I had big plans for these sugar cookies. I was going to monogram one for each person at my office and at Autumn’s daycare. That was an awesome idea until it was 11:30PM and I had only finished the coat of pink icing. “Monogram” then became “dump a crap load of sprinkles on”.

Ingredients:

Cookies: (Source: Dorie Greenspan)

2 c all purpose flour

1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

1 c sugar

1 stick plus 2 T unsalted butter, softened

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 t vanilla extract

Royal Icing:

4 c powdered sugar

3 T meringue powder

1/4 c warm water

flavoring or extract (optional)

Food coloring (I use gel)

Directions:

Cookies:

Whisk together dry ingredients (honestly, I rarely do this. If you want to dirty an extra bowl, feel free)

In the bowl of the stand mixer cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the large egg and egg yolk

Mix to incorporate the egg and yolk and scrape down sides of bowl. I got a Beater Blade so I didn’t have to stop and scrape so often.

Add vanilla extract

Slowly incorporate dry ingredients, either all at once if you premixed or one by one like I do.

After the dough comes together divide it in half and wrap in plastic. Make sure you use your Hulk strength and break your favorite spatula.

Wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour before rolling and cutting.

Preheat oven to 350° and flour countertop or pastry mat.

Roll and cut dough into desired shapes.

Bake for 8-10 minutes and let cool completely before decorating.

Icing:

Mix together powdered sugar, meringue powder and water until frosting is light and glossy. You can add more water if it needs to be thinned out.

Add coloring or flavoring if using.

Assembly: (I have NO pictures of this process because it was late and I was tired. Sorry!)

Pipe an outline on each cookie and then flood with icing once they are dry, top with sprinkles.

When you get really tired after icing 70 cookies just drizzle it all over the ones you have left. I think they’re pretty cute and were way less time consuming.

I’ve tried lots of marinara recipes and while this isn’t exactly what I’m looking for it’s pretty good.

Making the ricotta was SO easy. I think I may drop the lemon juice down to 1 tablespoon because I could taste the lemon in the final product.

Marinara:

2 large cans San Marzano tomatoes

1 head of garlic, cloves separated and peeled

2 t salt

1/2 t red pepper flakes (or to taste)

olive oil

sugar

additional salt as needed

dried herbs (I used an Italian herb blend) to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°

Put all items into a large ovenproof pot and drizzle with olive oil

Cover and cook in oven for one hour

Remove from oven and puree with an immersion blender. (You could also put through a food mill, blender or food processor.)

After tasting add sugar and salt and dried herbs to taste.

Ricotta:

Ingredients:

1 quart whole milk

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 t salt

1 1/2 T lemon juice (see above, I will just use 1 T next time)

1-2 T fresh herbs, minced

Directions:

Combine milk, cream and salt in a 2qt saucepan over medium heat

Put a fine mesh strainer over a large bowl

Stir occasionally to prevent scorching

Once mixture reaches a steady simmer pour in lemon juice

Stir to combine and let simmer for 1 minute. Stir once more and let simmer for another minute.

Remove from heat and pour into strainer

Stir gently to remove liquid

Let sit for 30 minutes to one hour to remove all liquid from the cheese

Put into a medium bowl and add fresh herbs and more salt if needed

Serve marinara over pasta and top with ricotta

I LOVED these! I did half raspberry and half grape jam. I really preferred the grape and next time I make them I will use just that.

Recipe here.

I finally got around to making this BB recipe and I wish I hadn’t. Please don’t hate me Ina.

I made it as directed and didn’t like it so I added a little chicken stock, cannelini beans, light red kidney beans and more chili powder + cayenne pepper. Still wasn’t great.

I gave my husband a sample.

Me: is there anything I could add to make it better?
H: Flavor?
Me: I know! Should I take it to work? I hate to waste the ingredients + time.
H: Do you still want people to think you can cook?

Ingredients:

Cake:

1/4 cup powdered sugar (to sprinkle on towel)

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

2/3 cup pumpkin puree

Filling:

1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, at room temperature

1 cup powdered sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Powdered sugar (optional for decoration)

Directions:

PREHEAT oven to 375° F. Grease 15 x 10-inch jelly-roll pan; line with wax paper. Grease and flour paper. Sprinkle a thin, cotton kitchen towel with powdered sugar.

COMBINE flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt in small bowl. Beat eggs and granulated sugar in large mixer bowl until thick. Beat in pumpkin. Stir in flour mixture. Spread evenly into prepared pan. Sprinkle with nuts.

BAKE for 13 to 15 minutes or until top of cake springs back when touched. (If using a dark-colored pan, begin checking for doneness at 11 minutes.) Immediately loosen and turn cake onto prepared towel. Carefully peel off paper. Roll up cake and towel together, starting with narrow end. Cool on wire rack.

FOR FILLING:
BEAT cream cheese, 1 cup powdered sugar, butter and vanilla extract in small mixer bowl until smooth. Carefully unroll cake. Spread cream cheese mixture over cake. Reroll cake. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least one hour. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving, if desired.

Hints: Make sure that you cool the cake completely before unrolling and putting the filling inside. If it’s still warm the cake will crack.

These were so delicious and couldn’t be easier!

