Red, White & Blue Recipe Round-Up

If you are trying to come up with something to take to a holiday picnic next week; here are some patriotic recipes that I have shared with you in the past that would be great for the 4th of July! They are all refreshing treats for a hot day and super easy to make. Personally I'm looking forward to the mini deep dish fruit pizzas...YUM!

Patriotic Poke Cake

Flag Mini Deep Dish Fruit Pizzas

 Red and Blue Star Shaped Jello Shots

 Kid Friendly Patriotic Jello

Ok the next ones aren't Red, White "and" Blue, but they are totally delicious, and go with every picnic

Fish Shaped Blueberry-tini Jello Shots

 S'mores Cookie Bars

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Tomorrow is the 100th day of school for my daughter's school district. I was asked to make some cupcakes for her class. When I told my daughter about this, she told me I had to make the cookie cupcakes. My kids just love biting into a cupcake and finding something a little extra on the inside.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Adapted from Allrecipes.com

Make 24 cupcakes

Cookie Dough

You can use your favorite cookie dough recipe, store bought cookie dough, or the recipe below. I like to freeze some balls of dough every time I make cookies so I always have some on hand.

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt (I use Kosher)

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/4 cup white sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (DIY Vanilla Extract)

1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips 

1. Cream the butter and sugars together, in a large bowl.

2. Beat in 1 egg and vanilla extract to the butter mixture.

3. Mix in the flour, baking soda and salt. Until just combined.

4. Gently mix in the chocolate chips.

5. Roll the cookie dough into tablespoon sized balls, and place them on a plate or cookie sheet (something that will fit in your freezer).

6. Freeze the cookie dough balls for at least 2 hours. I usually let the go over night, or use some I keep frozen.

Cupcake

You can use your favorite cake recipe, or the recipe below. 

1 (18.25 ounce) box yellow cake mix

1 1/3 cups water

1/3 cup vegetable oil

3 eggs 

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Line cupcake pan with paper liners.

3. Beat 3 eggs in a large bowl.

4. Add cake mix, water, and oil to the eggs; and beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.

5. Fill the prepared cupcake pans, until each cupcake is 2/3 full.

6. Place a frozen cupcake ball on the top of each cupcake.

7. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the cake portion of the cupcake (NOT the cookie dough ball) comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes.

8. Cool in pans about 5 minutes, before removing from the pans.

9. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before icing.

Icing

You can use whatever flavor you like. For the ones pictured I used Wilton's Buttercream.

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening (I use butter flavored Crisco)

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine softened (I use unsalted butter)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (Use clear vanilla if you want whiter icing.)

4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

2 Tablespoons milk, plus more for consistancy

1. In large bowl, cream shortening and butter.
2. Mix in vanilla.
3. Gradually mix in confectioners' sugar, beating well on medium speed. (Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often.
4. Add 2 tablespoons milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.
5. Add up to 4 more tablespoons of milk, to get the consistency you want.
 
The icing can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks, but rewhip it before using.

 I decorated the cupcakes using Ateco tip #849. I topped each cupcake with a fondant "100" I made by cutting fondant with Wilton Fondant Cutters*.

*Affiliate Links.

 

 I'll Be Linking Up At Some Of These Parties!

Cake Poppers

I am over the moon with all of the positive comments and emails I have been receiving from my readers lately. It makes writing my blog post each day even more fun. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to stop by and reach out. I truly appreciate it! 

I have received multiple emails, asking me to share the recipe for the cake poppers that I talked about in the Little Miss Sunshine Party post. Since I am not one to disappoint, I figured I better hop to it!

Recipe adapted from Chef In Training.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softend (if using salted butter omit the salt below)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 cups flour (more if needed)

1 cup yellow cake mix, dry 

1 teaspoon vanilla (store bought or make your own)

1/8 teaspoon salt (omit if using salted butter)
3 Tablespoons of milk (more if needed)

2 Tablespoons sprinkles

1 12oz package candy melts* in the color of your choosing (I find that the Wilton brand melts nicer than the Make N' Mold)

1. Cream together the butter and sugar.
2. Blend in the vanilla.
3. Mix cake mix, flour, salt into the sugar mixture.
4. Add milk to the cake mix mixture and stir.
5. At this point you should be able to form for the dough into balls without it crumbling or being too sticky. If you are having trouble, with this you may need to add a little more milk or flour to get your desired dough consistency.
6. Add sprinkles to the cake mix mixture and stir by hand.
7. Roll the dough into 1" balls and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
8. Chill balls in the refrigerator for 15 to 20 minutes.
9. While the balls are chilling, melt the candy melts* in the microwave in 30 second intervals. Stir between each 30 second interval.
10. Once melted, pour chocolate into a thicker plastic baggie (like Hefty) and cut off one corner, or into a decorating squeeze bottle*. I recommend the squeeze bottle* because the chocolate will be hot so it will be easier to handle. Plus the bottle will allow more control over the chocolate flow.
11. Decorate your poppers with a design, or letters and numbers to spell out a message.
12. Store the Cake Poppers in an air tight container in the refrigerator until serving.

