Ah LOVE....

We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.

~ unknown

Strawberry Tartlets ~ Berry Sauce ~ Fresh Strawberries

I got 4 inch tart pans for christmas and have always wanted to use them. So my mom bought some strawberries and she wanted me to use them up! so I decided to make strawberry tarts for dessert as we had company coming over.

I used some pie dough that was pre-made by my mother. She just used the recipe on the back of the Tenderflake box, it makes the best pastries for pies.

The Berry Sauce:

I kinda just made this up and dump

ed a whole bunch of ingredients into it, so I will try and think of how much and what I put in it!

4 Fresh Strawberries, heated (in microwave) and mashed

1/2 Cup Frozen Raspberries, heated and mashed

3 Tablespoons Corn Startch

3/4 Cup Water

1/4 Cup Sugar

Whisk it all together is a small pot and let it boil up, it will start to thicken. Them once it has boiled for a little bit, strain the sauce through a strainer so you can get all the seeds out and your sauce will be smooth. Once you ar

e done this put it is a container and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400* F. Roll out the dough and use to line the 4 -4inch tart pans. Prick the bottoms with a fork, line with parchment paper and fill with dried beans so that the pastry doen't shrink. Bake in a preheated over for 10 minutes, then remove the beans and parchment paper and back for another 5 minutes until golden brown. Remove for oven and let cool.

Filling:

1 Vanilla bean, split

1 Cup Milk

2 Egg Yolks

3 TB Superfine Sugar

1 TB all-purpose Flour

1 TB Cornstarch

1/2 Cup Heavy Cream, Whipped

3 Cups Strawberries, Hulled

Strawberry Sauce

For the filling, place the vanilla bean in a saucepan with the milk and set over low heat to steep, without boiling, for 10 minutes. Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, flour, and cornstarch together in a mixing bowl until smooth. Strain the milk into the bowl and whisk.

Pour the mixture back into the pan and stir over medium heat until boiling. Cook, stirring continuously, for about 2 minutes, until thicken and smooth. Remove from heat and fold in whipped cream. Spoon the mixture until the cooled shells. Let cool and set. When filling has set slightly, top with strawberries, sliced if large, then spoon over the strawberry sauce.

Store in fridge until ready to serve or serve right aways!

Enjoy!

Cake!

I have been taking a cake decorating course this past month. This is the cake I ended up with! I am pretty pleased with it and think that it turned out quite well. I have enjoyed taking this course, my Aunt teaches it in her home and it is a great class. You learn lots and have a great teacher. She is always doing classes and is accepting new students all the time. She is a excellent baker and cake decorator.

Chocolate Caramel Thumbprints

These cookies are really good and look like they would take a long time! they are the kind of cookies that you bake if you want to make something easy and yet impressive looking. They are delicious and don't take very long at all.

Makes about 1-1 1/2 Dozen

Cookies:

1/2 Cup Butter, Softened

2/3 Cup Sugar

1 Egg, Separated

2 Tablespoons milk

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1 Cup All-purpose Flour

1/3 Cup Baking Cocoa

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

1 Cup Finely Chopped Pecans

Filling:

12-14 Caramels

3 Tablespoons Heavy Cream

1/2 Cup Semisweet Chocolate Chips

1 Teaspoon Butter

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg yolk, milk and vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, and salt; add to the creamed mixture. Refrigerate for an hour or until easy to handle.

Roll the dough into one inch balls. Beat the egg white. Dip the cookie balls into the egg white and coat with the nuts. Place two inches apart on a greased baking sheet. Using the end of a wooden spoon, make an indentation about 1/2 big in the middle of the cookie balls. Bake at 350* for about 10-12 minutes or until set. Remove to wire racks to cool. Meanwhile, in a sauce pan, melt the caramels with the cream over a low heat, stir until smooth. Using a small spoon, fill the dents of the cookies with the caramel. In th

e microwave, melt the chocolate chips and butter. Drizzle over the cookies. I had some caramel left over so I drizzled caramel over them as well.

