Jo Ellen and Ellie Kathryn Bailey

By Published On: November 8, 2016

Jo Ellen Bailey let her nieces, Addi Claire, 7,  and Ellie Kathryn Bailey, 4, help make peanut butter cookies on a long summer afternoon. And they ended up making them all summer long, Jo Ellen said.
Ellie Kathryn also wanted to help when Jo Ellen made pancakes for them. “They are ready when they bubble,” Ellie said, who wants to do the pancake flipping.
Since school is back in session and Ellie Kathryn goes half days, she and Jo Ellen cook almost every day.
cooks-baileyEllie Kathryn has turned into quite the little baker. The peanut butter cookie making has expanded to chocolate chip and decorated sugar, and “sometimes she would rather eat the dough than bake the cookies,” said Jo Ellen.

They look on Pinterest  and Ellie Kathryn picks out what she wants to make, then Jo Ellen decides whether it’s a good idea or not.
Ellie loves Funfetti, colored cake mixes, or to add food coloring to regular cake mix, and sprinkles. “We use a lot of Funfetti packets of color mix,” said Jo Ellen.
“She likes all different colors, but makes a lot of blue. She likes to ice the cakes herself and sometimes writes on them with gel icing. She likes to measure things out, and crack and separate the eggs.”

She also likes using the mixer and loves to lick the bowl when she’s done.
The most unique thing they have done is tie-dye cupcakes, according to Jo Ellen. They took three bowls of cake batter–purple, green and blue–and poured into cupcake tins, then swirled it around with a toothpick.
Ellie really liked making a strawberry cake recently with strawberry icing, covered with fresh sliced strawberries.
Probably their most time consuming project was ice cream cone cupcakes with homemade buttercream frosting, and sprinkles, of course.
The idea came from Pinterest and Jo Ellen got the frosting recipe from a Bell’s Best cookbook.

Ellie and Addi Claire made grandmother, Lisa, a birthday cake last month–a Funfetti blue layer and an orange layer, iced with chocolate, and made complete with 56 candles.
Ellie Kathryn prefers baking over cooking and Jo Ellen thinks it’s because she can make things girly, cute and use sprinkles, but she does like to help her daddy, Marshall, cook breakfast on the weekends–eggs, bacon and biscuits.
Some of her favorite foods are roasted broccoli with fresh Parmesan cheese, grilled salmon and tortellini.
Ellie eats everything they bake and is proud of everything she makes. She likes to share with us at The Journal and she brings each of us a serving. There is always a surprise when we see them coming, and last week it was decorated sugar cookies.

Funfetti Cheesecake Stuffed Crescent Rolls
1 tube crescent rolls
8 oz. package of cream cheese
1½ Tbsp. granulated sugar
¾ tsp. vanilla extract
¼ cup rainbow sprinkles– long ones
Glaze:
½ cup of powdered sugar
2 Tbsp. milk
½ tsp. vanilla extract
Sprinkles for garnishing (small colorful dot ones)
Preheat oven to 350°. Line baking sheet with aluminum foil and set aside. Combine cream cheese, vanilla extract, and granulated sugar in mixing bowl, using a rubber spatula to whip together. Fold in sprinkles. Open crescent rolls and separate into triangles onto baking sheet. Spoon about 2 Tbsp. of cream cheese mixture onto wide end of the crescent triangle and roll up toward the narrow end, forming crescent roll shape. Bake 10-15 minutes, until lightly golden brown. Make  glaze while these are cooking. Add powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla in a mixing bowl, using a whisk until a smooth glaze forms. Remove baking sheet from the oven and drizzle  glaze over the crescent rolls. Sprinkle with sprinkles.

Funfetti Gooey Cake Bars
1 box of yellow cake mix
1 stick of butter, soften
1 egg
2/3 cup of sprinkles, divided
½ cup sweetened condensed milk
1 cup white chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350°. Line 9×9 pan with foil. Spray liberally with cooking spray. Add cake mix, butter, and egg to mixing bowl. Mix until a thick dough forms. Add 1/3 cup sprinkles to it. Press about 2/3 of  dough into bottom of prepared pan. Sprinkle with white chocolate chips and remaining 1/3 cup of sprinkles. Pour  sweetened condensed milk over the top. Separate remaining dough into small balls and evenly space over top of the bars. Press down to flatten. Bake bars 30 minutes or until they just begin to brown. Cool completely before slicing or mixture will be too gooey to cut, or you could eat straight from pan with a fork.

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes
1 box cake mix plus box ingredients
24 ice cream cones
24 maraschino cherries (optional)
Sprinkles
Frosting:
1 cup of softened butter
3 cup of powdered sugar
1-2 Tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
Preheat oven to 350°. Make batter according to box directions. Fill cones about half full of batter. Don’t over fill. Place cones in  muffin pan and bake about 21-24. Allow cones to cool completely before frosting. Whip butter and vanilla until fluffy. Gradually add powdered sugar. Add milk until it reaches desired consistency. Transfer to piping bag and frost each cupcake to look like soft serve. Top with sprinkles and cherry.

Softbatch Funfetti Sugar Cookies
½ cup soften butter
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1½ tsp. vanilla extract
1½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup sprinkles-long ones
Combine butter, sugar, egg and vanilla extract. Beat together until it is light and fluffy, at least 5 minutes. Add flour, combine for 1 minute. Fold sprinkles in by hand. Scoop about 2” balls of dough out and place them on a plate to refrigerate for at least two  hours before baking. Do not bake with warm dough, because cookies will spread and bake thinner and flatter. Preheat oven to 350°. Spray cooking spray on cookie sheet and place cold cookie dough on it. Bake 8 minutes. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet  5 minutes.

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