"Mommy, I Do It"

Lately my 2 year old daughter's favorite phrase is, "Mommy, I do it." And boy, does she want to do everything.  For Memorial  Day, I offered to bring dessert to a barbecue. So since I happened to have all of the ingredients for Dump Cake and the instructions are so easy, a two year old could do it, I decided to let Cora make her first dessert.  Here's how she made it...

You need:

• 1 can (21 Oz.) Cherry Pie Filling
• 1 can (15 Oz.) Crushed Pineapple
• 1 box (about 18 Oz.) Yellow Cake Mix
• 1/2 cup Chopped Pecans (optional)
• 1 stick Margarine
• 1/2 stick Butter

Preheat the oven at 350. 

While that's heating up, dump your can of cherries in a 9 x 13 pan.

Next, dump your can of crushed pineapple in the pan.  You don't need to drain it. Just dump the whole thing in.

Now mix until all of the fruit and juices are combined in fruit harmony.  

Now it's time for the cake mix. If you opted to add the pecans, dump the pecans in your cake mix.  Then dump the cake mix on top of the fruit. Spread it evenly throughout your pan. Do not mix it in with the fruit. You should have a layer of fruit and a layer of cake mix.

Cut up the margarine and butter into slices. Then distribute the pats of butter and margarine on top of the cake mix.

Of course, after Cora added the butter, I went in rearranged the butter, so it was more evenly distributed.  And of course every time I had to assist her, she said, "No mommy. I do it!" 

Now your Dump Cale is ready for the oven. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour.

Don't worry, I didn't really let her put the pan in the oven.  She was happy just to have oven mitts.

While ours baked, we cleaned up, had tummy time with Julia, checked in on our cake's progress, and sang songs.  

Once it was ready, I took it out of the oven and prepped it to take to the barbecue.  Unfortunately we were having a crisis at the time (I'll explain in a minute) and I forgot to take a picture of the fresh-out-of-the-oven cake.  Here it is after we got into it. Seriously delicious! It's kind of like a fruit crisp. My husband loves it with a scoop of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream.  By the time we left, the entire cake was gone.

Okay back to my crisis.. Right as we were getting to leave, Cora decided to grab a smoky eyeshadow compact when I wasn't looking. She plopped herself right in the middle of my bed pillows (a favorite spot of hers), and decided to apply it herself.  I can just hear her saying, "Mommy, i do it!"  I have a white comforter and 2 white pillows. She and my bed were a mess when I found her!

We were so late, but at least her dessert was a hit!

DIY: Making Felt Cupcakes (Free Pattern & Tutorial)

Aren't these just adorable?  One of the things I love about making felt food is that it's easy, inexpensive, and so cute once they're done.  I made these as my daughter napped today. I also took lots of pictures and created a pattern so you can make some too.

Here is the pattern.  Cut the pattern out and trace it on to your felt. Then cut your felt pieces.  Your cupcake pieces look something like this...

Okay I know it looks like a happy face.  I placed it that way because it made me giggle :-)  As you can see, we are making a chocolate cupcake.  So you should have:

• cupcake bottom
• cardboard bottom
• cupcake top
• cupcake side

Take your cupcake side and overlap the two ends slightly.  It should look like this.. 

Sew the piece together using a whip stitch.  In case you don't know how to whip stitch by hand, here is a good video.  It's really easy and you can do this while watching t.v.  

Once that's done, you can sew the cupcake bottom to the cupcake side using the same stitch.  When you are done, it should look like this....

Next, sew the cupcake top on. About half way through, place your cardboard bottom on the inside of your cupcake.  This will help your cupcake stand.  No need to glue it on.  You will add the stuffing next and that will keep the cardboard in place.  Once you stuffed your cupcake, sew it shut.

Ice, Ice Baby!  Time to cut out some icing.

Once my icing pieces were cut, I went ahead and used fabric glue to place the icing.  You can sew this if you prefer. First glue Icing A, B, C, D, and the topping of choice all together.

Once the icing has been assembled, glue the entire top to the cupcake.  Allow to dry according to your fabric glue instructions (mine says 24 hours).

Viola!  Your cupcake is ready to be served at your child's next tea party.

I designed these cupcakes to be the same size as actual cupcakes, so you can put them in muffin tins or in cupcake liners.

Enjoy!