Peanut Butter Mouse Cookies

These cookies are a real hit, they are so cute and are very fun to make... and they don't even take a long time. I made these cookies for some youth and they were done in about 5 minutes. Everyone loves them.

Makes about 2 and a half dozen!
Cookies:

1 Cup Creamy Peanut Butter
1/2 Cup Butter, Softened
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/2 Packed Brown Sugar
1 Egg
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 Cup Peanut Halves
2 Tablespoons M&M's
4 Teaspoons Miniature Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
60-66 Pieces Red Shoelace Licorice

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, cream peanut butter, butter, sugar and brown sugar together. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine the flour and baking soda; gradually add to the creamed mixture. Refrigerate for an hour or until easy to handle. Pre-heat oven to 350*
Roll into 1-inch balls. Place 2 inches apart on a baking sheet. Pinch each ball at one end to give it a tapered look. Insert two peanut halves in center of each ball for the ears. Add one M&M for the nose and the mini chocolate chips for the eyes. Bake for about 8-10 minutes or until set. They won't be dark when they are done, they will almost look raw, but not quite. Once out of the over, gently insert one piece of licorice for the tail. Move to wire racks and cool completely.

Strawberry Shortcakes ~ Fresh Strawberries ~ Vanilla Whipped Cream

Yesterday I spent the day with my brother and we decided to make something fancy! His new friend that is a girl, came over and we made her these. She was very impressed and now I think I might get some Catering Jobs for my baking. Her dad is a vet and has many staff banquets and meetings. So I might just get some dessert gigs! I am very excited about this as it is so much fun and pays well!

For the Shortcakes:

Makes Twenty-Four 1 1/2 inch squares

2 1/3 Cups All-Purpose Flour

4 Teaspoons Baking Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 Teaspoon Coarse Salt

6 Tablespoons Vegetable Shortening, cut into pieces and chilled

2/3 Cup Milk

1 Large Egg and 1 Large Egg Yolk, Beaten

It told me to use a Food Processor but I did not have one at my brothers house so I just use a whisk to whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. Then I used a pastry blender to cut the shortening into the dry mixture. I did this until it resembled fine crumbs. Do not use your hands to do this. Whisk the milk, and beaten egg together and add to the dry mixture, use the pastry blender to mix and then use a wooden spoon. Do this until the dough comes together evenly. The dou

gh will be crumbly. Then wrap in plastic

wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour or up to eight.

Continues....

Set the over rack to the top position and heat to 450* or 425* if convection. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

Lightly flour a work surface and roll

the dough out into a square about an 1/2 inch thick. Cut into 24 1 1/2 inch squares and place on baking sheet. Brush the tops with 2 tablespoons of melted butter and sprinkle with pink salt.... ( I used corse salt, just make sure you don't put a lot on and crush it up). Bake until risen and lightly browned, 4-5 minutes, rotation the pan half way through baking.

Serve the shortcakes warm, with the fresh strawberries and vanilla whipped cream, drizzle some strawberry juice liquid on the plate.

Vanilla Whipped Cream:

This whipped cream is probably the best whipped cream that you will ever taste. It is unfortunately the most expensive thing to make it costs about $12 all together for just one recipe.

1/2 Cup Heavy Cream

1/2 Cup Creme Fraiche (Cream Fresh, I just used devonshire cream)

1/2 Icing Sugar

1 Vanilla Bean, Split and Scraped

Chill or freeze a bowl that you are going to mix the cream in. Combine the cream, creme fraiche, sugar and vanilla seeds (rinse, dry and save the pod for another use) in the shilled bowl. Use the whisk to whip the cream to stiff peaks. You can make the cream in advance and refrigerate it for several hours. Whisk again before serving.

Strawberry Juice:

Combine 2 cups sugar and 2 cups water into a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, cooking until the sugar is dissolved. Transfer to a jar and let cool. Boil some of the strawberries into about 1/2 cup of this simple sugar. Boil until the strawberries are soft and have gave some strawberry flavour into the syrup. Strain the syrup so there are not pieces of strawberries.

Then the fun part! Getting to decorate the plates... use your imagination and just have fun!

Enjoy