S'Mores Cupcakes

I really like baking....and I really like taking pictures. I'm not very good at either, but practice makes perfect, right? While this blog is a place for family, friends, and others to read about our Alaskan adventures (and The Bug) it is also a place for me to keep tabs on things I do, and I bake...and bitch, but mostly a mix of both!

This was a month ago, but I never got around to posting pictures! I offered to make the cupcakes for a friend's baby shower. They were doing camping theme, and the one host sent me a few pictures of what she'd like. Overall, she was looking for the S'more's theme, so I went with the Trophy Cupcake's S'mores Cupcakes. I had a recipe and such, plus pictures. That makes it a million times easier. I stink at making anything that I do not have a photo to go off of! Not that creative!

They all had a graham cracker/butter base that baked first before batter went it.
I may of had to make two batches because it kept disappearing...

Here my friends is the recipe for the Toasted Marshmallow Smore's Cupcakes!

They ended up looking pretty good, tasted awesome (not my quote, people at the party) and it made me happy that someone thought a "professional" made them. I laughed really hard at that question. I still need to work on piping frosting. I had wrist surgery a few years ago, and my hand just isn't very strong.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!

Spicy Pretzels

A few Christmas's ago, our friend Jessie gave us an AWESOME assortment of tasty-deliciousness. On of the things was Spicy Pretzels. I am 99% sure that my husband and I inhaled the entire bag before we even left the house. (I still need that popcorn recipe!)

THESE.ARE.AMAZING

I have never had these, or heard of these anywhere else outside of Elk County, PA. If I have had them it was by someone from Elk County, or has family from Elk County. Maybe I don't get out much.  I wanted to make a big ol' batch for Christmas, so ta-da! They were so flipping good that I asked Ms. Jessie if I could share the recipe. 

You will all want to hug her and squeeze her, but that would be awkward. If you want to send her internet millions I can handle that transaction for you. 

Enter the world of deliciousness! 

Ingredients:

1 cup Canola Oil (super healthy right?)

1 tbsp Cayenne Peper

1/2 tbsp Dill Weed

1 tsp Cajun Seasoning (or blacken steak magic of equivalent)

1 Hidden Valley Ranch Packet

1 lb Pretzels (sourdough, not the little ones, and not the fat ones you lose teeth over)

Combine all except pretzels. Mix well with a whisk. Break up pretzels by hand and put in large ziploc bag. Pour mixture over pretzels. Let coat and absorb for ~1/2 hour. About 15 minutes into the 30 minutes I turned the bag upside down again. Dump onto baking sheet and bake @ 200 for 1 1/4 hour.

You may need to take one for the team and eat some to get EXACTLY a pound.
Either that or I just wanted to eat pretzels. 

15 minutes in and flipped.

If you are going to make them for a gift, make two batches. I'm not saying that you'll eat a whole pound of pretzels...I'm TELLING you you'll eat a whole pound of pretzels. Ask me how I know this. Another nice little tidbit of information. Let's say your power goes out for 4 hours in the middle of baking these bad boys, they still turn out wonderfully.

If you make these feel free to send me the fan mail for Jesse. I'll make sure she gets it!

Homemade Christmas Decorations

First off. Let me say that if you are family STOP READING NOW.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Seriously. You are going to ruin the one small surprise that I can give you....
-
-
-
-
-
-
Yes, yes, I realize I could NOT post this, but people keep asking me and THIS is the easiest place for me to share it...
-
-
-
-
-
-
You're still reading aren't you?
-
-
-
-
-
-
Tell you what, go re-read these posts! Lots of Bug photos....SO much better than what is below this. I promise! Plus I mailed it out today. Give it a week. Don't ruin your surprise!
-
-
-
-
-
-
Do you think they're gone?


Anyway. If not, Santa will probably bring you coal. Just sayin'.

I wanted to make something meaningful to give as gifts for Christmas, especially since it was Bug's first on, and it is easy to get away with giving a homemade gift with a baby.


