Minnie Mouse Cake

I am going to flashback to a little over a year ago when my daughter wanted a Minnie Mouse theme for her second birthday.  She sweetly refers to Minnie Mouse as MeeMee.  This was an easy cake to make, and she loved it.  So I thought I would share this successful birthday cake. I used one 9 inch round cake pan and two ramekins. The hardest part was making sure I filled all three pans to the same height.  I used a toothpick to measure the height of each. The second difficulty I had was getting the icing to be BLACK BLACK and not sort of black grey.  In the end, it wasn't as black as I wished it could have been.  But my sweet little two year old daughter didn't even notice.  She squealed with delight when she saw it and yelled, " MeeMee .... MeeMee I love you.... thank you Mommy... thank you."  I got a great big wonderful hug that melted my heart. And honestly..... the way I choose to remember this cake .... is the way my daughter remembers it .... as the perfect Mee Mee cake.  Here it is ......

The BEST Rolled Sugar Cookies

These are my go to cookie for birthday parties, special occasion-guest-take-home-gift, anytime sugar cookie recipe.  They are easy, you can make them into any shape or cut out cookies you want, you can make them ahead of time (they keep beautifully), and oooooh I almost forgot the best part --- they are super yummy and soft.  I have made these cookies into dinosaures, trains, butterflies, flowers, crosses, firetrucks, and monkeys --- just to name a few.

Here is the Golden Cookie Award winning recipe -- I received this award from the Academy of OUR Family.  This Academy has members in it ranging from age 2 to 80.  All have selected this cookie recipe as the favorite.  The question is will your family agree?  This recipe came from allrecipes.com

Best Rolled/Cut Out Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
5 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

powdered sugar for rolling surface


Directions:

In a large bowl cream butter and sugar.  Beat in eggs and vanilla.  In a separate bowl, combine flour baking powder, and salt.  Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture in three different batches.  Do not over beat.  Place the dough on a large piece of plastic wrap, cover and wrap tightly for at least an hour or even for overnight.  Take the dough out and cut off a chunk that is manageable for you to work with. Once the dough gets too warm from your hands, it is becomes difficult to work with -- hence keep the dough pieces you cut manageable.  Sprinkle your counter with some powdered sugar.  I use powdered sugar instead of flour because the extra flour makes the dough tough.  Roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch in thickness and then use the cookie cutter of your choice. When you have extra dough, but there is not enough to cut into more cookies or it has become too warm from your hands, put it back into the refrigerator to get cold again.

Place the cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet in a 400 degree oven for 6-8 minutes. The cookies stay pretty light in color. It may take a few times to figure out the exact time for your oven;  8 minutes is perfect for my oven.   Remove them from the pan and let them cool.  Decorate or leave plain they are wonderful any way you choose to eat them.  If you keep the cookies in an airtight container, they save well.  When I make these for party favors, I put one or two in a small clear baggie and tie a ribbon on the top.   You can make these cookies 5-7 days before your party, the guests will never know -- the cookies are that good.

I have decorated these cookies using M&Ms; I did this when I decorated butterfly, flower, and dinosaur cookies.  Mix a bit of water and a bit of powdered sugar into a paste. Use this paste to "glue" M&Ms onto cookies. I have used Royal Icing to decorate these cookies too.  I have also served them plain.  No matter what you choice, you cannot lose with this cookie.

I have also put together cookie baskets for those who I love so that they can give cookies out at their special occasion.  For example when my dear friend, Kristen, had a Baptism for her little boy Carter; I made a cookie basket for her to give out cookies to her guests as a thank you gift.  I also made a similar basket for Nel, a friend of mine, who recently got married.

So no matter how you choice to use this recipe.  Know that it will be a winner. And people will ask you if you are serving your yummy sugar cookies.
Buon Appetito!

No Lettuce Salad with an easy Vinaigrette

It is summer and the veggies look so wonderful in the grocery store.  And like every mom I am always trying to put veggies on the table in a new way to entice my kids and husband. Here the story of The Mommy, a bunch of veggies, and her two hungry kids.

When I was dating my husband he used to make me dinner.  And one of the salads he used to make me was his No Lettuce Salad.  Cute concept, right? A salad without leafy greens, just the crunchy parts. Anyway, we haven't made it for years.  So the other day when I was thinking about how to get my kids to eat more veggies, I made this salad.  I was thinking that some of the veggies in it they love and some not so much.  But it would offer me an opportunity to talk about these veggies and everyone can sample small bite sized pieces of each variety.  Plus the salad is so colorful and pretty, it makes you want to try it.

