Lemon Yogurt Cookies

I've noticed that lemon is a bit of an Italian flavor. So to me it made sense to find a lemon recipe for my Italian family to enjoy while on vacation. I chose a cookie recipe from one of my cookies and bars cookbooks. This one had an ingredient I had never used before: yogurt. Still, I figured it'd be easy to find. Lemon's gotta be a yogurt flavor that all stores have right?

Nope! The only lemon yogurts that Target has are Greek, which I was aware would change the flavor. So to avoid changing it for the worse, I went to Safeway after putting my groceries away at home. They tend to have a lot more flavor options of certain items. Fortunately, yogurt ended up being one of those items. Now all I had left to do was make the cookies.

Blonde Beauties (S'mores Blondies)

Last year I decided to make M&M cookies for Chelan since Nonni wasn't going to be able to make them. I ended up making two other types of cookies as well. Since they were such a hit (I had all three containers empty and clean by Wednesday of our week, if I remember correctly), I figured I'd repeat that this year. Other than the family-favorite M&M cookies, I chose two flavors that I was pretty sure the family would love: s'mores and lemon. After looking through my s'mores recipe book, I picked a s'mores blondie bar.

Soda Cake

As much as I like sticking with the familiar, I like to try new things when it comes to baking. Like macarons (still working on perfecting those things. Almost got it though). So when my mom asked me to bake the dessert for her and Dad's night while in Chelan, I decided what better time to bake a soda cake than vacation?

Yup, that's right. A cake baked with soda.

I've seen them throughout the internet, specifically Pinterest. All you do is take a boxed cake mix and a 12-oz. can of soda in a complementary flavor (like chocolate mix and pretty much any dark-colored soda), mix the two together in a bowl, pour the batter in a pan, and bake. Simple, right?

Well, let's find out:

Cake Mix Cookies

A couple years ago my family and I went to Boston for a week. On our first night, we were walking around when I came across Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip cookies. I took a picture as a reminder to look up the recipe and make them. Flash forward to a couple weeks ago: I hadn't yet made them but when I came across them at Safeway, I grabbed a container. Holy deliciousness! (which didn't really surprise me - in my opinion their chocolate chip cookies are better than any Nestle Toll House recipe that I make.) When my mom asked me to make the dessert for our night to make dinner during our extended family's annual vacation to Chelan, I tried to find a cookie or bar recipe that would be great for 20+ people. I started looking at the dozens of recipes that I've bookmarked (no cookbook/magazine = one less thing to bring) and came across one for Cake Mix Cookies from Sweet & Simple. This sounded perfect since it would mean fewer ingredients to bring from home and less time in the kitchen mixing it up. I decided to turn them into bars because it would mean even less time in the kitchen (no having to wait for a dozen cookies to bake at a time) and they could be cut into any number of bars.