Showing posts with label 4th of July. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 4th of July. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Sugar Cookie Sandwiches

Since I had sent all of my sugar cookies to my Desserts for the Deserving recipient, I knew I wanted to make the recipe again since many of my friends and family missed out on the deliciousness that was this cookie.  At first, I had planned on making a tray for my 4th of July party, but then I decided to kick things up a notch.  I hadn't worked with icing in a while, so I wanted to give these cookies a little something extra special by turning them into cookie sandwiches.  There's nothing more wonderful than buttercream frosting sandwiched between two chewy cookies.  Here's the technique I used to create these 4th of July treats.


I baked the cookies as I normally do, and added some red and blue sprinkles to fit the theme.  I highly recommend using an ice cream scoop to make sure the cookies are the same size.  This way, your sandwiches will look nice and neat.


My favorite part of these sandwich cookies is the design I used in the icing.  I used red and blue lines to create the red, white, and blue swirl.  To do this, paint a line of gel food coloring on opposite ends of your piping bag.  It helps to keep the bag propped in a cup as a stand.  Now, when I spoon frosting into my bag, despite trying to be as neat as possible I always get the frosting EVERYWHERE.  All over the outside of the bag, flowing out of the top of the bag, just a huge mess.  I did not want to mess up my carefully painted lines, so I placed the painted bag upright in a cup, and then used a second (non-disposable) bag to pipe the frosting into the painted bag.  The extra step may seem unnecessary but it keeps your food gel from smearing all over the bag so you have beautiful lines painted throughout your icing swirl.


To make the swirl (otherwise known as a rose), start in the center of your cookie, squeeze your bag, and continue outwards in a swirl.  It's such a pretty technique and honestly, it's pretty impossible to mess up.  


This is a recipe that needs to be in your dessert rotation.  The cookies on their own are fabulous - they're chewy and absolutely melt in your mouth.  Sandwich some buttercream frosting between the two cookies and you have a fun and delicious dessert!  Even though these cookie sandwiches were 4th of July themed, I wanted to share the recipe because the colors and flavors of the frosting can be adapted to fit any party theme.  This is certainly a dessert I will be making again and again.  I just cannot get enough of these cookies!


Sugar Cookie Sandwiches
Yield: about 12 sandwich cookies
Prep time: 1 hour
Bake time: 10 min 


Ingredients
For the sugar cookies
-     2 ½ c flour
-     ¼ c cornstarch
-     ¾ tsp baking soda
-     ½ tsp salt
-     1 c (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
-     1 ¼ c sugar
-     2 tsp vanilla extract
-     1 egg, room temperature
-     ½ c nonpareil or jimmie sprinkles

For the buttercream frosting
- 1/2 c unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/4 c vegetable shortening
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 c confectioner's sugar
- 3/4 tbsp meringue powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp milk
- 1/4 tbsp water (may use more or less depending on consistency)

Directions
T
o make the cookies, preheat the oven to 375F and line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.

 In a medium-sized bowl, sift together the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and the sugar.  Add in the vanilla extract and egg and beat until combined.  Add in the flour mixture about 1 cup at a time, and combine completely after each addition.  Fold in the sprinkles and stir once or twice to incorporate, no more than that or else the color will bleed into the dough.

 Scoop the cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheet, setting the cookies about 1 inch apart. Bake for about 10 minutes, checking often and remove once the outside edges are just starting to turn a golden brown.  Remove immediately from oven at this point and allow to cool on the pan for 5 minutes.  Allow to finish cooling on a wire rack.

To make the icing, combine butter and vegetable shortening in a large mixing bowl until creamy.  Add vanilla extract and salt.  Add the confectioner's sugar one cup at a time and incorporate completely after each addition.   The icing will appear dry after adding all of the sugar.  Add the meringue powder.

Add milk and beat until light and fluffy, about 8 to 10 minutes.  Scoop into piping bag affixed with desired tip and add water as necessary to make the icing easy to pipe.