The original recipe from Chef In Training says that this makes 24-30 poppers. I wish I could confirm this but my kitchen helpers have a tendency of making things disappear before I get to count them.

*affiliate link

Linking Up With:
Tip Junkie
A Bowl Full of Lemons
House Of Hepworths
The Prudent Pantry
The King's Court IV 
Someday Crafts    
The Celebration Shoppe

Lalaloopsy Birthday Party

This weekend I was looking through some pictures and came across my daughter's 4th birthday party. I figured I would share it in case some of you have little girls that are as crazy for Lalaloopsy as my daughter.

My daughter absolutely adores all the Lalaloopsy dolls. She knows all their names and plays with them everyday. Peanut Bigtop is her favorite doll, she is a circus themed doll with a purple pet elephant. Peanut was the inspiration for my daughters cake. 

One layer of the cake is white cake and the other is chocolate. Both are covered in buttercream icing, it was suppose to mimic her outfit (white and red top, pink belt, orange skirt). 

The accents on the cake are made of fondant. 

Peanut's head is fondant attached to a sugar cookie with icing.

Besides the cake we had plenty of desserts at the party. There were cookie dough cupcakes topped with buttercream icing and fondant flowers and buttons. We also had lemon poppy seed cookies, multi-colored button shaped sugar cookies, and a giant chocolate chip cookie decorated with the Lalaloopsy logo in buttercream. 

We also had 3 different flavors of cakepops, and of course no party is complete without some "Dirt" pudding dessert. The flowers in the "Dirt" were from Micheal's craft store.

I made a small candy bar with Sixlets, candy dots, pixy sticks, and candy necklaces.

The tablecloths and buckets were on clearance from Target at Easter time. I used thread and tied buttons on the buckets handles. The pinwheels are from the dollar store and I glued small buttons in their centers.

I used the same buckets for the favors and used foam shapes, buttons, and pipe cleaners to make name tags for them. The favors were pinwheels (some with gum and some without for the little ones), giant pixy sticks, lollipops, crayons, bubbles, gumdrop prisms, kazoos, and a homemade coloring book. I made the coloring books using coloring pages from One Love Designs on Etsy, cardstock for the covers, and bound them with ribbon.

We had a flower pinata from Party City. I placed a button made out of cardstock in the center of it, to make it more Lalaloopsy-ish.

We also played pin the party hat on Peanut's elephant. I made the elephant and party hats out of cardstock and pompoms. I used blue painters' tape on the back of them, so they were easily removable to play the game. Unfortunately I don't have a great picture of the game hung up, because there is always too much to do party day.

The thank you postcards we gave out were pictures that I had taken and edited, of my daughter for birthday.

I hope this give you some inspiration for a party for a little girl in your life.

Linking Up With:
Tip Junkie
House Of Hepworths
The Shabby Creek Cottage
The Celebration Shoppe

Patriotic Poke Cake

If you are looking for a quick and easy patriotic dessert that everybody loves, try a poke cake. 

They are super easy to make, and most importantly super yummy!!! 

I made the one pictured above for Memorial Day using strawberry jello and French vanilla pudding, but you could do any combination you'd like. One of my favorite combinations is lime jello and lemon pudding, it is such a refreshing duo on a hot day. 

Ingredients & Directions

Cake

1 box cake mix (baked as directed on package)

1 4-serving box of jello (flavor of your choice, I used strawberry)

1 cup boiling water

1/2 cup cold water

1. Mix and bake cake per package directions in a 9"x13" pan. 

2. Let the cake cool for 20 minutes on a wire rack.

3. Dissolve the jello in boiling water and add the cold water to it; set aside.

4. While the cake is still in the pan, poke deep holes through the top of the cake with a meat fork, toothpick, or skewer. Space the holes about 1/2" apart. 

5. Pour the dissolved jello over cake.

6. Refrigerate the cake, and allow it to cool completely.

Topping

1 4-serving package of instant pudding (I used French Vanilla)

1/4 cup confectioners' sugar

1 cup milk

1 8oz. Cool Whip

1. Mix the instant pudding with the milk.

2. Stir the confectioners' sugar into the pudding mixture.

3. Fold the Cool Whip into the pudding mixture.

4. Spread the mixture on the completely cooled cake.

You can decorate the cake however you choose. 

I think the fresh fruit made a delicious addition to this cake.

Linking Up With: