Lavender Sugar Cookies

My inspiration for today's bake-off was this book, Best Little Stories from the White House by C. Brian Kelly with Ingrid Smyer, which contained a sugar cookie recipe from '50s first lady, Mamie Eisenhower.

I am a sucker for books about the presidents, and even more so for ones with information about the first ladies.  Throw in a recipe or two, and I am yours.  Completely yours.

This book contained plenty about the first ladies, and also two recipes -- one for Ike's barbecue sauce, and the other for Mamie Eisenhower's sugar cookies.  Bingo.

(If you are likewise an aficionado of weird hybrid presidential recipes, you can find links to other favorite recipes of Dwight Eisenhower's here.) 

So this was my chance:  time to try out the lavender sugar that's been infusing itself on my kitchen counter these last couple weeks.  Would substituting out the regular sugar for lavender sugar make any difference in the cookies' taste?  Would it? 

Well hold your breath no longer, people.  The answer is . . .

No.

Not a bit.

Not one iota.

 

While the cookies were everything you'd want a sugar cookie to be -- dough easy to work with, finished cookies just the right amount of sweet and crunch (thank you, Mamie) -- I must report that you cannot taste the lavender.  At all.

Yet another burning scientific inquiry answered.  I soldier on.



Happy Bastille Day!

Well I couldn't let Bastille Day go by unheralded, could I? 
Here is my (somewhat feeble) attempt at an appropriately French,  celebratory dish.
Crème Anglaise.  Also known as custard sauce.  Which, despite the fact that mine failed to live up to the "smooth velvety" texture the recipe promised, I still think will taste mighty good tonight after dinner with some home-grown peaches.

Bastille Day, anyone? 

Any yummy French recipes to share?

Anyone?