Once I was finished with the salad, I left it sitting in my kitchen. Not realizing what a temptation I was leaving on my counter, I went upstairs to fold laundry. Can you believe I just called my salad a temptation.  But it was a temptation! It is so beautiful with a wide variety of colors.  When I came downstairs, they both were sitting in the family room watching TV with a bowl of vegetables in front of them.  I yelled in my frantic funny mom voice, "are you kidding me? Are you two eating mommy's dinner BEFORE dinner?  I cannot believe it!"  They both busted out laughing and started telling me the story about how my son got the little bowls out and both of them started picking through the veggies and sticking them in their bowl.  And I also hear how hungry they were.  "Mommy, we are starving!" my son says to me.

I have to say I was very pleased to see them eating vegetables at 4:30.  I figured they were just having their first course (veggie course) a bit early for dinner.  And how perfect to have the majority of their vegetable consumed while they are "starving" for dinner.  Instead of having the first thing they put in their mouth be a piece of bread, like we are served in most restaurants.  We usually have dinner between 5:00 and 5:30, so in the end I didn't think of the No Lettuce Salad as a snack, but the early start of their meal.

Obviously the colorful bowl that was left within their reach was a temptation, but I also think an important key to this story is the NO SNACK rule that was put in place about one month ago.  I used to give the kids a lot more snacks throughout the day.  I have cut that back significantly.  I used to give them a snack between breakfast and lunch.  Now if they get hungry around 10:30, I give them some carrots and call it pre-lunch --- and give them their lunch at 11:00.  Then since it is a longer stretch until dinner at 5:00/5:30, I give a small snack at 1:30. This makes them good and hungry for dinner. Hence at 4:30, the  kids were "sneaking" some veggies off my counter.  I only see a win - win in this situation.

So what is the moral of the story of The Mommy, a bunch of veggies, and her two hungry kids?  Don't snack your kids until they are no longer hungry for the good food you put on the table and leave fresh attractive food within their reach. The End.


There were just a few changes I made to my husband's original recipe.  I changed the dressing from a store bought dressing to my homemade dressing --- this was a healthy change.  And he used to steam the broccoli until it lost it's raw texture and had a little give to it and shocked it cold to keep its pretty green color.  I decided to roast my broccoli, but either way works.

Here is the recipe ---

No Lettuce Salad

1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 orange pepper
some broccoli florets (steamed and cooled or roasted in oven at 400 degrees for 15 - 20 minutes)
2 -3 carrots
1 seedless cucumber
1 small zucchini
1 small red onion
some  shredded cheddar cheese

Start by working with the broccoli if you want to cook it in some way.  We prefer cooked broccoli to raw, but if you like raw... leave it.  I placed my broccoli on a cookie sheet with salt and olive oil and roasted it in a 400 degree oven for 15 - 20 minutes.  My husband used to steam it until he achieved the texture he was looking for, then he put the broccoli in the freezer to stop the cooking process and preserve the green color.  Whatever works for you--do it.  Then chop the rest of the vegetables into bite sized pieces and add the amount of cheese or no cheese that best fits your family.  Only dress it when you are ready to serve on the amount of veggies you are going to eat, or it will get soggy in the refrigerator.  The leftovers I leave in an airtight container.

Italian Vinaigrette

4 Tablespoons of red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard
some chopped garlic and/or chopped shallots (optional)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3/4 cups Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Mix vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper.  Add the optional garlic and/or shallots at this point.  Slowly drizzle in olive oil while continually whisking.  At this point you should have a perfectly emulsified dressing.  Brava!

Try leaving your No Lettuce Salad on your counter with hungry kids in the house and see what happens.

Peach Cobbler

My mom and dad were visiting with friends who shared with them "the BEST peaches" they have eaten since being in Italy.  I guess there is this man who drives a refrigerated truck filled with peaches and blueberries from Georgia, parks in a parking lot, and sells the fruit right out of his truck.  I am not sure how people find out about the location, but they do.  I guess his business mantra is, "deliver the peaches, and they will come."

Anyway, my parents decided to meet this trucker and buy some of his Georgia peaches and blueberries. My parents are very generous people.  They bought this wonderful fruit and shared it with my brother and his family and me and my family.  There is nothing like spending a wonderful day at the zoo and coming home to a kitchen counter filled with perfectly ripened fruits and a note from your parents explaining the gift that was left for you and the family.  And those are some of the Blessings in my life.
So after eating several of the peaches, the baker in me decided to make something perfectly summer like with them.  Funny thing is, I called my mom to tell her what I was going to do with some of the peaches only to find out that her and my dad did the very same thing the night before. I guess this only stands to reason, I was raised in her kitchen.

The following recipe I am about to share is a variation on a recipe I found online at myrecipes.com.  I looked up many cobbler recipes and the basics of this cobbler recipe can be found all over. Here is the recipe I used with the changes I made.

