To celebrate Pioneer Day on July 24th, gather together as a family and make some bonnet or straw-hat cupcakes and serve them along with homemade ice cream. The girls in the family can make bonnets and the boys straw-hats (since no boy wants a bonnet).
For each bonnet or straw-hat cupcake you will need:
Sugar Cookie
Cupcake
White frosting
Food Coloring
Decorations – fruit by the foot, mini M&M’s, sprinkles, other items
1. Cut off the rounded top of the cupcake (they will not crumble and be easier to frost if frozen first).
2. Frost the sugar cookie the color that you want your bonnet to be. You can separate the white frosting into different bowls and tint each bowl a different color. For straw-hats tint the frosting yellow.
3. Place the cupcake cut side down on top of the frosted cookie. Do this immediately before the frosting sets up.
4. Then frost the cupcake to match the sugar cookie.
5. Decorate the bonnet. You can use fruit by the foot to make a ribbon band around the bonnet. Sprinkle the bonnet with sugar crystals. Use mini M&M’s to make small flowers. Or use any other decoration you can think of.
6. For the straw-hat you can use a toothpick to draw a criss-cross design in the frosting. So it looks like it was woven out of straw.
To make 2-3 servings of homemade ice cream you will need:
2 TB sugar
1 cup half n half or milk (half n half is creamier)
½ tsp vanilla
1 gallon size Ziploc bag
1 quart size Ziploc bag
12 TB rock salt (or table salt if rock salt can’t be found)
Ice cubes
Masking tape
1. Put the sugar, cream, and vanilla into a quart size bag.
2. Zip the bag closed, seal it with masking tape, and place it in the gallon-sized bag.
3. Add the salt and ice to the gallon size bag. Then zip this bag closed and seal it with masking tape.
4. Shake the bags until the ice cream sets up.
5. Serve immediately.