I am a baker, not a decorator

Kim has a linky set up for cakes and cupcakes… Oh MAN is my sweet tooth killing me right now… Looking at all of her yum-o pictures REALLY makes me want to bake. Alas, I have dance class to shuffle the kids to this evening. I thought about baking I’ve done…

  

I think it’s pretty evident that I am a baker… NOT a decorator… I can’t pipe frosting to save my life. Maybe it’s lack of practice, or too much caffeine… I just can’t get the hang of it. That’s why I try to find other ways to decorate cupcakes and cakes… The truffle filled seashell chocolates are STILL my favorite stroke of genius.

Kim is having a giveaway tomorrow… Friday, Sept. 24th. It’s for this sweet baby… The Martha Stewart Cricut for Cake…

Now, I’ll be honest… Kim’s got like 5 million followers so I’m not gonna cross my fingers about winning this one, so I’ll probably never have one. But don’t you know I could make a gorgeous cake using this thing!!!! It would really make decorating so much fun. I can just see free standing swirls on top of butter cream frosting… Endless possibility.

A is for Apple

Monday morning was our first day of school. We brought our teachers a yummy apple cinnamon oatmeal muffins. These are the muffins I like to make ahead, freeze, and then warm up in the microwave for a fast breakfast.

Start with 2 Fiber One apple cinnamon muffin mixes prepared by the box directions , add to the mix one large apple (diced), 2Tbs. of ground Flax seeds, 1/4 cup steel cut oats, and an additional 3Tbs. of water. Bake at 400 for approx. 15-17 min.

After the muffins have baked, remove them from the pans and allow them to cool completely on a wire rack. If you’d like to freeze and heat them, store them in a gallon sized freezer bag. It only takes around 30 seconds or so in the microwave to warm them.

For the muffin toppers, I printed free ones from Scribd, cut out the circles, and then glued them to toothpicks.

Fast, fun, and in my opinion, WAY better than bringing a plain apple for the teacher!

 

I’m linking up with Kim at Today’s Creative Blog!

Browse through the link party and find even more fun projects!

Zesty – Sweet Shot Tuesday

For Abby’s birthday party I made one of the Cake Dr.’s lemon cakes and tinkered with the recipe even more on my own.

Abby loves lemon cake.

So do I.

So does Hubs.

This cake had so much lemon in it, you’d swear you should be puckering. I’ve discovered that if you are using fresh lemon juice and zest, the effect isn’t nearly at potent as you’d think. This cake was bright and refreshing without being too heavily flavored for the hot summer birthday party.

 

The Lemon Curd was my idea. I spread it between the layers of the nearly cooled 9” layers.  I say nearly cooled because I wanted it to melt a bit and absorb into the cake itself, so the layers were still a bit warm to the touch.

I used a basic cream cheese frosting and added 2tsp of lemon juice and 1tsp of lemon zest.

It was a happy, happy cake.

Because I’m so NOT a cake decorator, I used this cool OXO tool to get lemon zest curls from 7 lemons.  I spread the curls around the base of the cake and added my sparkler candles.

Yum.

Let’s look at it some more, shall we?

Isn’t that cute? I’ll explain later about the crazy way this party was thrown together…

I’m not Cuban

Or Italian… or French… or Mexican… but I sure do like those kinds of food. This is a great grilled pizza recipe for a weekend grill-fest. You can feed a few, or feed a lot with it. And it’s easy to change and add your own twist to. Oh, and did I mention that you can use leftovers to make it? Awesome.

Toppings for Cuban pizza:

We used sliced grilled chicken that we seasoned with the Chili Lime rub from Williams Sonoma. It’s fantastic on shrimp and pork too, so get some. It’s very tasty.

Mix up 1/2 of a large diced red onion, a can of whole kernel sweet corn, a can of rinsed black beans, the juice and zest of 2 limes, fresh cilantro (that I grew myself, thank you very much), salt, and Tabasco to taste. Mix all of this well and let it sit at room temperature to allow the flavors to blend.

Shredded Monterey Jack cheese… because that’s Momma’s favorite kind of cheese.

Salsa… this is like the tomato paste base for regular pizzas… We made two versions today, one using Salsa Verde (the green kind) and the other using regular red salsa. The vote was split between us all as to which we liked the best, so use what you like… For the record… my pick was the Salsa Verde.

For the crust, we’ve used a prepackaged crust before… it’s ok… and it’s FAST. So I’m going to leave that decision up to you. Today, I felt like making my own crust. I use the Pampered Chef pizza dough mix that you can use to make really fantastic yeast rolls with as well. Like I said… depends on the amount of time you want to put into it. Both work fine.

