homemade croissants

After my recent try with making kouign amann, I decided that I wanted to try making homemade croissants as well. So I looked to this Martha Stewart recipe to give it a try!

The method was similar to making kouign amann - make a yeasted dough, let it rise, wrap the dough around some butter and alternate folding and rolling the dough with letting it chill and rest in the fridge.

The difference was that no sugar was rolled into the dough. 

And with croissants, long triangle shapes are cut out and then rolled into crescent shapes.

Oh, and croissants have egg wash before baking, whereas kouign amann do not.

Sadly, my croissants were not as puffy and flaky as I was hoping they would be. I guess this means I'll be experimenting with making more croissants soon!

christmas layer jello

We are well into January already, and I still haven't shown you all the desserts I made for Christmas! This is the last one, I promise!

So for Christmas Eve dinner this year, the only dessert that my mom requested I make was layered jello! Out of all the desserts that I make, she chose the simplest one! But whether it's Valentine's Day jello, St. Patrick's Day jello, or Easter jello, layered jello is always the perfect dessert. (You can even make Hello Kitty layer jello!). It's not too sweet, perfect as a light dessert, and loved by both kids and adults.

The fun thing about layer jello is that you can choose any color combination, and any amount of layers that you like. I typically make it seven layers (4 colored layers and 3 white layers), so this time I chose alternating layers of two green, two red, and three white. You could even use cookie cutters to cut them out for a fun presentation!

This jello is definitely addicting because it's easy to eat, it's light, and it's delicious. And it's super pretty as well! You can find the recipe in my new book, just look for the recipe on Hello Kitty rainbow finger jello!

christmas wreath shingled apple pie

One of my favorite Christmas decorations is a beautiful Christmas wreath. Just the sight of wreaths hanging on all the doors in the neighborhood gives such a warm and welcoming feeling. In the past I've made Christmas wreath cupcakes, Christmas wreath mousse cake, and Christmas wreath cookies, so why not make a Christmas wreath apple pie?

Last year I made this Christmas tree apple pie, so this time I did the same thing except with little circle pie crust cutouts instead of Christmas tree shapes. It starts with a homemade all-butter pie crust, filled with sliced apples that are tossed with sugar, flour, cinnamon, ground cloves, and a pinch of salt. (You can actually find the entire pie recipe in my new book, The Hello Kitty Baking book - just look for the page on making Hello Kitty Apple Pie!)

With half of my pie crust dough, I rolled it out and fitted it into the bottom of my pie pan. Then I filled it with my spiced apple filling, before rolling out the second half of my pie crust and cutting out little scalloped circle shapes with a small cookie cutter. Then I neatly arranged a row of circle cutouts along the perimeter of my pie...

... followed by a second row of cutouts...

... and finally a third row to complete my wreath. Be sure to leave a little hole in the middle of the wreath to let the steam escape from the pie!

I baked the pie at 425F for 15 minutes, then lowered the heat to 350F for another 45-50 minutes (and by then the entire house smelled like delicious apple pie!)

The pie turned out perfect - the crust was tender yet flakey and crispy, and the apples were perfectly cooked with just the right amount of sugar and spice!

While the pie didn't resemble a Christmas wreath as much as I had hoped it would, I thought it was still super cute, and could actually be made for any occasion. I'll definitely be making this again, maybe next time I'll just called it "scalloped apple pie"! :)

3D cookie christmas tree

Wow! Christmas and New Years flew by in the blink of an eye! Hopefully it's not too late to share this cute little tree that I made for our celebration Christmas Eve!

A long time ago I had seen this Christmas tree cutter set in a magazine somewhere, and I thought it was the cutest thing! So when Christmas rolled around this year, I thought I would make my own cookie tree, using this star cutter set that I already owned.

Even though there were only 4 different sized star cutters in this set, I figured I could achieve the same effect by cutting out several of each size.

Note that I cut out less of the bigger stars, and more of the medium and smaller stars.

