What's YOUR indispensable baking tool?...Works For Me Wednesday

Today's Works For Me Wednesday is a backwards edition. This means I get to ask you a question!

What is your indispensable, essential, can't-do-without baking tool?

I thought about this question for quite some time. First, I thought this:

Then, my silicone spatulas...



But when it comes down to it, I would never make cookies without this:
Parchment Paper! I have gone to the grocery store at 10pm sent my husband to the grocery store at 10pm on a parchment run in a cookie making emergency.

So, go ahead and tell me...what's your can't-live-without baking tool?

Be sure to click over to We Are THAT Family for more WFMW (backwards) tips and come back later this week for a yummy giveaway!!! :) YAY!

Basket Case

Here is another cookie cutter that I bought ages ago and am just getting around to using....an Easter basket!

I wasn't sure about the "grass" when I was decorating them, but now that they are finished, I'm glad I added it.

I like them mixed in with the Easter chicks. :)

To make the basket cookies:

{isn't this cookie "sketch" cool?!?}

• Using a #2 tip, outline the bow in pale yellow (Spectrum Lemon Yellow).
• With a #3 tip, outline the basket in purple (AmeriColor Violet).
• Still using the #3 tip, make the basket handles, pulsing the icing bag as you run it along the cookie to make bumps.
• With a #2 tip, outline the eggs...one each in pink (AmeriColor Soft Pink), blue (Spectrum Sky Blue), and yellow.
• Thin all of the icing with water until it is the consistency of syrup. Cover with a damp dishtowel.
• Before using each color, run a rubber spatula through the icing to break any large bubbles. Transfer to a squeeze bottle.
• Fill in the basket in purple; use a toothpick to guide the icing to the edges.
• Fill in the bow and one egg in yellow.
• Fill in the blue and pink eggs.
• Let dry at least one hour.
• With a #2 tip, add the detailing to the basket.
• With a #2 tip, add the detailing to the bow.
• Using a #1 tip, pipe Easter grass along the edge of the basket in light green (AmeriColor Leaf Green).

Looking for more Easter cookie ideas? Check out these posts:

• Easter Chick Flicks
• Ears or Tails?
• Maura's cookies

Easter Chick Flicks . . .

Easter chick cookie flicks, that is!

I bought this little chick cookie cutter last year and have been waiting months to try it!

They are really simple to make, just outline, fill and coat with sanding sugar the next day. I added a little eye after sanding.

I made up several of these and some Easter baskets for the winner of the We Are THAT Family cookie giveaway....New Momma. I think any "new momma" needs a little hit of sugar, don't you?!?

I'll have more on the Easter basket cookies in a day or two. In the meantime, enjoy the chick flicks...and maybe one of these other Easter-inspired posts:

• Ears or tails?
• Maura's cookies

My Main Squeeze . . .Works For Me Wednesday

Flooding* cookies with icing can be a messy affair. That's why I love squeeze bottles!

*{Flooding is just a fancy term for filling in a cookie with thinned icing.}

For piping outlines and details in royal icing, I use pastry bags. When I'm ready to fill in the cookie outline, I thin the icing and transfer the (flood) icing into squeeze bottles.

Why not use a pastry bag? Using a pastry bag for flood icing can lead to this:

Not pretty! Plus, those drips out of the top of the bag can plop down right on an already decorated cookie!!!

{I know, I used to do it this way!}

Now, I use these...(they come in a larger size, too)

...and I'm left with this....I like that. Much less messy!

Squeeze bottles can be found in the candy making section of most craft stores and sometimes in the craft section of WalMart.

Spend a few minutes (or an hour or two) checking out all of the great Works For Me Wednesday tips at We Are THAT Family.

My previous WFMW posts:

• Perfectly RED icing
• Helping cookies keep their shape
• A kitchen must-have: bench scraper
  
  
  

Turtle Ice Cream Pie, revisited

Remember this ice cream pie that I made a few weeks ago? My husband ranked it in his "top 5" desserts of all time, but I was a little underwhelmed by the vanilla ice cream layers?

Well...when the neighbors were coming over for dinner, I thought it would be the perfect time to try it again with different ice cream. (I hope they didn't mind being guinea pigs!)
For the 4 layers of ice cream, I alternated Haagen-Dazs Dulce de Leche & Coffee ice creams.

OH MY!!!!! This is now in my TOP 5 desserts! The caramel ice cream makes the pie a little messier because it has swirls of caramel in it, but oh, the mess is worth it!!! Looking for the recipe? It's here...from Bon Appetit magazine.

