Summer Baking

June went by so quickly, but for the first time in a long time I can tell you I feel like I didn't let it pass me by. Every summer I have big plans of things to do with the kids, and every August I wonder what happened to both the summer and the plans.

But not this year. This year I have promised the kids that we will do one thing special every week. And so far I have kept that promise. The first week of vacation we went to see Kung Fu Panda 2 in the movie theater. During the second week we went to the DuPage Children's Museum. (We have a membership.) Week three I took them all bowling. It was Zoe's first time ever and she was the only one of the four of us to get a strike! (Two strikes actually!) And last week we went to Legoland Discovery Center in Schaumburg.

The other big plans I made were for the kids to make desserts this summer. So I assigned each child a week, let them pick a dessert to make, and put them to work. It has been a rousing success! My middle child, Emma, went first. She was inspired by an article in an American Girl Doll magazine she had checked out from our local library. She made chocolate chocolate chip cupcakes, and then decorated them to look like our family. They were both super cute and delicious!



My youngest daughter, Zoe, went next. She wanted to make her famous ice cream pie that she has successfully made at least two times before this. She chose an ice cream that had three flavors in one container, and then topped it with Reese's Pieces. It was described as awesome and really, really good!




My oldest, Ian, chose to make Lemonade Pie. I had made it earlier in the summer and he liked it so much he wanted to make it himself. It is a cool, creamy treat, perfect for hot summer days.



I plan on continuing to go places and having the kids make desserts. They are really enjoying being in control and sharing something they make themselves with their family. I know Emma is planning some fancy milkshakes for July, and I can't wait to try them!

Sundae Cake Pops

Emma, my 3rd grade daughter, asked me if I could make a special treat for her class for the last week of school. I happened to be subbing at the school the week before and asked her teacher if that would be okay. She said it was fine, so I decided to make Bakerella's Sundae Cake Pops. AS you know, I received the book for my birthday from my sister and had up to this point only made some simple Christmas ones. But these seemed like the perfect treat for an end of the year, "Yay, summer is here!" kind of day, so I set about making them.


I used chocolate fudge cake with chocolate frosting for the cake balls. A seriously excellent combination. I decided to add a few new colors than just pink (being there are boys in the class, too), so there were some white and yellow cones, too. I set to cutting all the cones down to size with my knife and then re-packaged them carefully in their styrofoam container and then in a plastic bag to stay fresh. I made all the pops on Memorial Day thinking Emma would take them to school on Tuesday. However, Emma came down with a 24 hour flu that left her throwing up half the night and a 103ºF fever. So after all the dipping, the cake pops were put into Tupperware containers to save for a day and went to school on Wednesday to enjoy during a class movie.


The kids really loved them (and one girl absolutely had to have the "messed up one"), and Emma's teacher liked them so much she ordered two dozen for her daughter's 14th birthday party! I made them exactly the same for the girl's party except added some purple ones. Definitely a fun and tasty treat to make!

More Knitting Projects

I have not only been baking these last few months (though I have been doing a lot of that!), I have also been knitting. I still am really enjoying it and I am looking for more challenging projects. For example I made a baby hat and a pair of socks. Correction: I should say I am working on those projects. Anyways, I made three dishcloths for my mother-in-law for Mother's Day as well as two hero hats for my girls in the color of their choice. I am currently working on the baby hat, socks, and another scarf, this one for my husband.

Here are some pictures:
Flying Geese Dishcloth: First one I made for my mil. I was worried I didn't like detailed patterns for knitting while I made this, but I realized later that I just don't like a fussy pattern that yields only this as the result. It is pretty, but too much "work" for such a simple looking dishcloth.


Chinese Waves Dishcloth:I really love the yarn on this one and the look and feel of this dishcloth. The pattern yields a lovely thick textured cloth that really makes me think of a dishcloth. And the self striping yarn, LOVE IT! The first picture is the "right side" of the cloth, the second picture is what the back or "wrong side" looks like.




