Smiley Cookies!

These are probably the happiest cookies ever! Don't you think? This is Martha Stewart's recipe for lemon cornmeal cookies and they've got an excellent texture and crunch to them due to the cornmeal. The lemon zest adds a fresh flavour and I just added some chocolate piping 'cause it looked so damn cute! You can't really tell in these pictures but they do look quite yellow after baking so they almost look like cute little suns.

And here's the whole lot of them:

Lemon Cornmeal Cookies
by Martha Stewart

12 tbsp butter
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1 tbsp lemon zest
1 egg
1 cup cornmeal
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

-Beat the butter, sugar, salt, and zest. Add the egg and beat till combined. Add cornmeal and flour and mix till just combined. Roll into 3/4" balls and flatten on baking sheet. bake at 325 degrees fahrenheit till bottoms are golden (8-10 mins). Cool and decorate as desired. I got about 50 cookies out of this recipe.

Mini Bluebird Cupcakes

Really fluffy chocolate cupcakes filled with Nutella and topped with a cute little bluebird sitting atop some chocolate frosting? Now who wouldn't want that.

These are mini cupcakes and I used Sherry Yard's recipe for the cupcakes which results in a very sponge-y cake. After baking them I filled a small piping bag with Nutella and piped in enough into each cupcake so that it was almost squirting out. Topped it off with some chocolate frosting which was just butter, icing sugar, and melted chocolate, though I'm sure just using whipped ganache would be excellent too! The birds took me a while to figure out how to pipe them but just one teardrop shape as the body, a small round head on top of that, and small, flat, teardrop-shaped wings did the trick.
Aww...look at nest of them.....so adorable!

Strawberry and Vanilla Cream Cake

My friend's birthday was last week and I know she loves strawberries. Lucky for her, strawberries are getting so much sweeter now unlike the water-tasting ones a few weeks ago. I decided to go against my French-trained instincts and do a more "Asian" style cake. You know, the usual ones with sponge cake, whipped cream, and fresh fruits.

I made a really fluffy sponge cake with some strawberry puree, split into three layers, and filled the inside with vanilla bean whipped cream, strawberry jelly, and fresh, diced strawberries. Topped it off with more whipped cream and some delicious looking strawberries and it was done! The good thing about this cake is that once you have everything prepared, assembling and decorating is a cinch. Though it's not in this picture, I also made some spun caramel sugar to decorate which my friends loved!

Sponge Cake

7 egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
vanilla
pinch of salt
3/4 cup puree
1/2 cup oil
2 cups all purpose flour
7 egg whites
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

- Whip the yolks with the sugar, vanilla, and salt till it forms a ribbon. Add in the oil and puree in a stream, while the machine is running. Turn down the speed and gradually add in the flour. In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites and remaining sugar and cream of tartar till it forms stiff peaks. Fold the whites into the previous batter and pour into a pan and bake at 350 degrees fahrenheit till springy. Cool upside-down.