Easter Bake Sale and Ice Cream Woes

In February, a coworker and I had a Valentine's Day bake sale and it went really well! We decided to do another one for Easter, on Good Friday. I'm excited and am in recipe planning mode! I want to do things with spring fruits and fun colors. Here are some things that I'm thinking about making...

Lemon Macarons with Mascarpone Filling

Image from pizzazzerie.com

I love the bright color and lemon is such a lovely spring flavor. That recipe has a white chocolate ganache filling, but I am planning on using a mascarpone filling. The last time I made macarons, I made them mini size, and I think I'll go for a regular size cookie this time. The tiny ones were so fragile and some of them didn't make it in the best of shape to the bake sale. 

Mini Apricot Upside Down Cakes

Image from Half-BakedBaker

Obviously, that picture is of pineapple upside down cakes, but I couldn't find any images of what I'd like to make. I'm thinking a crushed pecan ring around the outside with sliced apricots in the middle. I've made a bigger version of this before and it was super nom. And everything is better mini, right?

Butter Crunch Cookies

Recipe and Image from Lipstick Blogspot

I stumbled across these cookies on Tastespotting and they look soooo good! I think they'd be really fun to make and super delicious to eat. I think I'm going to have to give these a try. Hopefully they make it to the sale, and don't all end up in my belly...

And finally, if I'm feeling super ambitious:

Strawberry Pie Pops

Image from www.instructables.com

I've never made pie pops before, but they look so sweet and fun! I may or may not have time to do these as well, but if I do, I hope they turn out flaky and yum.

Now, on to my ice cream issues :(

I've been attempting to make a super creamy ice cream, and I'm failing so hard. I've tried different bases, custard, cream, milk, and nothing really gets the super creamy texture I'm looking for. It's extremely frustrating. The flavor is always perfect, but it's got a bit of iciness that is just not what I want. Any thoughts on things to try that might help with this issue? I was actually hoping to sell a strawberry gelato at the bake sale as well. I got little one cup containers to sell, which would be really rad if I can pull it off. But I don't want to sell a product that isn't up to my standard =/