Once my cookies were baked and cooled, I whipped up a half batch of buttercream frosting (recipe in my new book!), and tinted it leaf green. Then I placed a small blob on the bottom of my largest cookie, to attach it to a 6-inch cake board.

Next I fitted a pastry bag with a Wilton #352 leaf tip, filled it with my green icing, and piped little leaves around the perimeter of the star before filling it in completely with leaves. (See my Christmas wreath cookies for the same technique!)

Then I placed my next cookie on top, and again piped leaves around the perimeter of the star, after which I filled in the cookie with leaves. Around this time I also started to sprinkle on little white nonpareils after finishing with each cookie, to give the effect of snow on the leaves.

I continued with all of the star cookies, from the largest cookies on the bottom, to the smallest cookies on the top.

I finished it off with a small yellow star sprinkle on the top of the tree (taken from this set of star sprinkles), and more white nonpareils all over.

And there you have it, a cute little 3D Christmas tree made out of cookies! It made for the perfect little centerpiece and dessert all in one!

christmas wreath cookies with soft frosting

For my youngest son Micah's daycare Christmas party this year, I signed up to make cookies. At the time, I didn't know what kind of cookies I was going to make. But as Christmas got closer, I knew exactly what I wanted to make - inspired by both my Christmas wreath cupcakes a few years ago, and my sugar cookies with soft frosting, I decided to make Christmas wreath cookies with soft frosting!

I started by making a batch of my sugar cookie dough (recipe in my new book!), and rolled it out to about 1/8 inch thick. Then I used a simple round cookie cutter, plus the back end of a large star piping tip, to create my wreath shape. Then I baked them at 350F for about 11 minutes.

Once the cookies had cooled, I whipped up a batch of buttercream frosting, and tinted it leaf green. Then I filled a piping bag fitted with a Wilton #352 leaf tip, and piped a row of leaves around the perimeter of my wreath cookies.

Next, I piped a second row ...

and then a third row.

I finished it off by sprinkling a few red and pink nonpareils on the top.

It took a while to get all the leaves piped on, but when I was finally done, the cookies looked adorable!

Although my husband prefers cookies iced with royal icing, I kind of like the combination of soft frosting with sugar cookies because of the creaminess compared to royal icing.

And I also like it because the combination reminds me of the grocery store bakery cookies that I loved to eat as a kid. Except these are better. ;)

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

paw patrol badge cookies

My friend Celeste is another friend who asked me to make cookies after seeing the caterpillar cookies I made for Nancy! While Celeste and I recently reconnected via Instagram, I hadn't seen her since her wedding several years ago! Since she was having a Paw Patrol themed party for her oldest daughter Cameron, she asked me to make dog pone or paw print cookies. But when I suggested making cookies in the shape of the Paw Patrol badge logo, we both thought that would be better!

But first, I had to get my hubby to make me another custom copper cookie cutter :) As always, he obliged, and made me this awesome shiny new cutter!

After baking 2 batches of sugar cookies (recipe in my new book!), I started on the decorating. I made a batch of royal icing, divided it, and colored it. I started with the outlines for the dog bones on the badge, piped with stiff blue icing.

Next I used stiff yellow icing to pipe the letters "PAW", above the bone.

Then I switched back to the blue stiff icing to pipe the borders of the badge.

Next I filled in the bone and the badge borders with runny white icing...

.. and then filled the inside of the badge with runny red icing. I let the cookies dry overnight, and then went back with stiff blue icing to pipe the words "PATROL" on the bone, as well as outlining the bone with another layer of blue.

To make the letters pop a bit more, I did another outline of "PAW" with stiff yellow icing, and then added the final touch - a piped paw print in the center of the "A", with stiff white icing.

And then they were done!

I wrapped each cookie in a cellophane bag tied with raffia, since Celeste was going to add these as party favors in each goodie bag.

I met up with Celeste to give her the cookies, and got to meet her daughter Cameron for the first time! She's adorable! And it was so good seeing Celeste again after all these years! It's amazing how fast time flies, isn't it?

Happy birthday, Cameron! Hope you had an awesome party and enjoyed the cookies!