Just a peak. . .

Here’s a glimpse of what we’ve been up to lately. . .

Making a tablecloth for an upcoming birthday party (the fabric banner shown was purchased on etsy at Starlit Nest Gifts)

and fabric triangles for our attempt at making our own banner

dipping wooden spoons in paint and chalkboard painting dessert cups (the tutorial for the spoons is here  and I came up with the chalkboard painted dessert cup using leftover chalkboard paint on clear cups - I know, not rocket science, right)

making blueberry moon milkshakes

sewing a baby blanket, burp clothes, and changing mat for my new niece

making this yummy Raspberry Pineapple Yogurt Cream (recipe below)

and whipping up these cute pretzels from YUM! Magazine with the kids.  They’re super easy, just pretzel twists, colored melting chocolate, mini M&M’s, mini chocolate chips, and food writing markers for the bunnies.

Raspberry Pineapple Yogurt Cream Adapted from here

8 ounces mascarpone

5.3 ounces greek raspberry yogurt

1/4 heaping cup of crushed pineapple, not drained

3 heaping Tablespoons of powdered sugar

pink food coloring, optional

chocolate shavings, or curls

Beat the mascarpone cheese with the powdered sugar.  Add the yogurt and the crushed pineapple, beat until combined.  Add food coloring, if desired (I do because when I mix everything, the end result looks beige).  Scoop into individual bowls, and top with chocolate.  Refrigerate leftovers!

Serves 6

Fun Foodie Gift Ideas 2012

Dining Room Measuring Spoons, Source

I have a bunch of measuring spoons, but always welcome a new set.  I’m really picky – they have to be dishwasher safe!  However, I’ll make the exception for these beauties and put my husband to work hand washing (yeah, right).

Spinella Tableboard, Source

I have the large board in walnut, so of course the smaller board in cherry caught my eye.  Wouldn’t this look great on a buffet table covered with cupcakes, or a couple of pizzas?  The possibilities are endless!

High Quality Stainless Baking Sheet. Made in the US.

Stainless Steel Heirloom Cookie Sheet, Source

I own a couple of stainless steel baking sheets that were discontinued before I had a chance to add more to my collection.  I love that these are dishwasher safe, plus stainless steel has a reputation for baking up cookies nicely.

Dipped Teaspoon Set, Source

These spoons look like such fun, and even though they’re little (5 inches) I’m sure my kids would have a blast scooping up their ice cream.  Bonus: they’re dishwasher safe – hooray!

European Glass Pudding Jars, Source

These cute little jars are classic, and the perfect size to sub in for a shot glass dessert.  Did I mention they’re also dishwasher safe?

Teal Pedestal Tray, Source

I love this pedestal tray, alas my husband went into shock when he saw the price, so I didn’t have the heart to buy it.

Petits Four Plates, Source

I love collecting different plates.  In fact, every year I buy myself a new 5-piece place setting of china (in a different pattern), so I can mix it up.

Strawberry Marmalade Camera Strap Slipcover, Source

I have the standard camera strap, but a slipcover would be just the thing to give it some personality.

Best Ever Cupcake Kit, Source

I can’t believe it took me so long to buy this cupcake tip set.  Do yourself a favor and buy an extra frosting bag with your order – the bags are already cut and stitched at the bottom and the large tips just drop in and you’re ready to go.

European Baguette Board, Source

This is great to have during the holidays – fill it with fresh rolls and place it in the center of the table for easy reach.

Liebstar Award

I don’t know about you, but things have been crazy around here!  I had two terrible viruses at the same time (lucky me), prepared a huge Thanksgiving dinner for my family, I’m working on my daughter’s upcoming birthday party, and of course there’s Christmas – and all the parties and shopping that go with it.  Whew, I’m just tired after typing that!

Last week in the midst of all of this, I was nominated for a Liebstar Award by Pretty Happy Baking, how sweet is that?!  The Liebstar Award is given to up-and-coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. “Liebster” is German for “Beloved, Dearest, or Favorite” and the award is intended to shine a spotlight on blogs deserving of some recognition.

Well, I’m honored.  So thank you Allie from Pretty Happy Baking!

