Dessert Tacos

These dessert tacos are a great addition to a Mexican themed party!  But trust me when I say that you do NOT need a Mexican themed party to justify making them.  They are just that good!  Pinterest is my friend for brainstorming creative food ideas.  Found a recipe to get my brain started and then had to change it a little bit to make it work for the end result I wanted.  

Dessert Tacos

1 roll sugar cookie dough
4 oz. softened cream cheese
1 c. powdered sugar
1/2 of a small carton cool whip
Assorted fruit - strawberries, blueberries, kiwi, mandarin oranges
Two paper towel rolls covered in foil

The number of cookies you can bake in a batch will depend on how many paper towel rolls you have.  If you have two rolls, you should only bake 4 cookies at a time.  Unwrap roll of sugar cookie dough.  Slice dough in 1/2 inch slices.  Bake per directions on packaging, mine said 11-14 minutes.  I set the timer for 11 minutes and then checked it every minute until it was just starting to get golden around the edges and slightly on top.  Remove from oven and leave on cookie sheet for 1-2 minutes.

 Transfer one at a time and drape over the paper towel rolls - I did two on each roll.  Set timer for 90 seconds.  At the end of 90 seconds, you will carefully pick up a cookie and turn it over and set in the dip in between the two paper towel rolls (see picture below).  Then slowly scoot the rolls closer together until you get them the size you want.  Allow to set for 4-5 minutes until hardened.  Keep repeating until you get all the cookies baked and shaped.

I'm not going to sugar coat it. ;) The shaping part is tricky. Check out this post to see how it can go all wrong.  The first time I did it, I used one roll of dough and got 8 usable taco cookies.  The second time I did it, I used two rolls of dough and got 24 usable taco cookies.  So there is a learning curve.  The trickiest part is when you drape it over the paper towel roll... if the cookie is too soft gravity will pull down both sides and the cookie will separate in the middle.  Leaving the cookies on the cookie sheet 1-2 minutes helps to set them up a bit and I found made a difference with shaping.

My mother-in-law makes a super yummy dessert for holidays -- any holiday!  It is a fluffly, sweet cream with pineapple and mandarin oranges mixed in.  We call it Sunshine Salad.  I used that as the inspiration for the creamy middle of these.  

Beat softened cream cheese and powdered sugar until well mixed.  Fold in cool whip.  And then I just took a ziploc bag, filled it full and cut the bottom corner off to pipe into each taco cookie.  You could get fancy and use a decorator tip too.  Top with fruit.