Sunday, August 31, 2014

Summertime Lemon Cookies

The last week has been crazy, but also very fun! The official week of welcome at Texas A&M University, Gig 'Em Week, kicked off on Monday and my office had the priviledge of planning some events to welcome these students to campus!

We kicked off the craziness of Tuesday with Gig 'Em Week 'GatheRing', where we invited all students to join us for free food and a Fightin' Texas Aggie Yell Practice! Well, as anyone knows, if you tell college students there are going to be free food and give-aways- they come en masse! We had about 2,500 people out in the Haynes Ring Plaza at The Association of Former Students. A few thousand hotdogs later, we kicked off the Yell Practice to BTHO South Carolina! As you can tell from the picture below, the event was a huge success!


Then, on Thursday, due to the crazy and unpredictable weather that College Station often has, the game-watching party to view the Texas A&M vs South Carolina game was moved to our building from the previous outside location. We had another 1,000 (give or take) students in our building hosted by the New Student and Family Programs office. They put on a fabulous event and we were thrilled to have the students in our building again! We also got to show these students the amazingness that is the 26-foot TV screen at the alumni center!


Finally, on Saturday, we hosted a much smaller and more solemn event to honor a former student that had passed away. Her family placed her Aggie Ring in The Association's Memorial Ring Collection to forever represent the Class of 2010. I was honored to be a part of the ceremony and learn more about the former student's life and her courageous fight against pulmonary hypertension.

Needless to say, the week was eventful, but also meaningful. Now that the majority of the craziness is over (until September Ring Day), I am celebrating with an afternoon of baking cookies! I haven't baked in a while (or at least nothing new so I haven't posted about it) so I'm excited to knock some more recipes off of my Pinterest "to-bake" list.


Chewy Lemon Sour Cream Cookies
Recipe will make ~36 yummy little cookies. 

Ingredients
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 and 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 large egg, room temp
1/4 cup sour cream (I used light)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. lemon zest
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup powdered sugar
yellow food coloring

Directions
1) In a large bowl (I used my KitchenAid mixer), cream together butter and granulated sugar. Cream it for a couple of minutes so it's nice and smooth.


2) Add egg, sour cream, vanilla, and food coloring. Mix to combine.

(The original recipe called for just 2 drops of food coloring. I'm not sure what size drops they're referring to, but I had to use like 15-20 to turn the dough any kind of yellow color. Just add slowly and use your best judgement. The worst thing that's going to happen is fluorescent yellow cookies... and that'd just be fun.)





3) Add lemon juice, lemon zest, salt and baking soda.  Mix to combine.



4) Mix in flour. Dough will be thick and sticky.


5) Throw bowl of dough into the refrigerator to firm up a little while the oven heats to 350 degrees. Chilling the dough will also make the dough easier to roll into balls before baking.

6) Once oven is preheated, roll dough into 1-inch balls. Before placing on cookie sheet, roll dough in powdered sugar until coated.



7) Cook for 10-12 minutes. You'll know they're perfect when they become slightly browned around the edges. Remove from oven and allow to cool before transferring to parchment paper.



Yum, yum, yum! I love new recipes and this one turned out great. It will be a wonder if any of these make it to work tomorrow.

Now for some relaxing and enjoying more college football before another busy week!   :) 

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