Jen's Own Baking

I did some baking of my own this weekend....had a few misses and a few hits. Thought I would pass on the hits of mine of recipes that I would recommend. I haven't quite figured out how to take the best pictures of any of these creations just yet!!!

White Chocolate Chip Blondies from Nana's Recipes. I've made this before and really liked it. And with baking it seems like I can never make something exactly the same twice even if I follow the recipe! This has white chocolate chips and oats in it! Yummy!



Black and White Cheesecake Bars by Taste of Home. This recipe was super, super easy to make and very yummy. Not too rich. I'm not a fan of chocolate chips so I used white chocolate chips instead. But turned out very nicely and was even pretty after cutting it - which is NOT always the case.
See how nice and neat this was after I cut it?

Oatmeal Raisin Bars from Martha Stewart. I'm a big raisin and oat fan and am always looking for a few recipe to try for this type of bar. This was a bit different since the raisins were put into water and boiled and then into the food processor to make smooth. I do think I like it though!
Happy Baking!

Bridal Shower Daisy Cookies

For my latest order I had a challenge! Create cookies for a bridal shower to match the colors and style of the invitation. The cookies are going to be handed out as favors for each guest. Below is the invitation with all 6 different colors. You cant' tell from the paper but the Gerber daisy centers have a little sheen/sparkle to them. So, the challenge was on!



Mixing colors to match is not an easy task I must tell you. I'm hoping they match the invitation that was scanned to me!!! And I decided regular daisies looked better than my attempt a few weeks ago at the actual Gerber daisy.

Here is my finished product.

You might be able to see a little of disco dust I used in the middle of the flower. The invitation had a sheen/sparkle to it and I was asked if I could do something similar. When you use "disco dust" you end up getting it all over you, the cookie and the kitchen! But it sure does look pretty.

I didn't like the daisy cookie cutter I had so I ordered a new one. And with it came some mini daisy cutters. I couldn't resist but make some of those too. These are all miniature flowers to go with the bigger ones.

The entire assortment of regular and mini daisies. When I laid them all out it was quite a bit of flowers! I had my own flower garden on my butcher block.
And since these were favors for a party, the cookies were individually wrapped in bags with matching bows. The mini cookies were just an extra fun thing I added because I thought they might look cute. Ahh...that order is done....that one took awhile. Surprising how what seemed like a simple flower order was more work than I thought. But I think they turned out good.

Happy Baking!

Happy Birthday Zebra Print Style

Hello there! Not many updates lately although I have been busy with orders. Just haven't posted them yet! So here are a few I've been working on.

I got the chance to do my zebra print cookies again! Have to give credit one more time to The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle for me using her ideas and tips on this cookie.

These pretty tiaras are for a five year olds Birthday party. I actually did some cookies for her last year at her party and she remembered and liked them. How's that for a compliment? Children certainly don't say things like that just to be nice :)

I got some fancy new cookie cutter tips -PME tips- more expensive than what I've been using, but I have to say you really do pay for what you get sometimes. I don't think you can tell in the pictures but they really allow you to do more details and are more precise. I'm excited to be able to use these new tips more. I ordered them from a favorite website of mine - CopperGifts.com. Another great website is Karen's Cookies and they have these too.

Back to baking!

Mother's Day Dessert

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all the Mother's out there. Here's a picture of me with my Mom and my son, Trevor. A great reason to celebrate - Mom!!! Being a Mom is so wonderful - and can be so challenging at times too! But I wouldn't trade that job for the world. I have the very best Mom and the very best son I could ever ask for. I could not be luckier. We celebrated Mom's day on Friday night at our house with veggies and chicken on the grill. The weather was wonderful and we were able to enjoy our deck before dinner.

Grandma Kathy was able to come to - Pat's Mom. So both Grandma's came over for dinner to celebrate! Yeah.

This was my Mother's Day dessert. Nothing fancy and didn't make too many desserts this time! But it turned out wonderfully so I had to share. Martha Stewart's Cream Cheese Pound Cake. It is a must to try - very simple to make and very yummy. I would definitely make this again.

Have a wonderful Mother's Day! Being a Mother is the most wonderful job in the world. And it's the most difficult and rewarding too.

Teacher Appreciation Week

So Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! Trevor has a wonderful teacher and I wanted to make her a little something. I wanted to make something for her but also wanted to practice making something for an order I have coming up....so double duty. And I'm glad I practiced!!! I wasn't going to post these because they aren't pretty...but hey, I'm not perfect and never pretend to be! So these are what NOT to do...LOL. The order is for Gerber Daisy's...I'm going to have to do just a plain old daisy. What we have here are flowers that have webs on them in my opinion! Oh MY! Not my finest hour, I'm sure you will agree.


