A Book Baby Shower

My little sister is having her first baby - literally any day now - and we had an absolutely adorable shower for her a couple of months ago.   Yes, it was in April, and I'm just now posting about it - it happens.

I started out on Pinterest to find some ideas and quickly had about four different themes planned when I realized that they all revolved around children's books.  Reading with my kids is one of my favorite moments of the day and they both love books.  I hope that Nikki will enjoy reading with baby Colton just as much and we wanted to get her library started for him.

I love how this shower turned out and was so happy to get to throw it -- now I just can't wait to meet baby Colton!!

I took a few shortcuts with the food on this shower since I was travelling by plane to get there.  We ordered the cake from a bakery and everything on the menu was quick and easy to prepare.

For the invitations, I just put together some images of the characters in several of the books we were using.  I made coordinating signs for each of the dishes on the menu as well to tie the food into the book theme.

The menu and book pairings included:

Sam I Am's Green Deviled Eggs - complete with the egg whites dyed green instead of the egg yolks - based on a Pinterest tutorial I found here, you can dye eggs any color you want and it doesn't affect the flavor at all.

Guess How Much I Love You Veggies and Hummus - it was a stretch but it's "bunny food" and I love this book.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar's Fruit and Yogurt Dip

Where The Wild Things Are & Max's Turkey "Muenster" Sandwiches - a simple sandwich with shaved turkey breast, muenster cheese, baby spinach and mustard.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - with a quick chili sauce and grape jelly sauced meatball.

If You Give a Mouse a Snickerdoodle - we subbed in Snickerdoodles since they are my sister's favorite.

Jamberry Pies - if you've never heard of the book Jamberry you should look it up, such a cute rhyming story.  I made mini cherry, lemon and apple pies in a muffin tin taking some help from refrigerated pie crust for this one.

And from Giraffe's Cant Dance, Gerald's (non-alcoholic of course) Jungle Juice.

We also used Good Night Moon as a guest book, asking guests to leave a message for Mom or baby.

I made a simple diaper cake and added signs from the book Little Blue Truck and found some animal baby toys to add in for extra fun.

One of the best things about the baby shower was the onesie decorating station we set up outside in lieu of playing traditional shower games.  We had so much fun decorating onesies with fabric paint and stencils and iron-on transfers and they turned out so cute!

Rasberry Pochettes

These are a simple little treat with an indulgent cream cheese crust filled with jam.  You can use whatever flavor you have on hand, I thought the raspberry would be pretty and it's one of my favorite flavors of jam.  That and my husband won't use it for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so we weren't out of it when I went to make these.  Use jelly or preserves for these, it doesn't matter.  I prefer preserves so that's what I used here.

I used a flower cookie cutter to cut these out because I liked the rounded edges and added decoration.  You can use any shape you like or a simple 3" round cookie cutter.  One thing to note, with the flower cookie cutter, you'll have more leakage because the edges won't line up quite as perfectly as a round cut-out would.  I recommend baking these on parchment paper so you don't end up with a sticky mess of burnt jelly to clean up when you are done. 

Raspberry Pochettes
Recipe adapted from Melissa D'Arabian via Food Network

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
Approximately 1/2 cup raspberry jam
1 egg white
Sanding sugar

Combine butter and cream cheese in a mixing bowl and beat until light and fluffy, about three minutes.  Slowly add the flour and salt, beating on low speed until just combined.  Lay out a large sheet of plastic wrap and turn the dough out onto the plastic.  Form into a disk, wrap tightly and refrigerate at least one hour. 

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.  Generously flour your work surface and a rolling pin.  Roll out the dough to about 1/8" thick.  Cut out rounds or shapes as desired.  Add about a half a teaspoon of jam to one side of each cookie.  Brush the edges lightly with water.  Fold the dough over and press to seal.  Crimp the edges with a fork.  Re-roll scraps and continue with remaining dough. 

Beat egg white with approximately one tablespoon of water, brush over cookies and sprinkle cookies with sanding sugar.  Bake until golden, about 18 - 20 minutes.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely and serve. 

Classic Apple Pie

Apple pie intimidates a lot of people.  Despite looking relatively simple and ordinary, it can be tricky to get the filling to have the right consistency.  You want the filling to be thick but not dry, if its too liquidy the crust will be soggy.  You want to be able to see the apple slices; tender but not mushy.  You want the crust to be flaky and tender, not dense and dry.  I'm by no means an expert on apple pie, but here are a few tips that have worked for me. 