Directions… sort of…

Heat your grill to 400-425.

If you are working with homemade dough, I think you should use a pizza stone in your grill. We have one from Sur la Table that sits on it’s own cast iron base. If you are using the prebaked crust, you don’t have to use one… We’ve put those directly on the grill before. For the unbaked dough, slide it onto your stone and allow it to bake for about 2 min. and then using your tongs turn it over. This will keep the dough from rising too much so you’ll end up with a nice thin and crispy crust.

Spread the salsa onto the crust, then top with the corn/bean mix and chicken. I always put the cheese on last… don’t ask me why. 

I grill the pizza for roughly 15 minutes with the cover closed. Keep an eye on it and let it cook until your cheese starts to brown just a bit.

To cut the pizza, transfer it to a baking pan or cutting board…

Trust me… it’s DELISH… and then you’ll start getting all of these random pizza combinations churning in your head… fresh tomato, basil, mozzarella is EXCELLENT…

Here Comes Peter Cottontail…

I hope you all are having a wonderful Spring day and are able to enjoy your friends or family.

We started our day by attending a special Easter service at The Pavilion here in The Woodlands. It wasn’t a sunrise service, but the outdoor venue was still a special treat for us.

This afternoon we are joining friends for an egg hunt. I’m sure said friend will have far FAR too many eggs, but they are looking forward to it.

The reserved dozen of regular cupcakes were saved for today’s festivities.  Just like the Cake Dr. said, you can indeed freeze unfrosted cupcakes! I took them out last night, and left them on the counter to thaw in their zipper bags. Surprisingly they seem to be more moist than the 8 dozen mini ones… It could be because they were frozen OR it could be that it’s so humid here today. Who knows.

So what does burlap, coconut, and cream cheese have to do with Easter? I’ll give you a hint…

Aren’t they cute! These sweet little picks were found at Sur la Table. They have lots of cute little picks… go check them out here. 

I don’t have an Easter tray or anything cute enough to serve these guys on, so I took my trusty plastic snowman tray and cut a circle of burlap to cover it. Then I sprinkled on some leftover coconut “grass”. Really cute. Really sweet. Really delish.

Delish because these cupcakes have the Cake Dr.’s cream cheese frosting on them instead of the butter cream. And, because I chatted with the sales lady at Sur la Table, I knew that I needed the icing food coloring gel, not the drops. See what talking to strangers will get you? 

Happy Easter!

Cupcakes Galore!

Ok, so I may have taken this baking thing a wee bit too far… But I wanted to do something for the girls’ classes at school for Easter. I went to my handy dandy cookbook and discovered something I haven’t seen since my grandmother was alive and baking.

I have vivid memories of her back porch refrigerator always containing a jar of green colored coconut. And Bactine, but that’s a whole other story…

Today I’ve baked 8 dozen mini-cupcakes and one dozen regular sized ones… The regular ones were cooled and put into the freezer unfrosted to be ready for this weekend. The other 8 dozen?

Here’s their story…

Using the Cake Dr.’s recipe that includes coconut flavoring, this morning I started baking. I found sweet little mini-cupcake papers at Sur La Table, then misted them with a bit of vegetable oil. My mister is from Pampered Chef, but you can find them all over the place now.

 Do not use the propellant style spray oils (like Pam)… they will make your cakes too crispy on the outside.

Using a 1TBSP sized ice cream scoop, I loaded up each paper with one scoop of batter. This makes all of your cupcakes come out the same size… and keeps you from dripping batter all over the place while you are working with these tiny cups.

Look at how pretty and perfect those cakes came out! I baked them at 350 for 12 minutes. Test your ovens folks… I have to adjust my time down every time I try to make something.

When the cakes were completely cooled off… no kidding, you’ve GOT to let them get totally cool…  I whipped up the Cake Dr.’s butter cream frosting recipe. For 48 of these mini cupcakes, I needed 1 1/2 recipes of frosting. I could have just tripled the recipe, but my big mixing bowl isn’t big enough for that much powdered sugar. 

Tip: if you cream your butter on med. speed until it lightens up, your end frosting results will be lighter in color as well… watch…

       

I found this decor kit at Sur La Table as well.  If you are adept enough with a spatula or frosting bag, be my guest and go that route… This girl needs help, so there.

I started by using the star tip to swirl on enough frosting to cover the tops of the cakes. And this was pretty…

 

But THIS is fun… Take coconut flakes and shake them in  a jar/zipper bag with a few drops of food coloring… Voila’! Grass!…

Cute, huh? Pour your “grass” into a bowl and dunk that pretty little cupcake right into it….

