Summer Challenge!

I'm beginning a new blog for my summer cooking challenge, and this could possibly become my overall cooking and baking blog. I want to keep these posts short and sweet so I can keep track of what recipes I use, and so I can let you know how good they are! Hopefully this won't become a Pinterest-recipe-fail blog!

This may also end up having crafting as well, the possibilities are endless! Plus I think I'd like to have my other blog, Why Is Why, reserved for artwork, tutorials and writing... and maybe even other artsy stuff.

Here are the parameters of my challenge: I will bake twice a week for the duration of summer. At the end of summer I may decide to continue, but for now that's all I will put on myself. This will last about 10 weeks, which amounts to 20 items! The list of recipes I'm going to try are as follows, in no particular order:
coconut lime pull apart bread, oolong donuts with milk tea glaze, biscoff pie, coconut tres leches, peaches and cream streusel bread, gooey cinnamon roll cake, turtle upside down cake, mini lemon hand pies, blueberry lemon cheesecake bars, maple pecan bread pudding, caramel banana upside down bread, mini pear pies with bleu cheese, almond cake, honey roasted peaches with almond praline and mascarpone, pecan tassies, fig and date ravioli, Italian pastry twists, chocolate salami, AND almond and vanilla cookies with praline coating. Whew!

So, first up I have some super easy lemon hand pies I made. This recipe comes from Lemons For Lulu and includes how to make your own lemon curd filling. Sort of by mistake, but not altogether a sad one, I just ended up buying a jar of lemon curd. I pretty much just copied the instructions found there with a few changes.

Lemon Hand Pies
Yield: about 13
Ingredients:

• 1 14.1 package refrigerated Pillsbury Pie Crust
• 1 whole egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 cup Lemon curd
• 1/3 cup white chocolate chips
• 1/8 teaspoon vegetable oil

Instructions:

1. Bring pie crust to room temperature. Unroll one pie crust on a floured surface. Using a 3" cookie cutter cut crust into circles and place dough on a cookie tray. Repeat with remaining pie crust. Place trays of dough in the refrigerator to chill about for 15 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 425. Prepare egg wash by lightly beating together the egg and the water. Remove dough from refrigerator and place a spoonful of lemon curd onto the center of one tray of dough. Brush edges with egg wash and place circles from second tray over each lemon topped pie. Using a fork, crimp the edges to seal the pies. Generously brush the tops of each pie with remaining egg wash. Using a pairing knife, carefully cute 3 slits onto the tops of each pie. Bake pies for 12-15 minutes or until golden. Let cool completely.
3. In a small bowl, melt chocolate and vegetable oil together. Drizzle white chocolate over pies with a fork. 

These were absolutely delicious and the directions needed no changing (unlike the stupid sugar cookie recipe I tried a few days ago). I absolutely recommend making these, they are probably the only type of pie that make the phrase "easy as pie" make sense. 

Enjoy!