My New Love

I have always loved sweet sugar cookies and all the adorable shapes one could make, specific to the occasion. I have always been envious of those who could make them. I never could. 

Mine always turned out uneven and burnt on the thin edges, and that's if I could get them on the cookie sheet in one piece. They always got distorted. And they tasted like flour, ugh! So needless to say I didn't make them very often. 

Well, thanks to the very talented folks I have found on the internet, I am so happy that I am now successful at turning out a pretty decent looking sugar cookie! 

What I have learned is to roll the dough between parchment sheets~~~no need for flour!! No more flour on the outside of the cookie and that makes me a happy camper.

Also, I learned that I need to use a rolling pin with rings on it so that the dough is uniformly even! Just like rolling pie crust, why didn't I think of that? That was definitely a DUH moment. So no more thin edges that get burnt. :) 

However, I don't have a rolling pin with rings so I got a wonderful tip to use dowel rods on both sides of your dough when you roll it. Just keep the rolling pin on the dowel rods. That works pretty well to make the dough even, but it isn't ideal. I will be on the look out for a nice rolling pin that comes with rings.

And lastly, when you roll your dough out on the parchment it is so easy to peel the parchment off the back of the cookie so you can transfer it to the cookie sheet. No more distorted cookies!! 

Some of you might be thinking that this is all common sense stuff and maybe it is. But to me, it's a revelation!! And I'm thrilled to be able to show off my sugar cookies now. I think they look better than my sister's, lol. 

Now to call upon my cake decorating days of old and perfect decorating the cookies and I'll be set. Well, there is one other thing I want to work on~~~the recipe. The basic recipe seems to be lacking in the taste department. I will have to experiment a little with that. Or maybe not, 'cuz I'll just eat them.

Thanks to: Make Bake Celebrate, The Sweet Adventures of SugarBelle, and Sweetopia! 

Felt Easter Basket

Here's a cute little basket to make for a special someone. You can make it whatever size you want and embellish it anyway you want to as well.

Here's what you need:
5 squares of felt for the outside, 5 more for the inside (mine are 4 1/2" square)
5 squares of plastic canvas about 1 square less than the width & heighth of your felt square
1 strip of felt for the outside of the handle and 1 more for the inside of the handle (mine 1 1/4"x12")
1 strip of plastic canvas about 1 square less than the width of your handle strip
2 circles of felt with the same diameter (or a little bigger) as the width of your squares
embroidery floss
desired embellishments

Start by making the sides. Sandwich 2 liner felt pieces between 2 outside felt pieces. Make sure all the edges stay lined up. I used 3 strands of embroidery floss to do a whip stitch along the edge. You can do a fancier stitch if you want to. Also, if you want to add some embroidery to the outside do it before joining pieces.

Continue with all the side pieces. Attach 3 sides of the bottom squares in the same manner. I cut a tiny square out of each corner of the bottom pieces.

Insert your plastic canvas into the bottom between the lining and the outside. You may need to trim it a little. Finish stitching the bottom. Insert plastic canvas into the sides, trimming as necessary.

Make the handle by putting lining and outside piece together and stitching along one long side. Insert plastic canvas and then stitch up the other long side. 

Insert handle between the outer piece and plastic canvas, centering it. Stitch it to the plastic canvas securely. Repeat for the other side.

Cut your 2 felt circles in half. Lay the half circle across the top edge of the basket. I used a blanket stitch to stitch them on. When you get to the handle make the stitches in front of the handle as shown. You can glue the lining to the handle at the top.

Now embellish your basket anyway you want to.

Enjoy!!

Homemade Frozen Greek Yogurt Fudgesicles

Ok, so I saw a picture of some yummy looking chocolate frozen yogurt on Pinterest. It gave the ingredients but not the instructions. You can see the picture on my Pinterest page here. I was unable to find the owner of the picture/recipe through a search on the Internet, but it is attributed to this tumblr page. I tried to find it there, but couldn't.

Since I had everything on hand I decided to give it a try. Here's what I did:

1 cup almond milk (I used chocolate)
3/4 cup plain greek yogurt (I used actual greek yogurt, not the fake kind)
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
2-4 tsp sweetener (I used sugar)
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt

I just whipped them altogether and put it in the freezer, but I bet it should go in the ice cream maker. I would start with 2 tsp of sugar and then taste it to see if it is sweet enough for you. You can add more if you need to. Now I wait. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: As far as just sticking this in the freezer, don't. My ice cream maker is huge and I didn't want to use it for this small amount of stuff. However, I did freeze some of it in Popsicle molds. They are much like a fudgesicle. They taste pretty good too!

This is about a 2 oz fudgesicle and it has about 38 calories in it, if my math is right. This recipe will make about 8 of this size.

The downside is that they are a little difficult to unmold  from this particular mold, don't know if it is the size or the material or what. I just ran it under hot water and it popped right out.