Treats of all kinds :-)

Happy Easter!  I hope everyone has been having a wonderful Easter.  My Steve flew in yesterday and we spent the day just enjoying each other's company and then went to the vigil mass and then mass again this morning.  So nice :-)

We decided to come home and do a little baking, mini lemon meringue tartlets to be exact :-)

Easy as pie!

1.  pie crust

•   2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

•   1/4 cup sugar

•   1/4 teaspoon salt

•   8 ounces cold butter, diced into cubes

•   1/4 cup cold water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Put it all in a food processor and pulse away!  It is very dry here in Denver, so I had to add about 1/4 cup of ice water extra.  That's ok!  Just pulse until the dough pulls together into a ball in the bowl of the processor.  

Remove the dough and knead lightly.  Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for one hour.

I remembered to take SOME pictures!

Once your dough has rested, roll out on a floured surface (don't forget to flour the rolling pin!) 1/8-1/4 inch thick.  Cut with 3" round cookie cutter and line mini cupcake pans with the dough.  It's a pretty resiliant dough you don't have to be too delicate, you can always press cracks or tears back together.

I baked mine with ceramic pie weights in them so that they didn't puff up too much.  You could also use a fork to pierce the bottom and sides before baking (12-15 minutes).

Remove pie weights and allow to cool on rack.  

2. Fill with 1/4 tsp. of lemon curd.  I used store bought but if you're up for it you could certainly make your own!  This is an excellent recipe (it's way too much, but lemon curd is good on EVERYTHING!)

To make the meringue:

3. For the meringue, 4 large room-temperature egg whites,1/4 tsp of cream of tartar, and 1/4 teaspoon salt (I omitted this, but you can leave it in) in the bowl of an electric mixer (or with a hand mixer) fitted with the whisk attachment on high speed until frothy. With the mixer still running, slowly add the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and beat until the meringue is thick and shiny, about 2 minutes.

I got lucky and my man helped me ;-)  At least in the beginning!

We piped the meringue onto the tartlets (I am not very good at piping!)

And baked in a 425 degree oven for 3-5 minutes to brown and firm up the meringue!

Coco came in to check on things:

Hope yall love them as much as we do :-)

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Coping note of the day: dog training!

As many of you may know, my favorite furry friend Coco LOOKS really cute, but she is seriously lacking in the "training" department.  But only for fun stuff ;-)  Recently we've been trying to teach her to lay down and roll over.  Success!  Treats will get your dog to do a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g; reward training is especially useful with rescues..  Just make sure his/her nose follows the scent!

XO