On my last day in the US I found this super cute cookie cutter that makes a heart shape that you can hang off the side of your coffee cup!

It was only $1.29 from World Market!

I thought I'd try the recipe on the back of the packaging it came attached to. It said the recipe made 12 cookies - but with 2 cups of butter and 4 cups of flour I was dubious!!

It made this many heart shapes...

...and when I got sick of cutting the heart shapes it made this many square shapes...

...and then when I got sick of cutting shapes altogether it made this many lumpy round shapes.

So, a little more than 12, you could say.

If you don't have a World Market nearby, you could probably cut a section out of the dough from a heart shape to get the same result. I won't bother giving you the recipe, because frankly, there are better recipes out there. Half way through I even decided to sprinkle them with sugar because they weren't very sweet. But aside from the recipe not being great, I love the cutter. These cookies are going in the freezer for those morning tea times when I haven't baked.

Today's inaugural Vegemite challenge (at Ben's work) coincided with my first attempt at making lamingtons. 

There were a few hurdles: 
1. The coconut here is weird chunky sweetened stuff
2. I didn't have a serrated knife to cut off the crust of the sponge cake
3. I didn't have time to allow the chocolate to set properly
4. I didn't have a sifter so there were a few little lumps of flour in the batter

At first I was pretty disappointed in them but everyone loved them (off the back of trying Vegemite, haha) and Ben, who was the only qualified judge of lamingtons, said they were spot on.

You may have noticed the little sign I made. I've been doing ISLY's online calligraphy course and although I haven't finished the course, I'm getting closer. I don't have any nice plates or backgrounds here to photograph my food with so I thought it might be nice to show off some of my lettering skills instead! Yes, the size is a little uneven but I was kind of rushing...

If you'd like to try making these, I got the recipe from here. I'd recommend adding some extra water to the chocolate sauce to make it a little runnier.

Getting better at these... This time the mixture felt better - I think I didn't over or under beat the egg whites this time, it was easier to get nice round shapes. And they were less lumpy than the ones I made last time (don't think I ever put a photo up) and have nice 'feet'. I use a recipe from here. Cheated with the caramel this time :) but I've also tried making fillings from this website which has tons of different flavours. Or you could also just make a simple ganache by combining melted chocolate with cream.

Wednesday was the 4th of July and as Ben and I are in the US, we were invited to a 4th of July party. I spent all day Tuesday making these American flag themed cookies.

The design was inspired by this.

This is the Vienna cream recipe that I use for the cupcakes. I got it from my mum, not sure where she got it, maybe Grandma??


Vienna Cream

Ingredients
125g butter
1 1/2 cup icing sugar
2 T milk

Method
1. Beat butter until as white as possible.
2. Gradually add half of the icing sugar and milk alternately, mixing.
3. Add remaining icing sugar and milk, beating.
4. For chocolate, add 2 T cocoa.
Tip: Ice cake cold or frozen to prevent crumbling