I saw some adorable Santa hand prints on Pintrest and made those for family (see, if you're still reading this you're ruining your surprise.) I don't know about you, but one thing NO POST MENTIONED was that this was near impossible to do by yourself with a 6 month old. He kept grabbing handfuls of dough. There were tears (mine) and lots of starting over.

After that disaster, I wanted to do some more, and decided that feet HAD to be easier. I was right. WAY easier.

They are basic Salt Dough Ornaments. The recipe is as follows: 1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 cup water. Mix it all together and roll it out. Press your little guys foot into the dough and then cut along with a butter knife and put on a baking sheet. Put them into a preheated 200 degree oven for 3 hours (yes, 3 hours.)

I used acrylics to paint them and then used a high gloss sealant to seal them. My friend Laura gave me the following advice and I think is brilliant. Store them in a Ziploc bag with some of those little silica packets (the kind that keep things from getting damp.) You know, the ones that your dog eats and you freak out about and call every vet in town only to find it under the table. Maybe that's just me...

I bought red and white ribbon to put on them to hang. However, I had planned on using the red for Rudolph, but it ended up looking like he was shot in the head...not exactly a Christmas message I want to spread.

Let me know if you make them! I tried talking my husband into letting me make one with his hand. He said no... He is no fun!

S'mores Cake

I volunteered (I would have totally died in the Hunger games...I volunteer for everything) to make a cake for a party next weekend. In my head I had a great idea, but wanted to try it out prior to needing to present it to 20 some people. (Best idea I've ever had.)

One of the girls hosting it sent me some pictures and I figured, "I can do that." She wanted a cake that looked like a S'more.

I used a recipe from Trophy Cupcakes for their S'mores Cupcakes, but decided to just use the same recipe and make it into a cake.

Since I own one cake pan. ONE. (And that is thanks to Shannon and Chris) I didn't have many options, but I am glad I ended up using the Springform.

Here are the directions on how to make Smores Cupcakes but since I took a !@#$ ton of pictures of the process, you got to suffer through those as well. Be excited.

Delicious cake batter

Ground graham crackers and butter. 

 Since I wasn't pressing them into cupcake liners, I jammed as much of the graham cracker/butter/sugar creation into the bottom of the Springform pan. Side note: Don't taste the graham cracker/butter/sugar or else you will eat 1/2 of it and need to break up more graham crackers to make enough to cover the bottom of your pan. Go ahead and ask me how I know this....

Before you put the graham cracker batter in the oven, sprinkle chocolate over it. It is DELICIOUS as a result! 

You toss in the batter after it comes out and voila! A cake! 

Be prepared for more random cake photos.....

Cake 2, I put some graham cracker batter on the top (because I had to make more for some weird reason *cough*cough*)

I have yet to perfect the art of making my cake come out flat so I can ice it without gaps. The only thing I have figured out is that once it is out of the oven, and cooled a little, but still warm, I put a cutting board on top of the cake with a little weight, and let it cool. I find that the other cake works really well as weight. :)

Flattened cakes!

At this point I thought to myself, "wow, this is going really well" and unbeknownst to me my subconscious thought , "now how can I royally screw this up?"

Enter the screw-up!

I was going to just throw Marshmallow Fluff in between the layers, but decided I wanted to try a Marshmallow icing recipe. HORRIBLE IDEA!! HORRIBLE!!

 It was like a river. I put the other layer on top of the cake and ended up turning the cake upside down for about half an hour in hopes that it would stop flowing. I scraped the edges and scraped the edges and hoped it would just stop flowing. I put the meringue icing on it and then hoped that it would help hold it in place. The stuff was like lava, broke through the meringue and the cake ended up looking like a DISASTER in the end. So words of wisdom...if you make this cake do not make marshmallow icing... DO NOT!

Cake - pre-disaster. I have no post disasters because I was so upset that it pretty much fell apart. It tasted good, but that's all it had going for it.

Vote for Adam here or Harvey...he's pretty cute too!

Cookie Disasters

Martha Steward I am not.

Baby wearing Cookie Baking

EVER. I'm just happy that I keep this kid alive everyday.

