Looking for a little red, white, and blue for your social distanced picnic? Here are some of my family’s favorites:
Blueberry Pound Cake
2 3/4 C flour, separated
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 sticks butter, plus more for the pan
2 C sugar, plus more for the pan
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 C blueberries
Preheat your oven to 325. Liberally butter a bundt pan, and then sprinkle it with sugar. This will give your cake a nice sugary crust on the outside. Yum!
Cream together the butter and sugar. Then, add the eggs and vanilla. Slowly add 1 1/2 C of flour, the baking powder, and salt. Mix until just combined. In a separate bowl, combine the blueberries with the remaining 1/4 C of flour. Then, fold in the berry mixture.
Pour the batter into your pan. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Allow to cool in the pan for at least twenty minutes. Then, enjoy! It is soft and delicious.
Striped Strawberries
There is hardly a recipe here, but this is a fun and tasty snack that’s worth putting in your playbook. We melted a bag of white chocolate chips (30 second increments in the microwave) and then dipped 2/3 of each strawberry in the melty goodness. Then, we poured a bit of blue sanding sugar in a small bowl. Finally, we dipped the bottom third of each strawberry in the sugar and placed each on a piece of foil to set.
No Bake Cookies
1 stick of butter
1/2 C milk
2 C sugar
1 C peanut butter
1 C butterscotch chips
3 C quick cook oats
M & Ms or sprinkles
Combine the butter, sugar, and milk in a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Boil for one full minute. Then, remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the peanut butter until nice and creamy.
Then, stir in the oats and butter scotch chips. At this point, it will be a gooey delicious heap. That’s okay.
Line a sheet pan with parchment or foil. Drop the oat mixture by spoonfuls onto the pan. They will begin to firm up upon cooling.
Next, decorate the tops with M&Ms. You don’t want to mix in the M&Ms too early when the mixture is still warm, because they tend to melt and their colors will leak. So plopping on top does the trick. Plus, they look more festive. Enjoy.
Have a happy 4th weekend! What are you doing? We are going to have an isolated picnic lunch somewhere in town with big shade trees. In the evening, we’re grilling hotdogs in the backyard and getting out the sparklers. That’s it for 2020!
Be safe. Be well.
