Peach Strawberry Pop Tarts

Zach and I took the long way home from our Jersey Shore vacation and decided to drive the 20+ hours back to Miami with our lovely Ethel. Believe it or not, despite Ethel's diva nature, she is absolutely spectacular on long distance car trips. Of course, we have to stop a little more frequent with the pup in our care, but it is well worth it. Especially, when we stopped at a gas station about halfway through our Georgia drive and stumbled upon a precious peach and pecan stand. I couldn't help, but get my hands on some of the freshly picked peaches, and I made a friend too ;) When in Georgia...

Upon our return home, I decided to whip up some peach strawberry pop tarts for a special breakfast treat. The recipe below includes the use of Pillsbury Crescent dough sheets, but I only recommend using this type of pre-made dough if you intend on eating the tarts soon after baking and want a softer crust. For better keeping and long lasting crunchy pop tarts, I prefer making homemade dough like this recipe HERE. See all tart details below. Life sure is peachy! xo RCN

Ingredients - You will need the following for 1 dozen 6" tarts (dough + filling):

4 soft peeled peaches cut into small cubes

2 heaping cups of full strawberries then cut into small cubes + a few quartered for topping

3 Pillsbury Crescent Dough Sheets, each sheet cut into 8 equal size rectangles

Sprinkle of flour for cookie sheets and laying out dough

1 1/4 cup Sugar

3 tablespoons Raw Honey

1/4 teaspoon Cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon

1 1/2 tablespoons Lemon Juice

1 1/2 tablespoons Orange Juice

For the iced topping:

3/4 cup confectioners sugar

1 Tablespoon Milk

1/4 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400F. Roll out defrosted/thawed dough and cut each dough sheet into 8 equal sized rectangles. Lay dough rectangles onto floured cookie sheet, set aside. Combine chopped fruit (peaches peeled too) and all other ingredients into a medium size mixing bowl. Once combine spoon filling into center of half of the dough rectangles. Cover the filled rectangles with the remaining dough rectangles. Use a fork to pinch shut the edges of the overlapping dough. It's okay if some filling oozes out sides, it'll give them character. Bake for about 20 minutes +, until all edges start to brown. It's important that the dough appears hard at edges. This helps to insure the bottom of the tarts are fully baked. Remove and let cool. Lastly, combine in small bowl 3/4 cup confectioners sugar, 1 Tablespoon of milk and 1/4 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract. Place glaze mixture in ziplock bag and snip corner off bag. Squeeze icing gently across tops of tarts in zigzag formation. Top with fresh cut strawberries (quartered). Enjoy!

 

 

 

Vanilla Birthday Cake

This week is, for sure, a special Birthday week in our family. My little, and youngest, sister Shaina, turns 21 today!! That's an exciting year to celebrate. When I see her on Sunday, I either want to make her a cake as pretty as the one I made yesterday for my BFF Colleen's 30th Birthday, OR we are going out for Rita's water ice, and i'll spike her water ice with Vodka ;) My one and only niece, Genevieve, celebrates her birthday tomorrow! So many birthdays, and all for the ones I love dearly. I absolutely love making Birthday cakes. Yesterday, I attempted my first Naked cake. If you haven't already heard the term, you likely have seen a naked cake and didn't know that's what it is called. It's when a layer cake is exposed, and the filling and frosting only coats the edges of the cake where the cake layers meet and sometimes (like this cake) the surface edges are thinly and sparingly coated with a little of the frosting. It has been a wedding cake trend for a while now, but finally I made one of these rustic and natural beauties for a Birthday. To top off the prettiness, I cut some fresh flowers and leaves to decorate the top. The cake turned out to be as delicious as pretty. See Country Living's recipe below (or click HERE) for vanilla cake and my buttercream frosting. I wrote in some basic directions on creating the perfect 4 1/2" round naked cake. Happy Birthday S, G, & C! xo RCN

Cake Ingredients:

1½ c. sifted cake flour

1½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

½ c. unsalted butter

1 c. sugar

2 large eggs

½ tsp. vanilla extract

½ c. whole milk

Buttercream Frosting Ingredients:

Mix and combine all ingredients until it becomes a smooth frosting texture.

3 cups powdered sugar, sifted

1/3 cups butter, softened

3 tablespoons milk

Baking Directions:

Heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly coat four 4 1/2" cake pans (I used spring form) with butter and dust with all-purpose flour. Sift the cake flour, baking powder, and salt into a large mixing bowl. Place mixture in electric stand mixer with whisk attachment. Beat in the butter one 1/4 teaspoon. Mix on low speed until the mixture resembles coarse sand (may be a 'bit larger grains than sand). Next, beat in sugar one tablespoon at a time, until the mixture resembles fine damp sand. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla and milk, and beat on medium-high, just until blended. Do not overbeat. Pour equally into four 6" cake pans. Bake for about 30 minutes, until toothpick inserts at center of cake and pulls out smoothly without wet batter. Remove from oven and let sit for a few minutes. Remove from cake pans and set to completely cool on wire rack.

Assembling and Decorating Directions:

First, decide what cake stand or platter you want to use to display your cake, set aside. Once cakes are cool, trim off the dome of each mini cake with a serrated bread knife. The goal is to cut the tops off each cake to create flat surfaces that will allow you to easily stack each cake on one  another. Grab cake stand or plate and buttercream frosting. Place a smudge of frosting at center of plate. Grab one layer of cake and place centered on the frosting on plate, push down to help secure the cake. Cover the top surface of the cake layer with about a 1/2 inch of frosting, frost all the way to edge of cake, its even better to let a little hang off the edge. Place next layer on top of first layer. Continue all steps until you reach your 4th layer. Frost the top of the cake and smooth the top surface. Take an icing smoother, link below, and smooth out all edges of the frosting insides of cake. Continue using edge all around the sides of the cake and at all layers of the cake to smooth and spread a random and sparing amount of frosting on the cakes exterior, just like images below. Lastly, cut fresh flowers, leaving no stem for small flowers, and a tiny stem on big flowers (bigger flowers may shift more so a little stem allows you to stick more firmly into cake and frosting). Leave stems on leaves as well, as they will be the last decoration to add, underneath flowers and you will need stem to stick in from underneath flowers. That's it! 

 
Source: http://www.countryliving.com/food-drinks/r...

Confetti Cookies

I spent the last few nights in NOLA celebrating my girlfriend Roxie's bachelorette. We had a wonderful time. I won't mention too many details about the trip, but we thoroughly enjoyed the food and drinks in New Orleans. We ate dinner at Seaworthy and Sylvain, brunched at Wilma Jean and Commander's Palace, munched on beignets from Cafe du Monde, and of course tried pork belly, shrimp, and roast beef Po'boys from a few different places.

I brought along some colorful celebratory cookies to have back at the house for when we weren't eating a million other snacks. These were simple to make, as I didn't use a homemade recipe. Sometimes, you just don't need homemade, especially in a time crunch! 

Instructions:

I divided pre-made Pillsbury sugar cookie dough and rolled into small balls and flattened with my hands. I varied the cookie sizes, the smallest being the size of a dime. Once the cookies were baked and cooled, I prepped the cookie icing. When following the directions to heat the icing, I only zapped in microwave for 10 seconds on 50% heat. I also let the icing sit for a minute before beginning to spread onto the cookies. Most importantly, I used a tooth pick to evenly divide and spread the onto the cookies. The alphabet cookie cutters and icing came from Michael's Craft Store. The icing portion part of this project took the longest, so give yourself a little time to work on this if you are making a lot of the confetti cookies. In the end, they are fun and worth it! 

This weekend was full of champagne, sweets, and lots of other food and drinks. I think I am in need of a little detox these next few weeks! xo RCN