- Part 105

Valentine’s Sugar Cookies with Poured Royal Icing

Valentine’s Sugar Cookies ~ Love beautiful sugar like I do, but you don’t have time to get elbow deep with pastry bags, tips and piping for some decorated Valentine’s sugar cookies? Let’s chat. . . .

Guess what? I found a happy solution. Skip the damming, the flooding and making two bowls of icing for each consistency. I found my new thrill in poured royal icing. It’s nothing more than royal icing thinned down to a pouring consistency. It’s about two steps thinner than flooding consistency.

If you haven’t guessed, I love everything from pretty food to food truck grub. What I don’t love is being strapped for time. Every year I always have these grand Valentine’s baking plans and then I realize-uh, really! Continue reading Valentine’s Sugar Cookies with Poured Royal Icing

Baking Basics: How to make Lemon Curd

Baking Basics Series: Lemon Curd ~ This is one of those useful recipe components that is easy to make and handy to have around. Lemon curd is used in or on many things likes cakes, cupcakes, tarts, pies and scones.

While you can certainly buy it, I prefer to make homemade, especially since lemon is one of my favorite flavors. I love the tartness of fresh squeezed lemons.

This recipe requires everything to be homemade. In other words, using lemon juice from a bottle won’t work. You want the freshness of real lemon juice and most importantly, the skin is where the majority of a lemon’s flavor comes from. It’s the zest of the skin that gives lemon curd its punched up flavor and bite. That said, when choosing lemons look for unblemished ones and lemons that are smooth, bright and shiny.

Continue reading Baking Basics: How to make Lemon Curd

Game Day Grubbing with Super Bowl Cupcakes

Super Bowl Cupcakes ~ Can you guess what that crumbly streusel is?

Oh, go ahead and hit the jump on over to Endless Simmer to find out what that bit if awesomeness is.