11 Random Facts About Myself

1. I dislike licorice.

2. I love children.

3. I march to my own beat – my husband calls it “not conforming,” and I like to ponder conspiracy theories of trivial things.

4. Decorating desserts with sprinkles makes me insanely happy.

5. I’ve been married for 10 years and I still can’t communicate with my husband – I get a lot of vacant stares and furrowing of the brow.

6. I’m a realist by nature, and if I had a motto it would be “own it.”

7. I was a makeup artist during college at a local department store.

8. I wear flip-flops all year (Chaco’s are my favorite) – until the freezing temperatures make it absolutely unbearable.

9. We were stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, and I never tired of my house shaking from artillery or the low flying planes.  Absolutely loved it.

10. As a Marine wife, I’m “semper gumby” – always flexible.  Yep, that’s me.  I didn’t make that up by the way.

11.  My husband says I’m addicted to baking, and online shopping.

My Answers to Pretty Happy Baking’s Questions:

1. Favorite recipe That’s like picking a favorite child – I can’t do it!  However, “off the record” I’m rather fond of macarons.

2. Ingredient you can’t live without Sugar – brown sugar, granulated sugar, powdered sugar, sanding sugar. . .you get the idea!

3. Recipe you can’t wait to try Dark Chocolate Cookie Crisps

4. Favorite dessert growing up Nilla Wafer Custard

5. Best baking/cooking advice you ever received It’s like anything else, the more you practice the better you become.

6. Who taught you to bake I’m self-taught – using my trusty Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.

7. Unique replacement ingredient in a time of need You know, in baking it really depends.  If I’m out of eggs, I’ll go buy them, that’s too hard to replicate.  But if I’m out of sour cream and I have plain yogurt, that’ll work.  There’s only one person I know actually brave enough to use a fruit yogurt as a replacement ingredient in a savory dip – you know who you are.

8. Describe your baking style with three adjectives Decadent, delicious, and colorful.

9. Favorite cooking/baking tool It’s a tie between my rubber scrapers and whisks.  Can’t have enough of those!

10. Favorite cookbook Better Homes and Gardens has never let me down.

11. Recipe that you or your family make every holiday season Every Christmas we make chocolate covered cherries with homemade fondant.

This is the point where I’m supposed to nominate another 11 bloggers with less than 200 followers.  I’ll be honest, I’m behind the curve on the follower thing, so I’m going to diverge a bit (this is where that nonconformist thing comes in) and give you a list of 11 of my favorite bloggers that I think you’d enjoy (if you don’t already know them, give them a look).

1. The Girl Who Ate Everything

2. High Heels & Grills

3. Pizzazzerie

4. Celebrations at Home

5. Mel’s Kitchen Cafe

6. Everyday Occasions by Jenny Steffens Hobick

7. Lulu the Baker

8. Smells Like Home

9. My Insanity

10. ButterYum

11. a farmgirl’s dabbles

Bowling Ball Sugar Cookie Cupcake Toppers

My daughter wanted a Bowling birthday party this year with matching cupcakes.  I saw this recipe in an old Kids’ Parties (BHG Special Interest Publication).

You simply place sugar cookie dough inside a gallon zip bag and add 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of gel food coloring and knead together just until the dough has a marbled look to it.  Then place the dough in the refrigerator for about 1 hour to chill.

Roll out the cookie dough on a floured surface, and cut 1 1/2 inch circles, then using a clean straw cut out three holes – making one of them larger than the others (I did this by making a circular motion with the straw after cutting the hole).  Then place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and bake for about 11 minutes at 350 degrees, or until done.

Pie Dessert Spoons

I love fun takes on classic desserts.  So when I saw a bunch of bloggers taking cookie cutters and cutting pie crust to make small bite-sized desserts, I just couldn’t wait to put my own twist on it.  And as luck would have it, I’m on a “spoon” kick right now – more on that later!

So these are pie crust “spoons,” and as you can see below they are pretty darn cute topped with chocolate cream pie.  Yum!  And you could even do a savory filling like spinach dip, or a red (cherry pie), blue (blueberry), and white (cheesecake) version to celebrate the 4th of July.

The possibilites are endless!

