Spring Fever

Y'all, I am so happy today

I can't hardly contain myself. Because Jamie and his beautiful wife, Brooke, are here today

to help us make our flour-power cookies with a cream cheese frosting

And they're going to be beautiful, tasty cookies. Then, Brooke's going to be showing us her Meemaw's Irresistible Taxus Tumbleweed Candies

These things you can't, like, eat just one, y'all. Finally, Brooke's friend, Kate, is going to be stopping by

to show us this fabulous sour cream yellow cake with marshmallow fondant

This is a real sweet show today. Oh, my goodness. I'm, like, over the moon excited

because I am in the kitchen with two of my children. My beautiful daughter-in-law, Brooke, and my son, Jamie

And I tell you what, ain't nothing no better than having your kids in the kitchen

especially after they get old enough, y'all, to have some sense to them

And they can really help, unlike the stage that Jack's at now

All right, well, let's get started. We're going to make a flower-power chocolate cookie

And Brooke is going to be mixing together two sticks of softened butter

and she's going to add a cup of confectionate sugar. These are sweet cookies

And then she's going to add a half a cup of granulated sugar, one egg, a teaspoon of vanilla

and Jamie, son, you are going to be mixing up three cups of all-purpose flour

a half a teaspoon of baking soda, and I'm melting chocolate. I've got the easy job

Mm-hmm. And when Jamie and I get done, we're just going to add it to Brooke's pot

Look how pretty that pink mixer is with your top. I know, I just love it

It matches perfectly. You are just matching. You are just matching today, girl

I've gotten my practice lately with making cookies because Jack is on this

cookie kick every day. Mama, can we make cookies? And I kind of

have to bribe him and say, well, if you eat your dinner, we'll make cookies. But he just

absolutely loves to cook and bake. Isn't that wonderful? I'm in the cookie

making practice right now. That is great. Alright. My chocolate's melted, son

Alright, so Brooke, I say just dump, Jamie. Just take it all. This is going to be

a real thick dough. Oh, don't forget the egg, Brooke. Sorry, I was about to let you forget

And your vanilla flavoring. Okay. So we are gonna pat our dough out, y'all

and it needs to rest in the refrigerator for about an hour

Teamwork. Teamwork. Y'all are like the cutest team. All right, so in the chocolate goes

This looks delicious. Doesn't it look delicious? And it smells good, too

and just make sure everything's incorporated. Son, would you put that away, please

And let's get this cleaned off so that we can pat our dough out

And I think that's ready, Brooke, don't you? Yeah, I do, too. Uh-huh. It looks delicious

It looks like fudge. Now, I'm going to sprinkle our parchment paper with some powdered sugar

We could use cocoa. Want me to help you, honey? Mix in some cocoa

You're going to use your hands. You need some help? That'd be great. Pat for this, Mom, on this parchment paper

Yes. All right, so just pat that out, son. Then another piece of parchment paper, more sugar, and then the other half of our dough

I don't like to waste a drop, although I would like to be Eaton's beater

Do you know how mad Jack would be if he knew that y'all were over at Guinea's house making cookies

We can bring him one. Oh, here, son. Don't waste a drop

Uh-uh. That's a whole other cookie, son. Well, I figured I'd leave something in the bowl for y'all to lick

I'm gonna try to resist. All right, so in the refrigerator, that's gonna rest for one hour

So this should be really firm when we pull it out. Easy to roll out

It's funny how time flies when you're having a good time. An hour gone, just like that

Brooke, I'm going to give you one, and then Jamie's got one

Brooke, you can just dip yours in the confectionate sugar, and it won't stick

And y'all just roll them out just a little bit. They don't need to be too, too thin

It's hard, isn't it, Brooke? It is hard. It's pretty stiff. Just give me a little sugar

A little bit of sugar. Sure. I'll give you some. Thank you, Brooke

I'll give you sugar. Thank you, son. All kinds of sugar in the kitchen today

Ooh, this takes all kinds of strength. I know. All right so y just take your cookie cutters And now remember Jamie you want to use every bit of your dough And you can dip yours in the powdered sugar and that will keep it from sticking

And of course, we're going to use the flour cookie cutter. Oh, that's pretty

Now that's about a quarter of an inch thick, y'all. Mine's a little bit thicker

It's perfectly all right. We've got our cookie sheets lined with parchment paper

Love, love, love these. And we're going to bake them. We've got our oven preheated, y'all, to 350 degrees

And we're going to bake these for 10 minutes. Perfect! Let's see

We've got another cookie sheet over there, so I'm going to go ahead and put these in the oven

while y'all are taking your leftover dough and rolling it out. So 350 for 10 minutes

And then what are we gonna do, Brooke, when we come back? Make the cream cheese filling

Cream cheese filling. Don't go anywhere. I told you, this is a real sweet show today

Up next, we're finishing up our cookies. Nice and hearty. I mean, that's like a meal right there

Then, I can't wait for Brooke to show me her Meemaw's Texas Tumbleweed Candies

Wouldn't you have loved to have had a Meemaw like that? And later, Brooke's friend Kate stops by to make one of her beautiful and delicious cakes

