Nuts & Berries Buttercream Frosting

So once again I was looking for a way to fancy up a box of cake mix... chocolate this time. Since I have a bottle of chambord, I thought raspberry frosting and oh what about the half dozen bottles of various extracts sitting in the spice cupboard? Nuts and berries frosting it is! (OK, I confess. I didn't have hazelnut extra, but almond works too right?)

Ingredients:
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp Frangelico or 1/2 tsp hazelnut extract
1 tsp Chambord or 1/2 tsp raspberry extract

Directions:
Cream butter until smooth and light. While mixing at medium speed, slowly add powdered sugar. When combined, add liquor. Whip at high speed unitl thick and creamy. To adjust consistency, add a tablespoon of milk or powdered sugar while whipping until desired consistency is achieved.

T-shirt Jewelry

So Body + Soul magazine had a great upcycle idea this month - t-shirt necklaces. It was actually quite fortuitous, as the husband had just decided to purge the closet of his worn out t-shirts.
The process is quite simple and needs no special tools (or any notable skill for that matter), although a rotary cutter and cutting mat are preferred to scissors.

1) Cut out several 3/4" wide strips from the bottom of the t-shirt (discarding the hem)
2) Pull the loops taught, causing the raw edges to curl in
3) Use a scrap of material from the t-shirt or otherwise to wrap the loops together at the seams (if any) and tuck loose end of scrap under itself (I wrapped the loops once before binding in order to make a shorter necklace)

I also applied to same method to the sleeves and made a bracelet:

Simple Valentine's Pancakes

So for Valentine's day I wanted to make a special treat for my boys. I have some pancakes molds but they are such a pain to work with. I tried out an experiment that turned out really great... after letting the batter sit on the griddle momentarily, I pushed a cookie cutter through, let it rest on the griddle briefly (about 10 seconds), and then pulled straight out of the batter before it began to set. When I flipped the pancakes over there was a clear outline left... a simple upscale to Sunday morning pancakes.

Jewelry

One of my secret childhood dreams was to become a jeweler. I came across some old jewelry today that I made back when I had the time and resources to do such things. A few of these items I still wear upon occasion, but most of them are rather tarnished.

'Harvest Moon' - This is the only piece I ever officially named. I believe this is a carnelian cabochan set in silver. The band is made of half round wire and wrapped with brass.


Left: Copper necklace with glass and plastic beads
Right: I believe the center cabochan is garnet, the outer moonstone, set in silver. I intended to work this into a y necklace but never did.

Silver slave bracelet with what may be ametrine cabochans. The silver pendant at the end was purchased.


Left: Brass cuff bracelet. The mold was made from melting a plastic fork.
Right: Copper and brass dress pendant.


A fossil I found at Lake Michigan, lightly polished and set in brass.


Silver labradorite ring alongside a silver heart "charm" bracelet.

Crayon Party!

So for my son's second birthday party I thought of doing a coloring theme. The kid sure does love to color. I saw in Parent's magazine an advertisement for the crayola website where you can get a coloring page made out of one of your photographs. I chose a cute picture of the birthday boy and printed them out at 1/2 page size. On the other side of the paper I printed out the invitation text. Invitees were instructed to color the picture and bring it back for a coloring contest. For the invitation wrapper I made a tri-fold crayon and printed it on brightly colored card stock.



At the party we had our son's favorite meal: macaroni and cheese with pureed squash and served chocolate cake with homemade blueberry frosting (for a nice purple color without mystery colorants). To make it into a crayon I made two small sheet cakes and set them end to end. Two diagonal cuts at the top made the crayon tip (and a nice pre-party snack). Once the cake was frosted I used black sugar to make a crayon design to complete the look.



For favors I used brightly colored favor boxes filled with dime store coloring books, a few washable crayons, stickers, and a package of toddler gummy snacks.

So hardly anyone colored, and the birthday boy was frightened of the bubble machine I got him, but all in all I'd say the party was a success!

(Easy) Pumpkin Cheesecake Ice Cream

Just in time for Thanksgiving here is my recipe for Pumpkin Cheesecake Ice cream that I will be bringing to our family feast this year. I will put up pictures once I serve it!

Ingredients:
9 oz cream cheese
4 oz sour cream
1 pt heavy cream
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tbsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1/3 cup pumpkin puree
2 tbsp lemon juice
Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Refrigerate for at least one hour. Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions and enjoy!

Serving suggestions:
Serve on top of pumpkin waffles or pumpkin pie.
Enjoy with ginger cookies or cinnamon graham crackers.

Easy Marble Cake with Chocolate Frosting

So I recently came into an unwanted box of yellow cake mix. With our anniversary coming around I got to thinking how easy it would be to make a marble cake (which was served at our wedding) with a box of mix. Add to that my son conveniently flipping to a page featuring chocolate frosting in the KitchenAid book and Voila! an unending craving for chocolate frosted marble cake appeared. The concept was simple: prepare the mix, pour all but 1 or 2 cups into prepared pans, add hot chocolate mix to remainder and marble. Whip up a simple chocolate frosting recipe courtesy allrecipes.com. Frost. Done. Or maybe not?
After sticking the cake in the oven and creaming the butter for the frosting I discovered we had little more than half a cup of confectioner's sugar. No problem, right? I stuck some sugar and cornstarch in the food processor and processed the heck out of it. Whilst willfully ignoring the shiny glints of sugar crystals in the mix, I made up the frosting recipe. The crunchy and not fluffy frosting recipe. Not to be defeated I spend over an hour trying to cook the glop long enough that the sugar would melt (ha!). Several hours of frustration later my husband was boiling what was now inedible chocolate "candy" out of a pot, a Pyrex dish, and the mixer bowl. (Thank you!)
Still refusing to be conquered by such a simple task as whipping butter, cream, and sugar, I rushed off to the grocery store the next morning. I bought the biggest bag of confectioner's sugar they had and made a silent promise to never run out of it again! And after 5 minutes of easy labor later I had my chocolate frosted cake! And did I mention the frosting is free of hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, or animal lard (gross!) you're likely to find in the store bought variety? Hope you all are inspired by this recipe, though there is very little to it.

Ingredients:
Cake:
1 package of white or yellow cake mix, prepared
1 pkg or 4 tbsp hot cocoa mix

Frosting:
2 3/4 cup confectioners sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
6 tbsp butter, softened
1/3 cup cream or evap. milk
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:
Pour all but 1/3 of prepared cake batter into desired pan(s). Mix hot cocoa into remaining batter. Drop chocolate batter by the spoonful into the cake pans. To marble batter, pull a knife through the batter alternating forward and backward strokes starting at the left of the pan and moving towards the right. Turn pans 90 degrees and repeat. Bake according to directions provided with cake mix. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

Cream butter with electric mixer. Combine sugar and cocoa. While mixing on low speed, alternately add sugar mixture and cream until combined. Add vanilla and beat on high until fluffy. Add additional cream or sugar if needed. When cakes are cooled apply frosting as desired. Enjoy!