Cooking

Espresso Spoons

I’ve mentioned before that coffee is a newer thing to me. I didn’t really drink coffee until after I was married. Hubby and I went to the Showboat Branson Belle and coffee came with the meal. I told them, yes I wanted some. He looked at me like I was crazy. I probably was, but I actually drank it and liked it. And the real kicker is, so did he.

We had already owned a coffee pot basically because I thought every house needed one in case you had a guest come over who wanted coffee. That and every once in a while a recipe called for coffee so we were set. But after that, that Christmas he got a Keurig Machine because we wanted one. Ooooh, we went high class, right. ha. Nowadays I want a French Press just because I hear it is even better coffee and I’ve never tried it. I found one on Amazon I want that is gorgeous but expensive… I found a cheap one ($10) at Ikea a few weeks ago. When I said I was going to buy it, I was told to hold off and get the one in the Amazon cart. It’s $40 versus $10. If I don’t like it, I’m only out $10 instead of $40. Needless to say, I don’t own either one.

Anyway… I saw a YouTube video that Tatyana of Tatyana’s Everyday Food did on Espresso Spoons. This year I got to attend our PEO talent table to raise money for our projects. I was trying to come up with something different to make for the auction. Those spoons popped into my head, so even though Tatyana says they are for winter… I thought it was something different! (more…)

Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Icebox Cupcakes

I swear, I’ve been obsessed with cakes and cookbooks. Well, the cookbook thing isn’t anything new. But this new, pretty, big, fancy cakes thing is new. I can’t tell you how many cookbooks I’ve at least picked up here recently if not put in my Amazon cart. No, I haven’t bought all of them… but a couple here and there. And the websites and the YouTube channels. Oh gosh, someone needs to break me of this habit. Although, right now I need to point out that so far this week I haven’t done ANY baking. I’m almost feeling at a bit of a loss.

Like I said, it’s become a new obsession I guess. The pretty cakes make me happy. One of the cookbooks I did pick up was the Simply Beautiful Homemade Cakes by Lindsay Conchar of Life, Love, & Sugar blog. Guys, no one asked me to say this, but the cakes that she put in this cookbook are just beautiful. I’ve made two of them actually. Although, these are cupcakes, not a cake… but aren’t they just beautiful? (more…)

Tiramisu French Macarons

The same day I made the Strawberry Lemonade French Macarons, I made Tiramisu French Macarons. I really like Tiramisu and when I saw this recipe over on Tatyana’s Everyday Food, I just knew I had to make them. The question was…. when. I was back and forth, back and forth on which ones to make between these and the Strawberry Lemonade French Macarons… but when I made the Spumoni Cake, I had 10, yes 10 egg whites just sitting around so that meant… hello, multiple flavors of French Macarons.

Now, this might also be the place to mention that when you make one French Macaron shell batter, clean all your equipment before starting on the second round of batter. If I would have done that, I would have had 3 types of French Macarons, but when I didn’t clean my equipment, it tainted my egg whites and they didn’t meringue up like they were supposed to. So just remember, wash between batters! It’s important!

The only thing you don’t have to wash is the beaters on the hand mixer because all they touch are egg whites and some sugar. Easy enough. (more…)

Strawberry Lemonade French Macarons

I have been on a French Macaron kick lately, but I guess when you make French Buttercream, you have a lot of egg whites left over. If you didn’t know, French Buttercream is made with egg yolks. Don’t worry, they’re cooked! But we’re not really talking French Buttercream right now… we’re talking French Macarons. Hey, just a thought… Do you think that French Macarons and French Buttercream were made to be compliments so you don’t waste eggs? Just a thought.

But since I’ve had so many egg whites lying around, I thought French Macarons were in order. I love making them. I don’t have them perfected just yet… And practice makes perfect. Plus at our last dive club meeting, I made my friend Danielle a deal that I’d make her French Macarons if she’d make hubby some deviled eggs. He loves them and I’m not a fan so I don’t typically make them. In fact, I’ve only made the once in my life. It was fun boiling the eggs and then seeing if I did it correctly to see if the shells would peel correctly.

Speaking of Deviled eggs, I saw a deal at the grocery store where you crack the egg, pour it in, boil it, and it makes a perfect deviled egg. Interesting! (more…)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches

It seems like most years Tbug doesn’t get to be around for my husband’s families Fourth of July party. This year was different though, yey! That means she was in case you didn’t catch that. haha. One of the things the family does is whoever hosts provides the meat usually and everyone else brings a side or dessert.

Since I knew Tbug would be able to make it, I shot her a text and asked if she’d like to make something. She said yes. I then asked if she had any ideas? She said let me think about it. I told her just let me know so I can have all the ingredients needed.