To assemble the cookie sandwiches, pair up the cookies by size. Pipe or spoon icing onto bottom of one cookie and sandwich together with the second, same size cookie.


Cookies adapted from: Tasty Kitchen

Monday, July 2, 2012

4th of July Recipes!

4th of July falls on a Wednesday this year, so many of us are waiting to hold our parties until the weekend.  I, however, will be holding my 4th of July party on the actual 4th, so I wanted to put some recipes together for those of us whose parties are creeping up quickly!  I believe these recipes and dishes could also double as "summer backyard BBQ recipes."  I'm sure you can find many creative ways to incorporate some red, white, and blue into these dishes!


Drinks
Mojitos - make strawberry or watermelon ones to bring some red to your table!

Sauces and Spreads
Homemade BBQ Sauce - great for grilled chicken

Appetizers and Sides
Black Bean and Corn Salsa
Cucumber Salad
Fried Onion Rings
Pimento Cheese
Salsa
Zucchini Sticks

Dinner
Grilled Pizza

Dessert
American Funfetti Cake - if you're feeling ambitious ;)
Blueberry Streusel Cake
Mini Blueberry Tarts
Strawberry Banana Cream Pie - throw some blueberries on top for a red, white, and blue cream pie!
4th of July Sugar Cookies

And stay tuned for another Red, White, and Blue dessert within the next few days!

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Red, White, and Blue Funfetti Cake (Part 2)

It was 10:30 Saturday night and I was standing in my kitchen with my cake that was rapidly defrosting.  I had free-handed a stencil of the United States, cut it out, and had it placed over my cake.  I cut into it with a small paring knife and the knife got stuck.  I kept hacking away at it, following the stencil, and after about 2 minutes it got much easier.  I got a rough shape of the US but something looked quite not right.  I had attached Maine and the tips of Texas and Florida with the left over royal icing from the cookies because anyone who has ever worked with royal icing knows it doubles as a fantastic cement.  I called my mom in and looked at my stencil and realized the region of the Great Lakes was what was throwing me off.  So I cut out both parts of Michigan and cemented those on too.  That looked better.  I covered up the cake and let it defrost until the next morning.
This was the stencil I made, some adjusting
was needed

While I was carving my cake, I absentmindedly was snacking on the pieces I had carved off.  And all of a sudden it hit me - it was actually good!  A recipe that I had made up myself was actually good!  A little dense, but I don't know if that was because I used too much butter or if the butter was too warm or if I used too many eggs or not enough baking soda.  Well, at least now I have my own original cake recipe to work off of...and the one I had come up with still tasted delicious.

The next step was decorating the cake.  I had bought the perfect tips for making the giant stripes and stars (I actually didn't end up using this star tip, but it'll be great for icing cupcakes.  I used this one instead).  I made my buttercream icing using the recipe I had created and dyed them and let them sit in the fridge so the colors could deepen.  I unwrapped the cake, placed it on my turntable, and filled my piping bags.  I know disposable bags are wasteful but I really didn't want the red and blue icing to ruin my featherweight bags; plus you need a disposable bag for the Wilton 789 tip since it is huge!  I made the stripes, stars, and piped a blue border around the outside because the bottom of the cake is always so messy.

The finished product!
Everyone at the party loved the cake and I made sure to get the perfect picture of it to submit to the contest.  I'm happy with the way the cake turned out and I kept telling myself I couldn't be too critical since I did carve the thing by hand and not from a mold.  I'm excited to use this recipe again and adapt it to create other flavors of cake.  There are a lot of birthdays this summer...