Mock Cable Dishcloth: This is the dishcloth that proved to me I don't mind a detailed pattern as long as the results are stunning, and this one is stunning!



And finally, the girls' hats in pink and purple:




I'll get a picture up of those socks when I get them done. The worst part about socks is after completing one, you are not done! (Unless you want a sock puppet!)

Ocean Night Cupcakes

Zoe, my first grade daughter, was having Ocean Night with her class, and her teacher asked if some parents would make snacks. So, I volunteered and started scouring the internet for cute ideas. I finally decided on several different cupcakes. The plan was to make 48 of them, with different ocean animals on each one.

My first cupcake was a sea turtle cupcake because Zoe's animal that she researched was a sea turtle. I made about 8 of these. I loved how sweet these little guys were. The head was a large green gumdrop with miniature chocolate chip eyes, the shell was a sandwich cookie half with piped on frosting and dipped in green sugar, and the legs were spearmint leaves cut to size. (I also loved that I used NO FONDANT on any of the cupcakes, all just cookies, candies, and other yummy goodies.)




My next set of cupcakes were colorful fish. I made 22 of these. They are simply M&M's and a flattened fruit slice cut in half. Super easy and super cute!



I made these Octopus cupcakes with orange melting disks from Wilton. I just kind of winged it (and yes, I know Octopus have eight legs, but they looked cuter with only six.) I put it on top of some pretty blue buttercream frosting, and voila - an octopus cupcake. I made the seahorse the same way - but only made one of these. (Zoe's best friend did her project on seahorses, so I had to make one!)




I made these whales and whale's tails cupcakes with Twinkies and chocolate wafer cookies. I got the idea from the "What's New Cupcake" book that I got for my birthday from my mother-in-law. I was surprised that they actually turned out almost as cute as the ones in the book. The heads were popular with the kids, but none of the tail cupcakes went!



By far, the most popular cupcake (and I only made three!) was the shark cupcake. It is also made with a Twinkie and a chocolate wafer for the fin. The mouth is red fruit roll up, the eyes mini chocolate chips. These were the first off the table, and probably into boy's hands, though I cannot guarantee that!




I spent an entire day decorating these, but it was so worth it seeing the kid's faces when they got to have one!

Easter Cookies

I am going to rename myself the Lazy Baker. I didn't make the cookie dough (Pillsbury makes such good sugar cookie dough!), I used the fewest colors of icing possible, and I used mini chocolate chips for the eyes. Whenever I bake, I find myself more and more thinking, "How can I make this with only two colors?"

Anyways, I was inspired by Kate over at Grin and Bake It. For Easter this year I am making her Snickerdoodle Bars as well as some hatching chick Easter egg cookies. Her cookies are so sweet and beautiful, and full of many colors. Mine, mine are cute, but only have a few colors. The bare minimum in my opinion. I would love to make some like hers, with Easter egg colors and lovely fancy eggs without chicks, but as usual, time crunched and I needed to get my family packed up to go to Ohio. And, I'm lazy.





But, I still think my cookies turned out pretty darn cute, even for a lazy baker! (The cookies are huge - Pillsbury dough spreads pretty significantly, so the nieces and nephews are going to get quite a treat!)

My Knitting Projects

So I have gotten very busy with knitting, and enjoy it very much. My only fear with knitting is that it is going to be like all my other creative passions - things I LOVED doing for awhile (even several years), but now don't do or do very infrequently (scrapbooking, cross stitching, cake decorating, stamping and making my own cards, etc., etc.) I am afraid I will amass my supplies (knitting needles and yarn) and then never use them again.

Despite these fears, though, I am knitting quite frequently and really do enjoy the creative process. I currently have a rule to have no more than two knitting projects going on at once, in order to make sure I finish them. (I started a scarf that took me two months to knit, mostly because the pattern was boring, even for a beginner like me.)

I have had some orders from my kids, and I have made some gifts already. So, I decided to share some pictures of my finished projects here, today.

