dennis-muoio's Blog

1 cup fresh strawberrries, cleaned and mashed.

1 cup sugar

3 Tablespoons cornstarch

3/4 cup water

Optional red food coloring

I doubled this recipe for the June Birthday Birthday cake.  1 1/2 recipes would have been enough.

Mash the berrries and set aside.

In a saucepan, combine sugar and cornstarch.

Stir in water and mashed berries.

Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.

Add food coloring if necessary.

Cook and stir for 3 minutes until thick.

Joan made chocolate chips. Denielle made rice crispy treats and Joan also made cornstarch cutout in letters of the alphabet. We used icing to hold the cookies onto paper plates that spelled out the kids' names. While we were at it, we made the same ' name plates' for our families.

On Saturday, December 18, Maria and family came over to bake. She brought lots of ingredients, stuff to eat along the way and a 4 section bundt cake pan gift for Joan. She also had a double batch of pre-made Cornstarch Cookies. I had a sponge cake for Petit Fors, Butter Balls and Kpiful dough. Maria had the three colored cakes for her Napolians. As the day went on, I mixed Basic Dough for a fig loaf and Maria really wanted to try Gampa Dalesio's stove top Pizzelle iron.

Each each, Denielle takes the week of Thanksgiving and spends it with us. Lynder comes with her and if the work schedule allows, Tumeca comes too.  This year, Tumeca coldn't get the time off.

Each year, we spend some of the time making Christmas cookies for the girls to take back to New York. They share them with friends and co-workers. I think Tumeca shars them with her aunts too.