Sunday, August 24, 2014

National Peach Pie Day



1. I really like food holidays. I'll take any excuse to eat something yummy.
2. I need to figure out how to improve my kitchen's lighting situation. This is the only photo that turned out semi-ok. Yikes.
3. I realize that the fruits on the tea towel are probably oranges, but I'm going to pretend that they are peaches. ;)


ANYWAY.

If you would like to make a peach pie today, Sunday August 23, in honor of National Peach Pie Day, you totally should. I have a recipe for you! Yay!



Butter Pie Crust
recipe from King Arthur Flour

Here's what you're gonna need:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter
1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

Here's what you're gonna do:
 1. If you're using a food processor, pulse the flour, salt, and butter (cut the butter in small pieces first!) together. Carefully! You want it to look kinda crumbly, not fully incorporated. If you don't have a food processor, you can use a pastry cutter or a couple of forks to cut the butter into the flour. You'll probably use your hands a bit too. Wash them first. Don't be gross.
2. Add the ice water a little bit at a time. You will have added enough water when you can smoosh the dough together with your hands and it doesn't crumble apart. If it crumbles apart, add a little bit more water. Easy peasy.
3. Divide the dough in half and shape each half into a disk. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and chill for about 30 minutes. While that's chilling, make your pie filling.

This recipe makes enough dough for 1 double crust pie or 2 single crust pies.


Peach Pie
recipe adapted from Kitchen Trial and Error

Here's what you're gonna need:

6 peaches, peeled, pitted, and sliced
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
a pinch each of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground ginger (if you want a more autumn-y tasting pie, you can add some more spice!)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter

Here's what you're gonna do:

1. Add the lemon juice, sugars, cornstarch, salt, and spices to peach slices in a bowl and stir. Let sit while you roll out the pie crusts.
2. Go ahead and preheat that oven to 375º F. It doesn't hurt to put a foil lined baking pan on the bottom rack to catch any drips! Super easy cleanup and no smoke alarm to deal with!
3. Take your chilled pie dough disks out of the fridge. Roll out one of the disks on a lightly floured counter. You want a circle that is a little bit bigger than your pie plate. Carefully take your circle of dough and transfer it to your pie plate. Push the dough down a little bit to make sure the plate is lined.
4. Stir your peach mixture one last time and add it to your dough lined pie plate. Cut the 2 tablespoons butter into small pieces and add on top of the peach mixture.
5. Roll out your second pie dough disk. From here you can make your top pie crust as simple or decorative as you like! If you want a simple top, just take your rolled out dough and cover the top of the pie. Crimp the edges together and make sure to cut some slits in the top dough to let steam escape. Or you can get fancy with cookie cutters or lattice tops or braided dough edges. It's your call! Have fun with it!
6. Bake your pie for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. To be safe, check on your pie every 20 minutes or so, just to see how it's coming along. If your crust is getting too dark, cover it with some foil.
7. This is the hardest part: wait for the pie to cool completely! I know it smells so good and you want to eat it right away, but if you wait about 4 hours the filling will set and won't ooze everywhere when you try to cut it. 

Enjoy!

xoxo
Brittney




Thursday, August 7, 2014

Confetti Cookies!

You are what you eat, therefore, you should eat lots of cute foods! 
If you don't like being cute, well, then you should eat these cookies anyway because they're delicious.


I came across this recipe on Annie's Eats and could not wait to try them out. Sugar cookies with lots of sprinkles? Yup yup yup. I needed them. You need them now too, don't you? What are you waiting for? Let's make some cookies!

Here's what you're gonna need:
*makes about 2 dozen cookies*

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or any other extract you like! Lemon? Almond? Go for it!)

1/2 cup sprinkles!
 I used rainbow jimmies (aka "ice cream sprinkles") and threw in some heart shaped sprinkles for fun. You could use those little crunchy nonpareils too, but be aware that those crunchy sprinkles will stay crunchy when they are baked in the cookies. It just depends on your textural preference. :)




Here's what you're gonna do:

1. First things first! Preheat that oven to 350º F. Get a couple baking sheets out and line them with parchment paper while you're at it.

2. Dump the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl and whisk it together. 

3. Get out your stand mixer (or hand mixer!) and put the butter and sugars in a mixing bowl. Beat 'em on medium-high speed for a few minutes until they're nice and fluffy. Sing "Beat It" by Michael Jackson because that's what you always do when you beat things together when you bake. You're a little weird. That's ok. I like weird.

4. Crack that egg and throw it in the bowl! No shells, please. Add the vanilla, too. Mix until combined.

5. Turn the mixer speed to low and SLOWLY add the dry ingredients. We don't want flour flying everywhere. It'd be pretty funny, but let's be real, who wants to clean that kind of mess up?

6. Got that dough all mixed up? Good. Now for the best part: SPRINKLES!


Are your eyes happy? My eyes are happy.

It looks good, doesn't it? You should totally have a taste or 5 to make sure. I fully support your choice to consume raw cookie dough. YOLO. (Disclaimer: Obviously you know your body better than I do. People with weakened immune systems should probably skip the cookie dough eating part. Eat at your own risk!)

7. Scoop that cookie dough! I used one of those handy dandy cookie scoopers, but spoons work just fine. Aim for about 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons of dough for each cookie. Leave a little space between the cookies so they don't bake together in one mega cookie. A couple of inches apart should be fine. 


8. Pop those pans in the oven for about 15 minutes. Rotate the pans halfway through so the cookies bake nice and evenly. The cookies are done when the edges are barely golden brown. It doesn't hurt to check on them a few minutes before the suggested baking time, just in case. Some ovens might take less time, and you probably don't want burnt cookies.


Leave the cookies on the baking sheets for a few minutes to cool a little bit, then transfer them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.



Enjoy your tasty treats!
Thanks to Annie's Eats for this recipe!


P.S. You should totally make ice cream sandwiches with these! Do it! Do it!


Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Party Party!

I've been having way too much fun with the new Party Party App by the folks from A Beautiful Mess







Aaaaaand all my gifs are of food. Hm. I think this says a lot about me.


You can do some nifty photo booth style pictures too! You can cram up to 16 photos in one neat little frame and meet your yearly quota for selfies in one go! 


If you have an iPhone and $0.99 to spare, you should totally get this app. Super duper fun!

PARTY PARTY!



xoxo,
Brittney








Friday, August 1, 2014

It's finally happening!

You guys.
I've been meaning to start a blog for a long time. A loooooong time. 
I'm so excited to finally get this going! 
There's gonna be lots of colors, fun outfits, tasty treats, silly adventures, and sprinkles!
Lots and lots of sprinkles.
Basically, I'm hoping to create a party for your eyeballs. That sounds fun, right? Right. As long as you didn't interpret "eyeball party" as eyeballs wearing party hats and eating cake, because that just sounds like a nightmare. Gross.
Anyway, we're going to have a good time here, I just know it.

XOXO,
Brittney