Pumpkin Cupcakes

 For my daughter's daycare they needed a snack for shared snack day, I thought cupcakes would be fun. Mini ones are the perfect size for little ones! I bought eyeball cupcake liners from Micheal's.

 So cute!

I found the recipe at The Joy of Baking

Vanilla Cupcakes:

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter room temperature

2/3 cup (130 grams) granulated white sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Zest of 1 large lemon (outer yellow skin)

1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup (60 ml) milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl whisk together the lemon zest, flour, baking powder, and salt.

With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Evenly fill the muffin cups with the batter and bake for about 17 - 20 minutes or just until set and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. (Always check a few minutes before the stated baking time. Do not over bake or the cupcakes will be dry.) Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Once the cupcakes have completely cooled, frost with icing.

Cupcake Apron

We needed an apron for printmaking class and I debated buying one. Then I went to the fabric store, and bought this cupcake fabric that is used for lining diapers (it's plasticy - but really soft) Perfect for an inky class, so the ink won't soak through to my clothes. I made the apron pretty big because I wanted a lot of coverage. If I make it again, I'll make it smaller on the bottom (maybe I'll make one Christmas cooking)

I like how it turned out, it really stands out in my class.

3rd Birthday Party

My daughter's 3rd Birthday Party was themed around Dora the explorer. A TV show that teaches children Spanish. She has learned several words from the show. Sometimes I'm not sure if she's speaking Spanish or just saying gibberish so sometimes I need to look up words too. Guess it's educational for me too ha ha. 

I had a great time working on it and honestly I'm really proud of my swiper.  He's a character on the show that steals things. 

I thought I had pictures of my cupcakes, they turned out great... expect they melted a bit in the hot sun (next time I should bring them in a cooler)

 I just wish that I had taken more pictures. I thought I had several but apparently not.

 I made Swiper out of the box that the trampoline I bought my daughter came in. I printed a picture of him and then drew a grid and used it as referance, if I made him exactly to scale I would have needed a wider box becasue he has an extrodiany long nose and huge tail, but he looked just like him when I finished painting him. I used white spray paint and little acrylic paints I bought at the dollar store. Then I outlined him with markers with matching colors.
Contrary to the picture I cut off the top section. It was just about the height of my toddler. The kids actually really liked it and two of the girls were trying to feed swiper cookies ha ha.

 

Swiper the fox!

We made rings in the colors of the show. Strung them up in the trees at the party. We also had streamers in the same colors. A purple table cloth, pink cutlery (which they used to try and "cut down a tree"), and tons of balloons. 21 filled with helium, more filled with air and even more filled with water. Yay for water balloons (they kept drinking the water from the balloons)

Another key character on Dora is Backpack. So I made everyone little backpacks. I bought sheets of felt and cut them out and sewed them together and then hot glued the faces on, made with other bits of scrap felt. Finally I hot glued little bits of velcro on to hold the backpack closed. Stuck a "map" in the side pocket. I filled the backpacks with Dora shaped fruit snacks and Dora tattoos.

 

Here's my little princess at her birthday party!

(The other pictures have other kids in them and I don't want to post them online without permission from their parents)

Watermelon Pops!

Ok here's what you need to know: I LOVE watermelon. It's an addiction really. A secret addiction. As in everyone knows but no one really knows ecstatic I get about watermelon things. I have been more and more open about my watermelon love as I get older. As I get more open about it however, I feel like I actually care less about watermelon. I like anything to do with watermelon, but watermelon flavored thing are generally yucky. Actual watermelon is hard to like all the time, you never know what your going to get. It's kinda a crap shoot, maybe you get a good one, maybe you don't. 

There is 2 things to look for when buying a watermelon:

1) one nice yellow spot, that means it's been resting on the ground and absorbing water (which is a good thing)

2) It's really heavy for it's size - which means it's got a lot of water. 

You can also knock, but from my experience unless you knock and eat and knock and eat how do you know what a good knock sounds like? Anyways you can also look that information up on the internet. 

So food that looks like watermelon I also love. So cute, so fun. Now you see where I'm actually going with this. 

This is what I made.

Here's what they look like according to Kraft.

As you can tell I choose not to add chocolate chips. I think that's weird to have random chocolate in your frozen treat. (unless it's ice cream)

Also it calls for some weird cream cheese mixture, which I'm sure is delicious to some people.

Not I, I find that so gross. So I substituted whipped cream.  I was worried that it wouldn't hold up becasue cream doesn't freeze exeptionally well. However as you can see it held up quite well. 

