For as long as I can remember, Grandma Bohman has made these cookies that are called fruit slices. She makes three different varieties: orange, lime, and lemon. I am fairly ashamed to admit I never tried these wonderful slices of heaven until I was in my twenties and willing to try new things because lemon, lime, and orange just never seemed like the flavors a cookie should have. As a matter of fact, the only thing that changed my mind was Girl Scout Camp.
I worked at Camp Evelyn Girl Scout Camp for two of the most amazing summers of my life. One of the best things about the food there was the occasional dessert of Girl Scout Cookies! Imagine my disgust when the only option one night was of the lemon variety. Not wanting to be one of THOSE staff members who told my campers to try things they aren't comfortable with but won't do the same themselves, I decided to suck it up. The joke was on me, the cookies, as many of you probably know, are FABULOUS! This gave me the courage to finally taste the cookies my grandma makes, and I found myself to be the butt of yet another knee slapper. Which brings me to the point of this rant - I came to grips with my aversion to citrus fruit flavored dessert and now fully embrace the flavor they can bring.
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| Don't they look scrumptious?? |
When I was looking for cookie recipes to bring into school for the volunteers who will help me pull off the middle school forensics competition on Tuesday, I found the recipe for Soft Lemonade Cookies in the
1997 Taste of Home Annual Recipes Cookbook. You can also find the recipe at the taste of home website -
http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/Soft-Lemonade-Cookies.
It is amazing what you can do with 6 ingredients! All you need is softened butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking soda, and, frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed. First, cream 1 cup of butter and 1 cup sugar until they are evenly blended. Then add two eggs. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking soda. Once the eggs are blended in, slowly alternate between adding the flour mixture and 1/3 cup of lemonade concentrate. (I cannot lie, I added at least two tablespoons more of concentrate to the dough because I wanted them to be really lemon-y. After it is mixed well, drop rounded teaspoonfuls onto parchment lined cookie sheets and bake for 8 minutes at 400 degrees.
Once they are out of the oven, they need to cool for a bit before you add the last step. By a bit, I literally mean a minute. After about a minute, I swiftly pulled the parchment paper off the baking sheets onto my cupboard. Then I used my silicone pastry brush to brush the cookies with the remaining lemonade concentrate. Lastly, I sprinkled the cookies with some more sugar. I can't wait to try them once they have cooled some more! I hope they will like them on Tuesday!
Round two of cookies for my forensics volunteers found me on Pinterest searching through the large number of desserts I have pinned, but haven't yet made. There I cam across Banana-Rainbow Chip Cookies and thought they would be a ton of fun! I found this recipe on Betty Crocker which gave credit to Adam and Joanne Gallagher from Inspired Taste for this wonderful recipe. You need fewer ingredients than the lemonade cookies! I love using cake mixes to make cookies. It just makes things so much easier. For these cookies, you need confetti cake mix, instant banana pudding mix, vegetable oil, two eggs, and white chocolate chips. You mix all the ingredients together, then drop them by tablespoons onto parchment lined baking sheets. Next, bake them for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. The result is very soft and yummy! Thank you Betty Crocker!! I can't wait for my volunteers to try them on Tuesday! 
