. They are reminiscent of the “cranberry bliss” flavor that is popular this time of year. In the future, I’ll definitely be trying different flavors!

Slice and Bake

Recipe
Cranberry Orange Slice and Bake Sugar Cookies
By Baked Northwest
Makes about 4 dozen small cookies

Ingredients

For the Cookies:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 ½ cups sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
½ cup sour cream
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp nutmeg
4 cups flour
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped candied ginger
1 tbsp. grated orange zest

Directions

In a large stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla, mix thoroughly. Add sour cream, mix thoroughly.

Sift together flour, salt, soda, baking powder and nutmeg. Add to butter mixture in
two parts and mix thoroughly. Fold in the white chocolate chips, dried cranberries, candied ginger and orange zest.

Divide the dough into two round logs and wrap each in wax paper. Refrigerate at least 1 hour. Remove and unwrap the dough, and with a sharp knife, slice cookies about 1/2 inch thick. Place cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Bake the cookies at 400 degrees F for about 10-12 minutes. You never want them to get too browned around the edges, or they’ll be super crunchy. We like ours on the softer side.

Pumpkin Sugar Cookies with Maple Frosting

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Baking, Cookies, Desserts, Holidays, LuLu's Classics

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Tags

fall, Halloween, maple, pumpkin, pumpkins, sugar cookies

Pumpkin Sugar Cookies

While my cookie decorating skills aren’t really getting any better with the sugar cookie of the month, I at least got to try out a fun experiment in altering the recipe: swapping out the sour cream for canned pumpkin. I’m happy to say…success!

Pumpkin Sugar Cookies with Maple Frosting

These cookies have a very subtle hint of pumpkin and fall flavors along with maple icing. You can save these for Halloween, or skip the pumpkin shape and decorations altogether. As you know by now, I’d rather have a tasty cookie than a pretty one.

Recipe
Pumpkin Sugar Cookies
By Baked Northwest
Makes about 32 pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies (you will only use half of the cookie dough)

Ingredients

For the Cookies:

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
  • 1 ½ cups sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • ½ cup canned pumpkin
  • 4 cups flour, plus more for rolling out the dough
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • ½ tsp. baking soda
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (can sub cinnamon)

For the Maple Frosting:

  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup maple syrup
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 3 cups powdered sugar
  • 2 tablespoons milk (nonfat is fine)
  • orange food coloring, or a mix of red + yellow food coloring (optional)
  • Black tube frosting (we used store bought, and this is totally optional. If your decorating skills are like mine you may want to skip this).

Directions

For the Cookies:

In a large stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla, mix thoroughly. Add pumpkin, mix thoroughly.

Sift together flour, salt, soda, baking powder, nutmeg, and pumpkin pie spice. Add to butter mixture in two parts and mix thoroughly.

Divide the dough into two parts and wrap each in wax paper. Refrigerate at least 1 hour. For the amount of frosting we are making, you will only use half of the dough. You can freeze the 2nd batch of dough for another use, or just double the frosting recipe!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

On a clean, floured surface, roll out the dough with a rolling pin. Roll the dough so it’s about 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick, and use your favorite cookie cutters to cut out shapes of the dough. For these cookies, I used a pumpkin cookie cutter. Use a cookie spatula (better known as a pancake flipper) to move your cookies from the floured surface to a well greased baking sheet. Ungreased silicone baking sheet liners work great here too.

Bake the cookies at 400 degrees F for 8 minutes. You never want them to get too browned around the edges, or they’ll be super crunchy. We like ours on the softer side. Baking time depends on what shapes you cut your cookies into – we have adjusted baking times from 8-12 minutes depending on the size of our cookies. Let cool completely before frosting.

For the Frosting:

Combine butter, salt, maple syrup, vanilla, and 1 cup of the powdered sugar. Add milk and remaining sugar, alternately. Mix until smooth & creamy. Add the food coloring to make the frosting orange, if using.

Frost the cooled cookies. If desired, decorate the pumpkins with fun jack-o-lantern designs. We used store bought black frosting for this, and it’s totally optional. Cookies keep well in the fridge for a up to a week, a few days at room temperature. Enjoy!

