Homemade Mini Eclairs

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Lisa

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Hey, hey friends! Thanks for all the congratulations on baby number two. Baby is doing great. Today I am sharing a recipe my mom and I made a few days ago while she was here helping me with the kids: mini eclairs!

My mom used to make eclairs and cream puffs all the time when I was younger. I mentioned that John and I went to our local coffee shop on Sunday after mass and he was bummed they didn’t have any eclairs left. She suggested we make them as a surprise.

Since we were making these during nap time, we used instant pudding mix to speed things along, but she usually makes her pudding from scratch.

The recipe we followed can be found here. We did make one modification -we made mini eclairs instead of the larger ones the recipe calls for. I like everything mini – I think desserts taste and look better the smaller they are. Plus, bite size is fun size. The baking time changes though if you make them smaller. I baked the pastry for ten minutes at 450 degrees and then six minutes at 325 degrees. My batch made 27 mini eclairs.

Here’s all the ingredients.

First, I made the pastry part of the eclair. It was really simple.

Meanwhile, my mom prepared the pudding.

I used a ziploc bag with a large corner cut out as my pastry bag and squeezed out the dough onto a cookie sheet.

While the pastry was baking, my mom whipped the cream and folded it into the pudding mix.

After the pastry cooled it was time to gently slice the eclairs and filled with the pudding mixture. I used a frosting spatula to fill the eclairs. I would say I used about two tablespoonfuls for each eclair – no skimping here. I should mention that there was a lot of filling left, so next time I would halve the pudding mixture (and I bet there would still be some leftover).

While I was filling, my mom made the chocolate icing. Once she removed it from the stovetop, I used a sugar spoon to ice the eclairs. This chocolate icing is so good! I definitely licked the bowl after I was done icing.

The eclairs taste pretty good right away, but a few hours in the fridge makes all the flavors sing. These little gems are so delicious! They were John ~~approved~~ inhaled and were a delicious dessert for after dinner.

These may be my new go-to dessert to share with family and friends. Do you have a favorite dessert recipe you like to make with your mom or family?

Christmas Cookies

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Lisa

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Every year I make Christmas cookies with my mom. We’ve been making them together since I was a little kid with my grandmom. Since we’ve been married, I’ve also been putting together a cookie tray for John to take to his office Christmas party. We always make certain traditional Italian cookies and every year try out one or two new cookie recipes. Here’s what we baked up this year…

1. Peanut Butter Blossoms. These are peanut butter cookies that are rolled into a ball, then rolled in suger, baked and while hot out of the oven, they are pressed down with a Hershey kiss. This isn’t a family recipe or anything. You can see the actual recipe on Hershey’s website.

2. Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies. These are a thin, buttery, crispy, chocolate chip cookies that are my “go-to” chocolate chip cookies. Most chocolate chip cookie recipes I’ve seen make thicker, chewier cookies. That’s fine if you like that, but I really like this crispy version. The recipe is Martha Stewart’s daughter’s and can be found here. This recipe makes 30 4-inch cookies, which are HUGE. I typically halve the recipe and make smaller sized cookies, say 2 or 3 inches in diameter.

3. Crescent Cookies. This is a traditional Italian cookie that my grandmother taught my mom to make way back in the day. She has been making them ever since. They are made with Pecans and are rolled in powdered sugar. Enuff said. Nom nom. I’m not sharing this recipe. Sorry!! Ancient family secret. I’m sure you can find something delicious online.

4. Spritzer Cookies. These are a cookie that was made by my grandmother. They are a lovely, light, buttery cookie that are decorated with sprinkles. You’ll need a cookie press and various dies to make these. We always use the wreath and the Christmas tree and this year we tried the snowflake shape.

5. Raspberry Filled Linzer Sandwich Cookies. This is a new cookie we made this year and it’s delicious! The only drawback is the recipe doesn’t make a lot of cookies. We used the Wilton recipe that came with the Linzer cookie set. If you don’t bake regularly, these cookies may be more challenging. They also take a lot of time. It’s hard because you have to roll the dough out really thin, which makes transferring the dough to your cookie pan hard without cracking them. They’re definitely worth the effort though! Here’s a tip: Refrigerate them overnight for an even better taste.

6. Raspberry and Apricot Filled Thumbprint Cookies. These are my favorite Christmas cookies of all time. Period. It’s not Christmas without me inhaling 2 dozen of these little gems. Once again, this is a family recipe, so I’m not sharing. There are plenty of thumbprint cookie recipes floating out there. They can be filled with just about any type of jam or dried fruit, but my personal favorite is seeded raspberry preserves dusted with confectioners’ sugar. Ridic.

7. Sugar Cookies. These are basic sugar cookies that are rolled out and cut with Christmas themed cookie cutters. They are what we’ll be leaving out for Santa and Rudolph on Christmas Eve. Any basic sugar cookie recipe will probably do fine.