Apples: Get a mix of apples, that way you are likely to have some of the best characteristics of each variety.  I like granny smith, pink lady, and honeycrisp.  Try to cut them all into slices of uniform thickness so they cook at the same rate.  Sprinkle the lemon juice on the sliced apples right away, if its going to take you a while to slice them, sprinkle some on the cut slices as you go.

Thickening agent: I use cornstarch rather than flour, you can use either but I prefer cornstarch as I think it works better. 

Filling: Mix your filling together and let it sit for a bit while you prepare the crust.  The sugars will draw some of the juices out of the apples and allow the cornstarch to work it's magic.  It's going to look like you have too much filling but you really want to pile it up high because the apples are going to shrink when you bake your pie and you don't want to have a hollow crust.  I always like to use a deep dish pie plate for apple pie.  Also make sure you put a cookie sheet under your pie pan when you put it in the oven.  There will almost always be a spot where the filling leaks out and bubbles over, it's much easier to clean up a cookie sheet than a sugary burned apple syrup off the bottom of your oven.

Crust: Use cold butter, really, really cold butter.  You can freeze it and grate it with a cheese grater or your food processor.  If you don't want to do that, cut it into small pieces and then return it to the refrigerator/freezer.  You want the pieces of butter to remain when you roll out the dough, its those streaks of butter that lead to an extra flaky crust.

I'm not sure of the source of this recipe for the filling, the crust is from Martha Stewart Baking.  If you don't have a food processor, you can mix the pie crust by hand or in a stand mixer as well, I just think the food processor is the easiest.  And if the crust intimidates you, pick up a package of the refrigerated pie dough, all you have to do is unroll it and it's pretty good.

Apple Pie

Crust:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter, cold
4 T ice water plus more if needed
1 egg white

Filling:
Approximately 3 pounds apples, peeled, cored and sliced into uniform thickness
1 1/2 T lemon juice
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1-2 T cornstarch
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 T unsalted butter

Grate or cut cold butter into small pieces and freeze for about 15 minutes.  In bowl of a food processor, combine flour and salt.  Pulse a couple of times to combine.  Add the butter pieces and pulse about 10-12 times until the mixture becomes coarse crumbs.  Sprinkle the ice water over the mixture and process about 20 seconds, the dough will clump up and begin to hold together.  If the dough appears too dry, add more water, one teaspoon at a time and pulse briefly until the dough sticks together when you pinch it between your fingers.  Lay out 2 large sheets of plastic wrap and dump 1/2 of dough out onto each sheet.  Press into a disk, wrap tightly and refrigerate for at least an hour.  (You can do this a day or two in advance if you prefer.)

To make the filling, toss sliced apples with lemon juice and brown sugar in a large mixing bowl.  Sprinkle about half of the cornstarch over apples.  Add spices and stir gently to combine.  After the mixture sits for a while, if it looks like there is too much liquid, add remaining cornstarch to thicken. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Generously flour rolling surface and rolling pin.  Roll pie crust to about 1/4" thick.  Remember that it needs to be about an inch wider than the diameter of your pie plate plus twice the depth.  Spray pie pan with baking spray.  Carefully move rolled out crust to pie plate.  Fill pie with prepared filling, mounding high above the pie plate.  Dot with remaining butter.  Carefully roll out top crust and center over top of filling.  Press and crimp edges to seal as desired.  Carefully slice 3-4 slits in the top of the pie to allow steam to escape.  Mix egg white with one tablespoon of water and brush pie crust.   

Bake pie for about 50-60 minutes until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbling.  If the edges begin to look too brown before the pie is ready, cover with foil and continue baking.  Let stand about two hours to set before serving.  Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream both make excellent toppings.

Pink Lemonade Pie

I'm on vacation right now at the beach - we are in Corolla, North Carolina with some friends from college having a great time enjoying the beach.  We rented a house and have been making lots of simple BBQ meals and such.  I decided we needed dessert as well, after all we are on vacation, but wanted to make something easy that didn't have a million ingredients.  The perfect recipe - pink lemonade pie.  You can easily make this recipe in five minutes with just a few ingredients and its fantastic after a hot summer day, at the beach or not.  It has a really light, refreshing taste.  Ice cream at the beach is always a great treat.

I really don't remember where I originally got this recipe - I've been making this for several years now and haven't looked at a recipe for a long long time so I'm not sure of the original source.

