Sugar Cookie Bars

I've never made plain old sugar cookies before, but seeing a recipe for sugar cookie bars set of a craving. While cooking for more than one over this holiday weekend, the craving was satisfied. The results were definitely reminiscent of gooey cookies, but the frosting made it more like cake than bars.

I'm not going to bother copying the recipe I used, but go here to take a look. It was easy enough, and yielded great results. My only addition was a little water to the cookie dough, which was very sticky. At least I tried to get patriotic with the sprinkles...

Homemade "pop tarts"

I have never been a really big fan of the classic Pop-Tarts. To me, they taste like the unnatural-sounding ingredients that they contain. Of course, a jam-filled pastry is a great idea, but like so many things, it's more fun to make it yourself.

This idea comes from a really neat blog. I followed this pie crust recipe, and added my favorite fillings. That obviously meant blueberry jelly, but I also tried something a bit more exotic.


On a recent trip to Puerto Rico, I sampled some awesome pastries that contained guava paste and cream cheese. So when I saw guava paste at the store there, I jumped on it. These cream cheese and guava pastries are replicated here in my pop-tarts.

No matter the filling, these were delicious. You could try dulce de leche, or really anything else. Making the crust was hard; I used a wine bottle as a rolling pin. But you could have put one of these into a toaster, and they looked fabulous.