Friday, April 11, 2008

Duck, Bunnies, Outside In, and Loaded Up Mixes

So this is my new thing, I run and lose weight and when I get a craving to be creative I start baking and share the wealth (and calories) with people at the school and office.
This time I made Bunnies and Ducks.
What?
You can't tell?
The bunnies are on the left, there is green grass under the face, which is made up of a pink nose and eyes, and the sky is blue over the head.

The Ducks have blue water under the face, which is made up of a orange bill and chocolate chip eyes, and green pond grass above the head
Except for the one at the very top, he seems to have water above his eyes, must be doing the backstroke. HA, I crack myself up sometimes!

To make the cookies I used the sugar cookie dough and added food coloring. Then I put wax paper in a loaf pan and started layering the colors in. That is the secret "layers".

A secret I learned is to color the roll and then put it in the fridge. The process of kneading the color into the dough makes it very pliable. Using that for a flat layer like I have in this picture is fine. I didn't do that and my layers got soft, the pink of the bunny is one example. It spread out too much and looks odd. If it was stiffer the spots would have stayed rounder. Lesson learned.
After you have the layers built put the pan in the refrigerator for a few hours so that the dough stiffens and will slice nicely.
I forgot to take a picture of the layered loaf, but it was interesting and you can see how the cookies turned out.
No matter what they were still sugar cookies.


Last weekend I decided to make a cake, but I couldn't make up my mind which of my favorites to make, so I made both of them.
The chocolate cake is unfrosted because the Pecan Coconut frosting is actually mixed in the cake mix. It is a delicious bundt cake!






This layered cake is a combination of two recipes. One is the Angel food frosted with pineapple and whipped topping recipe that you can find on the Kraft website.
The other is a variation of that which puts the pineapple in the cake mix instead of in the whipped topping.
Well, somehow I managed to have 4 cans of pineapple tidbits in the cabinet. I think Bill was trying to get me to make this cake and I wasn't getting the hint.
So I used both recipes. I put pineapple in both the cake and the frosting.

I also made a nice pasta salad for the dinner last weekend.
Yellow squash, zuchini, red pepper, green pepper, green onions, tri-colored rotini, bread crumbs, italian seasoning, and olive oil.
Delicious and potluck safe since there is really nothing that will "turn" too quickly such as eggs or mayo.

Those are my recent Made things. Billy has been working on fence and grading papers so nothing exciting there.
Take care everybody and come back hoping for something interesting next time.