Blueberries and Cream Puff

Wednesday was my manager's birthday, so we all made treats to celebrate! I made a blueberry and cream tart because her husband told another one of our manager's that her favorite fruit is blueberries. I had made this once before and loved how light and summery it was, so I thought it was perfect since we're already getting such warm weather. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 sheet frozen puff pastry (8oz), thawed

1 egg

3-4 tablespoons sugar

4 oz cream cheese

1/4 cup heavy cream

zest of a small lemon

about 2 cups blueberries

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375 and roll out the puff pastry as much as you can. I use one of my flexible cutting boards, sprinkle some flour on it, and roll out the pastry on there.I usually make it so that it fits my cookie sheet pretty well width wise. Then I put parchment paper over the pastry so that I can flip the cutting board and dough over onto there; I find that easier than lifting (and usually breaking) the dough. Use a butter knife to score a border around the edge of the dough. You want to leave about 1 inch of space for the "crust." My edges are never straight, but you want to score the edges in a straight line. Sprinkle about 1 tbsp. sugar onto the edges/crust pretty thickly, and then sprinkle some of the middle of the dough as well. Bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes; it should get pretty crispy but definitely not burned. 

While you wait for that to be done, but the cream cheese and heavy cream in your mixer and beat until smooth. Then add the lemon zest and 2 tablespoons sugar and continuing beating until smooth again. That's it for the cream portion!

When the pastry is done int he oven, it will be really puffy - don't be concerned! I was the first time. Take the butter knife and cut through the top layer of the pastry where you scored it before it went in the oven. Push the middle square down so that the middle of the pastry is flat. Let that cool completely before you spread the cream mixture into that middle portion. Then, add the blueberries and you are done!

Rolled out, with straight lines scored.

Once it is out of the oven, you can cut through and push down the center like this.

The cream mixture! Doesn't look like a lot, but it goes far.

It doesn't have to be pretty when you spread it out, because you won't be able to see it.

Just try to make sure its fairly evenly spread.

Add the blueberries!

Done :)

56 Years

Today my grandparents are celebrating their 56th wedding anniversary. I am so happy that they are here to celebrate with us. They are such a perfect couple; I don't think it is possible for two people to love each other more than they do. We are all very lucky to have them as our family. 

My cousin, Hannah, who lives in Cozumel now is also in town visiting. She hasn't been back in almost a year so it was great to see her. We had such a great dinner of scalloped potatoes, flank steak and asparagus. I don't have any pictures of that because it was devoured way too quickly, but I can share some pictures of dessert! My grandma's favorite dessert thing on the planet is ice cream. Our first thought was to get them a cake, then we thought about an ice cream cake for her, and then we decided to do make-your-own sundaes. 

We gathered Milwuakees Frozen Custard, Girl Scout cookies, white chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips, walnuts, strawberries and whipped cream and went to town. It was so perfect.

 We got my grandparent's started for them so they looked pretty :)

Todd and Jill

My Grandparents

My Dad and Dana, my aunt

My concoction: white choc chips, strawbs and the shortbread GS cookie

I think this picture describes my grandparents perfectly.

Red Velvet Cookies

Every time I have made Red Velvet Cookies at work, I get asked for the recipe. Yesterday I made them because it was Zach's manager's birthday. I decided that this time, I should go ahead and post it on here. This is a seriously easy recipe, and having the mixer makes it even better. This is actually the reason Zach thought to get me the KitchenAid for xmas, because he was sick of having to help me stir when my arm got tired :) So here goes:

You need:

A box of red velvet mix

1 1/2 - 2 cups white chocolate chips

1 cup flour

1 egg

2 sticks of butter


Edit: Zach thinks I should share how AWESOME these are with cream cheese frosting to dunk them in. He is right. Add that to your ingredients list.

After you preheat the over to 350, mix the butter until soft and fluffy. It is much faster/easier if you have let it sit out a bit to soften, but I rarely plan that far in advance. Once it is softened, it should look like this:

Then you want to slowly mix in the cake mix and the flour. I alternate between the two, but I don't think its crucial that you do it one way or the other. It is going to look pretty dry along the way.

Once it is all mixed in, add the egg and mix until that is fully incorporated. Then you can go ahead and form small balls of dough and start baking. *Note: do not make these right before heading out to an event, or anywhere that you don't want your hands to be stained red. Also, I apologize in advance for how ridiculously bad (worse than normal) the picture below is. I was about to shove them in the oven when I decided to grab the camera and snap a shot.

I have seen a few recipes recommend cooking these for anywhere from 5-10 minutes. I usually get to cook them for at least 12 minutes, so I recommend keeping your eye on them. They should look kind of crackly on the outside once they are done.

I have also seen recipes that call to use white chocolate chunks, instead of chips, but I find that the chips are much easier. They are seriously SO delicious and I get compliments from everyone that tries them. I have even had people offer to pay me to bake a batch for them. 

Cinnamon Sugar Nuts

With all of the warm weather periods we've had lately, I have a feeling spring is going to be coming very early this year (tomorrow should be 70!). So this past weekend I made one of my favorite snacks for cold weather, so I could get one last batch in while there is time. I have made cinnamon almonds and walnuts throughout winter, and I got a TON of walnuts for 50% off so I chose to make those. They are super easy, here's how:

Combine a cup of sugar, 1/2 tablespoon of cinnamon and 1/4 cup water in your skillet.

Throw the nuts on top and start cooking! Make sure all of the nuts get covered in the mixture and stir constantly.

Eventually the nuts will start feeling like they are sticking together more and are harder to move around the pan. They will also start to look more dry:

Once it starts looking like the image above, just stir for about 30 more seconds to make sure all of the nuts are finished.

And them eat them until you can't anymore. They are always super popular when we have people over!

Not So Thin Mints

So, back to the "Thin Mints" Kristen and I made over the weekend. I found a recipe for cookies that were supposed to taste exactly like Thin Mints on Pinterest. I was pretty pumped. GS cookies aren't expensive at $4 each, but when you end up getting 10 boxes worth, it can add up. So Kristen and I decided to bake those and smores cookies this weekend to break in my mixer. Well, the Thin Mints ended up being much more difficult to make than we expected; it isn't that easy to coat the cookie pieces in a thin layer of chocolate, but it is definitely necessary to make them taste right. I would also recommend cooking them longer than expected, so they aren't soft at all (recipe calls for hard edges, I call for hard all over). Lastly, we think we would add more peppermint extract to the dough next time, or maybe to the chocolate that you coat it in. When we first tried them, we weren't impressed. However, the next day I tried them again (after they had sat out over night) and they were MUCH better. I think them becoming stale, and therefore more crisp, really helped.