My Shamrock Dishcloth - first project finished, (2nd started) - didn't turn out very pretty, but it's for me and it washes dishes just fine



Two Rubber Ducky dishcloths for my brother-in-law - second and third projects I finished, thought these looked pretty nice aside from the ugly cast on edge





Seed Stitch Dishcloth - mainly just wanted to see what seed stitch looked like, made for us, cleans dishes well.



My first Bunny Blankie Buddy - Know several pregnant people, wanted to make a practice bunny to make sure I could do it. Was really proud of this one until I made my second one - you'll see what I mean! (Gave this to my youngest daughter, she loves it.)



My second Bunny Blankie Buddy (in blue) - See what I mean? So much better all the way around. Gave this to my older daughter. She too loves hers.



Dishcloth for my mom for Mother's Day - Don't worry, she does not read my blog. Loved how this one turned out.



Second dishcloth for my mom - Her favorite color is yellow.



Third dishcloth for my mom - Wanted to have a set of three for her. (Can't wait to give them to her!)



Hat for my son - I'm making three of these, this one in black was for my son, making a purple and pink one for the two girls



The infamous two month scarf - here it is!



That's all for now, but I'll try and keep posting some of my work here as I finish items.

My First Pattern

So last month I blogged about learning to knit. Since then I have made a scarf (still in progress), two bunny blankie buddies and several dishcloths. And I am loving all the knitting I'm doing, but I wanted to make something out of some of the leftover yarn and try a new stitch pattern other than garter, stockinette, and rib. So I checked a book out of the library with all kinds on stitch pattern ideas and came up with this cute poncho for my daughter's American Girl doll. It is a fast and easy knit, and something any A.G. doll owner would love (especially in a color to coordinate with one of their outfits!)


Ridged Poncho for American Girl Doll

Materials:
Size US 10 1/2 needles (6.5 mm)
Bulky Weight Yarn

Instructions:
Make two identical pieces.

CO 36 stitches

Row 1: Knit
Row 2: p1, *k2tog; repeat from * to last stitch, p1
Row 3: k1, *Kfb; repeat from * to last stitch, k1
Row 4: Purl
Repeat these 4 rows a total of 6 times (24 rows of knitting)
Row 25: Knit
BO
Weave in all ends

Finishing:
Sew short end of one piece along long edge of other piece. Use cast on edges at neck edge of poncho. Sew the short end of the second piece to the long edge of the first piece to form poncho.

For the poncho I made I used Lion Brand Jiffy yarn in Aqua. It knit up nicely and is nice and soft for my daughter to play with.


I really loved the end result and I'm happy to share the simple pattern here!

Feeling Crafty

I have been feeling crafty lately. I have all kinds of craft ideas running through my head, and various amounts of supplies for scrapbooking, card making, stamping and other little fun things like that.

So what have I done? I decided to learn how to knit. Something for which I have essentially no supplies for and have to go out and buy. I'm sure my dear husband is thrilled.

This really came about because my six year old daughter received a teach kids to knit book along with some knitting needles and yarn from her Great Aunt Kathy and her Uncle Kevin. Great Aunt Kathy and Uncle Kevin are extremely talented knitters and were eager to pass on their hobby when Zoe showed an interest while spending time with them.

So, I have decided to teach her (and her eight year old sister as well), but knew for me to help them, I would need to learn myself, first.


I have now knitted two things. The first is a purple rectangle, and despite the fact that I dropped at least two stitches and some of the stitches are ridiculously loose and some are too tight, I'm very proud of that rectangle. I have also knitted the first square of a banner the girls and I are going to knit after I teach them! This second piece of knitting is remarkably better than the first, and I'm now ready to learn the purl stitch! (So far all I have done is the knit or garter stitch. After I learn the purl stitch, I should be able to do more!)



I am very excited at the prospect of making little projects with the girls, and I hope they learn to be great knitters like their Great Aunt and Uncle! And who knows, maybe I'll even make a scarf in time for next winter!

A Few Treats

Well I did get a little fancy over the holidays and made a few pretty treats to serve. My husband has a department work party where the company brings in the main dishes, but the employees (and/ or their spouses) send in desserts and goodies.