My aunt sent me a sugar cookie recipe that was my (let me see if I can get this right) great, great, great grandma's. I remember the cookies BEING DELICIOUS when my grandmother would make them, so I said those magical 5 jinxing words, "How hard can it be?"

Apparently, I need to be a grandmother before I'm able to make these cookies!!

SERIOUSLY.  I'm about two cookie batches away from throwing the towel in and playing Scrooge! The dough starts out really sticky. I guess Karo syrup will do that hu? You're suppose to add flour to it while you're rolling out, but I added too much as I was rolling it out, and so now the cookies taste like flour and not like cookies. IMHO. My husband told me they tasted good. He's my husband, he has to say that...right?

You decorate the cookies with sugar before you put them in the oven. I'm thinking that a bag of Keebler cookies out of a bag and on a tray will be as good, right?

In baby news, Bug has been on some sort of sleep strike. He has reverted back to short naps and waking up all the freaking time. Seriously, it's such a good thing that he is so cute. I think it is the antibiotics playing a trick on him because he was sleeping through the night before he got sick. Hopefully he will go back to sleeping more than two hours at a time when he's done with them. It would have been easier for me if he would have continued to get up every two hours up, but getting three months of sleep was so fabulous and now I miss it again.

My two favorite guys

 Bug's dad always gets him ready for bed. (Well 6/7 days a week.) Tonight he wasn't having it (going to bed) so my two guys are passed out on the couch. My cat is not amused!

Oh! Don't forget to vote for Adam (or super adorable 87 year old guy, but definitely Adam!)

Delicious Mistakes

A few days ago I made sugar cookie dough, got distracted, and couldn't remember where I left off (aka, how much sugar I had put in.) I did a test tray, and the cookies just didn't taste the way they were suppose to. I didn't want to throw out a double batch of dough, but couldn't figure out how to "fix" it. It just wasn't "right." 

This past summer at the Farmer's Market there was a man who sold Cookie Pies. They were DELICIOUS, so I figured I could give it a try.

I first thought I'd bake the bottom for a little bit first (bad idea.) I ended up throwing that out and trying again. 

Crust 1 of 2, maybe 3?

Our freezer is full of blueberries and cranberries that we picked, but I wasn't about to waste those on a pie if it didn't work out. Canned Cherry pie filling is pretty much my favorite thing in the entire world, so no twisting my arm there, and I threw a can in (next time I would put two, but didn't want to waste them if it didn't turn out.)

When I bake the cookies they only take 7 minutes, exactly, any longer and they are burnt and any shorter and they just aren't done. I started the pie out for 15 minutes at 350, but it just wasn't baking. I fiddled with the time some more, turned it down, and let it go longer, turned it up, turned it down. I don't remember a single thing that I did.

It came out of the oven looking like a pie, and for that I was excited. When I cut into it, it wasn't fully done, so I threw it back into the oven. FINALLY after not remembering a single thing I did (what a great recipe, hu!) we cut into it again.

I would add more cherries next time. It was SO YUMMY! If I wasn't doing stupid (which it's not, but when I can't eat a whole pie, it's stupid) Weight Watchers I would have just taken it with a fork and told everyone that it was poisoned. It was super yummy!!

Cherries are fruit right? I mean, there isn't THAT much cookie there, right? I need to make more cookie dough pies. YUM!!!

36 days!

I know I've said this 932 times since I started writing this blog, but I LOVE CHRISTMAS! Did you know there are ONLY 36 days until Christmas? I know! You want to slap me. Sorry. I can't help it! 

A simple math problem for you 36 (days) + 1 (infant) = 8 days. Seriously. I passed math I promise, but mom math IS different. I want to make sure that I have enough stuff baked. made, etc. for gifting so I figured I'd get a start on it! Bug will happily watch me bake or cook, but I would feel guilty doing a whole bunch later so I figured I'd get a start on it now. I'm going to try to bake one batch a day between now and Christmas so I have enough stuff (because we ALL know there will be a ton of days I will do nothing.) 