NOTE: I made a full recipe of the dough and only used half. This cookie dough freezes really well and can be saved for another use, or you can double the frosting recipe and go crazy and bake all of the cookies!

4th of July Sugar Cookies

04 Saturday Jul 2015

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Baking, Cookies, LuLu's Classics

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4th of July, America, American, American Flag, July 4, Patriotic, Red White and Blue, Stars

4th of July Sugar Cookies

This month may be a good example of when to actually use royal icing instead of buttercream…Leave it to me to talk smack about royal icing in my last sugar cookie post and then have it come back to bite me in the ass. Still though, we had fun laughing at ourselves while trying to decorate these cookies. And the most important part? They were still delicious. I’m not going to bother reposting the recipe this month, we used our classic recipe with different colors of frosting that has appeared here so many times. And hey, we all have to have a Pinterest Fail every once in awhile to keep us humble. I’m always going to look back at these beauties and smile!

Coffee Squares

24 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Baking, Breads, Breakfast, LuLu's Classics

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

cinnamon, coffee, coffee squares, espresso, raisins

Coffee Squares

This is one of our family’s oldest recipes that we continue to make again and again. We think it originally came from a neighbor in the late 1950’s or early 60’s. Grammy used to make it for the whole family, my mom held up the tradition when I was a kid, and the recipe is still going strong!  It’s a total classic in our family. Continue reading →

Watermelon Sugar Cookies

23 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Baking, Cookies, Desserts, LuLu's Classics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

green, June, Pink, Sugar Cookie of the Month, sugar cookies, summer, Watermelon, Watermelon Sugar Cookies

Watermelon Sugar Cookies

We are already halfway through the year! So far, I’ve had no regrets on my decision to do a new riff on my favorite sugar cookie recipe each month. Well, minus the chocolate sugar cookies which will surely reappear again in the next six months. I’ve been waiting all year to make these easy summery watermelon sugar cookies. No special flavors, just some food coloring and chocolate sprinkles to show you really can eat sugar cookies whenever you want!

Watermelon Sugar Cookies

I can’t take full credit for this idea, I’ve seen watermelon sugar cookies at the store and all over Pinterest, and in many different creative and cute forms. My version can be filed under “easiest possible way” as they are just round sugar cookies with some pink frosting and chocolate sprinkles (although mini chocolate chips would also work great here). Part of my goal to make a new sugar cookie every month this year was to tackle easy and approachable ways to decorate the cookies – pastry arts can often be frustrating and difficult for me. I’m trying to show myself (and whoever chooses to read this blog) that there are tons of ways to make cute cookies without making royal icing (which omg is def not nearly as good as buttercream frosting).

Watermelon Sugar Cookies

Continue reading →

Chinese Chicken Salad

19 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Chicken, Easy, LuLu's Classics, Main Dish, Pasta, Weeknight Meals

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angel hair pasta, Chicken, Chinese Chicken Salad, green onions, rice vinegar, salad, sesame oil, soy sauce, sundried tomatoes, tomatoes, whole wheat pasta

Chinese Chicken Salad

This Chinese Chicken Salad is one of our favorite 90’s throwback recipes. First of all…it’s called Chinese Chicken Salad. It’s not even a real salad, but I just couldn’t call it by a different name. If I am going to live in a world where this is considered salad…I’m ok with that. We can continue to discuss why this salad isn’t very PC…but instead I’m just going to stop there and say…Long live the 90’s.

Chinese Chicken Salad

Years later, I can see why my mom made this “salad” all of the time. It’s super easy to throw together, it only gets better after a day in the fridge, and it’s a cure-all for the famous “there’s nothing to eat around here.” Work lunches? Check! Late night cravings? Check! It really is the quintessential salad to eat while standing in front of an open fridge door. Chinese Chicken Salad is a classic for a reason!

