Happy belated St. Patty's Day!

The night was young, and I am, not feeling that young anymore. Sorry, I got too tired last night! As you know, it was St. Patrick's Day yesterday (Happy St. Patrick's Day!) and I went dessert crazy -I think mostly from stress? So here is the load-down on the Irish goodies I made. Okay, so the first one I'm mentioning isn't Irish, but it's this lime-swirled icebox cookie, super soft and flat. They tasted much like sugar cookies. Then I made these lime popcorn balls that I made last year. So good. There is always someone who falls madly in love. Yesterday, it was made known when my friend told me that they will be the death of him. Haha -that good huh?

I also went and made this "irresistible" Irish soda bread. Turned out great! -except for the fact that I didn't grease the pan enough, so the bottom stuck and didn't follow the rest of the bread out. If it wasn't obvious enough, I didn't not bring that out to share on display. It was justdevoured on the D.L by the inmates :)

Because of that devastating experience, I had to quickly boost my feeling of self competency by making my favorite scone recipe, Irish scones. And as always, they made me happy.

Next up, I made something completely new. It was my new challenge. I had made, potato petite fours. Yup! You heard me. And because this recipe called for marzipan, what was I going to do? Make marzipan, of course!! Turns out marzipan is pretty easy to make! And boy, is that stuff divine! It totally makes the petite fours what they are. These little cake bites were AMAZING. Like they blew my socks off --if I were wearing socks. I even got a comment from someone who's a pretty frequent Europe traveler say that these little guys are possibly the best things she has ever tasted. Little heavenly bites. Wow. Huge compliment. To top that off, one of my fellow cooking foodie told me how these potato petite fours are very much my style. I didn't really know I had a style in my baking. And I am not sharing all these comments to boast or flatter myself, but to express my shock for how well these little guys turned out to be! Here I was, making them and saying how over baked and weird they looked. I even tried one of my extras that didn't get marzipaned and it didn't taste impressive. Well, all I have to say for myself is, I stand corrected.

For this particular event, for this particular occasion, I had, indeed, made a mini pub. This was my first attempt in doing such a thing. I was able to pull it off with it being alcohol free. Not tipsy or drunk free, mind you. There is, indeed, a difference, as it was proven last night.

There were jello shots, strawberry daiquiris, oxblood, and beer mix (honey mustard pretzels, pretzel sticks, five hot peanuts, and sesame sticks).

A special note: My baby brother's birthday was Friday! It's his first birthday spent out of the country. I sent him a package, but what I really wished was to make him a birthday cake :( I made black treacle scones on his birthday though. They smelled so, cozy. They have cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, they do wonders to the senses. And what could possibly make this breakfast any more amazing?! My fellow friend and housemate made ricotta cheese! From scratch! So imagine the wonders of a warm, spiced scone with fresh ricotta cheese smeared on with fresh, sweet strawberries to top it off. Yes, it was a breakfast to remember. Too bad my brother wasn't here to enjoy it on his birthday.

I really didn't want to post this, but, here it goes. I also made these one-bowl cheddar biscuits. Their surprisingly not as unhealthy as they sound (the cheddar part makes me think it's going to be super greasy). And maybe that's the reason they turned out looking the way they did.....