I decided to start the cooking baking with some sugar cookies. When I was in college I would spend an ENTIRE night baking when I came home for holiday break. My mom would wake up to hundreds of cookies and I would pass out for a day or two. I also did a stint for YEARS working at an amusement park for a few of those years I made cookies.I use to know the recipe by heart, but don't exactly have a mixer that can handle 10 pounds of flour 5 pounds of butter and 22 eggs...

I LOVE BAKING.

LOVE IT. 

This is the first year that I actually have a space to make cookies. In past years I've just made Toffee for everyone (also the easiest thing in the world) and that was it. I love to bake! 

I also consequently love eating what I bake, and that doesn't turn out so well for me....UNFAIR. 

My adorable assistants getting Big Read ready for me.

I read a few baking blogs and decided to try SugarBelle's Sugar Cookie recipe. It looked good, and I figure she makes cookies EVERYDAY so why not. 

The dough was amazing to work with. Super easy to cut out the shapes and no sticking. I used Almond flavoring (aka my favorite flavor) and the cookies were DELICIOUS. I "accidentally" broke a few so I HAD to eat them. I decided that since they were broken, the calories must have fallen out which made them a Weight Watcher PP value of 0. That makes sense right? 

Now for some random pictures of the Bug. He assisted me with the cookies (don't worry, he didn't touch the actual cookies.)

His dad snuck him a piece of cookie. It was MUCH like the Cookie monster. He mushed it all up and the cookie crumbled out all over. ALL OVER.

Yesterday I made Reese Cup Cookies (do these HAVE a name?) I feel like they were called something else at some point. Perhaps Delicious?

 Super easy recipe to make 40 cookies, but sadly the bag of Reese's had a hole in and some were missing (cough cough.)

Since there were missing Reese's cups, I had extra dough left over. I took out the fun sized Hershey bars (seriously, I skipped right to grandma status. I have candy hidden all over my house) and wrapped the dough around those and baked them. They turned out great! I only had 6, so I sent them to work with my husband. I might buy some other candy and see how that turns out. 

Do you have a favorite Christmas cookie that you make each year? 

Christmas!

Okay, so I realize that the great majority of you want to throw something at my head. HA! You can't. Yes. I realize there are two major holidays between now and Christmas. Thanksgiving and my birthday. Okay, okay, Thanksgiving.

Nothing puts me in the Christmas spirit like snow, and living in Alaska, that is easy to come by. It snowed in September, but thankfully melted away, or else I would have been singing jingle bells for months now. My husband and I have agreed that I won't decorate for Christmas until AFTER Thanksgiving. Forget Black Friday shopping, I'm getting up and decorating!

Just because I can't decorate, doesn't mean that I can't get ready to decorate right? Bug and I have been working on some gifts for Christmas, but since they are for family, and family reads this blog I can't show you those. Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise. One thing I did make for myself was this ornament.

It is Bug's hat from when he was born and both of our wristbands from the hospital. I'm pretty excited to hang it on the tree. It's a plastic ball, so that means it's cat and kid proof.

Speaking of Kid, here is Bug in his new ride. He isn't quite tall enough yet, but thinks it is HILARIOUS. He has already been in his first hit and run. He knocked over a table, and thought it was the funniest thing ever. Once my heart started to beat again, I guess it was pretty funny.

Magic!

I have seen this recipe floating around the interwebz for a while now. It was called "Two Ingredient Cookies." I was skeptical. How in the world could cookies taste good without sugar, butter, etc. IMPOSSIBLE.

but is it?

So, I tried this magical recipe. Sure, I added in chocolate chips, and craisins...and some cinnamon...and a dash of vanilla...but the initial recipe has just two ingredients. I just didn't want to believe that it would work.

SO.

2 old bananas to a cup of oats (give or take on the oats) and mix until it looks like batter. At this point I added in all my other stuff, and popped them in the oven for 15 minutes at 350. They were DELICIOUS. Next time I might make a few without the extra "stuff" to see how they taste, but I'd definitely make these again.