I made my chocolate chocolate chip cake with peppermint buttercream filling and chocolate buttercream frosting. I wanted to fancy it up a bit, so I made white chocolate mint snowflakes to put on the cake. I finished with the words "Let It Snow" on top. I tried to make the words sparkly by applying luster dust, which didn't go too well. But I was really pleased with the results and my cake won two categories in the employee voting. I won "most appealing to the eye" and "most festive." (I actually tied with three other people in one of those categories, but I can't remember which!)



I also finally made Bakerella's Cake Pop's that she has become so famous for! I decided to make buttermilk Devil's food cake for the base. I then crumbled half of the cake and mixed it with vanilla frosting. I mixed the other half of the crumbled cake with peppermint frosting. I dipped them in a mixture of chocolate bark and Ghirardelli's bittersweet chocolate. Then I sprinkled pretty Christmas sprinkles on top and then finished them with a Merry Christmas sign or red or green bow. I love how they turned out!







Now to start dreaming up my Valentine's treats!

Happy Birthday Post

Thursday, December 30th was my 38th birthday. And even though it is the new year, I want to talk about my birthday from last year.


I had a really great birthday. In the morning I made muffins to take to my husband's grandparents, who we visited in the afternoon. December 23rd happened to be Brendan's Grandma McKillip's 95th birthday. Her party, unfortunately, was the weekend we had planned on going to Ohio for my family's Christmas. I had talked it over quite frequently with my mom, and with Brendan. My mom had offered to move our Christmas, but the only available weekend would have been the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Brendan didn't want her to have to do that, and for me to miss my extended family's Christmas, so we went to Ohio and missed Grandma's party.

To try and make it up to her, we decided to take the kids and visit Great Grandma and Great Grandpa. We had a lovely time visiting and had carrot cake and ice cream that they offered us. We also had some of the candy they received for Christmas. Brendan's grandparents have to be the two nicest people in the world. I feel so blessed and lucky to have them in my life, especially since all of my grandparents are in Heaven already.

After visiting with Grandma and Grandpa, we took the kids to Vaughn Athletic Center to go swimming. They have a great indoor pool complete with water slides and a splash zone. We all had a blast riding the water slides and the kids wore themselves out swimming and running across the lily pad floats in the pool.

Considering the late hour after we were done swimming, we headed to Portillo's and got take out for dinner. Ahhh, no cooking for me on my birthday! I had a fantastic hamburger and onion rings and we had some almond chocolate chip blondies for dessert.

I was serenaded with a rousing version of Happy Birthday by my kids and Brendan. and then got to open my gift. It was a pink iPod nano!!! Complete with $15 iTunes gift card! Brendan even had it engraved on the back, "To my favorite lady." It is awesome considering my iPod mini no longer would allow new music to be uploaded to it. I can now listen to my tunes again!

I have to also mention some of my other favorite birthday gifts, too. My sister got me "Cake Pops" by Bakerella. She gave it to me at our Christmas in Ohio, so it was just in time to help me with the cake pops I made for the first time for Christmas. (Pictures to follow in a later post.) I can't wait to try some of the other ideas in that book! My sister-in-law and brother-in-law got me a Starbuck's card! Woot! Woot! Now I have two gift cards to spend at the 'Bucks! It's going to be a fun January and February! And my mother-in-law got me a black zipper hoodie in a tall size! It goes all the way past my wrists! I'm in seventh heaven! (Talk to tall girls about finding clothes that fit, not fun!)

Anyways, it really was a great birthday. (Wow, I also like exclamation points!)

Christmas Wrap Up

Christmas was truly joyous this year. I spent time celebrating with both my family as well as my husband's family. I even spent time with my mom's family, seeing my aunts, uncles, and cousins, some of whom I hadn't seen in two years! It's always a great time gathering with family and spending time with one another.

I also got some fantastic gifts, and while I know it isn't just about the gifts, let's face it, they are fun! I thought I'd share some of my favorite ones here.