And, check out the original post: He Said, She Said Ice Cream Pie

Still celebrating...with Mint Chocolate Chip Cake Truffles!

Yes, St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, but we're still celebrating. I can't seem to find the energy to take down my decorations, but I did manage to make some Cake Truffles! :) Plus, we like to bring some goodies to the volunteers at the Food Pantry when we work...showing up empty-handed during a holiday week was not going to happen!

The trouble started when I accidentally bought these....

...MINT chocolate candy melts when I planned to make Gingerbread Cake Truffles. I'm an adventurous eater and all, but mint & gingerbread doesn't do it for me.

I saved them for St. Patrick's WEEK, and made Mint Chocolate Chip Cake Truffles.

I'm embarrassed to say I have no shamrock sprinkles in my arsenal, thus the green stars! :)

The cake balls are made the same old way...this time using a white cake mix, tinting the batter green. I added mini chocolate chips when rolling the balls. They look and taste like mint chocolate chip ice cream.

These got hubby's vote as "favorite cake truffle."

Like these? Check out....

• Gingerbread Cake Truffles
• Chai Spiced Cake Truffles
• and, my favorite...Pumpkin Spice Cake Truffles

Oh, and a little friend of a Bake at 350 reader is up for Nick Jr.'s Super Fan award. She is the cutest little thing...Grace. You can vote for her here. (She's holding and kissing her ragdoll...that she made...she's 4!) Grace also just donated her hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. What a sweetie! :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, McReaders! Every year about this time, I try to convince my husband to officially add a "Mc" to the beginning of our last name. No disrespect to my in-laws, our name is wonderful...but a "Mc"...that would add a little something. When I was going through my Gone with the Wind stage in high school, I was sure I would marry someone named O'Hara...Bridget O'Hara. Then, I fantasized about being Bridget McBride or even Bridget St. John....well, he's not going for it. Let's drown our sorrows in St. Paddy's cookies.

Let me say up front...I'm not thrilled with these cookies. Why I thought a BLACK POT cookie would be cute, I'll never know. Today, hours after they were finished, mind you, it hit me...DOTS! I should have made dotty pots. Next year?

It doesn't show in the picture, but the "gold" is actually shiny and metallic looking and made with luster dust,* which you can find at bakery supply stores and online.

Here's how to use it:

• Decorate cookies with royal icing and let dry overnight.
• Mix a little vodka (the guy at the cake supply store swears by Everclear, but that's not something I keep on-hand, vodka however...) with small amount of luster dust. I use a baby spoon for this; a little goes a long way.

• Using a child's paintbrush, paint the mixture onto the cookies.
• The alcohol will evaporate, leaving the metallic sheen.

*Lustre or Luster Dust is a dry powder that can be applied to add a metallic sheen to icing. The product is interesting...my bakery supply store sells lustre dust that is labeled "non-toxic" and edible, some is labeled "for decorative purposes only." Remember those silver dragees (balls) that you ate as a kid on cookies and cupcakes? Those are labeled "decorative" now, too. In my opinion, a little won't kill me. From what I understand through the "baking grapevine", Europe considers all lustre dust "edible"; the US doesn't. Weird! Anyway...check your bakery supply for the "non-toxic" version.

More cookies decorated with luster dust:

• New Year's Eve tiaras
• Lucky Horseshoe cookies

Don't forget to enter the COOKIE GIVEAWAY!!!

Feelin' Lucky? (a giveaway!)

Anyone feeling lucky today? Remember my blogging neighbor over at We Are THAT Family? Well, today she is hosting a Bake at 350 cookie giveaway on her blog...yay!!!

You must enter on her blog...so hop on over! It ends Wednesday night, so go, go, go!!!

C'mon. . .EVERYbody's doing it!

If you are addicted to food blogs like I am, you may have noticed these guys cropping up all over the place. Meyer Lemons! Maybe you've seen these beauties from Tartlette, or this tart from 3B's, or this gorgeous lemony post from Cannelle et Vanille.

When I saw Meyer lemons at the store, I wasn't sure what to do with them, but I bought them anyway. :) After looking through all my cookbooks and much debating, I decided on scones!

Meyer lemons smell SO unbelievably good! If you come across them and don't plan to buy, at least pick them up and smell! Heaven!

Here are the scones just out of the oven. I didn't bother with an egg wash on the top since I was going to top them with a glaze.

Oh, man...were they ever good! See those flecks of vanilla bean? I used my vanilla bean paste again. I love that stuff!

