Joy the Baker

Have I introduced you to my little sister Lauren? 

Lauren… this is everyone.  

Everyone… this is Lauren.  

Lauren and I grew up in the kitchen together.  We made brownies, we burnt cookies, we frosted crooked cakes, and we could plow through a box of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch in 10 minutes flat.  We were always in the kitchen either creating or consuming.  True.  

Things aren’t all that different for me and Lauren these days.  We spend a lot of time baking up treats, talking about Paula Dean, and arguing about which awkward teenage phase was worse:  my Blossom Hat Phase or her Sweatpants and Vest Wearing Phase.  Just typing those out… they each seem like equal tragedies.  Thank heavens we’ve moved past that.  

I’m introducing you to my sister because these two things are true:

1.  If Lauren were not in the world, I would surely be unable to breathe… that’s how much I love this girl. 

2.  I shoved my camera in Lauren’s hands last week, told her to bake something and take pictures of it.  In her unending brilliance, she returned to me a camera full of pictures (including the self portrait below) and six of these cookies.  Holy heck!  A food blogger could get used to this kind of treatment.  For real.  

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Dear My Bank,

We’ve known each other for a long time.  You know how I deposit my humble paychecks every so often, how I rarely use the ATM, and how I hate to use my debit card at the gas station.  I know that you like to decorate with bullet-proof glass… guns, I get it… have pens that don’t always work, and always want me to sign up for your credit card.  As much as I hate to admit it, we sort of have a thing going.

Let’s be honest Bank.  We’re not friends.  We don’t even really like each other very much.  I know that you have rules.  You know… if you’re being honest with yourself, that I do my very best to follow your rules.  And I do… Bank…..! Unless, I suppose, I just forget to add one payment to my balance books, leading me to believe I have several hundred dollars in you, Bank… instead of less than zero.

Here’s my beef with you… Bank!  Jerky bank.  When you penalize me several times in a row for spending money that I thought I had, well… that doesn’t get me any closer to having the money that you’d like to take.  How on Earth did you determine that $33 was an acceptable overdraft charge?  Why are you allowed to take money that I don’t have?  You know what I think?  I think you’re taking advantage of my mistake.  You know me, Bank.  You know that I don’t like to spend money I don’t have… and when I do… accidentally… you use that as an opportunity to take advantage of me.

That’s reeeeeaal crappy.

Nobody likes you.  I’ve done the research.  It’s true.

Nobody will ever… not even once… make you cookies just because you’re nice.  Why?  Because you’re not nice.

Now you know.

Love,

Joy

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Forget about saving room for dessert.  One of these lemon whoopie pies is a whole meal in itself!  These beauties are not the delicate, petite, wallflower cookie.  They bake up into a beast of a cookie.  They’re doubley soft, cakey cookie goodness filled with a lemony cream cheese filling.

These are not a snacking cookie.  They’re a “sit down and shut up and eat your freakin cookie” cookie. That’s not too hard to do, right?

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 By Sunday, my fridge is usually full of baking leftovers from the week-  a bit of cookie dough, scraps of cake, a tiny bit of frosting.  What to do with all these treats sometimes perplexes me.  This week, I married the leftover cookie dough I had in the freezer from my cookie extravaganza, and the Swiss Meringue Buttercream from my Blackberry Jam Cake.   Oatmeal sandwich cookies!  They’re great wrapped in wax paper and stacked in the fridge for a sweet snack.  They won’t last very long, I guarantee.  

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