So, this may be my favorite Christmas tradition and I’m still making some yet. If I do, I’ll share those as well.

What are your Christmas culinary traditions? Do you bake something every year or do you cook?

Patriotic Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Lisa

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Happy Fourth of July! We hope you have a great holiday. We are laying low and working on the house (surprised!?).

I am planning a faux cookout thanks to my Griddler. To serve as the dessert, I whipped up a batch of patriotic chocolate chip cookie bars.

This recipe is courtesy of my mom. She made this recipe (in its original form) as a birthday cake for me circa 2005. The original recipe is from Wilton and it uses a giant cookie pizza/pie pan. I know you’ve seen the huge cookies decorated at the supermarket.

She decorated it for me that year as a birthday cake, but we usually make the giant cookie into individual slices.

I forgot to borrow the pan from my mom when I knew I was going to make the cookie so I improvised and used a glass pie pan. I originally planned on using two but once the batter was mixed, I decided on making one thicker cookie. Hence the name, cookie bars.

Here is the recipe.

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

3/4 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray pan with vegetable pan spray. In a large bowl, cream butter with sugars. Add egg and vanilla and mix well. Sir in flour, baking soda and salt then mix well. Sir in chocolate chips. Spread into a prepared 9 by 13 inch circular pan with a spatula. Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool on a rack for 5 minutes. Remove from pan. Cool before cutting. Makes 8 to 10 servings. May be decorated with sprinkles or written on with icing.

All the ingredients – I bet a lot of you have these already in your pantry.

Incorporating the flour to sugars, egg, vanilla, and baking soda. I find a wooden spoon is the best to do this step.Another tip is mixing the chocolate chips in with your (clean) hands.

Pushing the batter mixture into the pie pan. I added red, white, and blue sprinkles for decoration.

The cookie bakes for about 20 minutes. You’ll know when it’s don’t when the edges are golden.

After the cookie completely cools, cut in half. To make bars, I then cut perpendicular to my original cut. You can also cut the cookie like you would a pizza.

Looks pretty good, right?

I’m not going to lie, I ate about 4 while I was cutting the bars up!

We hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July!

Gourmet Madeleine Cookies

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Lisa

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Welcome to baked goods Wednesday! Like that? I just made it up!

I love baking! I try and bake as much as possible, but it’s hard to find the time. I do try and cook at home a lot and try new recipes and I love finishing a great homemade meal with a homemade dessert.

These beautiful little cookies are a french recipe that is really simple to make. I love this recipe because not only are the cookies delicious but you probably already have all of the ingredients in your pantry. However, to get the shell shape you will have to purchase a special Madeleine pan if you don’t have one, although I’m sure you could probably improvise!

When finished, the cookies look like shells, which may be why people will be so impressed when they see them. The recipe I used is originally from Bon Appetit Magazine and the link is here and I followed the recipe as is, except I used lemon extract instead of lemon peel since I did not have any fresh lemons on hand. I subbed 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract for 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel.

Here’s my ingredients.

In this next photo, all the ingredients are incorporated except for the melted butter.

Adding the butter as a steady stream.

I measured 1 tablespoon into each cookie mold – this will make them look uniform.

After baking for 13 minutes…

The smell in your kitchen will be amazing. I really love lemon and these cookies have a perfect blend of lemon and vanilla. The spongy texture of this cookie is unlike any other cookie out there!

All ready for an afternoon snack and a tea!

I promise people will be so impressed if you bring these to a party or of you give them as a gift to a friend. Or you can even be greedy and keep them for yourself!

Any baking plans in your immediate future?

Pink Cake Pops

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Lisa

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If you viewed our Birthday Party post, you know one of the sweet treats I made for the party was homemade cake pops.

This was not my first time making cake pops – I made them as a favor at my pumpkin-themed baby shower.

This time around, I made sure to take photos!

If you want to try making cake pops, they are really relatively easy. I used this video as a tutorial the first time I made cake pops.

I am sure there are plenty of cake pop tutorials – but I really like this one.

Here are my supplies – including my chocolate cake and vanilla icing.

After I mixed the cake and icing together (I only used 2 tablespoons of icing), I rolled out the cake balls.

All of the balls were resting after I placed the melted chocolate covered candy sticks into them.

Here we were making our home made cake pop stand. It’s a gift box with 1/8″ holes punched in the top with a piece of styrofoam in the box for support. Then I covered it in cupcake wrapping paper.

Here’s the finished product!

Best part of these cake pops is eating them! I’ll probably be making a lot more of these over the years.

Any fun plans for the weekend? We’re just hanging out!! It’s gonna be great!

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Tag Archives: baking

Homemade Mini Eclairs

Christmas Cookies

Gourmet Madeleine Cookies

Pink Cake Pops