It was back in January, the UnKitchen Diva was having coffee (hot chocolate in her case) and discussing the finer points of Twitter with a friend, when she first heard about Tsp Spices.  She was explaining the cooking project/challenge she had set for herself and the upcoming year when her friend almost literally jumped out of her seat and said “I have the perfect company for you!”

Tsp Spices is a company that was created by two girlfriends, who lamented the fact that no matter how much they loved to cook, their spices would turn before they could use a whole jar.  Their amazingly brilliant and simple solution – package spices by the tsp.  You love it already right?!?

Back to the coffee shop –  she was telling her friend how fantastic their idea was and couldn’t believe she hadn’t heard of them earlier!  The UnKitchen Diva was also thinking what a perfect product this was for her challenge!  Her girlfriend was getting more and more excited. “You have to meet them!  We have to find a way for you to meet them.”  Now, she thought that would be really cool, but couldn’t see how it would actually happen.

Well… you see… life is a funny thing.  Between her girlfriend knowing someone, who knows them, and a cousin, who has a friend who works with them, she actually DID get to meet them!  Crazy, right?  She met Katie and Sara, along the rest of their crew, in their offices in Towson, MD.  They couldn’t have been nicer and she completely enjoyed her time with them.

As she was leaving, they gave her a tin of cookie spices and a tin of cardamon.  The UnKitchen Diva hasn’t had a chance to work her magic with them yet.  She’s thinking she’ll save the cookie spices until her nieces and/or nephews come to visit and is a little stumped on the cardamon.  She loves cardamon, but associates it with the traditional Norwegian Christmas bread and cookies she grew up with.  She needs your help!!  She’d love if you’d send ideas/recipes on how to cook with cardamon!!  We promise to feature the dish here too!

*disclaimer – I have offered to help the Tsp Spice ladies spread the Tsp Spices story – it’s an amazingly brilliant idea and I love their story!*

I love the flavor of lemon! My birthday cake when I was a kid was a yellow cake with lemon curd filling, white icing and coconut – ohh the sweetness!! (If anybody can find me that cake now – I’ll be your new BFF!!)  As I got older my cake became a lemon meringue pie – oh the love!

These cookies offer the same lemony delight I got from the cake and pie and have become a favorite cookie of mine to give away at Christmas.

1 egg

1 package lemon cake mix

4 oz Cool Whip (1/2 of a regular container), thawed

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1) Mix cake mix, Cool Whip and egg until well blended. This makes a really really sticky biscuit like batter. I alway use a wooden spoon to mix it all together – no idea why!

2) Ok here’s where the powdered sugar plays a huge role! Did you ever take a gymnastics class? Remember when you went to use the bars you would chalk up you hands? This is what you want to do with the powdered sugar – chalk up! This batter is so sticky if you don’t it will be like having warm pull taffy in your hands!! (not that I’ve ever made taffy but I was involved with an ad campaign where we photographed salt water taffy being made – powdered sugar was every where!!)

3) Now that you’re chalked up you want to pull pieces of the batter off – like drop biscuits (not that I’ve ever made them either!!). I have a plate covered in powdered sugar I drop the pieces on to the plate and cover them in sugar. Then I roll them in my hands to make a dough meatball – about 1 inch in size.

4) Take your dough meatballs and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350˚ for about 10-12 minutes. These cookies can be easy to over cook – you want them to be slightly browned before you take them out

5) When you remove from sheet they will still be soft and a little squishy. They get firmer as they cool.

6) Enjoy the lemony goodness with a huge glass of milk!!

* If you are more a fan of chocolate than lemon – you can substitute the lemon cake mix for a chocolate one*