These just remind me of summertime at my grandma’s house, enjoying a piece of her peach cobbler. The next time I make this I’m going to serve it with a side of homemade vanilla ice cream!

Ingredients

• Puff Pastry
• 4 Peaches, sliced thinly
• ¼ tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp water

Directions

1. Begin by heating your oven to 400 F.
2. Bring a sheet of puff pastry to room temperature.
3. Gently unfold the dough and, using a sharp knife, score it about 1 inch from the edge, making a rectangle all the way around. Inside the rectangle, dot the dough to prevent it from puffing.
4. Layer the peach slices on top of the pierced dough and sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar. Distribute the cubed butter evenly over the peaches.
5. Brush the visible dough with egg wash (egg beat with 1 tablespoon of water).
6. Bake for 15-18 minutes.

Does anyone else feel like Superman showing his “S” when they wear their ashes on this day? Before I became catholic and saw people wearing their ashes on this day I was confused and had no idea why anyone who would do that. Then I learned about the practice and became proud to wear my ashes today. I love getting them then running errands, I enjoy the nods we get and give each other as we see others wearing theirs. It’s such a wonderful form of community.

​This is Andrew’s three years of receiving his ashes and my sixth and I look forward to this every year. The night before we celebrate Mardi Gras and the next day to start the Lenten season we receive our ashes and remind ourselves that we are dust and one day we will return to dust.

I haven’t make a present cake like this in years, and I forgot how cute the come out. The colors were inspired by the UCLA colors. After I covered the cake in the iconic blue, I created ribbons out of yellow fondant and laid six long pieces in equal parts on the cake. I cut more ribbons to create the bow by making a loop before tacking it place with sugar water. Sometimes the fondant will droop if it is too soft and gum paste can be added, but from my experience, if a little rolled up paper towel is inserted into the loop and left to dry for an hour or so, it will stay up just fine. I made the tag out of white fondant and wrote the names using an edible black pen. Sorry many techniques in such a little cake!

These cute little pastries just want me to host a lady’s tea party! They are simple and elegant, and the best part is they super-fast and easy to make!

Ingredients

• 1 box Puff Pastry Sheets
• Fresh Berries
• Lemon Curd

Directions

1. Cut the Puff Pastry sheets into squares and dot them.
2. Place on a baking sheet, no thawing necessary.
3. Bake 15-18 minutes or until golden brown.
4. Once the pastries have cooled, pipe in the lemon curd.
5. Top with seasonal fruits and serve.

I love how these quick and easy delicate desserts came out. They are rich, tart, soft, and crunchy all in one bite! I will be defiantly making these for our next dinner party.

Ingredients
• 1 package of phyllo cups
• Fresh Raspberries rinsed and dried
• Ganache (Find recipe here)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350º
2. Arrange phyllo cups onto a non-stick baking sheet
3. Blind bake the phyllo cups for 5 minutes, to prevent sogginess
4. Using a small star tip, pipe in ganache in cooled phyllo cups
5. Top with fresh raspberry

Last month I learned the Knights of Columbus at our parish was hosting a Valentine’s Dance and I was instantly excited and volunteered to make chocolate-covered strawberries. Much to my surprise, the gentleman that was organizing the event asked me if I would be interested in doing the whole dessert table! I genuinely felt honored to be asked and happily accepted. He requested pastries along with cupcakes, which isn’t something I normally make. I told him I would come up with a few ideas and would do a tasting at their next Knights meeting. They were all a big hit but was able to narrow it down to five types, plus four flavors of cupcakes. Oh, plus the 80 chocolate-dipped strawberries I was still doing! Talk about ambitious and it was a lot of work, a lot of planning and scheduling, and a lot of support, but I pulled it off and couldn’t be more proud of the dessert display!

I was blessed to receive so many sweet compliments as Jack and I enjoyed the wonderful dinner and dancing.
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I will be sharing the pastry recipes in upcoming posts if you want to try them too.

As with my barn board table, I reused an old breakfast bar and some of my grandma’s barn wood to make this awesome garden potting table. After sanding two pieces of barn boards, I glued and screwed them to a leftover piece of plywood. I then used the same 1x2 trim that we used on the table to trim out the tabletop.

I also used the trim to make the shelf on the bottom. I started by building a box that fits snuggly between the metal sides. I then equally spaced pieces and nailed to create the top of the shelf. I preferred this over a solid shelf so dirt could fall through.

The next step was to stain and seal all of the wood; I used the same stain color (American Walnut) as the big table so they matched, since more and likely it will get used as a bar during parties. To finish it off I added three black hooks to hang garden tools from.
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I am really excited to have this project finished and have it in my beautiful garden area!

This is such a cool and bold cake! Each tier was covered in bold red or blue fondant before adding the details. I cut out gray stars using fondant cutters then sprayed them with edible gold spray paint and set them aside to dry. To create the flame I freehand cut out orange fondant and then brushed watered down red gel food coloring. Since I don’t have an edible printer, I printed the character out on regular and put him on a piece of red fondant that could be removed before eating. I added the matching color rope fondant to finishes off each tier and to help hold everything in place. The last step was to roll out thin ropes of red fondant to create the name and age.

​I’m really proud of how awesome this cake came out!