A Year In A Flash - Celebrating Cora's Birthday

A few months ago, I was hunting for cute birthday party themes for Cora's First Birthday. I came across Stacey's party and thought it was the perfect theme for us. Here's what we did...

I created a photo collage (above) on my fav photo site picnik (so sad this site will be shut down in April). The collage was used for the invitation and for the cake.

The Invitation

The invitation was created on Paperless Post. I'm not the biggest fan of paper invitations

because of all of the paper waste, but I understand that some people don't have e-mail (like my mom). Paperless Post allows you to create beautiful e-invitations/e-cards, but you also have the option to print them out. Here is what the invitation looked like. I just printed this on nice card stock.

Timeline Banner

Since the venue for the party was already beautifully decorated, I kept my party decorations fairly simple. I knew the colors of the room had a lot of earth tones, so I chose pink and green for the party colors.

I created a timeline banner of Cora's first year. I painted clothes pins in glued on the number medallions with a hot glue gun. The medallions were just a punch of paper and the numbers were cut from my Cricut machine.

The timeline banner held pictures of Cora from each month of the past year.

Treats

I had two tables of food. One table was a snack table and the other was a yummy treat table. Here are the details...

My uncle and I made the wonderful cake pops. I find that traditional cake balls are too sweet, so instead of balling up cake and icing and dipping them in chocolate, we just just cut out pieces of pound cake, inserted the pop sticks, froze, then dipped in colored chocolate. The decoration on the pops are from chocolate transfer sheets. the flower pot was $0.79 at Ikea. I just cut out a large flower and a C on the Cricut and glued it on.

The cookies are done just like my easy no bake thin mints. Except that I used colored chocolate instead of Andes mints and used the chocolate transfer sheets again.

The popcorn bags were made from small treat bags. I used the Cricut to cut out C's and 1's and glued them on the bag. The popcorn was a salty/sweet mixture of cheese and caramel popcorn.

More Goodies!

I knew I'd be crunch for time to do a cake so I purchased a 1/2 sheet cake from Costco and asked them to only ice it in white. I took a jpeg of the collage picture from Picnik and had an edible sugar sheet made at a local cake supply store. I also purchased the colored Sixlet chocolate balls to border the cake. I found the CORA letter candles at Party City.

In keeping with the colors of the theme, I offered 2 beverages: pink strawberry punch, and cucumber water. I put them in beverage dispensers.

Since my party started at 2:30 in the afternoon, I just had deli and veggie trays, love dip and chips, and fruit skewers. The chocolate oat crisp cookies came from Ikea (I love those cookies!).

Photobooth and Party Pics

I made fun pink and green shades and moustaches. I also made talk bubbles out of chalkboard contact paper, matting board, and wooden dowels. I hired a photographer who captured photo booth type pics and all of the other party pics. I really love how this turned out!

Party favors

Last but not least, since I had leftover chalkboard contact paper, I decided to make mini talk bubbles to put in the party favor bags. The kids got mini talk bubbles, chalk, stickers, and other various goodies.

We had a wonderful party and Cora was showered with a lot of love! I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Have a happy day!

I had a few friends over for dinner tonight. For dessert I decided to try out a new recipe I spotted in All You. This cake had rave reviews and was pretty easy to make. I posted a pic on Facebook and a lot of people asked for the recipe, so here it is...

Molten Chocolate-Nutella Pudding Cakes

• YIELD: Serves 6
• PREP TIME: 25 MINUTES
• BAKE: 30 MINUTES
• COST PER SERVING:$1.12
• COURSE: Desserts

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons Nutella

Preparation

• 1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Mist 6 6-oz. ramekins with cooking spray. Place a roasting pan in oven; pour in 1/2 inch of hot water. In a bowl, whisk flour, cocoa and baking powder.
• 2. Combine chocolate and butter in a microwave-safe bowl; cook on high, stirring once or twice, until almost melted, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk until smooth. (I only needed to microwave for 1 minute.)
• 3. In a bowl, with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat eggs, vanilla, sugar and salt until pale yellow, about 5 minutes. Beat in melted chocolate mixture. Stir in flour mixture. Spoon half of batter into ramekins. Drop 1 Tbsp. of Nutella into center of each. Cover with remaining batter.
• 4. Transfer ramekins to roasting pan. Bake until cakes have risen and are cracked on top, about 30 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes. Serve warm.