The regular daisies are much better. I will stick with these!!!!

Don't forget to tell all the teachers you know thank you this week. They work so hard and are so very important in the lives of all the children they touch. They have one of the most important jobs of all.

Spring Cookies

Nothing like having to post again....there was something wrong with Blogger...so this post I did the other day wasn't saved...so nothing new, just wanted to put it out there again on my blog.

Here's another Spring cookie order that just went out the door!! The event was today and I think they liked the cookies. Just an assortment but thought I would share what I've been up to. Some of the cookies are the same but I try something a bit different with each cookie...even though you might not be able to tell!

BZZZZ


There is a story to tell behind the finished product of the dragonfly. I was working on this order early, early AM last week. I was taking forever to decide which colors to use to go with the rest of them and had finally made my decision. Working nicely and about done with my flooding. When what should happen?? My WORST NIGHTMARE. My sleeve must have hit the cookie sheet that my cookies were on and they all went tumbling to the floor...and broke into little pieces. Only one dragonfly was salvaged. WOW. I wanted to cry. I think I did for a few seconds. Then just pulled out the mix master and made another batch of cookie dough, rolled out more dragonflies and started all over. You can imagine how devastated I was!!

Here is how they finally turned out. A lot of time and tears on my part!
Some butterflies....

Tulips with stems

More tulips.

Daisies

And the whole assortment together

Happy Baking!

Easter Treats

Easter was a good excuse for me to make some fun things I hadn't had the chance to try before. It seems I like to add more and more the day before the event!

Started off with Feather-Light Breakfast Puffs from a cookbook I have called Just Like Mom Made. VERY easy to make and they were a hit. Almost like cinnamon rolls.


This was a last minute addition to my desserts for Easter - a Blackberry Custard Torte from Taste of Home. As you can see these are NOT blackberries! I used raspberries and cranberries instead. This was very easy to make!

Too bad not many people ate this - it was yummy and a recipe I would make again!
Showing off my creation.

Graham Cracker and Almond Crust with Cheesecake filling made to look like Egg's nest with coconut and jelly bean toppings. This was the 2nd attempt for these. The first ones the crust didn't do what I wanted and wasn't actually able to make them like nests - more just like flat cookies. Got to thinking I wanted to attempt them again and luckily I had all the ingredients!

I had my little helper here with this dessert...putting the coconut and jelly beans on. It went something like this 1 jelly bean for the dessert, 2 for Trevor, 1 for dessert, 2 for Trevor. Cake Balls/Pops are all the craze right now. So of course I had to try them. Bakerella has made these famous and they are gorgeous. I am definitely going to have to try my hand at these again because they did NOT turn out how I envisioned. Now it's my mission! You start out with a cake - and I found a wonderful recipe from The Pioneer Woman . I would use this recipe again. The chocolate cake was so soft and came out perfectly from my pans. Too bad I wasn't going to make a cake out of them!


You actually mash the entire cake up!!! Put it in a bowl and mix with the frosting. Mix that all up until it disappears.

Then you roll them into balls. I wanted to make Easter eggs so tried that. Bakerella puts them on cookie sticks and maybe that is why mine didn't work well....But this recipe made 65 balls!! OH MY. Next time I will have to use 1/2 the recipe. Up until now this was pretty easy to do. Lots of steps but not hard. After rolling the balls you stick them in the freezer. Even over night because you want them to be nice and solid before the next step which is to roll them in chocolate. That was where I went wrong. I've never been to good at dipping in chocolate and this time was no exception. I used every stitch of chocolate I had in my house!!! And they didn't come out very nicely. Too goopy with chocolate....darn it! And it wasn't even easy for me to get the sprinkles on. I had wanted to make colored Easter eggs...but when I tried to add my color to the white chocolate on one batch - it immediately turned hard and wasn't liquid again?!! Huh? Not sure what the heck happened. Any ideas there? So there went my egg colors. But because this made so much we had white, dark and milk chocolate balls. I need to have a tutor help me with these next time!


Here is the platter I took to Easter. My cookies of course were there too!


And let's not forget Snickerdoodles! Dad's favorite and Trevor and I got an itching to bake! Turned out not too bad although I did made the balls a little too big and they expanded more than I thought...oh well.
Trevor was really my helper with these cookies! He's getting more into the baking with me! He cut up the butter for me with his own little knife (a butter knife and don't worry, I was right there making sure he was being safe!)
Then he did a great job of rolling the cookie balls in the cinnamon and sugar mix. He didn't lose interest at all and rolled all the cookies for me!


And then guess what? He wanted to clean up! Yes, Trevor voluntarily said he wanted to clean the bowls. Go for it Trevor! You are a big helper!


As you can see we were busy baking!!!!
Hope you had a great Easter!