Blueberry and Strawberry Jam Sandwiches with Lemon Icing

Fairly easy cookies, definitely delicious, I will most likely make these again. 

I got this recipe from the Modern Baker by: Nick Malgieri. 

My Review - 

I love this book and I definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to have 'the basics'. This book offers 150 classic and contemporary recipes. It's great for a novice because before each chapter, for example, cakes, it lists cake technique with the batter, the actual cake, frosting, cake wash, etc! and it's great for the more experienced baker because, if you're like me, I like to go back and re-read to remind myself of some things, not saying I am at all experienced. 

If you want to read more about this book review go to my BOOK REVIEW page

Ok! Onto the recipe!

What you will need:

For the cookies dough:

2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup Sugar

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

1/2 tsp Lemon Extract

2 large Egg Yolks

3 cups All Purpose Flour

1 jar Seedless Preserves

For the Lemon Icing:

2 cups Powdered Sugar

1 tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice

1 tbsp Water

2 cookie sheets or jelly roll pans lined with parchment paper or foil

What you will need to do:

For the dough, combine the butter, sugar, vanilla and lemon extract and mix. Beat about 3 minutes.

Beat in yolks, one at a time. Slowly add in the flour, while still mixing. 

Place some plastic wrap on a cookie sheet. Scrape the dough onto a piece of plastic wrap and cover with more wrap. Press the dough with the palm of your hand to make it about 1/2 inch thick. 

Place cookie sheet in the fridge until firm, 1-2 hours or up to 3 days.

When you are ready to bake, place the oven racks to the upper an lower slots of the oven and preheat the oven to 350. Take out your dough and cut off 1/3 of the dough, placing the rest back in the fridge.

Sorry, I didn't take pictures of the next part. Roll our your dough on a floured surface, if it's too firm add in a pinch of water and mix. Roll out to a 9 inch square. Use a 3 inch fluted round cutter to cut into disks, lifting them with a cookie spatula and placing them about 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet. Place left over scraps in the fridge. Repeat with 2/3's and the 3/3's and with the cookie scraps.

Bake the cookies until they are no longer shiny about 15- 20 min. After 7 minutes, place the pan from the lower rack to the upper and vice verse, turning pans back to front at the same time. 

While your cookies are baking, get the lemon icing ready. Simply mix all ingredients together, make sure there are no clumps! The book says to leave it in a bowl and use a spoon to ice them, but I poured mine into a bottle.  

The book says to heat the preserves in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer, letting them simmer for about 5 minutes to thicken, but I didn't do that.

I let my jam sit out to get to room temp, because it's already pretty thick. And I had leftover pie filling from my Sweetie Pies, so I used some of that for the filling in these cookies as well.

Once the cookies are cooled, spread your jam on those bad boys and place another cookie on top.

They're looking delicious already!

Ice, Ice, Baby!

I had to steal a bite... it was so tempting! 

This recipe is linked to THESE awesome linky parties!

Strawberry Sweetie Pies

This has become my new favorite treat! They're so easy, delicious and fairly inexpensive!

I got this recipe from Butter Cream Bake House and I am so glad I did!!! 

What you need:

-Refrigerated already made pie crust dough

-Canned pie filling

-Sugar

-1 Egg

-Cookie cutters

What you need to do:

Beat the egg.

Roll out your pie a bit thinner and even.

Make your cut outs. (I made shamrocks and hearts)

Brush your pie shapes with the egg.

Place like 3 small berries on the shapes.

Place one shape on the other and pinch with a fork.

Brush with egg again!

Sprinkle some sugar

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes

TA DAAAAA!!!!

Enjoy!

Linked to THESE Awesome linky parties!

Lime Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting

So, few things:
1. Strawberries are not in season and are $5 for a box that is squishy, So I used little Strawberry Shaped Marshmallows for the Topping, but you don't have to have anything on top at all.
2. My strawberry frosting would not stiffen because
             a. my electric mixer broke
             b. I had to do everything by hand, which took forever, and apparently was not enough force for it
so I kept adding more and more powdered sugar until I was out and then by the end, still was not stiff and was incredibly and overly sweet! So I just used my backup supply of store bought frosting. If you have an electric mixer, I'm sure you'll be much better off with this frosting!

So what you need:
2 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour
3 tsp Baking Powder
1/3 tsp Salt
1 cup Shortening
1 2/3 cup Granulated Sugar
5 Egg Whites
3 tbsp Lime Juice (Fresh)

For the Frosting:
1 pkg Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened
1/2 cup Butter, softened
3 1/2 cups Powdered Sugar
1/2 cup minced Strawberries, well drained
Small Strawberries, for topping

What you need to do:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Place cupcake liners into each cup of a 24 cup muffin pan.

For the Frosting:

Makes 48 cupcakes

Linked to THESE Awesome blog parties!

Fruit N Cheese Kabobs

If it were up to my husband, on Super Bowl Sunday he'd love nothing more than some chili, buffalo chicken, pulled barbecue beef sandwiches, and I don't know more meat. But I can't handle that much meat. So I decided to make a nice Fruit and Cheese Kabob with some fruit dip.

So what you need:

1 block Colby-Monterrey Jack Cheese

1 block Cheddar Cheese

1 black Pepper Jack

1 Fresh Pineapple, peeled and cut into 2 in. chunks

2 Green or Red Apples

1-2 lbs seedless red, green or concord grapes

3 pints Strawberries

(Basically any fruit you want and that's in season)

Cut cheese into chunks or slices. If desired, cut into shapes with small cutters. Alternately thread cheese and fruit into wooden skewers.

Serve Immediately.

Fruit Pizza

This is a great girl's night treat or a light brunch. I've prepared it for both and I LOVED IT!

For the Crust:

• 3 cups finely crushed graham crackers or pretzels
• 2/3 cups sugar
• 1 1/4 cups cold butter 

In a large bowl, combine graham cracker and the sugar. Add butter until the mixture looks like coarse  crumbs. Place into pizza pan and spread, press and smooth. Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes. Cool COMPLETELY and then refrigerate for 30 min.

For the "sauce":

• 1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk
• 1/4 lemon or lime juice
• 1 tabsp grated lime peel
• 1 1/2 cups whipped cream

In a large bowl, mix everything together. Spread on crust. Cover and chill for 10 minutes. Spread desired fruit just before serving.

Use within 3-4 days.

Strawberry pie

Strawberry Pie!

I'm not a huge pie person, but this was pretty good!

I actually made this recipe myself, unfortunately I don't remember how I made it.

All I know is that it came to me in a dream, where I made it with Phyllo dough instead of traditional dough and served this pie warm, a la mode. 

So that what I did! I thought of what I would like in a strawberry pie and I did it!

I was delicious, especially with ice cream, but I personally didn't like it cold or room temperature, so get

a lot of people to eat it with you!