Mini Patriotic Funfetti Sandwich Cookies

You know how things go together like peas and carrots? Peanut Butter + Jelly? Bill Cosby and Pudding Pops? Most of my friends who have known me since middle school will easily use the comparison of “Becca + Funfetti Cookies.” These cookies started it all for me. I was taught never to show up somewhere empty handed, and once I discovered how easy (and fast!) it was to make Funfetti Cookies back in my wee young’n baking days, I became known around the land (of southern Connecticut) as the girl with the Funfetti cookies. At least to my friends, who used to hang out in my basement in high school and eat these.

So in the spirit of the upcoming holiday, I decided to combine two of my favorite things: Funfetti Cookies + America. My friend (coworker + baking assistant) Allie was down the Cape with me this weekend, so I put her to work to help make these this morning, and we were done in under 40 minutes. Granted, we are both professional project managers, so this was the best organized and most optimized Sunday morning baking you could imagine.

Ingredients:

  • 1 package Funfetti cake mix
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 eggs
  • Red, white + blue sprinkles
  • 1 can vanilla frosting
  • Red + Blue food coloring

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, vegetable oil and eggs. If you weren’t able to find the Patriotic red, white + blue Funfetti cake mix, then just add in about a 1/3 cup of red, white and blue sprinkles.

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Step 2: On parchment-lined baking sheets, place even-size balls of cake mix at least an inch apart. I made these mini, so about the size of a mini-cookie scoop, or about half a teaspoon. Mini means you can eat more, remember that. Press the dough down lightly with your fingertips. (You can dip your fingertips in flour if they are too sticky.)

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Step 3: Bake at 375 degrees for about 6-8 minutes, or until lightly golden brown. Let them cool while you mix the frosting.

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Step 4: Put the frosting in 3 separate bowls, and mix one with red food dye and the other with blue. This way you will end up with 1/3 of a can of red, white and blue frosting. Put into a piping bag (aka spoon into a zip-log bag, twist it, and cut the tip off). Try to match the cookies in pairs even in size, and turn one of the each of the cookie halves upside down. (OCD Project management at its best). Teamwork makes the dream work.

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Step 5: Cover each cookie evenly with the frosting. Alternating, red, white and blue across the different cookies. Then take the other half of each cookie and lightly press on top. If you have leftover patriotic sprinkles, you can sprinkle them over the sides to coat the frosted sides.

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I was singing the theme song to America’s funniest home videos while frosting these. “Red white and blue, the Funfetti things you do, America, America this is you (ba ba da boo).

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IMG_1531The last photo is my favorite. I really envy some of the other food bloggers I follow on Instagram that take these amazing pictures of what they bake. Taking great photos requires camera skills which I do not have and patience, which I most definitely do not have. So if you ever wonder how I come up with my semi-okay final cookie staged photos, it’s a pretty ghetto operation that usually involves my mom telling me not to jump on the counter.

Allie caught a few of these special ghetto photography moments this morning.

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A little hunchback of Notre Dame action going on here, but meh. Whatever it takes to get that good photo. cphoto 2And then Allie got this candid while I was giving her + her fiancee a boat tour around the lake, and I think I should probably hire her to start taking candid photos of me all over the place.

cphoto 3I’m thinking we have a new online dating headshot here, right? Speaking of online dating, I think I have pretty much given up any hope that means to finding a suitable bachelor will ever work for me. However. I had a random thought last week. And decided to create an online dating profile, EXCEPT, instead of writing my profile all normal like I usually do with career aspirations, being a master cookie baker, ninja consultant, and lover of sunsets, beaches, and diet coke (lame, yawn) I wrote my entire profile, only using quotes from Ja Rule songs. I honestly don’t know why I did not think of it sooner. His lyrics, especially when he teams up with Ashanti or J-Lo, are deep. So here it is, for your entertainment (and for those of you new to online dating, these are the standard questions the dating site makes you fill out):

What I’m doing with my life: Hard lovin’ an’ straight thuggin’

I’m really good at: Living it up’

The first things people usually notice about me: The rocks and gifts that you cop me baby / And that house on the hill when you drop like 80/ On a down payment thinking damn ain’t life gravy/ And ever since for my honey I been twice the lady
Favorite books, movies, shows, music, and food: The poetic lyrics of Ja Rule

The six things I could never do without: 
  1. The way you walk
  2. The way you move
  3. The way you talk
  4. The way you stare
  5. The way you look
  6. Your style

(Cause I’m real)

I spend a lot of time thinking about: why every thug needs a lady.

On a typical Friday night I am: not always there when you call, but I’m always on time.
The most private thing I’m willing to admit: you not just my love, you my homie.
You should message me if: You can tell me where would I be without my baby … because the thought alone might break me.

So, maybe not surprising, but it hasn’t quite attracted the right kind of men … yet. But until my 28-35, financially stable, handsome, Cape-lovin’ future husband finally comes out of hiding, I will be entertaining the messages I get from my dating Ja-Rule inspired profile.

I am still recovering a bit from the project launch a week ago, so I’ve been trying to catch up on 9 months of missed sleep and the past two months of pure insanity at work. I have an intern for the summer who I am supposed to be a business consulting sherpa to. So in between giving her business consulting work, I figured she needed a good research project for the summer. So she’s been assigned a research project that we titled Eat All The Boston Cookies, where Abby needs to find all of the Boston bakeries where we will go and eat all of their cookies. No easy task. Of course she will need to create a project plan with key milestones, scope prioritization, analytics for ratings + reviews, and a final presentation with lessons learned + recommendations. Best intern supervisor ever? We’ll let Abby decide that at the end of the summer. But our first stop last week, was Abby’s FIRST TIME to Flour Bakery in Back Bay. Since it was her first time, we went with the homemade Oreo, Chunky Lola cookie (my favorite), and raspberry seltzers. This got a 1o out of 10 rating, because I mean come on … does it get much better than this? Follow @thesaltedcookie on Instagram to stay on top of this research project.

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Speaking of instagram, I feel like I’m a total crazy person now that I have @thesaltedcookie officially on Instagram. Because it’s my public instagram, I feel like I can post multiple times a day and it’s not just my personal network that thinks I am crazy with my weird captions. I just post whatever the first thing that comes to my head. Today we had some good food instas in Chatham. I felt like I had to let this Salted Caramel Chocolate Pretzel ice cream cone from Emack and Bolios melt a little to get that perfect shot. And then I had to eat it … because there are starving children and I didn’t want to be wasteful.photo 1I had to take a picture of this card at the Mayflower Store, because I literally was just standing in the aisle cracking up like a looney tune.

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I didn’t even realize it looked like Batman was in my coffee cup yesterday morning. Probably because I had not yet had my coffee. photo 4

And finally, after a nice weekend, we caught this awesome sunset on the dock last night. My happy place. photo 3

I think I have almost forgiven Mother Nature for that insanely awful winter she put us through, because the weather the past few weeks has been unbelievable. I’m talking 82 degrees with a light breeze and no humidity down the Cape. Let’s keep that going for the next few weeks while I am enjoying some vacation days down there for America’s (and my mom’s) birthday. So enjoy the short week everyone! I know I am already ready for a week of beach chairs + sunshine. Happy Birthday America!