Lady Locks Recipe (aka Mini Cream Horns)

I love cream horns.  Love. Them.  And Sarah has inherited my love for them.  

One time at work in the late 90s, a co-worker popped her head into my cubicle and said, "There's cream horns in the break room!" (After customer meetings, the admins would always put any leftover food in the break room for any one to take. It was a high light of sitting near the break room.

I shot up from my chair, flew out of my cubicle and into the break room at record speed shouting, "There's cream horns in the break room! There's cream horns in the break room!" I gobbled up that cream horn so fast I left  a cloud of powdered sugar in that break room.

So imagine my excitement this past December when I was perusing the leftover cookies from the cookie platter we made for the owner at work and discovered miniature cream horns  among the Oreo balls, jam cutouts, buckeyes, and gorgeous(if I do say so myself) chocolate peppermint thumbprints.

This is the platter of leftovers so you can imagine the beauty of the platter that was given to the owner!

Do you spy the petite cream horns?  My eyes were immediately drawn to them and I had to have one.  Okay...I had two.  It was all I could do not to eat every single one of them.  And I could have done it to because no one else was in the break room at the time. I didn't want to be a pig - but man, they were delicious!

I asked around and found out who made them and then promptly requested the recipe.  Turns out they are called Lady Locks and are a staple on wedding cookie tables.  The woman that made them made a ton of them for her son's wedding cookie table. (He was married in Chicago so maybe it's a thing up there.  I've never seen it here in NC but it's been a while since I've been to a wedding so maybe it's a thing now? A quick google search just informed me that cookie tables are big at Pittsburgh weddings.)

The day after she sent me the recipe, I saw her at work and thanked her for sending it to me and she said, "I was embarrassed to send it to you since it calls for Crisco."  I laughed and said, "I'm from the South!  I'm not afraid of Crisco - I was raised on it!"

Sarah and I finally had a chance to make them this past weekend and they were so delicious and not hard to make at all.  

You can buy "forms" but I went the cheap route and used wooden clothes pins covered in tin foil. Wrapping the clothes pins in tin foil was the hardest part of this recipe.  

This is the dough after I rolled it out. I then cut long thin stirps using a pizza cutter. I then wrapped the strips around the foil covered clothes pins. (Make sure to use old fashioned clothes pins without springs.)

Here's the first batch of dough going in the oven.

 And here's the beautiful finished product:

Don't you hate it when you've googled a recipe and you have to scroll  waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy down through a boring blog post to get to it?  Me too!  And yet, I've done that to you all.  :)

So without further ado....

Lady Locks (Mini Cream Horns)

For the horns:

1 box Pillsbury Puff Pastry thawed.

• Take 1/3 of a sheet of pastry and roll out  to 15x6 inches.
• Take pizza cutter and cut long thin strips.
• Wrap each strip around a clothes pin covered in tin foil.  (I did not flour or spray these and for the most part they came off the form with no problem.  I might spray them with cooking spray next time.)
• Bake in a 375 degree oven for 10 - 12 minutes. (The recipe I was given says this but I left them in for closer to 14 minutes. I wanted them to have a little color.)
• Let cool before removing the horns from the forms.

For the filling:

2 pounds Powdered Sugar

1 cup Crisco

1 cup butter

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup milk

1 7oz jar of Fluff

• Mix first 5 ingredients in mixer for 10 minutes.  
• Then add in the fluff and mix until smooth.
• Use a piping bag to fill the horns with the filling and then try not to eat every last one of them by yourself. ahem... 

Side note:  I cut the filling recipe in half and there was plenty of filling for two sheets (one box) of puff pastry. 

These are the perfect bite.  The dough to filling ratio is spot on. If you like cream horns, you need to give these little cuties a try!