Gift Idea

 On my previous post about trarts there was a chocolate word on top.  I have seen these on a lot of other blogs so I tried them out.  Quite easy although I did do it twice first with Ziploc bag second with piping bag.  I liked the second result a lot more.  Since it took me two tries I had quite a lot of left over words and no tarts soooo I just wrapped them up on plates with a note to give ideas of things they could go on top of and to keep refrigerated and there you go some quick, inexpensive gifts for some friends and neighbors.  Since I was doing this for a family party I wrote out all of the kids names, which they all thought was special.  The possibilities are endless for this, my mind is racing with birthday cake ideas.

Tarts

 These are so delicious.  My mom always made them for party's I have carried on the tradition so tonight I made them for a family get together.  My sister said she loved coming to my house to eat all of our childhood treats.  This is a great one for barbeque's in the summer.

The Recipe:

1 Cup butter softened

1 Cup sugar

1 Egg (from a chicken you trust)

3 Cups flour

1/2 tsp almond flavoring

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

 The dough should be a wet crumbly consistency.

 Just a little tip, put all the tins on a cookie sheet and then spray.  This saves a lot of time instead of spraying individually.

 Put a generous amount of dough in the center of tin and press until there is excess coming up the sides, then gently knock off the extra.

Place in hot oven and bake for 8 to 10 min. When I cooked mine it was more like 12 min. They should just barely be beginning to brown.  Remove from oven and let sit for 10 to 15 min.  If you try to remove them too early the tins are hot and they are too soft.  If you leave them for 3 hours (like I did yesterday) then they are almost impossible to get out. So remove while warm, but set.

Once they have cooled completely and within an hour of so of serving fill with filling and top with desired pie filling.

Filling:

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp almond extract

1/3 cup lemon juice

1/2 cup cream (whipped firm)

Make sure you whip the cream well before adding other ingredients if you don't it will never set up.  It will still be a little too runny when you are done mixing, just place in fridge and in a half hour or more it will be set.  I usually make all of this a day ahead it stores well for at least 2 to 3 days.

Valentines Day Doughnuts

I love to make homemade doughnuts just for fun. So today I just added a little valentines touch.

Makes:6 doughnuts

Prep 10 min.

Cook 325 degrees 13min.

1 Cup all purpose flour

1/4 Cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup low fat buttermilk

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

4 teaspoons unsalted butter, melted

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325, spray doughnut pan. In large bowl mix cocoa, baking soda and salt. In other bowl mix buttermilk, sugar, egg, butter and vanilla until smooth. Add to cocoa and mix until blended and smooth. Spoon batter into zip lock bag.( I have found that the newer bags with pleated bottoms do not work well for this) Snip a 1/2 inch or less opening and squeeze into doughnut shaped pan. Bake for 13 min. When done let cool in pan for 3-5 min then place on cooling rack to cool completely. Then frost

Frosting

2 1/4 cups powdered sugar

3 Tbl. milk

1 Tbls cocoa powder

mix until smooth. I find it works best to warm frosting in microwave for about 20 sec. then I just dip doughnuts and place back on cooling rack.