You might be wondering where I found such a big spoon cookie cutter – well, honestly it’s a tennis racket cutter, but I think it passes as a spoon.  I bought mine from here, and I’ve been happy with it.

Pie Dessert Spoons

Crust recipe from here.

After the dough has chilled, roll it out to about 1/3 of an inch thick, and cut out spoons.  Place each one on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.

When the sheet is full, cover the cookie sheet with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour, or overnight.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Take out and let them cool before topping.

Chocolate Pie Filling (or Custard)

2/3 cup sugar

3 Tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 cups of 2% milk, or whole

3 (1 ounce each) squares of semi-sweet chocolate

3 egg yolks, beaten (in a small mixing bowl, set aside for tempering)

Whisk the sugar, cornstarch, and salt together in a medium saucepan (this will help prevent lumps).  Add the milk and whisk until combined.

Add the chocolate squares and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture boils and thickens.

Boil for 1 minute, and remove from heat.

Gradually stir at least half of the hot mixture into the 3 beaten egg yolks whisking constantly to temper (slowly bringing the yolks and hot milk to the same temperature to prevent scrambling).

Then add the tempered egg mixture back into the rest of the hot milk, whisking constantly to combine.  Return the custard mixture to the stove (over medium heat) and bring to a boil – for 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and add 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla and 1 Tablespoon unsalted butter.  Whisk until fully incorporated.  Then pour through a sieve into a medium-sized bowl.

Don’t omit this step!  Even when I think I’ve fully incorporated the egg yolks, there are always a few chewy bits that end up in the sieve.

Let it cool at room temperature for about 5- 10 minutes, then cover the custard with plastic wrap – making sure to press the plastic wrap against the custard to prevent a “skin” from forming on top.

Place in the refrigerator for 2 hours, or until cold.

Then spoon custard into a pastry bag with a large tip and pipe onto pie spoons.  Pipe sweetened whip cream on top and garnish with mini chocolate chips.

Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Linking to Tidy Mom

Earth Day Birthday Party!

Happy Earth Day!  We celebrated another birthday this weekend, and it was lots of fun.

There was strawberry cake covered in colored buttercream roses (original tutorial seen here).  There were snack necklaces, dirt pudding cups, citrus punch, and painted terra cotta pots as party favors.

The kids had a lot of fun putting this party together.  They made the dirt pudding cups, the citrus punch, the snack necklaces, and they painted the terra cotta pots.  I’ll be posting the super-easy recipes for the punch and pudding in a few days.  Consider letting your kids help you throw your next party!

Gingerbread Playdough

This playdough is so much fun, and I adore gingerbread.  So when I saw it posted here, I just knew I had to try it.  Lucky for me, my daughter’s birthday was coming up and I thought it would be the perfect party favor (and it was)!

Click here for the tutorial and recipe.

In the original post, glass jars were used to gift these – which were so cute.  But I’m dealing with little kids, so I opted for those twist top plastic tubs.  I just printed out some cardstock and used my handy scalloped punch and taped them to the lids.  Then I adhered a small cookie cutter to the top using glue dots.  Super easy.

*I bought the 1 1/2 cup tubs, and I was able to portion off 1 batch of playdough into threes.

Square Marshmallow Snowmen Pops

Is it just me or are things getting harder?  You know, like throwing a school Christmas party.  Nowadays it seems like everyone wants to be all PC, so moms are scrambling around trying to find holiday themes that don’t involve Santa.  If you’re one of those moms, or you happen to like snowmen (like me), then these are the pops for you!

Marshmallow Sucker Adapted from these cute suckers here, in case you’d rather buy them.

These are really quite simple, all you need is. . .

1 bag of square marshmallows

1 package of wooden skewers

Edible markers

*I made approx. 12 of these, so make the proper adjustments if you want more!  This also accounts for the marshmallows that I skewered to death.

Skewer the marshmallows, using the pointed end - carefully (the back of the sticks didn’t look pretty).  Then gently scoot each marshmallow down to make room for the next one.  Next, I simply drew on their faces (and scarves) with edible markers, and then dusted on some powdered food coloring (with a food-only brush) for the blushed cheeks.

