It’s already 2015 in Japan and here in the US we’ll be greeting 2015 in a matter of hours! I can’t believe it! Time flies! I’ve been back in the US to visit since Christmas, and while Christmas is a much bigger event in the US than Japan (it’s a national holiday here for starters) but I don’t really feel that New Years is quite as big of a deal in the US as it is in Japan. For example, I don’t think there is any sort of special food for the New Years here quite like soba is in Japan–people just drink champagne to ring in the New Year. For that reason, I figured now would be an appropriate time to post the pink champagne cookie recipe I made quite some time ago. [Continue Reading/続きを読む]
Gingerbread Cookies with Limoncello Icing
Sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies are traditional staples for the holiday season, and when I was a child we had the tradition of making frosted sugar cookies every year for Christmas. Every year I looked forward to cutting out cookies with our stash of festive cookie cutters and decorating them with different icing colors to my little heart’s content, but looking back, making and decorating them was always much more fun than eating them. Frosted sugar cookies are definitely super cute, but they’re also super sweet so it’s easy to get tired of them after a few bites. However, it wouldn’t feel like Christmas without cookies, so for the last couple of years I’ve been making these gingerbread cookies instead, which are a bit less sweet and packed with spicy ginger, cinnamon, and cloves flavor. Plus, I started adding limocello to the icing, so they really are the perfect adult Christmas cookie. If you’re bored of traditional Christmas cookies definitely give these a shot★[Continue Reading/続きを読む]
Pumpkin Spice Halloween Cookies
It’s finally October here in Tokyo and not only is it finally not blistering hot, but it’s also finally Halloween season–the best time for baking. The time when I can make all the bat and ghost-shaped, pumpkin-flavored things I want and no one bats an eyelash. And what better way to kick off the Halloween season but with some cut-out Halloween cookies? It’s become sort of a yearly tradition for me to make cut-out Halloween cookies and I made some more this year, but I decided to swap my usual sugar cookie recipe for pumpkin spice this year. [Continue Reading/続きを読む]