I am writing the directions the way the website should have. I hate recipes that include the ingredients for all components of the dish lumped together. Because of the way that they were written I used the entire 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla in the batter for the cakes and another 1/2 in the filling instead of 1 t in the cakes and 1/2 t in the filling. It wasn’t an issue and they tasted great, I just didnt realize what I had done until I went to make the filling.

I doubled the filling to make sure that I had enough and I had a little left over.

Ingredients:

Cakes:

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

1 c packed light brown sugar

2 large eggs, room temp, lightly beaten

1 c canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling!)

1 T pumpkin pie spice

1 t vanilla extract

1 t baking powder

1 t baking soda

3/4 t salt

1 2/3 c all purpose flour

Filling:

1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened

4 oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 t vanilla extract

1 c confectioners sugar

Directions:

Cakes:

Preheat oven to 350°

In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter and brown sugar until smooth. Whisk in the eggs, pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice, 1 teaspoon vanilla, the baking powder, the baking soda and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the flour.

sing an ice cream scoop or tablespoon, drop 12 generous mounds of batter, spaced evenly, onto each baking sheet. Bake until springy to the touch, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool completely.

(I used a cookie scoop and ended up with about 12 finished pies, double what the recipe yield is supposed to be)

Filling:

Cream the softened butter with the cream cheese. Add the confectioners’ sugar and the remaining 2 pinches salt and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla; mix on low speed until blended, then beat on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Assembly:

You can either spread one cake with filling and top with another or pipe the filling onto one side and then top with another. Piping isn’t necescary at all, I just like doing it and I like how the finished product looks. If you are going to pipe I do suggest making the extra frosting because you generally use more when piping than just spreading it on.

Vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream and one large dot sprinkle to match the theme.

Box decorations were just blue green ribbon secured by a sticker made of Cricut cutouts and run through a Xyron sticker maker.

]]> http://www.candaceinthekitchen.com/?feed=rss2&p=377 1 http://www.candaceinthekitchen.com/?p=402 http://www.candaceinthekitchen.com/?p=402#comments Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:46:02 +0000 admin http://www.candaceinthekitchen.com/?p=402 This cake was for a baby shower and is supposed to look like the napkin below.

Not too bad but it could definitely use some work (like slightly bigger polka dots). Like with the Farm cake I learned that there are some colors of fondant that you should just buy. Brown is one of them. That sweater was such a pain. After adding so much coloring it was like trying to roll and cut slime.

I also think that the hands look super weird, but hey, they’re odd on the napkin too.

Cake was vanilla with vanilla buttercream. I used the Wilton Color Mist  for the pink and purple. That stuff is great because it’s easy and you don’t have to dye different batches of icing but it sucks because underneath that thin layer of color it’s white, and if you bump it there will be a white spot so you can’t just smooth it out. In the future I may just suck it up and color the frosting.

]]> http://www.candaceinthekitchen.com/?feed=rss2&p=402 0 http://www.candaceinthekitchen.com/?p=376 http://www.candaceinthekitchen.com/?p=376#comments Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:29:15 +0000 admin http://www.candaceinthekitchen.com/?p=376

This cake was for a little boy’s first birthday.

Vanilla cake with chocolate ganache between the two layers, vanilla buttercream.

Animals are plastic (obviously) purchased from AC Moore.

The barn is made of Rice Krispie treats and is covered in colored fondant.

I learned a valuable lesson while making this cake. If you need red, black or brown fondant just buy the pre-made stuff, especially if it is just for detail work.

I made the fondant from scratch and used the Wilton gel coloring to color it. You have to add so much gel to the fondant to get a rich color that it completely changes the texture and makes it very difficult to work with.

The feed around the chicks is crushed yellow sprinkles and the mud is just vanilla buttercream with a bit of brown coloring. Watering hole is blue decorators icing.

Jill of My Next Life chose Cheddar Corn Chowder as the first October BB recipe. I LOVE soup and it is just starting to get cool here in NC so I was really excited about this. I am not posting a picture because this is a pretty unattractive dish. Granted, I could have tried harder and dirtied 10 bowls to make it work, but I just didn’t want to.

Since I didn’t need to feed 10 people I cut the recipe in half (except I used the full amount of cheese. I mean, why not?) I thought it was really good but could have used just a touch of cayenne pepper for heat. Next time I will add 1/8-1/4 t.

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces bacon, chopped
• 1/4 cup good olive oil
• 6 cups chopped yellow onions (4 large onions)
• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 12 cups chicken stock
• 6 cups medium-diced white boiling potatoes, unpeeled (2 pounds)
• 10 cups corn kernels, fresh (10 ears) or frozen (3 pounds)
• 2 cups half-and-half ( I used fat free)
• 8 ounces sharp white cheddar cheese, grated

Directions:

In a large stockpot over medium-high heat, cook the bacon and olive oil until the bacon is crisp, about 5 minutes. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and reserve. Reduce the heat to medium, add the onions and butter to the fat, and cook for 10 minutes, until the onions are translucent.

Stir in the flour, salt, pepper, and turmeric and cook for 3 minutes. Add the chicken stock and potatoes, bring to a boil, and simmer uncovered for 15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. If using fresh corn, cut the kernels off the cob and blanch them for 3 minutes in boiling salted water. Drain. (If using frozen corn you can skip this step.) Add the corn to the soup, then add the half-and-half and cheddar. Cook for 5 more minutes, until the cheese is melted. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper. Serve hot with a garnish of bacon.