We make these traditional holiday melt-in-your-mouth cookies every year during the Christmas holiday season. Most of you may know them as Mexican Wedding Cakes, Russian Tea Cakes, or an Italian Butter Nut. In our house, we call them snowball cookies. These delicious cookies are made with simple ingredients from your pantry…flour, butter, sugar, nuts. I usually make one batch omitting the nuts just for the hubby. I also on occasion like to add a little bit of lemon zest and sometimes lemon extract to them.

After making my first batch last weekend, there were only a few left as you can see.

Snowball Cookies

Makes: 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients: 

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar, plus more for coating
• 1 teaspoon vanilla*
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest

Making your own breakfast items to freeze and enjoy in preparation for back to school can be a great way to save money.

Later this week, I’m getting a jump start and having a big cooking day with the kids. We’ve eaten well from the pantry, yet we still have a lot left in the freezer. I had tried to stretch out the meat and poultry from the freezer with simpler, cheaper fare like chicken and rice, burrito casserole, beans and rice, quesadillas, and lots of pasta dishes. I guess I did a pretty good job cooking from the pantry.

So, for my first part of preparing for more simpliar back to school days, I’m going to work on breakfast.  It’s easier when I just make big batches of everything when I cooked breakfast each morning. It seems to work like a charm. Little minutes count!

We all love lemon flavors around our house, so first up, we’re making these delicious lemon scones. They turned out perfect with just that right amount of tang and sweetness.

The glaze added a really nice contrast to the traditionally drier texture of the scones. I even served them with my Homemade Blueberry Butter.

Lemon Scones

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup cold lite butter, cut into small pieces
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup milk

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda. Cut the butter pieces into flour until crumbly. (If you don’t have a pastry cutter, that’s alright, I find the quickest and easiest way to do this is with my hands. It takes about a minute or tw0!)

Stir the lemon zest into the mixing bowl. Combine the lemon juice and milk and pour into the mixing bowl. Stir until combined and work dough into a ball. Let dough rest in the refrigerator for at least 15 to 20 minutes.

On a well floured surface, roll out dough until it is about a 1/2″ thick. With a knife, cut the dough into small triangles. Or, using a shot glass cut the dough into small circles. (I used my cut n seal but didn’t press down.) Place on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes, until lightly golden brown on top. Remove to a wire rack and cool completely.

While scones are cooling, drizzle lemon glaze over the top. Enjoy!

For the Lemon Glaze:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest
• 1/4 cup (about 1 lemon) freshly squeezed lemon juice (more or less depending on consistency)

1. In a small bowl, combine powdered sugar and lemon zest. Slowly add just enough lemon juice until you reach the desired consistency for a glaze.

Let cool completely before freezing in zip-loc bag.

A creamy cheesecake recipe that’s delicious and easy to pull together!

Classic Strawberry Cheesecake

Serves: 16

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1/3 cup butter , melted
• 2 (4-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 4 eggs
• zest of half a lemon

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Mix graham crumbs, 3 Tablespoons sugar and butter; press onto bottom of 9-inch springform pan.

3. Beat cream cheese, sour cream, 1 cup sugar and vanilla with mixer until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each just until blended. Add lemon zest and mix. Pour over crust.

4. Bake 45-50 minutes or until center is almost set. Loosen cake from rim of pan; cool before removing rim. Refrigerate 4 hours. Serve with stawberry glaze (recipe below)

Strawberry Glaze:

• 2 cups fresh strawberries, sliced
• 3/4 cup water
• 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/2 cup sugar

 Directions:

1. Add strawberries to medium saucepan. Add water and cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Cook and stir until mixture is thick and clear. Cool room temperature.  Place atop chilled cheesecake. Pour glaze over. Chill 2 hours.

Yummy!

Your family will enjoy the benefits of freshly-made bread in many forms and varieties.  There is a limitless selection of muffins, biscuits, rolls, yeast and quick breads. In this week’s menu, you’ll find we’re making some breads that are quick and easy like this  classic Crumb Top Coffee Cake along with others that are designed for a day of leisurely baking.

Crumb Top Coffee Cake

Serves: 6

Ingredients: 

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1 egg, beaten

Yum…I can’t even tell you what I was thinking when I saw this picture while I was searching for some new Fall Recipes to try.  It’s definitely added to my weekend to bake list. I’ll be adding more new recipes to my favorites on my Pinterest as I find them.

I found this recipe by Julie on Willow Bird Baking while I was searching for Fall Recipes to add to my collection of Fall Recipes Roundup.  Julie is a fellow Featured Publisher on Food Buzz. She has lots of wonderful looking recipes for Fall.

I haven’t started making any recipes with pumpkin yet and I can’t tell you how anxious I am right now about trying this recipe out.  It’s the perfect Fall Recipe for this baking season which is starting for just about everyone and for me the recipe has the perfect combination of pumpkin and spices joined together. So thank you Julie for sharing this recipe.

To view and add this Fall Recipe to your collection of recipes and learn a little more about Julie and Willow Bird Baking please CLICK HERE.

Photo Credit: Willow Bird Baking

If you give this recipe a try, please come back and tell me how you and your family liked it.

What Fall Recipes are you rounding up?