Sneak Peek of the Woodland Fairy Birthday Party...

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I'm so excited to share these photos from the Woodland Fairy birthday party we threw for my niece yesterday. She's turning seven and loves fairies. Her birthday isn't actually until the end of the month, but she lives three hours away, and won't be here on her actual birthday so we celebrated yesterday. This is just a peek. I'm still getting a more in depth post together including how you can win the adorable printables and the cupcake toppers like the ones from the party! I couldn't wait to share so here's your sneak peek!

Invitation by Fat Bird Designs (my sister) I made the cupcake toppers to match the invites

Stay tuned for more details from the Woodland Fairy party!

Strawberry Roulade

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Like most families, our holiday traditions revolve are food. That's especially true for Easter in our family. We have pretty much the same menu from year to year. The same was true this year. We had our annual Easter lunch at the farm on Sunday afternoon. It was a gorgeous day. My contribution to the meal was this Strawberry Roulade. It was delicious, very light, a perfect Spring dessert. The cake is a light sponge cake filled with a mascarpone whipped cream and fresh strawberries. It's kind of like a rolled up strawberry shortcake.

If you've never made a roulade before don't be intimidated by the process. It can be a little nerve racking to roll up a cake in a towel, but it's easier than it looks.  

Strawberry Roulade
Source: TheBakingPan.com (adapted) 


Printable recipe

For the Cake:
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs, separated
3/4 cup granulated sugar, divided
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Prepare one 10½ x15½ x1 inch Jelly Roll pan; lightly grease the pan or spray with baking spray, line with parchment paper, and then lightly spray with baking spray.

Sprinkle a clean towel with 1/4 cup confectioners’ (powdered) sugar. Set aside to use after the cake is baked. A small kitchen towel that is a little larger than the 15x10 inch pan works well.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt; sift or whisk together to mix. Set aside.
In a large bowl of an electric mixer, add the egg yolks and beat 3 to 5 minutes on medium-high speed until the egg yolk foam becomes thick and lemon colored. With the mixer on medium speed, VERY slowly add 1/2 cup of the sugar to the eggs, either one tablespoon at a time, or in a very slow steady stream, taking from 2 to 3 minutes to add all of the sugar, and beating until the eggs and sugar are fully incorporated. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. The mixture will be thick and a pale yellow color. Add the water and vanilla and continue mixing for another 1 minute until well blended.
With the mixer on low speed, gradually add about 1/2 of the flour mixture, mix just until blended, and then add the remaining half, mix just until blended, scraping down the side of the bowl as needed.
In another large mixing bowl and using clean beaters, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar; continue beating until stiff peaks form. Using a balloon type whisk or large rubber spatula, gently fold about 1/4 of the beaten egg whites into the batter to lighten the batter, and then fold the remaining egg whites in.

Bake:
Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface with the back of a large spoon or large offset spatula. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the top of the cake springs back when lightly touched. Remove from oven, immediately loosen edges of cake from pan and turn the cake over onto the prepared towel. Carefully peel off the parchment paper, and then roll the cake and towel together tightly, starting with the narrow end. Place seam side down on a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

For the Filling:
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream, cold
1/2 cup mascarpone
1 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup of powdered sugar
Sliced strawberries (about 1 1/2 cup)
*(1/2 cup Strawberry Jam, optional)

To make the filling, whip together the mascarpone, heavy cream, sugar and vanilla until stiff peaks form.

Assembly:

Carefully unroll cooled cake but don’t try to make the cake lie completely flat, the edge should remain curled so that the cake doesn’t split.


Spread whipped cream over the cake and under the curled edge and leaving a 1 1/2 inch border on the far side. Sprinkle strawberries over the whipped cream. Gently re-roll the cake without the towel, starting with the curled end. Place seam side down on a serving plate. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving. Dust with additional powdered sugar if desired.

*Note: The original recipe called for 1/2 cup of strawberry jam spread over the cake before spreading on the whipped cream. I didn't have strawberry jam so I left it out but the jam would add a bit more strawberry flavor to the cake so I think I'll add it next time I make this.

A great dessert to impress your friends with!

Stenciled Easter Cookies

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I get asked to make a lot of decorated sugar cookies and I have a love/hate relationship with royal icing. That's actually an improvement over the outright hatred I used to feel for it. We've worked out most of our issues, (well I've done the all work) and now have a pretty good working relationship. Although sometimes, on occasion, I still yell at it, call it mean names, and threaten to throw it away and never use it again...rrrr love/hate! When it came to these cookies I didn't feel like dealing with my frenemy royal icing. I was just making these cookies for fun and didn't want to work that hard. So here is my lazy girl answer to royal icing decorated sugar cookies. I went easy all the way. I made a no-chill sugar cookies, really just roll out, cut out, and bake...easy!  Instead of high maintenance, finicky, royal icing, I made super easy corn syrup icing, no whipping or thinning, just mix and use...also very easy. Then I iced cookies, when the icing dried, I threw a stencil on the cookies and sprayed with some Wilton color mist. So easy and cute! The only problem with these cookies is that the stenciling was really fun and now I'm coveting  this airbrush cake decorating kit. Maybe one day!

