Baking - Uninterrupted

In less than twelve hours  my husband will be jet setting to another hotter, sunnier short-bearing destination for work....and lets just say I can think of somewhere else to be other than Manitoba too.  Needless to say he will be working, he won't 'be here... in Manitoba... where we still have lots of snow. 

Typically, when he travels in the winter months it usually blizzards {In fact my odds of it blizzarding when he's gone are far better at me ever winning a lottery} and I am left to fend for my kids and myself.  Believe it or not, I... {Yes, "I"} got a snow blower last year...how many women can say that?  But it was out of necessity, and yes, I know how to use it.

Half of the time he'll be gone, my son to will be away from the house in school (like his big sister). After wiping my tears and blowing my nose a couple times I plan on filling the empty hours with nothing but BAKING... all by myself, UNINTERRUPTED.  With St.Pattie's right around the corner, and my Dad's birthday too a cake will be in order, my options are unending.  My opportunity to make up the rainbow layer cake I've been gawking over from Sweetopolita with such vivid colours is at the top of my list. Who doesn't like rainbows? How could I pass this one up?



Sweetopolita's Rainbow Doodle Cake

Now, my Dad has never been a fan of fondant (I don't know why, he loves marshmallows and fondant can be made from marshmallows and icing sugar if you don't want to trade an arm and leg for a couple pounds of the premade variety) but that's fine, the lemon butter cream Rosie has suggested sounds Divine and will compliment the vanilla cake marvelously without doubt.

Now, if only I could break my little sunbeam kitchen stand mixer I would have real good reason to go and by my dream kitchenaid stand mixer...No, I am not planning anything - it broke, really.



Look at the rainbow... man, this is going to be hard to choose just one...it's like women and our shoes, why not have an assortment so they will match our outfit or our mood.  The orange is hot and so is the ice blue, er or maybe the apple green one, but if I pick a girly colour (PINK) my husband will be less apt to using my mixer and potentially breaking it.  I don't use his tools, so why should he use my mixer? Right?

Here's to baking tomorrow, rainbow cake in the near future and a few Luck o'the Irish Green Velvet Cupcakes for Ethan's class party on Thursday.  Stay tuned! This should be a week filled with posts!

Green Velvet Cupcakes to try from Love from the Oven

Smiles!

Supersized Frogs...would you like Flies with that?

Spring is soon to be upon us, and before I know it the back yard will be swamped, gushy and an atrocious mess... the perfect conditions for after school puddle jumping sessions, soggy pants and mud riddled clothes. Ah, the smell of melting snow and the croaking of frogs?

Earlier in the week a neighbour contacted me to follow up on a request she had made months ago. Her daughter was soon to turn seven and she felt cookies would be a perfect send-off token for all the little buddies attending the party. Like any good neighbour and delighted by the request I said "Yes, I can bake them for you." Followed by "Can I borrow a cup of sugar?" NO! Not really, I did have a late night door knocking a couple weeks back though and this was the exact conversation...

{firm knock at door}

Me:  "Hi."

Neighbour : " Hi, sorry to bug you - my wife decided to make some muffins, she ran out of eggs."

Me:  -

Neighbour:  "Could she borrow two eggs?".

Me:  "She can have them, I don't need them back.{smirk, poor late night humour.}"

Then I handed over my eggs, calculating how many I too would need for the week to tie us over to payday shopping, deliberating with myself if I should have given them up...that was equivalent to 1 double batch of sugar cookie dough. 

Me: "Happy Muffin Making, what time should we be over in the morning for breakfast?" {Smarta#$} 

{Door closes, neighbour leaves with my eggs in hand}.

I love my neighbours, they really are great, I had never experienced that before where someone would just walk over and ask to borrow something of that sort. Perhaps it's the small community we live in.  As long as the requests stop at baking supplies and not

 "Hey, can I borrow your wife Chad?  I need her to bake me a cake."

ANYWAYS... attempt at humour will now be cast aside and I will get to the order of today's business.

The other neighbour, with the cookie request - {before the side bar, and interlude of neighbourly commentary}  told me her daughter just loves frogs.  I recalled this from our original conversation and like a kid in the candy store went to town and began drawing up templates for potential winners to use for this very occasion.   Remember back a little while ago to my Princesses and the Frog post?  Well, that's the frog! With a few minor tweaks for eyes and mouth.  He was a little smaller than I figured for this party favour though, so I enlarged my pattern {ugh! the P word, I need to get me some cutters that can do double duty...ah, Sugarbelle...share with me your inner knowledge on "How the heck you do it?"}

Moving forward, a sucker for punishment  {as may already know for past posts} I drew my picture on paper, then traced the outline onto a piece of parchment paper.  Then I outlined this onto a piece of chipboard and cut it out.  This is what I got...

What do you get when you take a double batch of cookie dough and a quite house?  PRODUCTIVITY!!!  Roll, Cut, transfer, bake, cool, repeat.  Twenty four cookies later I was done and ready to move onto icing these little froggies. {Note time to complete - 1 hour, 10 minutes. Including clean up. YEAH ME!}

I made my icing ahead of time, thinned it to piping and flood-filling consistency, added my colours and then let them sit to allow for any air bubbles to surface and vanish in an attempt to have flawless cookies.

Day 1: Bake & Pipe outlines

First I piped the eyeballs using a Number 2 tip.

Then I filled in the gaps with the face outline, again with a Number 2 tip.

Then I made the crown outlines with a number 2 as well.

