Pot of Gold Truffles

Happy St. Patrick's Day Everyone!!! For today, I gave my Bailey's Truffle recipe a festive twist, giving them a bit of gold sparkle and rainbow color.

I decided to use the same recipe as the Bailey's Bear Truffles, since I thought the Irish Cream would be perfect for St. Patrick's Day. If you're a long time reader of this blog, you might remember my Pot of Gold Cupcakes? Well, this year, I thought I would take the same idea and adapt it to truffles, since decorating truffles seems to be my new obsession.

End of the Rainbow = Pot of Gold

As a kid, I never really believed in the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. But, for some reason I was convinced that all those fantastical St. Patrick's Day tales were true: that tricky little leprechauns made mischief right under our noses, rare four leaf clovers brought good luck, and there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

After I first heard about the pot of gold in kindergarten, every time after a rainstorm, if there was a rainbow, I would crane my neck every which way, searching for this elusive rainbow end and the pot of gold. Of course, no matter how I twisted my head, I could never find the end of the rainbow. Eventually, in science class I learned about the principles of refraction and how a rainbow is created by the interaction of light and raindrops.

Despite the fact that I now know otherwise, every St. Patrick's Day I'm still reminded of these tales, and throughout the month of March, I often find myself scanning for four leaf clovers growing along the sidewalk. This year, I made Pot of Gold cupcakes: chocolate cupcakes (pot) filled with lemon frosting (gold) and topped with "play dough" cookies (rainbow).

Sweetheart Shortbread

Sometimes I just have the urge to have something sweet, but not too sweet. It's times like these when this recipe, which produces a light cookie with a bit of a crunch, comes in handy.

I've made this recipe many times already, each time giving the cookies a different look. The first time I made the cookies, I followed the recipe exactly and made even rectangles with rows of holes made by a fork, which was definitely the quickest and simplest method. Last time I made them, I rolled the dough out very thinly so that I could use my Williams-Sonoma animal cracker cookie cutters.

This time, I wanted yet another change. From the colors of the cookies, you can sort of tell that I was inspired by those Sweetheart Conversation Hearts that are so popular on V-Day. I thought it'd be cute to have colorful heart cookies, so I mixed food coloring into the dough and cut my cookies out with my trusty heart cookie cutter. The cookies came out of the oven cute and puffy, a wonderful post-Valentine's Day delight.