Red White & Blue Cookie Pops

Cookies

Red White and Blue Cookie PopsI knew I wanted to bake something cute for the 4th of July.  For Presidents Day of last year I made the cutest double American flag cake. Last year, I didn’t have much time to brainstorm around Independence day so to celebrate I whipped up some simple patriotic bow sugar cookies.  They are cute, but I wanted to make time to bake something super cute this year.  During one of my late night Google searches I came across these adorable red, white, and blue cookie pops.  I have made similar cookies to these in the past, but I used fondant to replicate the lollipop swirl and attached them to a plain round sugar cookie. Here, the cookie dough is tinted, twisted, and swirled and served up just like that!  No icing, just a classic soft sugar cookie on a stick; what could be bad?!How to form cookie pops

Here is a basic step by step picture guide to show you how I made these cookie pops.  For a more detailed tutorial, use the one I used from Carolyn of Occasional Cookies.  She graciously shared her method on a blog I follow called The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle. You can find the tutorial here.

Cookie Pops Ready To Bake

I used my perfect sugar cookie dough to make these cookies, but you can use any sugar cookie dough you like.  Before I twisted the stick through the pop, I chilled the cookies in the freezer for 10-15 minutes, just so the cookies wouldn’t get misshapen.

Best Taste TesterHere’s Charlie, my best taste tester enjoying his cookie pop.  Happy Independence Day!

National Spelling Bee Cake

Celebration Cakes

Spelling Bee Cake

The winning word from the Scripps National Spelling Bee was big news this year because it happened to be “knaidel” as in matzah ball fame.  The clip of Arvind Mahankali winning this years big prize was all over the media, so I’m sure you have seen it.  He even appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live!  So when his teacher asked me to make him a special cake his class, I couldn’t refuse.  I decorated the outside of the cake in a hexagon pattern to match the spelling bee stage background.

Arvind on a Knaidel

I have been getting better at modeling my gum paste figures (thanks to Anne Heap’s class on Craftsy) and knew I wanted to make a little Arvind.  Then I thought it would be cute if he was sitting on a knaidel in a big bowl of chicken soup.  I made an edible bowl and spoon out of gum paste and filled the bowl with fondant knaidels and carrots.  Then I filled the bowl with consomme colored piping gel to look like chicken broth.  It’s good that it was all cake, because Arvind is a vegetarian and can’t actually eat official chicken soup.

Knaidel Thought Bubble

My next thought was how to incorporate the actual word?  How about having little gum paste Arvind in his famous thinking pose with the winning word in a thought bubble! Awesomeness ensued.  I even replicated the Scripps Spelling Bee logo, I wonder who ate that!

http://lilmisscakes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ArvindCollage.jpg

Arvind, his teachers, and his class loved the cake! Here he is with the cake.  Apparently, he even took himself home! Congratulations on your big win!

Arvind and his gum paste figure

Chilled Cherry Soup

No Bake Desserts

Chilled Cherry Soup

You might be wondering why I am sharing a soup with you, being that this is a place where I mainly share non-dairy desserts.  Well, this month, some blogger friends and I challenged ourselves to share a chilled soup recipe.  Normally I would pass on a challenge that went too far out of my comfort zone, but this soup recipe is special because, I always eat it for dessert.  Soup for dessert seems strange, but during the warm summer months, there is nothing I would rather eat.  The original recipe is actually my Savta’s (hebrew for grandmother) signature dish.  During the summer, she wouldn’t dare come over without a batch of her special fruit soup for the grandkids.  Her recipe actually calls for peaches or nectarines, but I was never of fan of them so I left them out.  I didn’t use recipe because like a true grandmother, she doesn’t use measurements.  I have tried recreating home-style recipes in the past, and they never seem to taste the same, so this time, I decided to use my Savta’s fruit soup as the inspiration for this dish.  I hope I made her proud!

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Chilled Cherry Soup
Author: 
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 8
 
Ingredients
  • 3- 14.5 ounce cans pitted sour cherries (in water)
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 Tbs. lemon juice
  • cinnamon stick
  • 1 Tbs. cornstarch
  • 1 Tbs. cold water
Instructions
  1. Drain the cherries and reserve the liquid in a measuring cup. Add water to the drained liquid until it equals 3 cups.
  2. Pour cherry juice/water mix into a medium saucepan.
  3. Add sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon stick and bring to a boil, to dissolve the sugar.
  4. Once boiling, add the reserved cherries, bring back to a boil and cook for 10 minutes, until the cherries are soft.
  5. In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch with 1 Tbs. cold water and mix until there are no lumps.
  6. Add the cornstarch/water mixture to the boiling cherries and stir gently for 2 minutes to cook out the starch and slightly thicken the soup.
  7. Remove from heat and chill in the fridge until ready to serve.