Hey, y'all. Welcome back. We just made the most incredible flower power cookies

Look how nice and hearty. I mean, that's like a meal right there

All right. So we're going to make the icing, Brooke. Okay. So we're gonna need a half a stick of cream cheese that's softened, a half a stick of butter, and two and a half cups of powdered sugar

Very simple. Just a little cream cheese icing. And this is gonna be really thick because we want it to sit on our cookie

A little vanilla. Just eyeball it. All right. Just a pair. Perfect

Jamie's getting our pastry bag ready. So who's gonna do what I'll do the sprinkles. Okay, I'll fight

All right, and look at our cute little tens Brooke So this makes a neat gift great idea just to give the teachers the friends

They'd be beautiful Easter cookies and son. Just give me a little drop of milk

Yeah Liquid goes a long way y'all with powdered sugar that looks delicious and that looks delicious

I love cream cheese icing. I'm gonna just sling that frosting. You like it

Mm-hmm. All right. So let's put this in our piping bag. There we go

And if you wanted to, you could even add a little food coloring

to this. But we're gonna add the sprinkles. Okey-doke. Now, we're just going to put a dollop in the center

Mm-hmm. Beautiful. Perfect. Whoa. Whoa

That one's mine. You know, we could make a sandwich. So aren't those beautiful

Beautiful. Here, let's do this. Mmm

Yum. Mmm. Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm. That's good for real. And I must taste kind of like a brownie a little bit

because the cookie is so thick. It does. It does. It's just delicious

It's icing. Delicious. Look at that, how beautiful that is. What are we going to do next, Brooke

We are going to make my Meemaw's Texas Tumbleweed candy. Oh, I love it

Texas Tumbleweed. I like the way that rolls off my tongue, and I'm ready for it to roll down my tongue

Y'all, Meemaw was Brooke's grandmother. I want to see this Texas Tumbleweed because you're using something a little bit different

You're using like a canned potato stick. Mm-hmm. Which just will give it that salty, crunchy flavor with the sweet

Love the sweet and salty. Mm-hmm. So let's get going. Okay. I can't wait to taste them

So we're going to start out with one 12-ounce package of almond bark

Okay, so just break this up. White chocolate almond bark, yes. Okay, and this is pretty

And to that, we're going to add a cup of butterscotch chips. Okay

Or you can use peanut butter. And kind of let it melt a little bit

And we've just got that over boiling water, y'all. in our kind of homemade double boiler Now my meemaw would start these cookies right after Thanksgiving She would make about 50 different kinds between you know Thanksgiving and Christmas

Wouldn't you have loved to have had a meemaw like that? So now Brooke's just adding a pound of roasted peanuts

And that was her gift to all her friends and family was just a huge tray of cookies and candy

Now, Jamie's just going to stir that up real good, and then we're going to add our three cups of potato sticks

All right, y'all, we're putting the salty into the sweet to just kind of not only give it that crunch

but it'll give it that extra bit of flavor to kind of offset the sweet, and goes with the peanuts

Oh, my gosh, these are so good. Perfectly. A little sour cream

Mm. Mama. What? Why don't you get something to put these on

Mm. So I've got my cookie sheet lined with the wax paper

All right, so just scoop them up. That chocolate in the butterscotch morsels is going to harden again

So y'all, we have got the neatest friend that's going to be joining Brooke today

Paula, I'm so excited for you to meet my friend Kate. And she has been making these beautiful, beautiful cakes

and I just can't wait for her to show you how to make them. And you're not going to believe how precious these cakes are

Coming up next, we're not leaving this kitchen clean making Kate's Sour Cream Yellow Cake

This is messy. We are going to be covered in powdered sugar by the time this is done

But it'll be worth it because later we got the cutest food critics coming by

to help us finish up our decorations. Oh, look. That sure is pretty

Hey, guys. Taste testers. Brooke told me about Kate, her friend, several months ago

We have been friends since high school. We went to college together

She has found this passion of making cakes in her home while she stays at home with her girls

And the cakes that she's made are just unbelievable. So today, y'all, she's showing us her sour cream yellow cake with a marshmallow fondant

So I'm going to kind of step off and let you do your thing

Okay. Just pretend like you're 15 years old again and in that kitchen

Okay. So go for it, girls. All right. So I guess we'll do the cake first. Okay. This is a fabulous cake

It's, um, you put your, start off with your box of yellow cake mix

And then dump the whole thing in. I like that already, y'all. And just put that in there

And then we're going to add a third a cup of sugar also. That's the beauty of box cake mixes because you can really take it to another level

I'm going to start with this sour cream. The sour cream just kind of helps to make it, keep it moist and also keep the cake sturdy

All right, and then we're going to add a third cup of flour, just kind of extending the recipe

Just to give it a little bit more body. Right, right. We're going to add in a third a cup of oil, just regular vegetable oil on there

Good, that'll make it moist too. This is butter extract, so we're going to do half of a teaspoon of butter extract

You might like this. Oh my gosh. I'm kidding. No, she's not

Love it. That's for Paula. My grandmother Hires used to make a butternut cake, and she would use a flavoring very similar to that