How adorable are these cookies!

No-Chill Sugar Cookies

Source: Wilton recipes

Yield: about 3 dozen 3-in. cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon no-color almond extract 

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

In large bowl, beat butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and extracts. Mix flour, baking powder and salt; add to butter mixture 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Do not chill dough. Divide dough into 2 balls.
On floured surface, roll each ball into a circle approximately 12 in. diameter x 1/8 in. thick. Dip cookie cutter in flour before each use. Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet 8-11 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.
Note: These cookies taste great but do spread a little when baking, unlike this recipe, but for simple sugar cookies, it's a great choice.

When the cookies cool, pipe an outline(you can skip this but it helps keep the icing from running), spread icing on the rest of the cookie. Let the icing dry, about 6 hours, overnight is best. 

Corn Syrup Icing

Source: Karen's Cookies  
2 lb powdered sugar
½ C plus 2 T milk (10 T)
½ C plus 2 T corn syrup (10 T)
1 Tablespoon flavoring, anything you like: a combination of clear vanilla and almond extract is nice. I also like lemon flavoring for this icing.

Mix together till smooth. Divide up and color as desired.
You can use this icing just the way it is for both outlining and filling in. If you're looking for more detail, you can thicken up your outline color with a bit more powdered sugar if desired. The formula is not set in stone, feel free to experiment with different ratios of liquid to sugar to get the consistency you like the best.
Note: Love this icing....so much easier than royal icing. However, the consistency is too thin for piping intricate designs (so I'll still be using royal icing for those cookies) but it's perfect for a simple iced cookie, like these.

Now for the fun part.... stenciling! I found this pack of stencils at Wal-Mart in the craft section.

So cute and they're the perfect size for cookies!

Lay stencil on top

Spray iced cookie with color spray.

Ta da!

Notes: Be sure to cover your work area well, there's quite a bit of over spray. It takes a couple of tries to get the feel for using the color mist. I practiced on a paper towel first. The first couple of cookies still didn't turn out perfectly.  Doing couple of light coats works better than one heavy coat. There's a little bit of a learning curve but even the less than perfect cookies are delicious! 

This is one of the first ones I made...not exactly perfect!

zebra stripes!

Easter basket ready!

Lemon Lime Baby Cakes

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 Sing Sing it's Spring!!

Beautiful Spring days like today bring back to mind a song from my childhood. As a young child, I loved playing my records on the family record player. I realize I'm probably dating myself by admitting we had a record player, as I'm sure some of you never had/used a record player. We had a record player even after CD's were readily available. New-fangled technology was not at all important to my parents and the record player worked just fine, so why change? My sisters and I had quite a few records that were recorded books with songs. The books to follow along with, accompanied the records. Each one of these records started with instructions on what sound to listen for to know when to turn the pages of the book. We had all the classics, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, etc. But my favorite was the Black Beauty record/book and I could probably still sing the songs from that record. Anyway, one of the story records had a song called "Sing Sing it's Spring" on it. That's all I remember from that particular record but this morning when I woke up to the sounds of happy chirping, that old song popped into my head. 

That recollection has absolutely nothing at all to do with these baby cakes, except that the light fresh lemon lime flavor of these cakes will have you singing for Spring too!

Tint the glaze with some food coloring in pastel colors and these little babies are perfect for Easter! 

Lemon Lime Baby Cakes
Printable Recipe

Source: April 10th, 2009 - by Stephanie Younger
Yields: 18-24 mini cakes using a mini muffin tin or 12 cakes using a regular muffin tin
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon fresh lemon zest
1 teaspoon fresh lime zest
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup plain yogurt

For the drizzle:
1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
lemon and lime juice or use several tablespoons of frozen lemonade or limeade concentrate, thawed
Tint with food coloring, if desired

I added some sprinkles too!

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In a mixer, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well between additions. Add lemon and lime juice and zests, vanilla and almond extract and yogurt. Add the flour mixture, mix just until combined. Grease the pan of your choice and fill the cups half way. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-17 minutes or baked through and when cooled, transfer to a wire rack. In a small bowl combine the confectioners’ sugar and enough lemon and lime juice or lemon-aid concentrate to make a nice consistency for the drizzle. Drizzle over the cakes.