You could also use regular marshmallows and rid yourself of the difficulty of skewering flat marshmallows, but I happen to like the look of the square ones.  However, if I were to make these for lots of kids I would (without hesitation) use regular marshmallows.

These would be super cute for kids to decorate at a Christmas party (just make sure you’ve already skewered them and have enough edible markers to go around – or a marker-station).  They would also make a cute party favor all wrapped up in cellophane.

Here’s a photo of my daughter’s rainbow one, she is so creative!  Looks better than mine, right?!

Linking to I Heart Nap Time

Santa Berry

Aren’t these the cutest Santas ever?!  The trick is finding strawberries in season this time of year.  I know they can get expensive, but they’re worth it!

These are a perfect project for the kids to make at their own holiday table on Christmas Eve, great for class parties, or perfect for that holiday buffet.

The original recipe called for the use of frilly toothpicks, but I haven’t been able to find them around town, so I modified that by using a small marshmallow on the top of the toothpick.

My son told me that the Santa (pictured above) “looks creepy” without a mouth, so we fixed that below!

Santa Berry Adapted from Simple & Delicious Nov/Dec 2006

To make these handsome guys you need. . .

12 large strawberries, hulled

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

12 red-frilled toothpicks, or regular toothpicks and 12 mini marshmallows

1 loaf (10 3/4 ounces) frozen pound cake, thawed or homemade pound cake, recipe here

24 miniature semisweet chocolate chips and 12 red hots for the mouth, or an extra 12 chocolate chips for the mouth

12 fudge-covered cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies

*These treats are also printed in Betty Crocker Celebrate! with some differences, such as pineapple in lieu of the pound cake and marshmallow/cream cheese frosting (8 ounce cream cheese mixed with 1 cup of marshmallow creme) which I’m definitely trying next time – yum!

Cut the strawberries widthwise – keeping mates together.  Then trim the crust off the pound cake and cut large cubes – then set each cube between the berries and trim to size.

Next stick a toothpick through the berries and cake, and place a mini marshmallow on the top of the toothpick still sticking out.

In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese and powdered sugar together until smooth and scoop into a frosting bag fitted with a small star tip (such as #18).  Pipe around the rim of the hat (the top strawberry), then pipe the beard and down the sides of the front of the face.

Dab the back of the mini chocolate chips with frosting and place them onto the cake.  Add the red hot (or additional chocolate chip) for the mouth.

*Optional, dust the cake with powdered food coloring for a blushing Santa (the one on the left).

These guys go quick, so make plenty!

Santa Berry can’t believe his friend Frosty has melted!  Oh dear!

For the melting snowman shown above, click here.

Linking to I Heart Nap Time, Tidy Mom, Crazy for Crust

Melting Snowman

I saw this idea here, and I absolutely LOVED it!  I might use some orange candy melts next time for the carrot nose for some extra depth.  The kids and I had tons of fun putting these together.

You’ll need . . .

1 box of graham crackers

2 Giant Hershey Bars

1 bag of large marshmallows

1 box of Fruit by the Foot

1 package of white candy coating, or white chocolate

Edible markers

*Orange-colored candy melts – if you want don’t want to use the marker

So here is how we did it. . .

Place halved graham crackers on a parchment-lined baking sheet and then set two squares of chocolate on top (I used a Giant Hershey Bar).

Then have your kids place a large marshmallow on top of the chocolate.  Place the cookie sheet in the oven at 350 degrees (I preheated my oven, then turned it off when I put the s’mores in) for about 10-15 minutes, or until the marshmallows are slightly puffed and lightly browned.

*I wanted to heat them in the oven so that all the components would adhere to one another.  Plus, the melted marshmallow really makes the snowman head look, well . .um . .melted.

Here they are out of the oven, cooled, and topped with melted white chocolate.  And when I say “topped,” I don’t mean it literally – I just basically spooned the white chocolate around the base of the marshmallow.

Then I just “painted” on the face with my edible markers and added some blush with my dry paintbrush (I use it for food only) and some powdered food coloring.  Then I used fruit by the foot as the “scarf.”  Super fun, super easy, and dare I say. . .super cute!

Linking to I Heart Nap Time, The Grant Life, Tidy Mom