Pink Lemonade Pie

1 pint vanilla ice cream
2 cups whipping cream (you can substitute Cool Whip or similar)
1/4 cup pink lemonade powder mix (such as Country Time)
1/4 cup water
1 graham cracker crust

Set out ice cream to thaw for a few minutes or pop into a microwave for about 30 seconds to soften slightly.  Beat cream until stiff peaks form.  Combine lemonade powder and water in the bottom of a mixing bowl.  Add ice cream and beat on low speed until smooth - you can use a wooden spoon to do this as well, it will just take a little extra effort to make it smooth.  Gently fold in whipped cream.  Pour mixture into prepared pie crust.  Freeze at least 4 hours until set.  Remove from freezer about 5 minutes before slicing. 

Banana Cream Pie

Banana Cream Pie has long been a favorite of my dad's - so in honor of his birthday and Father's Day (which just so happened to be 2 days apart this year), I baked him a banana cream pie. I remembered seeing a banana cream pie recipe in my Dorie Greenspan cookbook, Baking: From My Home to Yours, a while back and decided I should do it the homemade way. I will admit though that I bought a graham cracker crust at the grocery store... not so much because I didn't want to go to the trouble of making a pie crust but rather because I had to transport this pie almost 500 miles and wanted the disposable pie pan with the handy plastic lid. Next time, I'm going to use the sweet tart dough in Dorie's book.

Store bought crust or not, this pie was delicious. The custard is so rich and creamy and adds a really nice vanilla flavor to the pie. For the bananas, make sure they are ripe but still firm. Save the brown mushy bananas for banana bread. You want the banana slices to hold their shape in the pie. The whipped cream topping is just perfect, the addition of a little sour cream makes it rich and keeps it from being too sweet. Even though there are a few steps to this pie and you do have to plan in advance a little to give the custard time to set up, this was a really easy recipe and I didn't have any issues putting it together.

Banana Cream Pie
Recipe from Dorie Greenspan

Filling:
2 cups whole milk
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 T cold, unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces
3 ripe bananas

Crust:
1 9-inch pie shell (graham cracker crust or whatever you prefer)

Topping:
1 cup heavy cream, cold
2 T powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 T sour cream

For the filling, bring milk to a boil in a small saucepan. In a separate, larger heavy-bottomed saucepan, add the yolks, brown sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt and whisk until everything is combined. Add approximately 1/4 cup of the boiling milk, whisking constantly to temper the eggs. Add remaining milk, still whisking and set pan over medium heat. Whisking constantly, bring the mixture to a boil. Boil for about two minutes and remove from heat. Whisk in the vanilla and let the mixture stand for about five minutes. Add butter, one piece at a time, whisking to incorporate. The custard should be thick and smooth at this point. Strain the custard through a mesh strainer into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, pressing the plastic directly against the surface of the custard to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until cold (if you need to cool the custard faster, you can set the bowl in an ice bath and stir occasionally until cold). The custard can remain in the refrigerator up to three days.

To assemble the pie, stir the cold custard to loosen it so its spreadable. Add 1/4 of the mixture to the bottom of the crust. Slice the bananas diagonally into 1/4-inch thick slices. Layer 1/2 the banana slices over custard. Cover with 1/2 of the remaining custard and add remaining bananas, top with remaining custard and smooth with a rubber spatula.

To make the topping, add the heavy cream to a large bowl, beat until the cream begins to thicken, increasing the speed as you go. Add powdered sugar and vanilla and beat until the cream holds stiff peaks. Fold in the sour cream. Top the custard filling with the whipped topping as desired and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Pecan Pie Bars

When I was thinking about what to make for the bake sale last weekend, I had a couple of qualifications. I needed to be able to make it in advance and it needed to be easy to transport. In general most bar cookies meet these requirements. I was originally going to make some blondies or brownies but I wanted something that didn't have chocolate in it since I had already made the chocolate-covered Dulce de Leche Cheesecake Bars and was also making Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes. I had a big bag of chopped pecans in the pantry as well, so when I came across this recipe for pecan pie bars in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, I decided to try them.

As is true for most recipes in the BH&G cookbook, this one is easy to prepare and will be in the oven pretty quickly. One thing that will make it much easier is a pastry blender. If you don't already have one, mine looks like this...

A pastry blender is really helpful when making a pie crust or a crumble. You mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl and then cut in the cold butter pieces. It allows you to mix the dough without your hands warming the butter so the little pieces remain, which is what helps make the pie crust nice and flaky.