And I love that that brings back memories. And I'm going to put in just a pinch of salt

And then we're going to add half a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Okay

And we're going to add three eggs. So, that. So, Paula, it's not just the decoration to Kate's Cakes

It's the taste. It's really, honestly, I can say the best cake I've ever had

Oh, that's wonderful. And then we're going to put in a quarter cup of water

I think we should put Paula to work. What do you think? Yeah, Paula, how about you stop watching this

And you can help me make the icing. How about that? Okay, what do you want me to do? All right, we're going to start off here at a fourth cup of water, about three tablespoons of coffee creamer

And actually what we're using this for is you can use milk in your icing, but then you'd have to refrigerate that

And I just, this way you don't have to worry about anything. This is a great idea. All right, we're back to the butter

We are back to the butter. So we're going to add a half a teaspoon of butter

Keto. Extract. And then a half a teaspoon of the vanilla extract

So a half a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Kate, when in the world do you have time to make these cakes with two kids

I don't sleep. I never sleep. I wake up at 5 o'clock sometimes in the morning and it's done before

Before they wake up. Before the girls wake up. All right, so I'm putting in a cup of solid shortening

Right. Start mixing that together, and then we will start adding. And I going to do this with the electric mixer And that going to get messy You thought your cookies were messy This is messy We are going to be covered in powdered sugar by the time this is done

All right. And what we're going to do is just going to start adding slowly the powdered sugar

Now, I think we're going to need about four cups total. All right, Brooke, how are you doing over

there? Looks pretty good to me. I think it's ready. Very good. This looks like it's coming

along nicely, Kate. Looks perfect. All right, let's come down here and spray these pans

Then the girls are going to split the batter evenly between the two pans

This is a difficult part, y'all. To make sure that your cakes

are perfectly even. I use my cup and I actually measure it out

Just getting it all out here. I have some too. This is my daughter's favorite part

I tell her if she's a good girl, she can lick the spatula when I'm done, just mix it

Back to braving, right? Oh, look at my hands. That's right. Yum

That candy butter, right? That brings back so many memories. Y'all must use that butter extract

We're going to put them in the oven for 30 minutes at 350. Okey-doke. Don't go anywhere

You know, we can learn a lot from these beautiful young girls. Up next, even the biggest kids in the kitchen can't wait to taste this cake

I want cake. You want cake? All right. Look at us working, girls

Welcome back, y'all. We are working on now the final... Stages. Final stages of Kate's cake

Our cakes have cooled, and Kate's putting them together with the icing that we made earlier

Now, she did not show us how to make the fondant, but you can go on foodnetwork.com and find out how to do it

I understand that you make it with marshmallows. That's right. Which makes it so good

But Kate, how did you get so good so fast at this? I mean, practice, practice, practice

I think anybody can get good at anything if they practice. This is wonderful

Yeah. Yeah. So what I'm going to do now. You're spinning. I've just iced it lightly with the buttercream, just kind of like a crumb coat

Just kind of seal it. That's right, because the fondant will adhere to that

And what I'm going to do before I put the fondant on is just kind of press it down a little bit

And if you see the sides of the cake coming out, you see that filling coming out there a little bit

That's what we want to get out. Now, why do you want to do that? Because if we put the fondant on before we do this, there will be a ring around

because that fondant is going to lay over the cake and push this icing up

Okay. So we're going to do that. Well, I can't wait to see you work with the fondant

Okay, and let's cover this cake. So while Kate fits her fondant on the top of her cake

Brooke and I are going to be using cookie cutters to make some fun little decorations using our fondant

And look, she's taking a pizza wheel, y'all. a pizza cutter. Yeah, my

husband is always saying, where's my pizza cutter? I could do this like all

afternoon, y'all. And then just put a little dab of water on them

Okay, now that's just gonna help it stick together, y'all. Perfect! Look

how cute. Oh, look. Hey, that sure is pretty. Hey, guys. Our taste testers. Yeah

Look. You want some cake? Fondant. You want some fondant? Yes, ma'am

Hey, darling. I hear that you're getting all my boys' kisses. Hey, baby

Can you, mama? Oh, look at her grass, Brooke. Oh, so cute

How cute. You're so lucky to have a mommy that makes all these wonderful cakes

How beautiful is that? Paula, I want you to try Meemaw's candies

Oh, I want to. Ready? Kate, you want to try? Yes, let's OD on sugar

Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Oh, my. Do you love those patates

Those are good. Or what? Mmm. I want cake. You want some cake

All right. Oh. Oh, dope. Look how soft and moist that is

Mmm. That's a good, mama. Cake, Mama. Cake? Hey. Isn't it awesome

Oh, my God. I love the fondant. It is. So go to the website, foodnetwork.com

Get the recipe for our fondant. If not, call Cake. She'll make it for you

That's right. Mm-mm-mm. I've had a ball with you girls. Thank you so much

Thank you for having us. I love my daughter-in-law, and I love her friends

Thank y'all so much. Grab your chillin', get in the kitchen, and make you up something sweet

And as always, we send y'all love and best dishes from our kitchen to yours

Thanks, Kate. Thank you