Peach Cobbler

peach part

7-9 peaches depending on the size or about 5 cups (pealed and sliced)
1/2 - 3/4 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of water
1/2 Tablespoon lemon juice

Start by blanching your peaches (quickly boiling your peaches) to get the skin off.  Unless you prefer to keep the skin on the peaches; that is just a personal preference. To blanch your peaches, bring water to a rolling boil.  Use a knife to place an X on the bottom side of your peaches (to help the boiling water loosen the skin).  Place the peaches in the boiling water for about 45 seconds -- to 1 minutes if they are less than perfectly ripe.  Take the peaches out and put them immediately into an ice bath; this stops the cooking process.  Once the peaches are cool, it should be easy to take the skin off.  Now cut the peaches into bite sized pieces.  Place the peaches, sugar, water, and lemon juice into a pot, bring to a boil, and simmer for 10 minutes.  Set aside and cool.

cobbler part

1/2 cup of butter

1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
2 Tablespoons of baking powder
1/2 - 3/4 cup of sugar
a pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of skim milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla
some cinnamon

powdered sugar for garnish
pecans for garnish (toast nuts in a dry pan)


Heat oven to 350 degrees.  This recipe can be made in one 13 x 9 or one 7 x 11 and one loaf pan.  Melt the butter the baking dish with high sides you chose to use.  While butter is melting, make cobbler part.  Mix dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Once blended, slowing add milk and stir making sure you don't get any lumps.  Lastly, add the vanilla.  Once butter is melted, add cobbler mixture to baking dish, but DO NOT stir mixture into butter; just let it sit there.  Lightly, add peaches and liquid on top of cobbler mixture.  As the cobbler bakes it will rise to the top and pass up the peaches .  Trust me it is worth the wait. If you want, this is the point I added a dash of cinnamon. Bake for 40-45 minutes.  Keep checking your cobbler; it should be light brown on the edges.  Take out of the oven and let it rest for about 10 minutes.

While cobbler is cooling, heat pecans in a dry pan.  Once you smell the pecan, they are done.  Don't warm them for too long or you will burn them.  Serve your cobbler warm, garnish with some powdered sugar and warm pecans.  If you are looking to make this perfect dessert even more perfect, serve it with a bit of vanilla ice cream.

After you make this the first time, don't be surprised when your family starts requesting it -- I know mine did.

Thanks Mom and Dad for your generous gift of the perfect summer peaches -- what a treat!

Buon Appetito! 

My Romantic Anniversary Gift

The most romantic gifts aren't diamonds and emeralds.  Don't get me wrong jewelry is always a big hit, but it doesn't go in the romantic category.  Yesterday was my husband and my 8th wedding Anniversary.  My husband came home from work yesterday with this..........

Now although anyone looking at this flower arrangement may say,"oh that is pretty."  It would end there.  Flowers are always a nice treat, but they usually don't invoke tears.  But this flower arrangement put tears in my eyes.  As I was starring at it speechless, my husband asked, "do you recognize this arrangement?"

"Of course," I say, "it is my wedding bouquet."  And I continue to stare at the flowers as my heart is rushed filled with memories of that sacred day. My wedding bouquet was a tight ball of red roses with highlights of white stephanotis flowers.  It was beautiful. Here is my bouquet.

The florist told my husband that the stephanotis flowers are used for weddings, but they really don't last for more than one day. So she used some filler flowers in the flower arrangement she made so there would be flowers present when the stephanotis withered.

I am very Blessed to have such a wonderful thoughtful husband.

I live "La bella vita" -- the beautiful life    

Princess Birthday Cake

My little Bambolina (little doll in Italian) wanted to have a Princess birthday party this year, a Sleeping Beauty Aurora party to be precise.  She loves Sleeping Beauty Aurora, she loves pink, and she loves anything princess.  So I knew I had to make the princess cake that Wilton and Betty Crocker have been making since ... well way before I was born.  You know the one.  The one with the little doll sticking out of the top and the cake is the girl's dress.  Yep, that was the one I needed to make.  There are all sorts of You Tubes about this type of cake out there for any baker to watch.  And here is my story about my first princess cake for my daughter's 3rd birthday.

First thing I did was try to figure out what bowl I was going to bake my cake in.  I looked at all my bowls and didn't see the tell tale markings on the bottom that would make me think I could bake safely in any of my bowls.  So I called my dear friend Lene; I knew she would have a baking bowl.  And she did.  She also had a Wilton baking book to help inspire my dress decorating side.  This book as she said was "ancient."  But I have to tell you the cakes in that book are beautiful to look at; and I am not sure if the home baker today attempts cakes like this anymore .... nope I am sure .... most home bakers today do not attempt cakes like this.  The princess cakes in the book were elaborate, and I knew I didn't have that level of expertise.  But the book did give me ideas for some pretty lines of decorations that I could put on Sleeping Beauty's dress.