The contest?  It looks like I missed the deadline.  The main page on the website said the deadline to submit the application was 7/6/2011 at 12:00pm.  The official rules (which I read) said the deadline was at 7/6/2011 at 11:59pm.  I had the window open all morning with my application and finally submitted it at around 9:30 last night, at which point the Facebook page went kind of screwy and my submission didn't show up in the "view entries" page.  I tried to email someone from Epicurious about the conflicting details, but I highly doubt someone will actually read it.  I waited so long to submit my project because I was being super paranoid and didn't want anyone to see my submission and then adapt it and submit a slightly better version of mine.  It's a huge bummer because after looking at everyone's entries, I think mine definitely stood a chance.  But, it's my own fault, I had the entry ready for 3 days, I should have submitted it yesterday morning when I had the window open.  The prizes weren't to die for, but it would have been pretty awesome to win a contest for something I had created.  Maybe next year...

Now that I have created my own recipe, I understand why other food bloggers constantly credit each other and the original source.  Please remember that if you choose to use the recipes listed on my site to always credit back to this site or, where applicable, the original site from where the recipe may have been adapted from.  Feel free to share the recipes found here and adapt them to your heart's content!

Red, White, and Blue Funfetti Cake
Ali B original
Makes 1 13x9 in. pan

Ingredients
For the cake:
- 2 1/3 c flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 c unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 1 1/3 c sugar
- 3 lg egg whites
- 1 2/3 c milk
- 1/3 c red, white, and blue sprinkles (not sugar crystals)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
The buttercream icing should look fluffy

For the buttercream icing
- 1 c unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/2 c vegetable shortening
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 6 c confectioner's sugar
- 1 1/2 tbsp merengue powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 c milk
- 1/2 tbsp water (may use more or less depending on consistency)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350.  Butter a 13x9 pan and coat lightly with granulated sugar.  Shake out any excess sugar.

To make the cake, combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.  Set aside

Put egg whites in a bowl and whip until fluffy, about 3 minutes on high.  Set aside.

With a beater, combine butter and sugar and beat until creamy.  Add half of the milk, combine, then add half of the flour mixture and combine.  Repeat.  Add in the vanilla.  With a rubber spatula, fold in the egg whites until they are just incorporated then do the same with the sprinkles.  Be careful not to over-mix. 

Pour cake batter into pan and cook for 30 – 35 minutes, checking often, and removing from the oven when a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.  Remove from pan and let cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing, combine butter and vegetable shortening in a large mixing bowl until creamy.  Add vanilla extract and salt.

Add the confectioner's sugar one cup at a time and incorporate completely after each addition.  The icing will appear dry after adding all of the sugar.  Add the merengue powder.

Red, white, and blue icing. I added a touch of
black in order to get a navy blue. 
Add milk and beat until light and fluffy, about 8 to 10 minutes.  Scoop into piping bag affixed with desired tip and add water as necessary to make the icing easy to pipe.  Dye icing and decorate as desired.

Note: Because of the milk in the icing, icing should be stored in the refrigerator if not using that day.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

4th of July Cookies (Sugar Cookies Take 2)

Whenever I read a recipe I treat it like an experiment.  So, when something went wrong with my last batch of sugar cookies, I decided to change one variable at a time until I got the recipe down perfectly.  This time, I chose to change how much flour I would use when rolling out the dough (I barely used any), but I also left out the vanilla bean because they're so freaking expensive and I want to save it for perfect sugar cookie recipe.

So I made my sugar cookies, stuck the dough ball in the fridge, and went on a two hour long expedition to find silicone baking mats, a star shaped cookie cutter, and clear vanilla extract.  The star shaped cookie cutter was nearly impossible to find, and I went to 5 stores before I found one.  The journey wasn't a total failure; my travels led me to Fairway Market, an incredibly overwhelming store that had everything including VANILLA BEANS 2 FOR $3!!!  Now, if you remember the last time I bought vanilla beans, they were about 2 for $13, so needless to say I bought 4 while at Fairway.  Too bad I already made the dough but I think for next time I'm going to leave out the vanilla extract and only put in the vanilla beans and see how the cookies taste...

