Because apparently having a bun in the oven isn't enough baking for my husband and because apparently he is having some sympathy cravings, my hubby thinks I haven't baked enough lately. I reserved comment for a more appropriate time and kindly obliged this weekend (and I should note he has been very helpful throughout the pregnancy). Since today is St. Patty's Day, I went with a theme and made Shamrock Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing and a Mint Chocolate Cake.
Shamrock Sugar Cookies
I've grown up using the Company's Coming series of cook books, which has a great recipe for sugar cookies and royal icing.
As always with sugar cookies, the dough is best for rolling and cutting cookies if first chilled for a while (I chilled this batch for roughly 45 minutes.) One dozen turned out really well. The next...well, not so much. To fix these ones, I used one of the round cookie cutters to cut them down to size.
Its been a LONG while since I've iced cookies, but I tried my hand at it. I went with Wilton Kelly Green colouring for the festive feel.
I couldn't find a squeeze bottle, so I had to use piping bags for both the edge piping and the flood icing.
Not my best work but they taste good and they are cute. Turns out I could have thinned the flood icing a bit more, but I used a toothpick to spread it out.
Mint Chocolate Cake
For the cake, to save time, I used Betty Crocker's Chocolate Fudge cake and baked it per directions.
For the icing, I made a mint buttercream icing:
4 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp mint extract
Blend the icing sugar, butter and milk until smooth and blended. Add the mint extract. Add more to taste if necessary. If the icing is not thick enough, add more icing sugar. If too thick, add more milk.
Once it was the consistency I wanted, I added Kelly Green colouring. It was really quite Irish.
Once the cake was cooled, I just did all of my usual steps (frosting between cake layers, crumb coat, cool for 10-15 minutes, frost, cool for 10-15 minutes, use paper towel to smooth frosting).
To add some additional St. Patty's Day flair, I created a shamrock cut-out on a piece of foil and applied some icing sugar.
The hubby hasn't had any yet, but I thought it was a good mix of chocolate and a subtle mint flavour.
Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!
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