I let the outlines set up for about 45 minutes.  Then I proceeded to fill in the eyeballs and crowns. 

Wait some more, about 30 minutes, flood fill the green.  I wanted my frog warts to be flush with the green and not raised up, so I piped them randomly onto the bridge of the "nose" so they would settle in.

Then I left them over night undisturbed to harden up.

Day 2: Adding the finishing details

Using a Number 2 tip I piped the arch for the frogs smile, and added the pupils to the eyes with black, and added the rosey pink cheeks for added cuteness. 

Then I added the Monogram with a number 1 in piping consistency in black so they would pop out.  Time to finish drying.  I wrapped them up on Sunday, tied them with coordinating ribbon and attached a cute little tag on them. I love plays on words, how could I resist this time?

Mission complete, party favours ready for pick up.

Pin It

Everything but the Kitchen Sink Cookies

What to make when you don't have a lot of much of anything? After adding a little bit of this and a little bit of that {...okay a little more of  "that"  because I like "that"}... I present my very own

Seriously though, I resorted to a degree of improvisation this time to come up with this dough.  And all be it, these are healthier ingredient choices, they've got to taste good together {it was more or less a gamble at this point...call it a cookie and they'll eat it right?}  Just don't go too far, the kids and husband {after all he's known to be quite smart} will catch on if you start serving green cookies with spinach and broccoli in them, and no; you can't even pass these off at St.Patties Day or Halloween no matter how far you dice, or puree the veggies!

Honestly, I didn't have much of anything to make any sort of specific cookie, just a lot of small quanities remaining to choose from so I opted to throw them all together! ...Along with some other stuff to bulk it up, add some sweetness a little texture and less guilt when I decidely opt to eat more than the average two accompanied by a tall glass of milk.

Here's what you'll need - and don't get fancy on the measuring; as I said earlier it was "a little bit of this and a little bit of that"...

In a large mixing bowl incorporate everything:  Go on, all at once now...

1 1/3 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp each - baking soda & baking powder
1 c. quick cooking oats (OR Special K 5 grain cereal is really good too for extra crunch or any other flake cereal you have on hand)
3/4.  chocolatey sweetness (my choice...chocolate chips, but you could also use rainbow sprinkles, spitz chocolate coated sunflower seeds etc.)
1/3 - 1/2 c. raisins (they're little, so we went long)
1/2 c. finely diced apple chunks, peel on
1/3 c. medium shredded coconut
1/2 c. unpacked yellow sugar (brown sugar)
1/2 c. granulated white sugar

Then, throw in 1 large egg {shell off, you know what I mean don't get cheeky now}
If it is too dry, add in second egg.
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 c. warmed (but not melted) butter or margarine (or peanut butter).

Mix it all together, Now here's the part the kids love-  knead it together with your hands, get messy, get mucky to incorporate everything.  Roll  the dough into 1 1/2 inch balls and bake on a parchment lined cookie sheet about 2-3 inches apart for 12-15 minutes or until golden at 350 degrees F.

Cool for 5 minutes on the pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool down the rest of the way. 

{I rotate my sheets around in my oven, top to bottom and spin them around too to even out baking...you can't tell me that your oven doesn't have a favorite hot spot destination?}

You should end up with a deliciously moist cookie.  Our batches yielded between 24-28 cookies.

Enjoy!

DIY Pancake Breakfast

It was an early start to the day to prepare these sweet little stacks of pancakes for the kids, but every bit worth seeing their reaction when they walked into the kitchen.  While working on the other plays on words I thought about so many types of foods or treats that could have little phrases to go with  and this is the one that first came to mind for pancakes.

After designing and printing out the tags on card stock, I punched them using my trusty 2" round punch and then mounted them to a popsicle stick with a glue dot.  Come breakfast time I divided the batter into 2 bowls and added gel food colour to get a rosey pink for one bowl.  Into the skillet in small dollar size rounds and piled high, I served them alternately with the original pancakes dripping with maple syrup and mini heart quinns (sprinkles.)  I stuck in a topper into each short stack and served them up to start off their special day!

Happy Valentines Day! Hope Your day is as sweet as mine!

Fun with Words Class Valentines

As usual I tend to go overboard {no pun intended...} when it comes to class activities and festivities for both my children. Now that my youngest is in kindergarten I had to do something totally quirky and fun for him to dish out to all this classmates...and what better time to share the love than Valentines Day! My girl had some fun little goodies to hand out too, but she opted for a more complex creation {I must have had sucker written all over my face...the things we do for our kids!}.

Admit it - Less Talking, More Doing.

Lately, I find myself searching and searching for ideas on what to bake up and present here to you. Honestly it's been bothering me because I'm afraid that what I put out her has to polished and perfect, then I realized that I'm just like everyone else...I'm your "Average Jo" - literally! {Jo's my name...really}. Plus, I am still trying to figure out all the ins and outs of this Blog.

I've gotten myself into a little predicament too... I was flipping through pictures and realized that I am not who I wish I could want to be. {Superficial! You're probably thinking} I know, only I can change this. I have to want to change and  I think nows the time, heaven knows I'm not getting any younger {and my knees told me that a week ago at my weekly volleyball night}!   

Rock Candy

Photo courtesy of http://www.megahowto.com/how-to-make-rock-candy, photo editing & enhancement by ME.

Some how my children and I got onto the topic of candy, perhaps it was a plea in disguise for me to let them eat junk for bed time snack instead of the fruit they ended up getting. Regardless, they wanted to "do" something so we opted to take a rip at making our own rock candy. How hard could it be?