So I came back home, had lunch, and got to work on rolling out the dough.  First I tried rolling the dough between two pieces of wax paper, but that failed kind of miserably as the dough stuck to the paper.  So I wrapped the dough back up and threw it into the fridge and then floured my board and my rolling pin.  This time worked much better.  I re-floured the mat before I rolled out the dough and floured my rolling pin to keep the dough from sticking and I used about 2 or 3 tbsp of flour so I really do not think I over-floured the cookies this time.  Last time, my cookies were pretty much coated in flour, this time they weren't.  I stuck them in the oven and watched them carefully, pulling them out once the tips of the stars began to brown; they were only in the oven for about 6 or 7 minutes.  I baked them on the silicone mat and it worked wonderfully!!!  The bottoms look so nice and nothing stuck.  It made everything so easy.  I had some dough left over so I flattened it out and decided it would be my taste tester.  I barely let it cool down before I broke a piece off and tried it.

Well worth the investment
...still a little dry.  Not dry like it crumbled when you tried to break it apart but dry like you need to wash it down with a big glass of milk.  It definitely wasn't the flour, so it must have been the confectioner's sugar.  I have never seen a sugar cookie recipe with confectioner's sugar before, always granulated sugar.  Honestly, I love a moist and chewy sugar cookie, but everyone's idea of a sugar cookie is different from person to person.  This sugar cookie was just not working for me.  It still tasted good and everyone that I shared the taste-tester cookie with enjoyed it, so I set them aside and began to make the royal icing.

I read that the merengue powder used in royal icing gives the icing a not-so-nice taste, and the article recommended adding 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract (clear of course) to mask the fake egg whites taste.  I was hesitant about adding lemon juice or extract for fear of it ruining the consistency of the royal icing and therefore it would not dry nicely.  But, this article said it would be fine, and I thought it couldn't hurt.  The vanilla extract did help with the taste, and I ended up using a whole tsp instead of half of one.

You can store royal icing in between uses by putting
a small amount of water in a cup to keep the end of
the tip from drying out.  You can also remove the tip
and cover the top with plastic wrap, secured
with the coupler ring or a rubber band.
I made the royal icing, adding about 5 tbsp of water and then adjusting the texture as needed.  I put a small amount into a piping bag, made sure it was not too thick to work with, and then dyed my icing using gel pastes.  I've been using the Wilton brand and at first I really didn't like how the colors did not come out dark at all.  Then, I let the icing sit in the fridge (or if it's royal icing, just let it sit out in an air-tight container), and the colors got really deep.  The red and blue turned out perfectly, although I did have to go back to AC Moore to get more red gel.


See how the icing from the spoon is still sitting on
top of the icing in the bowl? This means you
need to add a little more water.
The icing from the spoon has dissolved back into
the bowl after about 5 seconds -
perfect consistency!

So I piped a border, flooded the cookies with white royal icing, and then let them dry, uncovered, for a couple of hours before I put on the final decorations.  I think color flow is my absolute favorite technique for decorating cookies.  It puts a nice finishing touch on them and you can design your cookies in any way.  To make color flow icing, take your royal icing and add a couple drops of water, stirring the water into the icing.  You want your icing to be thin enough to spread over the cookie, but not so thin that it flows over the sides.  To check the consistency, let the icing ribbon back into the bowl and count how many seconds it takes for the ribbon to dissolve back into the icing.  If it takes 5 seconds, you have the right consistency.  After filling your border with the color flow icing, let it dry for a couple of hours (preferably overnight) before adding decorations.  Leave the cookies uncovered, not in an airtight container, or else they will not dry properly.  Once the cookies are completely dry and the icing is hard, then you may store them in bags or tupperware containers.

I was happy with the way the cookies turned out, and I love any excuse to decorate cookies.  Next time I'll have to try substituting the confectioner's sugar for granulated sugar and see how they taste.  Now I just need an excuse to make more cookies...

Note: I have not included final recipes because I'm still tweaking them, but here is a link to the recipes I used for the sugar cookies and the royal icing (plus 1 tsp of vanilla extract).