She sent me 4 options…

I told her all were good options, she had to choose which one. She finally decided on the Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwiches. I then proceeded to click on link after link without really finding the recipe I was looking for, So I went to the drawing board and said, we’ll do our own. (more…)

Wacky Cake with Perfect Party Icing

I really think people don’t believe my now 4-year-old can actually cook. There are some kids I’m sure their parents say can cook and maybe they can, maybe they can’t, but my kids, both of them have grown up in the kitchen with me. I started Tbug helping me as early as I could… she came into my life at 6-years-old. And Abug has done nothing but live in the kitchen with me because as a baby I wasn’t sure what to do with her while I cooked.

And yes, there are some people who give women in the kitchen a bad rap because of all the feminism/sexism mumbo jumbo, but I personally LOVE to cook. I haven’t always… but I have since my late teens/early 20’s. When I was a kid, I had better things to do with my time I guess. I wish I’d have started earlier.

But this is a post about Wacky Cake… not me. I’ll try to remember that…

So when we were getting ready for my husband’s family shindig, I asked Tbug what she was going to make for the party. I didn’t quite give Abug such an option because, well she’s 4 and may not know what all there is. She’d have probably told me Mac and Cheese or something like that. Truth be told… maybe I should have let her take that as her contribution. There were few sides it felt like, maybe because I didn’t care for most of them… but there were lots of desserts. (more…)

Spumoni Cake

I broke my blog this morning. I could get to the actual blog, but to write new blog posts, that’s what I broke. I couldn’t even get there. I don’t know why. Thanks to my brilliant husband, he fixed it. I made him think. So here we are, back up and running, again. I joke that I keep him around to fix my blog. It is a joke but he has fixed it for me more than once.

Back around the 4th of July (which was last week… wow!), my husband’s family had their yearly get-together. I got busy trying to decide just what I wanted to make to take. If you’ve noticed, here lately I’ve been really into cakes. So of course, I had to choose a cake. I also chose to make Cherry Cheesecake French Macarons because I had a bunch of egg whites just sitting around. I’ll explain later… obviously. (more…)

Cherry Cheesecake French Macarons

Saturday night we had my husband’s families Fourth of July Party. Lately, I’ve been on the kick to make French Macarons. It might be because my aunt stroked my ego and said that I made restaurant style French Macarons. We’ll blame it on her… lol.

I had egg whites that had been sitting out aging like they say that they need to do for French Macarons. I actually had other plans for them but wasn’t going to be able to do that for a while and didn’t want these to go bad. So I convinced Tbug to make the French Macarons. I thought she might enjoy making something different… Eventually, I had to take over because it was getting late at night and she still had her cookies to make… but she stuck it out to that point I took over. (more…)

Memorial Day Weekend 2018

Better late than never, right? I guess taking a week off from blogging last month didn’t help and then needing to blog like 5 times per day to either keep up or get caught up… whew! So we’re going to learn about Memorial Day Weekend today, the first day of July because that’s how I roll. I also woke up this morning to thunder and rain. OMG, we sooooooooo need the rain!

Memorial Day Weekend 2018

Going into Memorial Day Weekend, we weren’t sure where we’d sleep. Maybe the bed of my truck. Seriously, no idea, but then Jared bought a horse trailer with living quarters and BAM! he let us borrow it and we got to sleep in a bed. Whew!

Like most of our Memorial Day Weekends since 2014, we’ve spent them at the lake. This year was a bit different because Tbug didn’t get to go with us. Bummer! This is our first MDW without her since 2014. She started working on her SCUBA certifications that year. And prior to that year, we were elsewhere. (more…)

The Ultimate Birthday Cake

It seems like a lifetime ago, but I took cake decorating classes. They were the Wilton ones through Michael’s Craft Stores. And I loved them all at the same time they felt overwhelming. Almost to the point, I really didn’t do cakes for a long time. Every now and then, the special occasion I could be talked into it, but for the most part, I avoided it like the plague.

A year ago, I got convinced to do a birthday cake for a friend’s friend. Gosh, I was so stressed out I thought I was going to cry. Then… something changed. I can’t explain it, but I made my dad a birthday cake with the help of my girls. Then we made my mom a birthday cake. Then Abug and I made my aunt a birthday cake. And slowly cakes started coming back into my life.

And then one day in May, I decided I was going to make birthday cakes to take to the lake for Memorial Day Weekend. Somehow, somewhere I got hooked on a blog called Liv for Cake. Her cakes really and truly impressed me. And that passion, that desire to decorate cakes just came back. Sure, I can buy icing in a jar (although I don’t) and a box cake mix and make a cake. But there was something about her website that drew me in. It was nuts!

I knew there would be a lot of kids at the lake, so I was afraid that they may not like the Chocolate Dulce de Leche, and that’s when I also found a funfetti cake recipe to try… but I was all the sudden hooked. Even with the few mishaps that happened.

And lately, my husband has been feeding this “addiction” for lack of better word. I upgrade my cake turntable to the above picture. I got some 6″ cake pans along with a few more 9″ and bam, I’m cooking up a storm, mistakes included. (more…)