You can prepare the ramekins up to a day ahead — do not bake, just cover and refrigerate. Bake the cakes for about 5 minutes longer than the recipe states.

Enjoy!

Off To A Good Start

I completed week two of acupuncture and week one of Bodybugg and I am down 4.2 pounds overall. I try to get to the gym at least 2 times a week for cardio and in the for next couple of weeks, I'll add strength training. I've also cut down my sodium. Most of the food show above was made with salt free seasonings (unless I added a sprinkle of cheese). I really wanted to post a screen shot of my Bodybugg stats, but I'm having issues with it since I am using my husband's computer (mine is being repaired). Once I get my computer back, I'll post those up. As far as the acupuncture goes, I do think it's working. I've noticed a big difference in my appetite and I haven't had any late night snacking. I'm hoping to have another great week!

This past weekend we celebrated the upcoming wedding for my dear friends, Melissa and Larry. We had a Jamaican themed couples shower and everything turned out beautifully. We served jerk chicken, rice and beans cooked in coconut milk, plantains, Jamaican patties, fresh fruit, rum punch, and pineapple upside down cake. I made the pineapple tree with fresh fruit and the pineapple upside down cake. Our party favors were coconut cups. Most of our guests enjoyed their rum punch in their coconut cups :-)

Of course, I can't post without mentioning my little one...

Ready for Spring!

I found this cute dress at Costco!

Someone is hogging the bed :-)

Actually just a snooze while I got ready for the day.

Wishing you all a happy and healthy day!

The 2010 Christmas Holiday Season

Merry Christmas!

The Christmas holiday came in a flash! Even being 7-8 months pregnant and busy with baby preperations, I manged to squeeze a lot of my favorite holiday activities in this month. Here are a few of my holiday activities....

Handmade Christmas Cards

My girlfriends and I have been making handmade Christmas cards for the nursing home for a few years. We get together for an afternoon and bring out all of our scrapbooking and craft supplies. We cranked out aprox 80 cards this year!

The Cookie Exchange

I hosted my 2nd cookie exchange for 10 of my close friends. We each had to make 6 dozen cookies. I am always nervous to try out new cookie recipes for occasions like this so I stuck to a cookie that's always been a hit, I made the Cranberry Pistachio Mexican Wedding Cake Cookie.

Here is the completed tray of cookies after the exchange. Cookies featured this year were: Peppermint Cocoa Kiss Cookies, Triple Ginger (using crystalized ginger, fresh ginger, and powdered ginger), Red Velvet Cookies, with Cream Cheese Icing, Potato Chip Cookies, Lemon Volcanos, Oatmeal Cinnamon, Butterfinger, Snickerdoodles, Pecan Triangles, and Noels. All so good!

Stocking Stuffers

I have a huge family and a lot of cousins. We usually draw names and do a secret Santa gift exchange, but I also like to give each cousin a little stocking stuffer. This year I have sweet treats packed in paper cones for the guys, and a pair of gloves for the girls. I love how these turned out. Simple cuteness!

Well, I am off to celebrate Christmas with the family. I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! I am looking forward to sharing another year with my blogger friends!

Easy No Bake Thin Mints

Tis the season for cookie exchanges, office potlucks, and holiday parties. If you're like me, it can mean you are on a baking overload. So I thought I'd share an easy no bake cookie that's always a hit for the holidays (or if you're craving Girl Scout Thin Mints on the off season).

You only two ingredients:


•Ritz Crackers (I like using the "hint if salt" Ritz Crackers)
•2 pkgs of Andes Creme de Menthe baking chips (I have tried Nestle's mint and chocolate swirl morsels and they don't melt as easily)

Yields aprox 64 cookies (about 1/2 box of Ritz Crackers)

On med-low heat, place your baking baking chips in a double boiler for melting. If you don't have a double boiler (like me), add a couple of cups of water to a pot and place a heat resistant mixing bowl in the pot.



Slowly you chocolate will melt and stir until completely smooth.



Once your chocolate is smooth, dip your Ritz Cracker covering both sides in chocolate.



Place cookies on foil, parchment paper, or even freezer paper and let it cool for about 5-10 minutes.



Once cooled, peel each cookie off the foil and redip the top of the cookie in chocolate. I suggest that you peel all the cookies first, then redip.



These cookies cool really quickly and you can easily make and plate them in 30 minutes. They also freeze beautifully and taste great right out if the freezer.


Enjoy!

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