Are you singing yet??

Strawberry Swirl Cream Cheese Pound Cake

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Spring has sprung here in the Southeast. I don't know what that means to you but for me it means strawberry season!  For many years, my parents grew strawberries on a commercial level. So as you can imagine, I've eaten a lot of strawberries, in almost anyway imaginable.  One of my favorite ways to use strawberries is to macerate them. Are you impressed by that term?? It's not nearly as impressive as it sounds. It's just sliced berries with sugar that sit until the juices release. We like to mash the berries slightly (I use a potato masher). We called mashed strawberries....fancy, I know, but that's just how we are around here.  At this point you can do anything with the mashed strawberries. They're delicious on top of ice cream, yogurt, pancakes, the list goes on, but pile them on top of a hunk of buttery pound cake maybe a bit of freshly whipped cream...simply wonderful!   

Last month's Southern Living featured a pound cake with strawberries swirled through it, on the cover.  When I read through the recipe it sounded delicious but called for a strawberry glaze for the swirl. I'm not a fan of strawberry glaze. It has a kind of artificially taste that I don't like. I decided to cook down some berries and make my own glaze to swirl in the cake. I was going to strain the berries and make a syrup more like the original recipe called for but I decided I liked the idea of having strawberry pieces baked into the cake. I could have my mashed berries baked right into the cake...perfect!

Strawberry Swirl Pound Cake

Source: Nancy H. Test, West Chester, Ohio, Southern Living 

MARCH 2011 (adapted)
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
3 cups sugar
1 (8-oz.) package cream cheese, softened
6 large eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon lemon zest

2/3 cup strawberry glaze
1 (6-inch) wooden skewer

Method:
Preheat oven to 350°. Beat butter at medium speed with a heavy-duty electric stand mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add cream cheese, beating until creamy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Gradually add flour to butter mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition, stopping to scrape bowl as needed. Stir in the lemon zest, almond, and vanilla extracts. Pour one-third of batter into a greased and floured *10-inch 14 cup tube pan (about 2 2/3 cups batter). Dollop 8 rounded teaspoonfuls strawberry glaze over batter, and swirl with wooden skewer. Repeat procedure once, and top with remaining third of batter.

Bake at 350° for 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a long wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 to 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack, and cool completely (about 1 hour).

Notes:*the original recipe said to use a 10-inch 14 cup tube pan but I used my 10-inch 12 cup bundt pan.

Strawberry Swirl

Strawberry Swirl

Ingredients:
2 cups strawberries(about 1 lb), quartered
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon corn starch

Method:
Combine the water, strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice in a large saucepan on high heat. Stir and bring up to a boil.
After the mixture begins to boil, reduce the heat to medium low. Cook for 5-8 minutes, until the strawberries have completely broken down.  As the strawberries soften, use a wooden spoon or potato masher to break up the berries. (At this point you could strain the strawberries through a sieve for a smooth glaze, but I decided to leave the bits of strawberry in mine.)
Meanwhile, whisk the cornstarch with 3 tablespoons of water in a small bowl. Then, pour into the strawberries.
Increase heat to high, and continue to whisk the mixture until it thickens and the cornstarch becomes clear and loses it's cloudy appearance, approximately 3-5 minutes.
Remove  from heat, and pour into separate bowl to cool down. Use 3/4 a cup to swirl in the cake. Any leftovers are great served along with the cake.

This is a BIG cake when it's done. With that lovely swirl of berries running through it, this cake would be perfect for our family Easter gathering. Can't wait for an excuse to make this again!

Strawberry swirl!

Bacon Cheddar Whoopie Bites

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I found this recipe while searching for new party food ideas. The name caught my attention first...bacon cheddar whoopie bites?! Whoopie pies are sweet, right? Ok so they're not actually anything like a whoopie pie but they kind of look like a whoopie pie so why not? After reading through the recipe, I thought they sounded  like a Southern style cheese straw, kind of a cheesy savory shortbread.  These cheese straws have one up on ordinary cheese straws. These are sandwiched together with a cream filling. It sounded like a great combo to me. Besides they have bacon in them so they're already "Winning"....(hmm maybe it's the whoopie part that brought that Charlie Sheen quote to mind...;)  

 

Bacon Cheddar Whoopie Bites

Source: Teresa Smith, Santa Rosa, CA, Bake-Off 2012 (adapted) 

Printable recipe

Ingredients:
1/2 cup ricotta cheese, room temperature
6 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
2 tablespoons heavy cream or milk
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
3/4 cup butter, cut into pieces
2 cups finely shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
8 slices cooked bacon, crumbled
2 to 3 tablespoons ice water

Method:
Heat oven to 400°F. Spray large cookie sheets with no-stick cooking spray or line with cooking parchment paper. To make filling, in medium bowl, beat ricotta cheese and cream cheese with electric mixer on low speed until blended. Add milk; beat on medium speed 3 minutes until light and fluffy. Stir in lemon peel. Cover; refrigerate.

