"layers" news and stories

Is it too late to make another batch of Christmas cookies this year? Dessert First's Cranberry-Cherry Icebox Ribbons are just gorgeous. The recipe originally came from The All-American Cookie Book, which is a great source for recipes for all occasions and at all levels of difficulty, from dropped cookies, like chocolate chip, to more elaborately shaped ones. These cookies fall in between the two extremes, although they are certain to impress with their looks, as well as with their flavor. The cookies have layers of shortbread-like butter cookie dough sandwiching layers of dried cranberry and cherry preserves. The thing that makes them much easier than they look is that the cookies are icebox cookies, meaning that the dough is assembled and frozen, then the individual cookies are sliced off of a larger log when you are ready to bake. No shaping is necessary and the resulting cookies are still picture-perfect. Different fillings can be substituted for the cranberry/cherry combination, so look for your favorite seasonal jams to complement the cookie.

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If you enjoy cupcakes and have not yet seen the Cupcake Bakeshop blog, I strongly recommend that you take a look. Cheryl is an amazing baker and comes up with some of the most exotic sounding and beautiful looking cupcakes you'll ever see. Case in point, the delightful cupcake pictured above is made up of a layer of cake, two layers of ice cream and topped off with frosting, making it into a Green Tea, Lavender and Honey Cupcake Bombe - and giving it a name that is as much a mouthful as the cupcake itself. The ice cream layers are lavender and honey, both homemade, and the frosting and cake base are both flavored with matcha (green tea powder), so the whole treat is colorful as well as tasty. As you might imagine, an ice cream cake (with very little actual cake) topped with frosting is quite sweet - but that's how cupcakes are supposed to be, right? Even if you don't want to attempt the whole process of this multi-layered cake yourself, you might want to try one of the two ice cream recipes to add something different to your repertoire.

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After I made my Jello pie, I wanted to do more Jello desserts - by which I mean that I had an extra package of Jello left over. I decided that I would try my hand at making a layered dessert because some of them just look too interesting to pass up and I've never actually attempted one before.

As it turns out, they're very easy to make. Gelatin doesn't set up at room temperature, so the layers-to-be can sit out while you wait for things to set up. The initial time involved is about 2 minutes, after which you can do household things (or blog) while you wait to pour on the next layer.