 

Now that you’ve gotten your “grass” put on, top this with a few jelly beans. The thicker the frosting, the more you can smoosh your eggs on…

Can I get a collective “Awe!” These are just so darn cute. They might be big enough for two bites each. Adorable!

Here’s the cakes for Jillian’s class… they each get two :-)

These have been such fun to make today! After tennis, I’ll finish up Abby’s cupcakes. In this warm weather, they need to be refrigerated to let the frosting set. Tomorrow I’ll deliver!

Now, what was Baby saying about Mommy not baking???  ;-)

Dinner update!

 

I thought you may be interested in knowing the reaction my family and picky 8 year old had to The Pioneer Woman’s Macaroni and Cheese recipe…

Silence…. then “Mmmmmm Mmmmmmm Mmmmmmm…. Now THAT’s what I’m talkin about!”

She ended up eating nearly two plates full… skipped her grilled chicken, but hey… one step at a time, right?

My 8 year old made me do it…

At the beginning of February, I decided to get some help with weight loss at my local med-spa.  I started an ultra restrictive HcG program.  It’s going great… but these 500 calorie days are SO boring to someone who likes to cook, eh, yeah… and likes to eat. My lunch and dinner are 3.5 oz of specific protein (grilled chicken & what not) and 3.5 oz of specific veggies… One veggie at a time… no mixed salads and that sort of b.s. This is what my painfully boring lunches and dinners have looked like for 2 1/2 weeks…

Now, I’m averaging a 1lb a day loss, so believe me… I’m happy… Just BORED.  The other day I decided to really torture myself and go through recipes over at The Pioneer Woman.  Now, if you haven’t heard of The Pioneer Woman… you’re either new to blogs or you’re living under a rock. Ree’s a rock star. She’s recently published a cookbook… her food and pictures are always fabulous.

 

I decided that since Sister and I both love tPW, I would order us both a copy of the cookbook. I was a dumbass and didn’t realize that she was in Houston for a signing, so ours aren’t signed… but they are still special.

The day it came in, I read the dang thing cover to cover.  A cookbook. The whole thing.

 

Unfortunately, so did my 8 year old.  Who then asked me why my food didn’t look as good as tPW’s… What a punk thing to say to your mother. I mean REALLY.  However, since we’ve been having farm loads of grilled chicken lately, I decided to throw the girl a bone… or elbow… whichever way you want to look at it.

 

For dinner tonight I’ve made Ree’s Macaroni and Cheese.  Simple. Basic. Beautiful.

 

Until I got home from the store and realized I forgot whole milk and dry mustard… So AFTER I went back to the grocery and picked up those things I got started.

 

Then I got totally skeeved out because the recipe called for an egg… and my dumb ass husband bought extra-large eggs instead of larges… (really, who DOES that?)…and then discovered my XL egg was a twin…

 

After I got my wits back about me I flicked that “extra” part out… GROSS… So after flicking, I figured I had something close to what a large egg would actually be like, so there. Problem solved.

 

Until I had two pots going… one that had to be whisked constantly and the other with the elbow noodles in it was overflowing… I tell ya… I must be easily excitable… and I should NEVER try to whisk with my left hand… Just sayin…

 

I also didn’t think my baking dish would hold all of the noodles, so I used 3 cups not 4.  After screwing up with the egg and noodle measurements, I figured Ree wouldn’t give a damn if I added the right amount of milk either… You see… we use 1% milk not whole. At the store I bought a pint of whole… and the recipe called for 2 1/2 cups… I SWEAR I used to be good at math… really I was!!!

Alas, all is well because now I have THIS mixture in my fancy dancy Le Creuset pot.

 

At this point, I thought it was a little thick, so I added a splash of my 1% milk… improvise people, improvise…

 

I found this fancy dancy Le Creuset baking dish on clearance… so I thought it would be perfect for mac n cheese…

 

And I also found fancy dancy panko breadcrumbs at the grocery so I added them to the top of the dish… Ree’s a middle child too… she’ll understand that this is something we do. We can’t just let well enough alone. Even if the recipe is from a rock star.

 

Right now the dish is resting in my fridge, waiting to baked this evening after our dance classes. I’ll be having even MORE grilled chicken… probably with red peppers instead of mac n cheese… but hey, at least I feel like I’ve cooked something and I’ll get to smell it calorie-free.

 

And maybe next time my punk kid will say, HEY! My mom makes kickin mac n cheese!… Maybe…