Eve's Fan Garden

This fun new site was developed by a few friends of mine. It is a site for all things fan girly - books, movies, music, etc. I'm still exploring it, and it's so fun. They are doing a giveaway if you care to check it out here. Enjoy!

Cupcakes, Weight Loss & Miscellaneous

There are a bunch of random things I need to fill my readers in on.

#1 Cupcakes do not equal weight loss. During my Healthy Living Challenge, which began yesterday, I will taste my cupcakes every week. If a certain variety is good enough to warrant a complete face plant, I will deal with the consequences. Fortunately, cupcakes are not my downfall. The Cookie Bible cookbook would have be disastrous for my backside.

#2 Almond Joyous reviews have started to come in. Two tasters from last night commented that they were outrageously fantastic. This is very exciting. Just to clarify, I did not ask for reviews as a way to puff up my baker's ego (snort), I truly want to know if they are good or if they stink. I don't want to keep baking cupcakes from this cookbook if they aren't worth it.

#3 There are really fun cupcake recipe websites!

CupcakeRecipes.com

Martha Stewart Cupcake Recipes

allrecipes.com

#4 They make really pretty papers and packaging for your cupcakes! Bake it Pretty has wonderfully fun cupcake papers, embellishments and boxes to have fun with. My order arrived today in this cute bag...

and had my super fun cupcake papers in it...

I think that was all the miscellaneous cupcake-related reporting. And yes, I have my eye on delivering to my local blog friends in the future. *wink*

Almond Joyous Cupcakes

Week 2 - Almond Joyous Cupcakes

If you love coconut, you'll love these cupcakes! It is truly and Almond Joy-type experience. The cupcake is a chocolate cake mix baked according to the directions. The white layer is evaporated milk, sugar, large marshmallows and coconut all melted together. The chocolate layer is melted chocolate chips, butter, more evaporated milk, more sugar and slivered almonds. They were an ooey-gooey delight.

Once again I have to say that right out of the oven, they were divine. They are very chewy, just like the candy bar, so if you don't love coconut, you might want to pass on these. I do not know how they are on the second day. As soon as I collect some reviews, I will post a little more. Because of the richness of these cupcakes, they went out to five different homes so that should give us a good sampling of opinion. If you are reading this, have received a plate of cupcakes and are a blogger, please post a comment. If you are not a blogger, please send me an email with your review.

Stay tuned for a post including some great cupcake sites I've located on the web!

Bon Appetite!

Applesauce Cupcake Update

Okay, these were really yummy...when they were warm. When they cooled down, I noticed a flavor difference that made me want to update my last post. If you decide to make these, you may want to make a change.

The "flour" for these is Bisquick, and I don't believe there was enough spice coming through. I would make one or more of the following three changes:

1. Use cinnamon applesauce

2. Use more cinnamon

3. Use a little more sugar

I believe one or all of these changes would have been powerful enough to overcome the blandness of the Bisquick. The warm butter and cinnamon sugar on the top was da bomb! I wanted the rest of the cupcake to taste that good.

Hope that is helpful. I will definitely try these again and experiment. Warming them in the microwave the next day was definitely awesome. These are a cupcake that is more muffin-like, and warm is definitely the way to go!

A Cupcake Project

As the credits for the movie, Julie and Julia, rolled on my television screen I found myself not only pleased with the movie, but inspired. It was so fun to learn more about Julia Child's beginnings as a world-renowned chef. Meryl Streep is one of my favorite actresses, and she did a phenomenal job with her portrayal. Everything I learned about Julia was a treat. The inspiration came from watching modern day Julie take on the task of cooking her way through Julia Child's, The Art of French Cooking. Julie had a passion for cooking and for writing, and she wanted to take on a project that incorporated both. She challenged herself to cook all 574 recipes from Julia's cookbook in 365 days, and she blogged about the whole experience.

An idea began to form in my mind...

What if I cooked my way through a cookbook and blogged about it? Well, not a cookbook. I am no chef and have no interest in that. But I love to bake. I have several very scrumptious baking cookbooks that never get opened. Hmmmm. Would there be a point to this project?

I decided there were be a few goals I could meet through this project.

1. Cracking open a cookbook that sits in my cupboard. When you never crack open a cookbook, but store it for years on end, this becomes a good goal.

2. Sharing a passion that I have with my daughters. I love to bake cookies, brownies, cakes, etc. and think about baking with my girls all the time. I never get past the "thinking" and get to the "doing" with this activity.

3. Spending time with my daughters. See #2.

4. Sharing my love of friendship with my girls as we choose different friends and neighbors to share our baked goods with each week.

And so it was decided, a goal was set, and a book was chosen.

We will be baking through this lovely Cupcake Recipe Deck that was given to me by my sister a couple of years ago...

50 recipes in 52 weeks, one each Sunday. I think we can do it. There are 50 frosting recipes included which make up the 100 total recipes in the deck. The need for frosting will be determined as we make each recipe.

We started tonight with the Applesauce Cupcakes.

They have been mixed, baked and sampled, and they are delicious. The batter was a little thicker than we expected, and I didn't read the "mini cupcake pan" note until the batter was loaded in the large cupcake pan, but it didn't matter. They came out very well. Cooking time was approximately 10 minutes in a Pampered Chef cupcake stone. The topping suggestion was melted butter, sugar and cinnamon. I highly recommend it.

Oh, and if you haven't seen Julie and Julia, it's worth the rental.

January 1, 2010

Happy New Year! We slept in after last night's festivities. We didn't do anything too strenuous and had a relaxing day at home.

My friend, Angie, visited for a bit with my sister and I, and the kids had a good time playing together.

Gavin helped Kelly make the homemade taco dinner...

And Kelly showed Michelle how Grandma Amelia's cinnamon rolls are made...

SCRUMPTIOUS! This was an excellent batch! My hub is the cinnamon roll man!

Have a wonderful year this year! We hope you fill it with laughter and the love of family and friends!

In A Word...

Well here we are. A new year. I normally have that Spring Cleaning feeling right after Christmas. I think it has something to do with the amount of Christmas-related clutter that starts to take over the house. When the tree comes down and all the decorations go back, the house gets a good cleaning that often includes some clean-out so that newly acquired items will have a home.

The new year is traditionally a time for resolutions. I've never been a fan of New Year's resolutions. I figure if you have a big problem to work on or a goal you want to accomplish, you don't have to wait for a new year to get started.

As I reviewed events for 2009, I noticed that I had grasped a concept that has become a mantra so-to-speak these last few months. It is the concept of "choosing the better part." I have become better at deciding which events and activities will have more long-reaching importance in my life or the life of my children. I have found so much peace. I still hate it when my house is dirty, but I'm not as stressed about it.

Having this phrase to focus on has helped in many areas, and I will keep this in mind as I go through the year. I've also decided to choose a word this year that will be a "theme" to help me focus on many goals that I have. I was reading a post on a blog I follow (see column to the right, "Bloom") and discovered a word that really fit.

Mindful

I like it. Mindful means simply to be conscious or aware of something. I need to be mindful of many things: my weight, my children, my marriage, my friends, my home, my faith... There are so many goals I have. I believe that being aware and cognizant of them may help rather than what I usually do which consists of becoming so wrapped up in the pace of life that I forget what is important.

We'll see how it goes.

If you were to choose a word that would be your overall theme for the year, what would it be?