christmas tree cutout apple pie

Along with the strawberry Santas that I made for Christmas dessert this year, I also made an apple pie. But not just any apple pie; this one was decorated with lots and lots of Christmas tree pie crust cut outs! I had seen pies like this on Pinterest in the past, mainly with star cut outs for the Fourth of July. So I thought it would be fun to do for Christmas as well.

So I made my favorite all-butter pie crust, and divided it in half. I rolled out and fitted the first half into a 9-inch pie pan, and used the other half to roll and cut out Christmas tree shapes with a cookie cutter.

Then I peeled, cored, and sliced 5 apples, tossed them with flour, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and salt, and spooned them on top of the bottom crust. And then it was time to decorate the top with the Christmas tree cut outs!

To help give the crust a nice golden color, I brushed the top of the crust with egg wash, and then sprinkled on sanding sugar. After baking the pie at 350F for about 50 minutes, it looked like this!

My pie crust and the cutouts shrank quite a bit, but it was still quite tasty!



Hope you had a Merry Christmas!

strawberry santas

I am an avid watcher of the Food Network, so when I saw Giada make these adorable strawberry Santas on her show, I just had to make them for Christmas this year!

Her recipe is super simple and easy, and great for the kids to help out with piping and attaching the eyes. I started by cutting the tops off of the strawberries to make a flat surface for them to stand upside-down on.

Then I sliced a chunk off of the tip of each strawberry - this would became Santa's hat.

Next, I whipped up a batch of fresh whipped cream (Giada's recipe uses a mascarpone frosting, but I wanted something lighter so I chose whipped cream instead), and filled a piping bag fitted with a large star tip. I piped a big swirl of frosting onto the bottom half of the strawberry, topped it with the top half of the strawberry, and piped a little dot for the white fluff on top of Santa's hat.

The finishing touch was mini chocolate chips for the eyes, with the pointy side of the mini chocolate chips pressed into the whipped cream.

And there you go! Super easy, and super cute!

By the way, here's what happened when I walked away from the kitchen for just a few minutes! My husband is from Hawaii so he just had to create his own strawberry Santa, complete with coconut tree made out of mini chocolate chips and strawberry leaves! Mele Kalikimaka!

Hope you had a very Merry Christmas!

hello kitty mini cupcakes with purple bows

Along with the purple Hello Kitty birthday cake that I made for my daughter's 3rd birthday last year, I also made these mini cupcakes for her class birthday party at preschool.

First I made mini chocolate cupcakes, and then piped a Hello Kitty face on each one with cream cheese frosting. I used a large round tip to pipe an oval for the face, and a leaf tip to pipe the ears. And then used a small round tip for the eyes, nose, and whiskers.

Boy, have these come a long way since the first ones that I made for her one-year birthday party!

This time instead of piping the bows, I used multicolored heart shaped confetti sprinkles (and just picked out all the purple ones!)

They turned out to be a big hit at her class party.  And even the boys liked the Hello Kitty favors!

Stay tuned for the birthday goodies I end up making for her class party this year!

*** Update:
You can now find my recipe for Hello Kitty Mini Cupcakes in my new book, "The Hello Kitty Baking Book"! Enjoy!

purple hello kitty birthday cake

My daughter's fourth birthday is coming up in a few days, and I recently realized that I never got around to posting last year's cake!  Maybe it's because I thought the cake was just, meh, and it was nothing spectacular.  Or maybe it's because I baked and decorated it in a rush the day of her birthday, and I didn't have time to properly photograph it.  In any case, she had asked for a purple Hello Kitty cake, and that is what she got!

I still remember how cute she was that day; she wanted to "be a princess" and wear her pink tutu all day. She even got to lick the spatula after I finished making the whipped cream frosting!

I used the whipped cream frosting to fill and frost three layers of  homemade chocolate cake, for a very light and moist 6-inch layer cake.

After the top and sides of the cake were frosted, I finished it off with a shell border.

Then I piped a mini Hello Kitty face, and a birthday message for the birthday girl!

Since my little girl loves sprinkles, I threw some heart-shaped ones on along the shell border.

I kind of regretting adding the sprinkles though, it just all seemed to clash with the cake. But of course that was Melodie's favorite part. :)

Stay tuned for the cake I end up making for her this year - she has already placed her request!

thanksgiving pumpkin pie with hand-turkey cutout

Remember those Thanksgiving art projects you used to make in school, where you cut out the shape of your hand onto construction paper, or made a hand print with paint, and then turned it into a turkey? Something like this?

Well that was my inspiration for this pumpkin pie! (The hand print above was made by my 9-month old son at daycare!) I actually saw this somewhere on Pinterest, and just couldn't get the idea out of my head! So this pie was among the desserts that I made for this year's Thanksgiving dinner.

I started out by making my favorite all-butter pie crust, and fitted it into a 10-inch pie pan. I trimmed the excess dough from the edges of the pan, and crimped the edges with my fingers. Then I filled it with a simple pumpkin filling spiced with cinnamon, cloves, and ginger, and baked it until the crust was golden and the filling was set. Sadly, the crust shrank while baking in the oven, thus the slightly embarrassing edges!

With the trimmings of pie dough, I rolled it out and used a toothpick to mark the shape of my almost-four year old daughter's little hand, and then (without her hand there) I used a paring knife to cut out the shape.

I made sure to include the turkey's beak, eye, and feet!

Then I baked it on a cookie sheet at 375F for about 10 minutes until it turned golden brown.

Again, the crust cutout shrank (maybe I'm over-rolling my pie dough?) so I ended up with a teeny tiny hand turkey! But that's okay, a miniature turkey is just as cute!

Happy belated Thanksgiving!

funfetti welcome home cake with handmade bunting

Some of you may remember that we spent an entire month of our summer visiting my husband's family in Hawaii (see the bottom of this post for a few pictures from our trip).  What I didn't mention is that when it was time for us to go home, my son Matthew decided to stay and spend the rest of the summer at his grandparent's house in Hawaii. We missed him like crazy and skyped and talked on the phone to him almost every day while he was gone. But he had such a good time, and we were so glad that he was able to bond with his grandparents, cousins, uncles, and aunties!

When it was time for him to finally come home almost 2 months later, we decided that a "welcome home" mini party would be a great way to celebrate his return! So I baked up a homemade funfetti cake for the occasion!

I used this vanilla cake recipe from Sweetapolita (except I use sour cream instead of whipped cream), and added a bunch of colored sprinkles to the batter before baking (although I should have added way more!)

Then I sliced each cake in half horizontally, and filled the layers with freshly whipped cream (giving me 4 layers of cake and 3 layers of whipped cream).

Next, I covered the entire cake with two coats of whipped cream, and then added a decorative shell border on the top as well as the bottom of the cake.

I had recently found these colorful sprinkles (at Target!), and thought they would be perfect - colorful and fun just like the the funfetti in the cake batter!

So I sprinkled them generously along the top and bottom borders.

While the cake chilled in the fridge, I made a "welcome home" bunting to go on top of the cake. I cut little triangles out of cardstock and craft paper, and used a needle and thread to string them together.

Then I attached each end of the bunting to bamboo skewers, before securing the skewers in the top of the cake.

My brother's girlfriend helped us make a matching "welcome home" bunting for the wall decoration as well, and they picked up colorful balloons for the celebration.

Little Melodie was so happy to have her big brother back home again!

Cutting into the cake revealed the lovely layers, however I just wish there was more funfetti on the inside of the cake!

Welcome home, my Matthew! We missed you so much, and it's great to have you home again! :)