Pecan Pie Bars
Recipe from Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook

Crust:
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9x13 jellyroll pan with aluminum foil. Combine flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl. Cut the cold butter into cubes and add to flour mixture. Toss and use a pastry blender to cut butter into flour mixture until mixture resembles crumbs the size of peas. Pour mixture into prepared pan and press into a smooth crust. Poke several holes in the crust with tines of a fork. Bake about 18-20 minutes until light golden brown.

Filling:
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup light corn syrup
2 T unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla

In a large bowl, beat eggs and add sugar, corn syrup, butter, and vanilla. Whisk together until smooth. Stir in pecans. Pour filling into pre-baked crust. Return to oven to bake for about 20 minutes until filling is set. Cool on a wire rack until completely cool. Use foil to lift bars out of pan and cut into squares.

Lemon Cream Tart

I got some mini tart pans as a birthday gift so I wanted to break them out for a dinner party. It's always fun to make each person their own individual dessert. I decided on a classic lemon cream tart because lemon desserts are generally some of my favorite. This lemon cream from Dorie Greenspan is no disappointment. It was tart and creamy and very good. While the process of making the lemon cream may seem intimidating at first, its really pretty easy and similar to any basic custard recipe. To make it easier, I used a pre-made refrigerated pie crust as a tart shell for these because I was short on time, but next time I plan to try a homemade sweet tart crust.

In order to make this filling you will need a double boiler. If you don't have a double boiler, use a heat safe bowl set over a sauce pan. Fill the sauce pan with about an inch of water and set the bowl over the water, making sure the bowl doesn't actually touch the water. You'll also need either a blender or food processor.



Lemon Cream Tart Filling
Recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home To Yours

1 cup sugar
Zest of 3 lemons
4 eggs
3/4 cup lemon juice (from 4-5 lemons)
1 cup plus 5 T unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into small pieces
Prepared pie or tart crust
Blueberry Coulis (see below)

Set pan of water over medium heat. In heat safe bowl, combine sugar and lemon zest. Rub the sugar and zest together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and grainy. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, followed by the lemon juice.

Set the bowl over the pan and whisk as soon as the mixture begins to heat. Stir constantly to keep the eggs from scrambling as the mixture cooks. Heat the mixture to 180 degrees. The mixture will start off thin and foamy, but will quickly turn thicker. Once the whisk leaves a trail through the mixture, it is almost done. This process will generally take about 10 minutes. The cream will be thick and shiny when it's ready.

When the mixture has reached 180 degrees, pour through a fine mesh strainer into blender or food processor. Let it cool for about 10 minutes, until the temperature falls to about 140 degrees. Turn the blender on high and through the center of the lid, add pieces of butter a couple at a time. Occasionally scrape down the sides of the bowl as it processes, until all the butter is incorporated. Once the butter is all mixed in, continue to blend an additional 3 minutes.

Transfer the lemon cream to a clean bowl and cover with a sheet of plastic wrap, pressing the plastic directly against the cream to prevent a skin from forming. Cover with lid and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

Preheat oven as directed on crust package or recipe. Roll out pie or tart crust on a well-floured surface. Transfer to tart pans and press lightly in place. Cover crust with a sheet of foil, pressed against the surface. Fill with dried beans or rice and bake about 7-10 minutes. Remove foil and beans and prick the surface of the dough with a fork several times and continue baking about 5-10 more minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool.

Blueberry Coulis

1 cup fresh blueberries
1 T sugar

Empty blueberries into a food processor. Sprinkle with sugar and pulse several times until blended. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

When cream is ready, spoon into tart shells. Top with blueberry coulis and serve.

Thanksgiving Desserts, Part 1

Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie

Recipe inspired by The Milkman's Wife, with adaptations from Karo Syrup recipe

1 9" pie shell (I used Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts)

1 cup sugar

1 cup dark corn syrup

8 T unsalted butter

4 eggs
1/4 cup bourbon

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour deep dish pie plate and transfer pie crust to prepared dish. In a small saucepan, combine butter, sugar, and corn syrup. Stir constantly until butter is melted and sugar dissolves. Mixture will be a thick syrup. Cool slightly. In a large bowl, beat eggs and add vanilla extract, salt and bourbon. Add 1/4 cup of syrup to egg mixture to temper slightly. Add remaining syrup, mixing well until incorporated. Add chocolate chips and pecans. Pour batter into pie shell and bake for about 1 hour until center of pie is set, it should spring back slightly when tapped. Place a cookie sheet under the pie to prevent any spills from burning on the bottom of your oven.