First of all, you should know that I hate baking. Now that I am a wife, I am learning to like cooking. You know putting together creative, healthy dinners a few days a week. Surprising your husband with something he likes. (Last night I did bacon-wrapped steak, cornbread, and bacon and cheese mashed potatoes for the six month anniversary... Didn't really fit into the healthy category very well, but it won top honors in the "husband loves bacon" category.) But dinner is one thing, baking cookies and cakes is quite another. It's not that I 'm bad at it - my mom says I have a knack for getting cookies to bake perfectly - it's just that I never really liked doing it. In the past, I didn't really enjoy cooking or baking because I was sharing a kitchen with other people, either family or roommates. I had limited storage, limited time, and never really felt like cleaning up someone else's mess in the kitchen before I proceeded to make my own mess by baking. Now that I have my own kitchen, I decided to give baking another try. Today I made Brown Sugar and Spice Cookies. I discovered two things. 1) I still don't really like baking. It makes too big of a mess. It takes too long. And then I'm tempted to eat too many baked goods when I've finished. 2) These cookies are really good! I've restrained myself to only four so far! So despite my negative feelings toward baking, I am going to pass along the recipe to you. You bakers out there will love these! I orginally got this recipe out of a magazine. I clipped it a year or two ago and never actually made it due to the kitchen annoyances listed above. So today I tried it, but with a few modifications. First of all, I discovered that the recipe says it yields 30 cookies, but it's more like 15... so I had to basically make two separate batches of dough (see why baking irks me?). But with my new modified recipe, which should actually make about 30 cookies, this recipe is not hard to make at all. I also discovered it needed more flour than called for, because my first batch of dough was way too sticky. So here it is with my modifications. They should turn out great! Brown Sugar and Spice Cookies 2/3 cup granulated sugar 2/3 cup packed brown sugar 2/3 cup butter, softened (slighlty more than a full cube) 2 tsp. vanilla extract 2 eggs 3 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 1 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. cinnamon 1/2 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. ginger 1/4 tsp. nutmeg Topping: 2 tsp. sugar 1/4 tsp. cinnamon Dash of brown sugar Dash of nutmeg Dah of allspice 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees 2. To prepare cookie dough, combine first three ingredients (sugar, brown sugar, and softened butter) in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and eggs, beat well. 3. In another bowl, mix together the rest of the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, and all the spices). Whisk it together, so it's well mixed. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture and mix at low speed until well blended. 4. Shape dough into balls and place two inches apart on baking sheets coated with cooking spray (if dough is too sticky, sprinkle a little more flour in the dough and stir). Flatten cookies with the bottom of a glass. (I sprayed the bottom of my 1/4 measuring cup with cooking spray for flattening and it worked great!) 5. To prepare topping, combine all the toppping ingredients in a small bowl (sugar, cinnamon, brown sugar, nutmeg and allspice) and stir together. Sprinkle evenly over all the cookies. 6. Bake at 350 degrees for 9 minutes. Cool for ten minutes on pans, then move to plates or wire cooling racks. These cookies are soft, with a mild spice flavor that is not too overpowering! And there are approximately 65 calories in each cookie. Enjoy! The Mess Before Baking Delicious! ... Read more