Chinese Chicken Salad

We haven’t made many changes since the 90’s, because it’s pretty darn good just the way it is. These days I make it with whole wheat pasta, and after taking the photos we realized sesame seeds were a pretty necessary addition. And Sriracha, did it even exist in the 90’s?!? My mind wants to think it did exist before internet memes and before the obsession got a little out of control, but of course, nobody really remembers life before the internet, or Sriracha. Wait…

Chinese Chicken Salad ADD SRIRACHA

Recipe
Chinese Chicken Salad
by Lulu
Makes about 6-8 Servings

Ingredients

  • 1 (12 oz) package whole wheat angel hair pasta
  • 3-4 chicken breasts
  • 1/2 cup diced green onions
  • 1/2 cup chopped tomatoes (cherry tomatoes also work well here)
  • 1/2 cup chopped sundried tomatoes (I used ones that weren’t packed in oil, if that’s all you have, that’s ok – just drain them well)

for the dressing:

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 cup sesame oil
  • 2/3 cup rice vinegar

optional add-ins:

  • sriracha to add to the finished salad for some kick
  • 1/4 cup sesame seeds
  • baby corn, chopped into bite-sized pieces
  • if anyone has any other add-in ideas, let me know!

Directions

Prepare the chicken: Do whatever way is easiest for you. I preheated the oven to 400F and added some salt and some asian spice seasoning I had to the chicken and baked them until they were done, about 20 minutes. You can poach the chicken, use rotisserie chicken, whatever works! Just make sure the chicken is cooked. This would not but good with raw chicken.

Add all of the dressing ingredients to a jar, close the lid, and shake! I suppose you could whisk everything together, but vigorously shaking this dressing in a jar is the only way we have ever done it. Make sure you give the dressing enough time to marinate, you want to make sure all the sugar gets dissolved.

Cook pasta according to package instructions and drain. Add pasta to a large bowl, shake the dressing one more time, and add about half of it to the pasta and mix well. Dice the chicken into bite-sized pieces and add to the pasta. Add the green onion, tomatoes, and sundried tomatoes. Add the rest of the dressing and mix well again. While you can serve immediately, this salad usually tastes better after a night in the refrigerator. Lasts in a sealed container in the refrigerator for 3-4 days.

Chinese Chicken Salad

Lulu’s Chicken Burgers

29 Friday May 2015

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Burgers, Chicken, Grilling, LuLu's Classics, Main Dish

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Tags

avocado, bacon, BBQ, Chicken Burgers, Grilled Chicken, Lettuce, onion, Summer Cooking, tomato

Chicken Burgers

I can’t quite remember when our family started the summer tradition of grilling chicken burgers. Maybe my mom came up with it because a certain daughter of hers (cough cough) was always really picky about regular hamburgers. Or maybe we all just realized that these were better than any other homemade grilled sandwich out there. I rarely order grilled chicken sandwiches at restaurants, because nothing ever compares to Lulu’s classic summer chicken burgers.

Chicken Burgers

In the past, I’ve tried to recreate these chicken burgers myself, but I never can seem to get the marinade quite right. The secret is store-bought margarita mix. Now, this isn’t always something I have laying around, so I have used lime juice instead with sub-par results. As you probably know, margarita mix has added sugar that lime juice does not, and though we have tried with other sweeteners, nothing has ever compared to this marinade and how perfect it tastes on a toasted bun with all the fixings. Continue reading →

Cadbury Mini Egg Sugar Cookies

04 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Baking, Cookies, Desserts, Eggs, Holidays, LuLu's Classics

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Tags

Cadbury, cadbury mini eggs, Easter, Easter Candy, Easter Eggs, sugar cookies, Vanilla Bean

My April Sugar Cookie of the month was a tough call. Between Bunnies, Carrots, and pretty Easter Eggs, I had a lot of options on what to make!

Cadbury Mini Egg Sugar Cookies

Then, dangerously close to Easter, I realized I hadn’t yet purchased my FAVORITE Easter Candy in the entire World – Cadbury Mini Eggs. Then I thought…why not pay homage to my favorite Easter treat this year?

Mini Eggs

Thus, a very basic sugar cookie idea was born. The classic sugar cookie recipe, with the scrapings from a vanilla bean added to the frosting to try to get that speckled Cadbury Mini Egg look. I have gotten away with very basic cookie decorating for yet another month! Since there is no actual chocolate in this recipe, the cookies actually pair quite well with real Mini Eggs…Because cookies + candy together = no brainer. Especially on Easter!

