I just hosted a book club for a group of friends. I decided that it might be fun to serve up a few sweet desserts and maybe one easy savory choice.
My inspiration for the decor was a pack of pretty napkins that I found at a local party store. The brightly colored flowers made me smile so I made cookies to match. Now if you think this recipe is too crazy an easier hack would be to buy store bought cookie dough (Pillsbury’s sugar cookie dough is delicious) and just use them but before baking them add a good sprinkling of the same colored sugars I used. (They’ll be round instead of flower shaped.)
Back to my original plan:
I made the recipe below for lemon butter cookies. They make a LOT of cookies so a great tip is to make the whole recipe but then put half of the dough in the freezer (double wrapped in waxed paper and a freezer ziploc). That way you won’t eat too many cookies before the party and you’ll be way ahead of the game when you use the residual dough for a future event!
As you can see I rolled out the dough and then cut out two inch flowered cookies. To get the centers yellow I used a teensy round cutter that I gently placed over the cookie. I then spooned the yellow sugar down that and then sprinkled the orange or red sugar on the rest of the cookies before baking. Didn’t they turn out cute?
I then made easy (really) brownie bites by making a batch of boxed mix brownies following the back of the box. The only change I made was that I lined the 13 x 9 inch pan with heavy duty aluminum foil with the foil hanging over the pan’s edge. Once they were baked and cooled I lifted the brownies out of the pan and cut them into small 1 x 1 inch pieces. I rolled these on all sides in a small amount of granulated sugar. They were delicious.
The last item was a phyllo pastry cup filled with a little Brie and either apricot or sour cherry preserves. I bought the cups in the freezer section and baked them for three minutes at 325 degrees to crisp them up and avoid soggy bottoms. Once cooled I put one teaspoon full of softened Brie in the shell followed by a teaspoon full of preserves. I baked them for 12 minutes at 325 degrees and served them warm. Yum!