Cupcake Craving

I've been wanting to make cupcakes for a few weeks now. I had a great excuse this week because yesterday was a church dance and I was asked to bring refreshments! Cupcakes, here we come.

I wanted to try a new basic yellow cake recipe I found on allrecipes.com. It worked like a charm. Fluffy, moist and sweet. I like homemade cake much better than boxed cake mix. The frosting was a modification of the frosting in this recipe, but I left out some stuff and added grenadine so there was a slight cherry flavor and pink tint.

I used a big star frosting tip for the first time. It made frosting these a cinch! It was super fast and looked better than frosting with a knife. Then I added something that made them look even prettier.

Cherries!

p.s. For future reference, someday I want to order cupcake wrappers from here. The solid color wrappers stay opaque when you bake them, not like the above example of nearly transparent wrappers.

Quintessential Chocolate Cake

I taught my sister-in-law some cake making techniques with this recipe I found on allrecipes. It's a really good basic chocolate cake recipe and the frosting has a delicious sour cream tang.

I stole this photo from my sister-in-law's blog.

It was fun to make the cake together with her little girl helping. I'm excited to experiment and add different flavors and ingredients. One of my grandma's most beloved desserts was chocolate cake with cherries mixed into the batter. I would love to develop my own version of her cake.

I feel like a rock star!

A rock star of puppet-making, that is.

I feel like I've found a new calling in life, and it is making puppets. I can not believe how satisfying this is! It's so exciting to discover an ability, such as visualizing 2-dimensional patterns for 3-dimensional puppets, that I never knew I had. I feel like I could make anything!
I made another Lucky, just to make sure I could duplicate my pattern. I could. I changed his eyes a little to try something new. So much fun!
Meet Bruno. First puppet variation of the original pattern. He came together like clockwork. Not a glitch in sight. It made me so happy.
This is Luke (the Babe named him). He was inspired by a comment from Trent. When he mentioned that his son went around making elephant noises I thought, "If I could make an elephant puppet, I could make anything." Voila! Ok, so he isn't perfect, he looks a little like Gonzo, but he is recognizable as an elephant, right?
This is Susan's best friend, Sally. This is the only photo I have of her and she wasn't quite finished here. She is now living with her new family and is receiving lots of lovin'.

Hurray for puppets! I will be returning the borrowed sewing machine in a few days, so I don't know how many more puppets will be posted any time soon. Sad, I know. I sure have enjoyed it!

To know God

"Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father and how familiar his face is to us."

~Henry B. Eyring quoting Ezra Taft Benson

What do these things have in common?

Cranberries

Orange and chocolate

They both make delicious additions to sweet scones. I'm starting to learn that I could probably like any food if it's fresh and prepared well. Before I made these I believed that scones, just like biscotti and sugar cookies, were clumps of dry, dense dough that I had to choke down out of politeness. I've made two batches of scones in two days and they were WAY above my expectations. The first batch were no-sugar cranberry cream scones. I substituted honey for sugar and the recipe called for cream instead of milk. I was wary, but they were really good.

My second batch were these delectable Mandarin Chocolate Chip Scones.

With orange zest in the batter and a sweet orange glaze, these had a refreshingly citrus zing with yummy bittersweet chocolate.

In my Christmas cookbook it emphasizes the importance of technique, technique, technique. A new technique I learned for these that I will probably carry over to all pastries is this: whenever you need to cut butter into flour, grate the cold butter first with a cheese grater. It worked like a charm!

Puppet mania

I'm borrowing a sewing machine from a friend to satisfy my growing addiction to puppets.

I'm having fun.

This is Charlie. I think he's my favorite, but he needs something more, like a patch of fuzz hair or pipe cleaner antennae. All I have is yarn and fabric and I'm not satisfied with those options to complete him. Those round felt monster-bug eyes make me happy. Maybe they revert me to childhood and Sesame Street. All my puppets so far have different eyes but Charlie's might be my favorite. I'm also a big fan of the black buttons on Susan.
This is Lucky. He is my second attempt at a durable (not hot-glued together) puppet. I'm hoping I can modify Lucky's pattern to accommodate different animals. The muppet-style puppets are really neat and look awesome, but they are a little more fragile. I want puppets that this little one can pull and poke and bend and bite without me worried about them falling apart.

She likes puppets and it makes me happy.

These are the two puppets that we don't like enough to give names. Miss Green Eyes needs a nose. Her eyes are the heads of plastic spoons that I painted. Yucky duck is the first attempt at a durable pattern. His seams don't all match up very well and his eyes were an experiment in laziness and creativity mixed together.

It's amazing to me how much eyes can change the personality of a puppet. There are so many options! I can't decide which I like best. I guess I'll have to keep making puppets just to make more eyes.

