Baseball Birthday Cake

A baseball birthday cake for David!

He put a Ring on it! Engagement ring cookies!

Engagement Ring Cookies!

I actually made these cookies to go along with the lingerie cookies for my friends bachelorette party. I just never got to take a picture of the lingerie cookies and the engagement cookies together.

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Lingerie Cookies

So my friend is getting married and she had a bachelorette party. And what could be better than to bring than lingerie cookies? Yep, nothing. So cute lingerie cookies it was! In her wedding colors of course!

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Whoo Hoo!

My blog just hit 20,000 visits today! Exciting!

Birthday Cookies

Well, my niece turned 4. And she loves the famous Mouse crew.  So 1+1 = cookies.

                    There's the little cutie now! Happy Birthday!

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Banana Cake Roll Recipe

I love to make cake rolls! Pumpkin cake rolls, chocolate cake rolls...you name it, I make it!

So here is a Banana Cake Roll. I started making them last year for the Farmer's Market. And I still think they are delicious.

So let's get started with the recipe!

You can find the original recipe  here. I did tweek it a little bit.

Ingredients:

1 cup (minus 2 Tablespoons) all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar, divided
1/2 cup mashed ripe banana (about 1.5 or 2 banana's depending on their size)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp banana extract 
3 egg whites
powdered sugar

Spray a cookie pan with pam. Line the pan with wax paper and then spray Pam on the wax paper as well.

Combine the flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder. Beat the eggs for 5 minutes (on medium speed). Then add 1/2 cup of sugar, banana's, and banana and vanilla extract to the beaten eggs.

In a kitchen aid, beat egg whites to a soft peak. Add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar slowly to the egg whites, and then turn the speed up. Turn the machine off when you have a stiff peak.

Mix the dry ingredients into the banana batter. Do not overmix. Fold the stiff peaks into the banana batter.

Lay a towel down and cover it with powdered sugar. Dump the banana cake onto the towel. And then immediately roll the cake up into the towel. Cool in the fridge for 30 - 45 minutes.

When the cake has cooled, unroll the cake and add some caramel frosting. Then roll the cake back up and decorate it as you see fit!

I melted some caramel and then drizzled it on my frosting. And then I cut a piece of caramel up into triangles and put one in each clump of frosting. (But I never took a picture of it that way). It made it look more fancy though!

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Rapunzel cookies

So I love Sweet Sugar Belle's cookies! I couldn't resist making these adorable Rapunzel cookies! So here's my version.

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Strawberry Hand Pie Recipe

So I love strawberry hand pies! They are a lot of work - but worth it in the end! Two of the recipes, I found on the internet. The third I created myself. And the fourth is a quick glaze (no actual recipe). So here goes!

So you can find the strawberry filling recipe Here. Technically, it's a raspberry filling recipe. I just switch out the strawberries for the raspberries and it works like a charm.

 Note: I half this strawberry filling recipe for my strawberry hand pies. (And there is still A LOT left over).

I used fresh strawberries.

Strawberries, sugar, lemon juice, and water.

Bubbling and starting to break down!

Almost done!

Remove the strawberries from the heat and strain them! Save your pan, they are going to go back in there!

Here I am putting the strained mixture back into the pan to cook it some more!

Cornstarch slurry to go into the strawberry mixture!

Cornstarch and strawberries.

Cornstarch and strawberry mixture bubbling to thicken.

All done! Just letting it cool down.

If you don't want to make this strawberry filling (it does take about 40 minutes to make). You could easily just go buy a can of apple filling, strawberry filling, peach, blueberry etc and save yourself the time.

Here's the next recipe! And the one that I created!

1 block of cream cheese (at room temp)

2 cups of powdered sugar

Blend these ingredients together.

Ready to mix!

Powdered sugar and cream cheese mixed together. 

When you are done, you can add the strawberry filling to this mixture and have a pink filling (like in my picture). Or you can put the cream cheese mixture beside the strawberry mixture in your hand pie. Totally up to you!

 

 

Mixing my strawberry filling with the cream cheese filling.

Strawberry and cream cheese filling.

You can find the pie dough recipe here.

It's not the original recipe that I used to use. I can't seem to find my original recipe. But it is a VERY close second.

Note:  I always have to use at least 6 tablespoons of water. I think I used 7 when I made them this time.

Flour and salt

8 Tablespoons of butter

Cut the butter into the flour mixture.

Add the water and it will start to come together while you mix it by hand.

Put lots of flour down on your work table and rolling pin. Roll the dough out on the counter.And get ready to cut your pies out.

This recipe makes about 10 (half) hand pies or 5 (full) hand pies. The ones in my pictures are HALF hand pies.  If you want it to make more, definitely double the recipe. If you want the cream cheese filling and strawberry filling to match the amount of dough, double the dough recipe. (You will still probably have extra filling).

This is the little pie mold cutter that I use to cut the pies. You could always just use any cookie cutter that you have available.

Close up, in case you want to try to buy it.

Back of the container - it shows you how to make it. (Because I neglected to do that).

Cut your shape out.

Fill it with your filling.

Take 1 egg and beat it in a small bowl. Then brush the edges of the pastry with a pastry brush. Then fold this in half and squish the edges together REALLY well!

Folded and squished together. Pan is lined with parchment paper. Almost ready to bake.

Brush the egg all over the top of the dough. And then you are ready to put them in the oven!

Bake at 350 F for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Finally, you just need a glaze. Just mix some powdered sugar and some milk together so that you can add a little glaze garnish to your strawberry pie.

Here are the baked hand pies. Make sure you lay them on a cookie rack and then put one of the cookie pans underneath them.

Add your glaze. As you can see, the pan catches the extra glaze so that it's not SO messy!

And so, you are done! TA DA! They are ready to eat!

You can also freeze these guys in a tupperware container. I just heat mine up in the microwave for about 25 seconds. (WARNING: all microwaves are different and you could get burned. The filling heats up really fast. So check it first before eating it).

Baby Shower Cookies for a Sweet Little Girl!

Polka-dot cookies for a baby shower. I couldn't resist adding the teal heart in the bottom corner.

Thanks for looking!