When I was in Ohio, at our "Christmas appetizer" (the term my son gave this party because it was before Christmas), I received a Starbuck's gift card! Yay! I love Starbuck's, but I won't indulge without a gift card or good reason, so now I have a reason!

My husband got me three cool gifts that I love! First, in my stocking I got Fannie May eggnog creams and peppermint creams. Yum! Second, he got me the perfume I wanted, Elizabeth Taylor's Passion. The bottle is so 80's excess, yet so art deco cool, that I think it looks beautiful on my bathroom counter. We thought the design might be just old enough to be considered "retro" now. And finally, the third gift from my husband that I won't stop wearing is my Ohio State winter hat. Red and white stripes, a pompom at the top, and braided side strings with and embroidered "O" in the middle, what's not to love? (And I got my favorite movie of all time, "That Thing You Do" on DVD!)

From my brother-in-law's girlfriend I got the best homemade toffee and some awesome hand and foot cream. Finally, from my mother-in-law I got two most excellent books, "Cookie Craft" and "What's New, Cupcake?". Can't wait to try some of the cool and fun techniques in these books for yummy AND cute treats!

All in all, I had a wonderful mix of family, fun, and amazing gifts!

Almond Coffee

If you are looking for a warm and yummy way to start your Christmas morning, or a yummy and warm way to end your Christmas dinner, then this is the drink for you. Steaming, creamy and almondy, this coffee hits the spot for a special occasion.


Almond Coffee

2 cups strong brewed coffee, hot
2 cups milk, warmed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract
1½ tablespoons sugar, or to taste

Combine all ingredients and stir to mix well. Taste for sweetness and add more sugar if desired. Pour into four coffee mugs and garnish with whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon if desired.


Notes: If you have some lactose issues (as I do) you can substitute almond milk for the regular milk (and it is a bit more authentic, then!). If you use the vanilla flavored almond milk, do not use the vanilla extract and you may want to reduce the sugar slightly.

Merry Christmas Eve to all of my readers! Thank you for sharing in my 12 Recipes of Christmas. I truly enjoyed sharing them with you!

Truffle Fudge Brownies

Immediately when I hear "truffle" I think fancy. This is decadent and rich, and a little fancy. But most of all, it is luscious and chocolatey! How is that for a description of a dessert? I actually made this for my 15th wedding anniversary in June, but it would end a Christmas dinner very well. Dress it up with some Christmas sprinkles or leave it unadorned. Either way it will be a hit!


Truffle Fudge Brownies

for the batter:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
½ cup all purpose flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon coarse salt
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
¼ cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
for the ganache:
4 ounces quality semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
⅔ cup heavy cream
for the garnish:
candy sprinkles (optional)

Preheat oven to 325ºF. Butter a 9-inch springform pan.

Make batter: Put butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over simmering water; stir until melted. Let cool slightly.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.

Put sugar and eggs in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, and mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add chocolate mixture, the milk, and vanilla, and mix until combined. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture; mix, scraping down sides of bowl, until well combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake until a cake tester inserted into brownies (avoid center and edges) comes out with a few crumbs but is not wet, 27-30 minutes. Let cool completely in pan on wire rack.

Make ganache: Put chocolate in a medium bowl. Heat cream in a small saucepan over medium-high heat until just simmering. Pour over chocolate; let stand 5 minutes. Gently stir until smooth. Allow ganache to cool, stirring every 10 minutes, until slightly thickened, 25 to 30 minutes.

Pour ganache over cooled brownies in pan; let set, about 20 minutes. Refrigerate until cold, 30 minutes to 1 hour. Let brownies stand at room temperature at least 15 minutes before serving. Scatter sprinkles onto brownies if using. Lift out brownies; cut into wedges, wiping knife with a hot, damp cloth between each cut.


Notes: This is another Martha Stewart recipe. She has the reputation she has for a reason! These are really fantastic and will impress any chocolate lover!


Only two days and one more recipe until Christmas!