In food processor, add flour, baking powder and red pepper. Process until well blended. Add butter and process until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add cheddar cheese, pecans and bacon. Process with on-and-off pulses until mixture is consistency of fine crumbs. With food processor running, gradually add enough water through feed tube and process just until dough pulls away from side of bowl and forms a ball.

Shape dough into 1 1/4–inch balls; place 2 inches apart on cookie sheets. Using fingers, press each ball into about a 2-inch round.

Bake 8 to 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Cool 2 minutes; remove from cookie sheets to cooling racks. Cool completely, about 10 minutes.

Spread or pipe about 1 tablespoon filling on bottom of half of the rounds. Top with remaining rounds, bottom sides down. Store covered in refrigerator. Assemble these bites a couple of hours before you plan to serve them to let the flavors blend.

These savory whoopie bites just maybe the hit of your next party!

Banana Chocolate Mousse Pie

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After making it, I wasn't sure what to call this pie. I thought about calling it Clean Out the Fridge Pie but that name didn't sound very appealing, even though that is how this pie came to be. I had chocolate mousse and chocolate ganache, leftover from other baking I had to do this week, that I wanted to use up. I had also over purchased banana's...yet again. So what to do? Make a Nilla wafer crust and throw everything in and call it a Too Many Bananas, Leftover Chocolate Mousse and Ganache Pie...hmmm a bit of a mouthful! Although this pie was born out of a necessity to use up some leftovers, I'll be making this pie again, even if I don't have leftovers to use up. So I guess, Banana Chocolate Mousse Pie it is!

Banana Chocolate Mousse Pie

Printable recipe

For the pie:

1 nilla cookie crust, cooled (recipe below)

1/2 cup chocolate ganche (recipe below)

chocolate mousse (recipe below)

2 medium bananas, thinly sliced

whipped cream, for garnish, (optional)

Vanilla Wafer Crumb Crust
3 cups vanilla wafer cookies
1 tbsp sugar
5 tbsp butter, melted and cooled

Preheat oven to 350F.
In the food processor, pulse vanilla wafer cookies until reduced to crumbs. Add in the sugar and melted butter and pulse to combine. Mixture should resemble wet sand.
Pour into a 9-inch pie plate (or 9-inch square baking dish) and gently spread into an even layer over the bottom and sides. Press crumbs in firmly to create a tight crust.
Bake for 10 minutes, or until crust just begins to turn golden brown around the edges.
Cool completely before using.

Makes 1 pie crust.

Chocolate Ganache

3 ounces chocolate, finely chopped (if you're using chocolate chips, this is 1/2 cup)
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a microwave-proof bowl, heat all ingredients at full power for 30 seconds. Stir and heat again at full power for 10 seconds. Remove from microwave. The chocolate will still have some unmelted pieces, stir chocolate until completely melted. If it doesn't melt completely place it back in the microwave for another 10 seconds. Take care not to overheat the chocolate. The chocolate it will seize up and become very stiff if overheated. If this happens add a bit more cream and heat for in 10 second increments, stirring in between, until the chocolate is smooth.

Chocolate Mousse

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups cold, heavy cream, plus an additional 1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup granulated white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan, combine the confectioners' sugar and 1/2 cup heavy cream. Stir over low heat.
Add the semisweet chocolate chips, stirring frequently as they melt and the mixture becomes well blended.
Remove from heat, stir in the vanilla and set this mixture aside.
In a separate, large bowl, beat the remaining 1 1/2 cup heavy cream on medium speed and gradually add the granulated sugar. When all the sugar has been incorporated, beat the mixture on high speed until stiff peaks form.
Fold the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture, taking care not to overmix.

Whipped cream for garnish 

2/3 cup whipping cream, cold

2 tablespoons sugar

In a chilled bowl, whip cold cream with a hand mixer. When it's slightly thickened slowly add in the sugar and continue whipping until the cream holds peaks. Place whipped cream in a pastry bag fitted with a star tip and pipe border around the edge of the pie. 

Assembling the pie:

Make the pie crust, while it is cooling make the ganache. Pour the ganache, while still warm, into the pie crust. Using an off-set spatula, spread the ganache evenly on the bottom of the pie crust. Make the chocolate mousse. Slice the bananas layer them into the crust. Top with the chocolate mousse and pipe around a whipped cream border, if desired. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or overnight before slicing.

Now that's my idea of using up leftovers!