Ugly Cheesecake

Here's an ugly photo of an ugly cheesecake:
This recipe was in my Christmas cookbook titled "Creme Brulee Cheesecake" so I had to try it. I love creme brulee and I really like cheesecake. I made this for Valentine's Day. The cheesecake was divine, but the directions were incomplete. I was told to make the brulee carmel topping early in the process. Then I baked the cheesecake and chilled the cheesecake overnight, then I was supposed to use the carmel topping again... over 8 hours later... without any instruction about how to store it or reheat it. I ended up covering the saucepan I made it in and kept it at room temperature overnight. It hardened, of course, it is burnt sugar after all, so I reheated it before I poured it on the cheesecake. Then it hardened again into an ugly, thick, tough, uncuttable top to the cheesecake--as you can see above. We ended up peeling off the topping and eating the naked cheesecake. It was very tasty, but I don't think I'll make the recipe again, at least not the way the book explained it.

"The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies"

I have found it! Not that I looked for that long (thank goodness for allrecipes.com). When I think of sugar cookies I think of dry, hard, stale cardboard-like cookies. Sad, huh? Well, no more. After reading a few recipes I came across "The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies" recipe, and I must agree with its name: they were delicious! Soft and moist and thick. Mmmm. And they kept their cookie-cutter shape very well.

I think some of the tips that made them work so well were: 1. I have fresh baking powder, 2. I kneaded the dough briefly before I rolled it out, 3. the cookies were only baked for 6 minutes at 400 degrees. I'll have to remember those tips.

This was my first time trying to make royal icing. I've always been a buttercream girl and avoided royal icing because of the far inferior flavor. Butter just makes everything better. Well, I'm learning some good tips to royal icing. It definitely holds its shape better. It's easier to clean. I can be more flexible with the texture just by adding more water. I started out with too thick of frosting that had an ugly texture (see red and white stripes below), but then I added too much water and had the smooth, but runny frosting in the pink stripe.
I'm confident I can get it right if I have the time to work it out. I was kind of rushed with these.

I still like buttercream better.

Introducing Miss Susan

Miss Susan is a very flirtatious little sweetheart. She likes to pose for the camera.

I did it! I made my first ever puppet and I did it without a sewing machine! I probably could've done the whole thing in one night if I had had a sewing machine, but oh well. It was a fun and satisfying project and I hope to have many more puppets to play with soon enough.

Baking Hiatus

I broke my pattern and didn't bake something new this week. The week started off with a sick Babe and ended with a sick Babe and a sick Mama. Blech.

On the up side I made a new soup. Not only did I make it, I made it up! Hurray for making new recipes. There's a restaurant chain in the Twin Cities called Eddington's and they make some really yummy soups. One of our favorites (after the Boundary Water Wild Rice and the Wisconsin Cheddar Cheese) is the White Chicken Chili. It's rich and creamy and mmm mmm good. After some research, I learned that they put cream in it and Swiss cheese, so I decided to make up the rest!

It was fun and so yum. The clincher that made the recipe awesome was lime juice. Yum. Maybe I'll post the recipe later. Or maybe I'll keep it a secret and leave people to wonder at it's deliciousness.

Another reason for a sewing machine

Love these!

They were a Christmas gift from my sister-in-law, Nettie. I love that they are handmade. I love that they are patchwork (what a great way to hide stains!). I love that they are pink and orange (girly and food-colored). I love that the bib fits the Babe perfectly. I love the fabric patterns. The Babe loves to cuddle with her bibs while wearing them (I know, it gets messy) and I love that with these bibs rather than cringing at how she's spreading food all over her face, it's really CUTE when she cuddles, cause it's like a blanket.

I want to make these someday. Maybe I'll ask Nettie for the pattern. Maybe I'll wing it. Maybe one day I'll actually have a sewing machine.

Puppets on the brain

I've always loved puppets. Almost every time I go Christmas shopping for nieces and nephews one of the items on my list of possibilities is puppets. And almost every time I can't find any. I'm not including finger puppets or puppets that are $30+. I grew up with puppets and a homemade wooden puppet theater made by my dad (with stage lighting and retractable curtains!) that was played with incessantly by six kids. It was awesome, even with just two puppets (which was all that was left by the time that I was old enough to play with it).


The other day Grace and I were watching baby einstein on youtube when it hit me. I could make puppets. Looking at the baby einstein puppets made me realize it would be easy to have a basic hand puppet pattern and modify it slightly for different animals.
I'm totally excited now. I've done more research and still haven't decided exactly what kind of puppets to make. There are so many possibilities! Maybe I'll make a couple puppets of different varieties and see which ones I like best.

I'm even dreaming farther in the future, if I really like making puppets I could start and etsy shop. There have got to be other people out there like me who think puppets are some of the most awesome toys ever and there is a serious lack of them in the affordable market.


