Merciful God, You are great in compassion and Your tenderness for us is without measure. We ask You to give us today our daily bread, and also provide for the needs of all of Your hungry children around the world. Through Christ Your Son and Our Lord. Amen.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Feast Day Treats

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This week is jam-packed full of fun feast days to celebrate. I thought I'd post pictures of two treats we have enjoyed thus far.



The
St. Leo lion cupcakes were a big hit. Even the big kids thought they were fun and I have no doubt that they will forever associate the lion with the courageous St. Leo the Great. I used this cupcake recipe, and they were good even if they weren't completely from scratch. I was on my way home from picking up my high schooler, with groceries in the car, at 4 p.m. and still had dessert finished before dinner. Cupcakes baked, frosted and decorated in about an hour -- can't complain. The frosting was a simple light chocolate buttercream, recipe below. I can't claim the decoration idea -- it was all over the internet -- but it was easy. Make sure you stick the popcorn on as you frost each cupcake though, because if the frosting hardens at all, it won't stick. My little lion faces are not perfect -- I stooped to using a can of this because I was rushed, but my kids didn't give a fig, and so neither did I. It was hard to control the flow (think canned cheese spread), but for what I was doing, I didn't really get too uptight.

Light Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

4 T. butter, softened
2 T. cocoa
3 c. powdered sugar
4 T. milk
1 t. vanilla

Beat butter in a mixing bowl.
Add cocoa and beat.
Slowly add powdered sugar and beat.
Add vanilla and then milk, one tablespoon at a time,
and beat until spreading consistency, for at least two minutes.
Add more milk or sugar if necessary.

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I baked these French Gaufrettes for St. Martin of Tours' feast day. The traditional dessert for St. Martin is horsheshoe cookies, but I honestly didn't feel like rolling dough. I also had a hankerin' for pizzelles and these are pretty much French pizzelles. The recipe was perfect and I doubled it to take some to my college boy. They are lighter than my pizzelle recipe, and since I followed the recipe exactly, there was no anise, but they are wonderful just they way they are -- sweet, crisp and buttery.


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2 comments:

Anne said...

Those cupcakes are stinkin' adorable!!! What fun!

Barb Szyszkiewicz said...

Those are the cutest cupcakes ever!
They might be a lot of fun for the cub scouts to make sometime. (Sometime when it's warm enough so I can have them EAT their cupcakes OUTSIDE)