The only problem I ran into is the molds. I used my regular molds for popsicles, what would have been nicer is one with a longer handle that went farther into the popsicles to support it better. As when I pulled a few out the red part got stuck in the bottom because the stick didn't reach that part at all. As long as I ran it under warm water long enough to really unstick the top it was fine. Also the molds I used were skinny and it was harder to make each layer smooth and fit as a clear layer - I ended up wiping the container after I filled each layer. It did't take long but if my molds were wider it would have been easier.

Banana Cream Pie

Bananas! Cream! and Pie!

 

This is the recipe I used

Next time I think I would prefer one that the bananas and the cream are together rather then separate.

Should have cooked the pie crust longer - still tasted good, just could have been crispier. 

and the bananas on top didn't add to the flavor or taste. Looked good, so maybe put them on top of the cream.

This one was alright - coconut cream pie was better in my opinion.

Soft Onion Sandwich Rolls

Soooo good. And super easy to make. Make themmmm. Here's the recipe.

Done that's all I have to say!

Shocking I know. Ya right, Im going to keep talking..

They call for potato flakes, WTF? who has those on hand? Or can even find them in the store. 

I bought plain instant mashed potatoes. That's the same thing right?

lots of onion in them, but they aren't crazy onion-y. Just right.

So easy little one could help too! She loved it.

 Ready for the oven

Done! Boy that was fast. 

So proud!

I ate one right away. It was so good. (actually I ate 3 right away... )

Yummy!

You might want to eat them all in one sitting! I can't wait to make them again!

Good for sloppy joe's or pulled pork or ham and cheese...

Strawberry Cheesecake!

Cheesecake!!!

Anyone who knows me woud wonder why in the world i'd be excited about cheesecake.

I think cheesecake is disgusting. I want to like it, have tried it many times. It's still disgusting. 

Which reminds me, when I was little my mom decided to treat me to "mother and daughter day" (the only one I ever remember having) She bought me a necklace with a teddy bear with my birthstone in it. (obviously I still have it, even though I never wore it) She treated me out to a restaurant: The Cheesecake Cafe. When it came time to order.... I had to tell her. I don't like cheesecake. 

So much for a treat. I didn't want to disappoint her, but everything was cheesecake!

I can't remember what I did order, I just remember feeling worried about disappointing her by ruining her special mother daughter day.

On the other hand, my handsome boyfriend loves cheesecake. 

So I make them for him! (and saves me from temptation)

 I mashed up strawberries

 Made a graham cracker crust

 I used a Martha Stewart recipe 

Martha Stewart always calls for really specific things. This recipe called for vanilla beans (which cost $13) Oh well, totally worth it. (I think... considering I didn't eat it)

It has mascarpone cheese and tons of cream cheese, also had to buy corn syrup (I don't usually use that) it turned out to be rather expensive recipe.

She also says to put it in a hot water bath in the oven.

It cracked anyways, so I'm not sure if it was actually worth it. I'm just glad it didn't get soggy.

He took it work to share and got rave reviews :)

I plan on trying it again with cherry instead. 

Drool! Hey, even though I don't like it, it still looks good!

Strawberry Jam!

With the New Bread Machine I can make Jam! 

Of course I wanted to try it out. We went and picked strawberries in a local field. We picked (and ate) a lot of strawberries. I chopped them all up and threw them in the machine with lemon juice and sugar. The recipe was in the bread machine book:

1/4 cup of lemon juice and 1 cup of sugar for 2 cups of strawberries hulled. I doubled it and turned it on. It only took an hour and a half.

After sterilizing the jar and lid (from an old jar of jam we already ate) I poured the liquid all in.

After waiting a bit it was done.

 Yum! Strawberries!

Ok so here's the truth: the jam isn't that good. And I know why. The strawberries looked amazing but didn't actually taste very good. The dark ones were actually sour... not sweet. The jam turned out sour and sweet. Oh and just to clarify, it's not even jam. It's Strawberry Coulis.

I don't know if i'm even going to eat to tell the truth. Maybe I'll try it again with better strawberries. Another time. 

Cake stands!

In case anyone hadn't noticed, I love baking. I loveeee it. 

So of course I need adorable things to put my yummy baking on. Obviously. 

I saw this on pinterest.

Why yes, I do need to make those cute cake stands!

Maybe in different colors however, more my taste, less.... girly shall I say?