Now I just need a sewing machine. Well, this is the beginning of my wish list.

Tenuous Balance

I play a game with the Babe where I try to stack a tower as tall and complicated as possible before she knocks it over. She got distracted away from this one and it stayed in the middle of the floor almost the whole day!
I should be an architect.

Rocky Road Biscotti

This is probably one of the most blatantly unhealthy things I've baked. Chocked full of chocolate chips, white chocolate chunks, marshmallows, pecans, butter, sugar, drizzled with even more white chocolate... The recipe called for toffee bits, too, and I had them, but there simply wasn't enough batter to mix in more sweet and chunky goodness.

doesn't that yellow flower paper plate just make you happy?

(counting down the days to spring...)

I don't even like biscotti. One of the reasons I made this particular recipe was to find out if I added enough candy, chocolate, sugar, and nuttiness if it would compensate for the uncomfortably dry and crunchy texture that I dislike about biscotti.

The result? I liked this biscotti, but I don't think it was because of the chunks. It was the butter. In my Christmas cookbook it mentions that European biscotti is rarely made with fat, but American biscotti is much more cookie like, made with butter. The second baking allowed that butter to magically mingle with the newly cut edges and crisp to a tasty, lightly fried texture. That little bit of greasiness was delightful! Who would've thought?

I just might make biscotti again. Just might.

Modern day Chiasmus

I was reading a recent talk by David A. Bednar and was struck by his prose. As I analyzed it, I realized he was speaking in a chiastic structure! There were two chiasmi and both had the same central statement.

"As disciples of the Savior, we are not merely striving to know more; rather, we need to consistently do more of what we know is right and become better."

So true. Read it yourself. It's a great talk.

Babe in toyland

I was cleaning up today and noticed this collection of miscellanea on the floor known in this context as "toys."

I was in the throw-everything-in-the-toybox mode and I realized not one of these things goes in the toybox. Before this Christmas I think we spent money on only one toy. Most of our toys have been gifts, accidental acquirements (such as the ball pictured below from a medical conference), or not toys at all.
I'm sure glad that babies aren't too picky about those details. Someday she'll probably want Barbies and brand names, so I'm going to enjoy this time of blissful carelessness when everything I give her is a toy.

Popcorn flour?

Sounds exciting. Sounds unique. Sounds like something I can do without buying any additional exotic ingredients. I like popcorn. What really sold me on this bread was the generous melted butter brushed over the top immediately out of the oven.

The popcorn flour was popped popcorn ground to a small grainy texture. It absorbed way more of the liquid than I thought it would. After the ground popcorn I was supposed to add 5-6 cups of regular flour. After only 4 cups it looked just right, but I convinced myself I needed to be a little closer to the recipe, so I added another half cup of flour. Bad idea. I think I ruined the bread.

Well, honestly, I don't think I ruined it that much. It wasn't that great anyway. What I envisioned as a buttery delightful bread with a little crispy popcorn goodness inside ended up being a dense white bread peppered with annoying popcorn hulls that get stuck in your teeth. It wasn't even that buttery. Granted, I left out the "butter extract" but what else would I possibly use butter extract for? I didn't think it was worth it.

Write it down

"You will have significant experiences. I hope that you will write them down and keep a record of them, that you will read them from time to time and refresh your memory of those meaningful and significant things. Some may be funny. Some may be significant only to you. Some of them may be sacred and quietly beautiful. Some may build one upon another until they represent a lifetime of special experience."

~Gordon B. Hinckley

Blueberry craving

Last week I was craving a baked good with either blueberries or bananas. Blueberries won.
Made these last night for FHE. This recipe is definitely a keeper. It's like blueberry crisp in a bar. The recipe (from my new Christmas cookbook) called for 1.5 cups of oats. After I started I realized I only had one cup. Hmmm... So I ripped open a Maple Brown Sugar instant oatmeal pack, took out the hunk of sugar, and then added some baby oatmeal cereal until I had 1/2 cup. Hey, it worked! And maybe that little maple flavor helped make it so good.

Starting the day

with a dozen caramels may sound like a good idea, but it isn't. I'm crashing and it's not even 10 a.m. yet. And I have a stomachache. But, mmm mmm mmm, they were yummy.

I made these caramels last night because 1) I meant to make them during the holidays but never got around to it and had all the ingredients, 2) I LOVE almond and caramel together, especially in almond snickers and wanted to see if I could make something close to it, 3) I wanted to.

I'm brand spanking new to candy making. I think I've made one or two attempts in the past, but candy is tricky. These were a little firmer than I hoped they would be, but overall I'm pleased with my first attempt at caramels. Maybe I should coat them in chocolate. Mmmm.

I used this recipe, but added toasted almonds to the pan before I poured the caramel.