Happy Happy Easter!

Ok, so maybe this week's post doesn't exactly involve baking per say, but it does involve boiling water and decorating fun!


Here's the plan:
1. Boil a dozen Eggs
2. Prepare the dye cups
3. Be creative!

What you need:
1. A dozen Eggs - save your egg carton to store decorated eggs
2. Cups for dipping eggs (I bought a PAAS kit that came with cups)
3. Egg Colorant (PAAS is good - I tried something new called Dudley's Dazzle)
4. Wax Paper!
5. Paper towels - to dry off the eggs before changing colors

1. Boil a dozen Eggs
So apparently according to Martha Stewart I have been boiling eggs wrong my entire life! She brings them to a boil in the pot and then takes the pot off the heat and lets them sit for 10 minutes. I tried this and some of my eggs were a little too soft boiled for my liking so I let them sit another 5 minutes.

2. Prepare the dye cups
These cups were so handy!

My colorant had oil in it which I thought was strange. That must be an easy way to get the paint splatter effect that they showed on the box.

Egg Station - Ready!

Eggs - ready!

3. Be creative!

Fun!

St. Patty's Shortbread Cookies

I like to be festive and St. Patty's Day is no different. Since I already posted about cake balls (and there have been many posts about green velvet cake) I decided to go a different direction. I settled on shortbread cookies. They are simple and usually have four ingredients (mine have just a few more to make them fabulous!)

Here are the steps:

Shortbread Cookies
1. Preheat oven to 350, Combine dry ingredients (except sugar), set aside
2. In mixer cream butter and sugar, beat until smooth and add vanilla
3. Slowly beat in dry ingredient mix until just combined
4. Flatten, wrap in plastic and chill for 1 hour
5. Roll 1/4 thick and cut into shapes - chill 15 mins before baking (to help maintain shape)
6. Bake 8-12 mins (until lightly golden) - Let cool

The ingredients:
Dry
1 1/2 cu. Flour
1/2 cu. Cornstarch (you can omit this and use flour instead but the cornstarch gives the cookies a melt in your mouth texture)
1/4 tsp salt
For Mixer
1 cu unsalted butter
1/2 cu powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla (I used my expensive vanilla for this recipe)
~ 1 tsp Food coloring (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350, Combine dry ingredients (except sugar), set aside
2. In mixer cream butter and sugar, beat until smooth and add vanilla



3. Slowly beat in dry ingredient mix until just combined

Once everything was combined I removed half my dough. For the half left in the mixer, I added green food coloring. First I added a 1/4 tsp of coloring but it wasn't enough for the amount of green I wanted (see picture) so I squirted in some more (roughly 1 tsp).



4. Flatten, wrap in plastic and chill for 1 hour




5. Roll 1/4 thick and cut into shapes - chill 15 mins before baking (to help maintain shape)

For this step I used a clover cookie cutter




You will notice that half the cookies look a little different. I wanted to test out an egg wash (egg yolk and milk) and sparkling sugar. According to my husband (a self proclaimed cookie expert) those tasted better than the plain ones, but I think the plain ones are prettier.

6. Bake 8-12 mins (until lightly golden)- Let cool

See how the plain ones below are lightly golden?


I decided to turn my shortbread cookies into sandwiches using a little chocolate ganache. I simmered a 1/3 cup of cream (milk could work) on low until very hot, then I turned the stove off and added in my chocolate (I used about 3-5 oz. of dark chocolate). Keep adding chocolate until you get the consistency you want. Scoop ganache into a ziploc bag and clip just the corner off. Pipe and outline and then fill it in. Delicious!

You could make classic, chocolate, or colored cookies with mint filling, chocolate filling, bailey's cream filling, etc. The possibilities are endless!