Cadbury Mini Egg Sugar Cookies

Recipe
Cadbury Mini Egg Sugar Cookies
By Baked Northwest
Makes about 30 Egg-shaped sugar cookies (you will only use half of the cookie dough)

Ingredients

For the Cookies:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 ½ cups sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
½ cup sour cream
4 cups flour, plus more for rolling out the dough
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp nutmeg

For the Frosting:

1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
the scrapings from 1 vanilla bean (about 1/2 tsp)
about 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk (nonfat is fine)
Blue Food Coloring
Red Food Coloring
Yellow Food Coloring

Directions

For the Cookies:

In a large stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla, mix thoroughly. Add sour cream, mix thoroughly.

Sift together flour, salt, soda, baking powder and nutmeg. Add to butter mixture in
two parts and mix thoroughly.

Divide the dough into two parts and wrap each in wax paper. Refrigerate at least 1 hour. For the amount of frosting we are making, you will only use half of the dough. You can freeze the 2nd batch of dough for another use, or just double the frosting recipe!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

On a clean, floured surface, roll out the dough with a rolling pin. Roll the dough so it’s about 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick, and use your favorite cookie cutters to cut out shapes of the dough. For these cookies, I used an egg-shaped cookie cutter. Use a cookie spatula (better known as a pancake flipper) to move your cookies from the floured surface to a well greased baking sheet. Ungreased silicone baking sheet liners work great here too.

Bake the cookies at 400 degrees F for 8 minutes. You never want them to get too browned around the edges, or they’ll be super crunchy. We like ours on the softer side. Baking time depends on what shapes you cut your cookies into – we have adjusted baking times from 8-12 minutes depending on the size of our cookies. Let cool completely before frosting.

For the Frosting:

Combine butter, salt, vanilla, vanilla bean, and 1 cup of the powdered sugar. Add milk and remaining sugar, alternately. Mix until smooth & creamy.

Divide frosting evenly into 4 bowls. Add a tiny drop of blue food coloring to one bowl, a tiny drop of red to one bowl, a tiny drop of yellow to another bowl, and leave the last bowl white, without coloring. Mix each bowl with a clean fork until combined and to desired Cadbury Mini Egg Colors. Mini Eggs aren’t very dark, so you do not need much food coloring. Frost the cooled cookies. Cookies keep well in the fridge for a up to a week, a few days at room temperature. Enjoy!

NOTE: I made a full recipe of the dough and only used half. This cookie dough freezes really well and can be saved for another use, or you can double the frosting recipe and go crazy and bake all of the cookies!

Cadbury Mini Egg Sugar Cookies

Shamrock Sugar Cookies with Bailey’s Buttercream

17 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Baking, Cookies, Desserts, Entertaining, Holidays, LuLu's Classics

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Bailey's, Bailey's Frosting, irish, march 17th, Shamrocks, st pattys, st. patrick's day, sugar cookies

Shamrock Sugar Cookies with Bailey's Buttercream

St. Patrick’s Day is near and dear my heart. Not only for me, but to my mom’s entire side of the family. No…we are not Irish…we just miss someone who was born on March 17th. While St. Patty’s Day is a great holiday when you are thinking about it in terms of Irish Beer, Whiskey, Bailey’s, potatoes, corned beef (gross), and soda bread, I am just quietly celebrating the birthday of one gone too long but most definitely not forgotten.

Grammy

These cookies and this blog exist because of Lois. Or, as I called her…Grammy. She was the best person and the best cook any of us knew, and I think about her every time I make her sugar cookies. I wish I could tell her I was making Shamrock Sugar cookies this year for her birthday, but instead of regular frosting I made ridiculous Bailey’s Irish Cream Frosting. I wish I could tell her I was making her cookies once a month for the entire year, for so many reasons other than the fact that they are the best damn cookies to ever come out of the oven.

Shamrock Sugar Cookies

Continue reading →

Chocolate Strawberry Icebox Cake

11 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Desserts, Entertaining, Holidays, LuLu's Classics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

chocolate, Chocolate Wafer Cookies, Icebox Cake, strawberries, strawberry, valentines day

Chocolate Strawberry Icebox Cake

My obsession with icebox cakes continues. I may one day just become known as the “icebox cake lady.” I’m not quite sure if this is a good or bad thing, but I don’t think anyone can argue with the fact that they are easy to make and delicious. My in-laws came to town last weekend, and I wanted to do something festive and make-ahead.  Continue reading →

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