J-E-L-L-O

I have gotten the chance to make a couple things out of the Baked: Explorations book! The first thing I did was the Jello salad. I wanted something light and fruity, and this seemed like a great combo of salty & sweet without being heavy. It turned out very well and everyone enjoyed it!


It is a three layer jello salad, with a pretzel crust, a cream cheese layer, and then the jello with fruit on top. It was pretty simple and would be a great picnic or potluck item. In the picture in the book they made nice slices of this, we opted to do scoops since the crust wasn't holding together. (probably because I didn't have enough butter to get it all stuck to itself)


Here it is
Jell-o layer:
1 (6-ounce) package strawberry Jell-O
2 cups fresh strawberries (about 14-ounces), sliced


Pretzel Crust:
8 ounces salty pretzels (about 4 cups)
¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces2 tablespoons firmly packed dark brown sugar


Cream Cheese Layer:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
¾ cup heavy cream


Jello layer: Make the Jell-O according to package directions. Stir in strawberries and refrigerate until partially set. Make other parts of recipe while this sets. *The book says it should be partially set in 5 min-1 hour. I did not find that this was the case, it took a couple hours for mine partially set. That could be because I had it in the front in a deep dish and kept opening to see if it was ready though... :)


Pretzel crust: Heat oven to 350. Butter or spray sides & bottom of a 9x13 pan . Crush up the pretzels. I used the tried and true put them in a bag and bang on them really hard, but you could always use a food processor if you wanted to. You just want to have chunks, so don't grind them into a powder. 


In a medium saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Whisk in the brown sugar and remove from heat. Stir in pretzel pieces until combined and put into prepped pan. Press the mixture into the bottom of the pan, but not up the sides. Bake for 10 minutes, then let it cool completely. 


Cream cheese layer: Put cream cheese and sugar in goal and beat on medium until well combined.


In a another bowl, whip the cream until soft peaks form. Using rubber spatula, fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese.


Assembly: Spread cream cheese mixture over cooled crust. Chill for 5 minutes in the fridge. Pour almost set Jell-O over the cream cheese layer. Refrigerate the dessert for about 2 hours, or until set.

Fish Cupcakes

It was a co-workers birthday this weekend, and Hayley made these adorable fish cupcakes to celebrate on Monday!

A picture of these was originally found on pintrest, and she took it and did an amazing job recreating these adorable little masterpieces!

Key Lime Pie

 

 I'm soon going to be making a special Key Lime treat, and so I'm going to share my experience with Key Lime Pie. I made this a year ago for the bosses birthday, and it was so simple and so good. I've actually even made it a couple times since. The recipe is from the Joy of Baking.

Graham Cracker Crust:

1 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs (on the Joy of Baking site they say you can also used 'crushed digestive biscuits' I'm not quite sure what that means, but if I find out I'll be sure to share)

2 tablespoons granulated white sugar

5 - 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Filling:

3 large egg yolks, room temperature

1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup key lime juice (can use regular limes, I've done both and it has come out well both ways)

2 teaspoons grated lime zest

Topping:

Whipped Cream

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly butter spray a 9 inch pie pan.

Mix together graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter until everything is moistened. Press along the bottom and sides of a pie pan. Bake for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Set aside on cooling rack.

In medium bowl, beat egg yolks until pale & fluffy (2-3 minutes). Gradually add the condensed milk and beat until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and then beat in lime juice & zest. 

Pour the filling into the crust and bake for 10-15 minutes, until filling is set. Remove from oven and set on wire rack to cool. Once it has cooled completely, cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight.

Once the filling is chilled, cover with whip cream. You can put the mound of it on there, or can pipe it through a star tip to give it a little extra on the presentation. Then just enjoy!

This recipe makes one pie. You can easily double it if needed (and I suggest you do, it goes fast!)

Funfetti Bake Off

 

Everyone loves Funfetti cake. It's a fact of life. Every time funfetti is mentioned at work, several of the girls always say how funfetti is their favorite kind of cake. Now, I also like funfetti, I mean, you can't go wrong with little bits of sprinkle color in your cake! In my opinion though, funfetti cake is just a yellow cake with sprinkles in it. And, I have always said this when people tell me how good funfetti is. Well, the girls at work kept saying that it isn't the same. So, we did a bake off to test it out. 

My little sis was down visiting at the time, so we went out and bought a funfetti cake, and the same brand vanilla cake and some sprinkles and made this happen.

We discovered that our sprinkles were bigger then the ones that came in the box, so went ahead and broke them up some so it wouldn't be as noticeable. We then made the cake according to their directions. Now, we did have a problem with the one cake coming out of the pan. I'm going to blame the sister for that one. :) But, I will note that this is the funfetti one...

 

But, we pushed through and got them frosted and decorated and had the taste testing with everyone at work. 

As a side bar, I'm sure you're wondering what those awesome smurf wanna-be things are on top of the cake. While the cakes were baking and cooling we took out the modeling chocolate I had in the fridge and made some awesome cake toppers!

 Back to the contest...
It was not a unanimous vote, but there was a clear winner