The inside was super flaky and flecked with little bits of zest and vanilla bean. One word of advice...eat them while they are warm from the oven. For testing purposes only, I ate 2 warm from the oven, 2 for lunch that day and 2 for breakfast the next morning (my husband was out-of-town...someone had to do it!). Warm from the oven is definitely best, although I'd never turn down a scone in any form!

This recipe is adapted from King Arthur Flour's "Basic Scone" recipe in their Baker's Companion cookbook. If you don't own this book, I highly recommend it! (Also, go check out their blog!)

Meyer Lemon-Vanilla Scones

(adapted from the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion)

3 c. all-purpose, unbleached flour

1/3 c. sugar

1/4 c. dry milk

3/4 tsp kosher/coarse salt

1 TBSP baking powder

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla bean paste

1/2 c. combo of milk and Meyer lemon juice

4 TBSP butter

1/4 c. shortening

2 TBSP Meyer lemon zest (heaping)

~~~~~~~~~

Meyer lemon juice

powdered sugar

Place butter and shortening in the freezer.

Preheat the oven to 450. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk together the dry ingredients.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, vanilla bean paste and the milk/Meyer lemon juice. (I filled my 1/2 c measure about 1/3 full of juice, then topped it off with milk to make 1/2 c.)

Into the flour mixture, grate the cold butter on the large holes of a grater. Break the shortening into pieces and add to the flour mixture. Cut in the fat with a pastry blender or 2 knives, leaving some pea-sized pieces of fat.

Gently stir/fold in the liquid mixture and the zest.

Dump the dough onto a floured surface and gather together until it is cohesive. Divide the dough in half (using your bench scraper) and move to the cookie sheet. Pat each half into a 7-inch circle and then cut each half into eighths. Separate the wedges slightly. (King Arthur says you can freeze the unbaked and cut dough...that's what I did with my other half. Add 2 minutes to the baking time.) 

Bake for 7 minutes, then turn the oven off (don't open the door!) and let them sit in the oven for about 8 minutes more.

While the scones are in the oven, mix a little powdered sugar with Meyer lemon juice. Just eyeball the amounts and mix together with a fork or whisk until you have enough to lightly cover the scones.

Remove the scones from the oven and immediately place on a cooling rack. Place the cooling rack onto the cookies sheet still lined with parchment (this will save more clean up later). Drizzle the lemon glaze of the tops of the scones. Enjoy them warm! :)

A kitchen must-have...Works For Me Wednesday

What works for me everyday in the kitchen? My bench scraper!!!

Do you have one of these babies? Obviously, they are wonderful at "scraping the bench," or scraping dough off of a counter top.
It's the perfect tool for dividing dough...just press straight down. Not just bread dough, but..
...scones, too! I used my bench scraper to transfer this sticky dough (uncooked and cut into eighths) onto my cookie sheet. Try that with a spatula! :)But, what do I use my bench scraper for most? Cutting brownies and blondies and pies, oh my! No ruining the bottom of the pan, no glob of brownie stuck to the knife (although, I do kind of miss eating that), just perfect slices.
Go on over to We Are THAT Family to see more WFMW tips!

My previous WFMW posts:

• Perfectly RED icing
• Helping cookies keep their shape

{Update...if you are looking for a bench scraper, here's where to get one just like mine!} :)

The return of the pink poodle

The pink poodle cookies returned this week for a little girl's birthday party.

Some of you have been asking for more detailed pictures of the process, so here are a few. I promise to work on adding more. :)

For the step-by-step instructions for making these, go here. The cookies above have been outlined, sectioning off the areas that will be different colors. After this dries for several minutes, it's OK to begin flooding the cookie with thinned icing. Here, I started with the darker icing because I figure if I accidentally drop some of the lighter icing on top of it, it won't matter as much. I'll be covering the darker pink with sanding sugar.

When flooding with the thinned icing, I work about 3 cookies at a time. This one had been filled and the icing has begun to spread while I filled the other 2 (and grabbed the camera). From here, I used a toothpick to guide the icing to the edges and into the corners.

Here she is after using the toothpick. After this step, the cookies sit out overnight (uncovered) so that the icing will dry. Click here to see details about how I set up a sanding sugar station.

Since I had the stopwatch out timing my son on some math problems, I timed how long it takes to "sand" each of these cookies....43 seconds. I was surprised it was so fast! From there you can figure about how long it will take to add sanding sugar to 1 dozen: 9 minutes, For 5 dozen: 43 minutes (plus the time to get out supplies and set up).

The faces were drawn on with an AmeriColor Gourmet Writer food coloring pen in black.

And....here is the icing aftermath. :)