The next step was making the cakes.  I chose to make a yellow cake in Lene's bowl, which would become the part of the dress closest to the doll's waist.  And two chocolate 9 inch round cakes.  I figured this would give me four layers of cake (the bowl cake gets split into two layers because it the bowl is so deep) and a good sized dress.

Once the cakes were done and cooled, it was time to start stacking the layers.  But first, I needed to create the hole which the princess would stick out of.  So I took a round cookie cutter and cut a hole in both chocolate round cakes.  Then I cut the bowl cake on the horizontal first.

 Lastly I cut the same round cookie hole in both parts of the bowl cake.  Time to start stacking.  I made a butter cream frosting to use between each layer.

Then I put a crumb coat over the whole cake.  This is just a thin layer of frosting used to hold the crumbs down, so that when you put on your final layer of frosting there are no crumbs to be seen.  It makes your cake look more professional.  After putting this crumb coat on, I put the cake in the refrigerator for an hour or so to let the frosting set hard.

This is where I ran into trouble. It was  time to finish the cake.  I took the cake out of the refrigerator, put plastic wrap around the Sleeping Beauty doll I bought my daughter.

I place the doll into the hole I made and........... The cake / dress came up to the doll's mid thigh.  I forgot to measure how much dress I needed.  I just assumed that  four tiers (two 9 inch rounds and 1 bowl cut in half) would be enough.  I clearly needed another 9 inch round.  Since there was nothing I could do to make the cake taller, I used one of my daughter's less expensive knock off Barbie dolls because it was easy to take the doll apart at the waist. Now with only half a doll (from the waist up) I was able to place her in the hole I made and use a couple of  toothpicks to support her floating torso. 

Now it was time to decorate the dress.  I had fun with this part. I made the dress pink with dark pink embellishments and small little pearl candies.

I had to put the doll's hair in an "updo" so it wouldn't get into the cake.

I had to add a lot of dark pink flowers to the back of 

her dress to help hold her floating torso up.

The BEST PART .... my son made my daughter close her eyes, so she could be surprised when she saw the cake for the first time.  And was she surprised? YOU BET SHE WAS!  I will always remember her face and that beautiful smile.  The first thing she said was," oh.... thank you Mama!"

Happy 3rd Birthday my Little Princess.  I love you. Mama

Madeleine Cookies

Madeleine cookies for my little girl Madeleine.

When I was a kid my mom used to make Madeleine cookies.  They were such a special treat.  Instead of simply dropping cookies on a cookie sheet, these cookies required their own special pans.  They look like small individual sized cakes in the shape of an elegant shell that has been lightly dusted with powdered sugar.  They are a French treat.  Little did I know then that I would be making those cookies with my mom's pans for my daughter, Madeleine.

Madeleine turns three this week.  I love remembering significant events by reliving and telling the stories of that day.  I do this with special days like birthdays and vacations.  But just ask my husband and kids, I also do this with a random Thursday.  I love remembering, appreciating, and celebrating the special in the everyday.

This week leading up to Madeleine's birthday, I have been telling baby Madeleine stories to the kids.  It is fun to watch their expressions and excitement when learning about themselves in the past --- the very close past -- like within the last three years.  To us adults, it seems like yesterday.  And yet in the short lives of our babies, these are memories that are so far in their past that they don't even remember. So reliving their beginnings with them is like telling them a wondrous story with very special characters (themselves).

I told Madeleine that the first time I made these cookies in her honor she was not able to enjoy them because it was for her Baptism party, and she wasn't eating cookies yet.  She said that makes her sad because she missed out on eating them.  I told her that she would make up for it this year for her third birthday; she can eat all the cookies she wants.

So this is my mom's recipe for the elegant Madeleine cookies from my childhood (there are a few changes I made).

10 Tablespoons of butter (melted and cooled)
2 eggs
1 cup sugar (I used 2/3 of a cup)
1 cup flour
1 Tablespoon rum
1 teaspoon vanilla
(this time around I added a little lemon zest ... it turned out great ... that is the fun part...making a recipe your own)


Melt butter and allow it to cool.  Heat eggs and sugar in a double boiler until lukewarm, remember to stir it constantly over low heat --- you don't want to scramble your eggs. Remove from heat and beat slowly until creaming and frothy.

When cooled, add flour gradually.  Then melted butter, rum, and vanilla. This is where I added the lemon zest.  Stirring constantly.

Spray Madeleine pans then scoop a teaspoon or so of the batter into each shell (about 3/4 full).

Bake at 375 degrees for 11 - 15 minutes.  When they come out of the oven use a small pairing knife to gently cut around the edges to help the delicate cookies pop out when you turn the pan over.  Lightly dust with powdered sugar while cookies are still hot.

Trust me ..... when you eat your first bite....you will be transported to a small cafe in Paris.  Until you hear your three year old in the background yelling at your other child.  Oooppps!  That is my story ... not yours. Bon Appetit!