Yes, I was very tempted to make them black, but don't want the cake stand to take away from my yummy baking of course... I still have one more to go, maybe the last cake stand will be black!

Now to start with really ugly stuff. $1 each at Value Village. 

Paint and go. One purple and one aqua. Oh and if you are wondering why the 'bottom' looks so weird. It's because I taped it up so it would be clear on the bottom to 'hide' little accents! Like a matching flower or corresponding item.

Then glue them together. TADA!

Black forest cake on top! Ok I need to take some better pictures of it, but after I made the cake everyone was dying to eat it. I didn't want to look like a weirdo photographing my cake stand like a crazy person.

Black Forest Cake is super easy, well the way I make it is. I just make any old chocolate cake. Wait for it to cool and then put one layer down then add a full can of cherry pie filling to the middle. Then plop the second layer on top. Add whipped cream, I just use 3 cups of whipping cream to 1/3 cup powered sugar. and whip and whip (the boring part). Volia!

Just add a little chocoate and cherries and done!

Last time I just reserved some cherries from the pie filling but this time I had maraschinos.

So good! Rave review. I love the attention I get from this one! Be careful everyone will want seconds!

There is all three!

Can't wait to use them at a party! :D

NEW Bread Machine!!!

I can't even believe how excited I was to get a brand new spanking bread machine!!
The one that I had was a little old but still working... till recently. It would let the bread rise then kneed it randomly resulting is very odd bread that was Extremely stuck in the machine. We ended up ripping it out in chunks and my lovely boyfriend turned the bread chunks into a casserole. 
In need of a new one I started hunting them down to see how much one would cost. I couldn't believe how much they cost! I really wanted one that made bread like a typical loaf (bakes horizontal) as opposed to our previous vertical one.


Fortunately my brother was able to get me a discount on one at the place he works. We agreed on one and I gave him the money, but when I went to pick it up, it wasn't the one we had agreed upon. It was even better!!

 

Here is the bread machine we got. We got it for $230! Ok yes that is quite a bit of money, but as long as it lasts more then a year it is completely worth it. Homemade bread all the time! Yum!

Look at all those functions! Yes, I can make Jam! and Pasta! What, what?! Can't wait to try them out!
Thought I'd start with something simple however, a plain white bread for the win!

It turned out soooo good, better then any of the bread I'd made in the old machine. It's huge loaf too. In fact we discovered this morning it is so big it won't fit in our little toaster. hmm... I did make the biggest possible loaf. Next time I'll try the smaller one, heh heh.
Definitely will post new things I make with with the new bread machine! Can't wait to make Sun Dried Tomato and Feta Bread! If anyone has an awesome bread machine recipe let me know!

A Little Dress

My friends mom came into to town to see her grad show in April and she bought a Fabricland card. So obviously we needed to use it immediately and stock up on fabric things, my friend got fabric notions that she needed to finish her grad dress. 

I bought fabric to make my daughter a dress. I also got a pattern and notions for the dress, including ribbon. Don't you love ribbon? I bought sparkly blue ribbon.

 

Here is the dress finished! It's still a little big, but at least she can grow into it. 

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins!

I do not like zucchini.

 

That being said I really like zucchini muffins! They are so good. Most and yummy, I could eat them all in one sitting. Yum!

This recipe make 12 and it's perfect. It calls for 1 cup of shredded zucchini and I'm not sure how you are SUPPOSE to make it... but I cram a whole zucchini into the measuring cup. You can't taste the zucchini and it makes them sooo good!

Soap Blob!

I saw this really cool idea on Pinterest and really wanted to see if it would work. It's REALLY simple. Just shove a bar of soap in the microwave and turn it on. WHaaa! So cool results.

I tried it for myself. Admittedly I have a smaller then normal microwave (I have to turn up the edge of popcorn bag so it doesn't get stuck when turning) and that presented a tiny problem, because the soap bloby thing would stop turned and I was a afraid it would burn. There was a tiny mark on a little corner, but it just looked like a speck, so I know it would have burned if I kept it in there.

 

Plain Ivory soap, I bought 3 for $3

 Puffing up in the microwave, it looks fluffy

 It's solid and easy to hold. 

Aubrey was afraid to hold it because she thought it was hot. It wasn't.

 It's crumbly, so I was worried we'd have a huge mess, so bath time! Which worked out perfect because we gardened earlier and got all dirty.

 Crumbling in the bath tub!

They look like little ice bergs. Look Ariel is on one!

Really fun idea, next time I want to see what will happen if I add food coloring.