More Deliciousness

After months of issues with my lovely back knocking me out of commission for weeks at a time I managed to suck it up and bake some goodies. I have a friend who wanted cupcakes for her twins birthday celebration and she gave me free reign on the kind, only thing was no chocolate.

Lucky for me it's berry season so I whipped up these Strawberry cupcakes with Lemon butter cream frosting and Strawberry sauce drizzled on top. Not only did they turn out beautiful they were a hit. It would have been entertaining to watch myself attempt to bake while leaning to the left as I sat and chopped the strawberries, measured the ingredients and washed the dishes. And there was NO way I was bending over to put them in the oven so my patient and stubborn husband would drop what he was doing when I yelled for his help to do such a simple task that proved to be a huge chore for me. Damn back! I'm being watched and told constantly not to lift, bend, clean, or twist. Now where's the fun if I can't move and shake it!? Espically in the kitchen after creating something so nummy. Happy food dances are pure joy!

Ripe Bananas

We had some well ripened banana's so I decided to make some cupcakes and what better to top it than peanut butter frosting? I love the banana peanut butter combo and I don't think I've met many people who don't. Here's the recipe for the frosting... It's AMAZING! And easy too.

Creamy Peanut Butter Frosting

1 8 oz package cream cheese at room temp

1/2 cup butter softened

1/2 - 1 cup peanut butter (how peanut buttery do you like it?)

1-2 cups powdered sugar

Whip all the ingredients together and enjoy.

Doughnut Competition

My husband has been bugging me to make doughnuts and all sorts of other sweet treats lately so I finally gave in and made some Maple bars. Well he found a recipe for cake doughnuts that he wanted to make and I'm not a fan so I made some raised ones as well. So like most men he made the doughnut making into a competition of who's is better... I walked him throught his recipe while mixing and kneading mine hoping to not mix the two up. After I was done with my batch I helped him roll out and form his. We heated up the frying oil and started cooking some doughnut deliciousness. The cake doughnuts were tasty but they ended up being bricks. Once my dough doubled in size I punched it down and cup out the shapes and let them rise again. Finally it was make or break it time to fry up my, hopefully, fluffy batch of maple bars. And the winner was..................................................... do I really need to say it? I think a little rubbing it in his face through a popular friend site was enough for me. They were just as good if not better than store bought maple bars. Now all I need to do is fry up some bacon to put on top of them. YUM!

Cake and eat it too

I've found the only way to get my son and my husband to enjoy eating their veges is to put them into a cake. I've make pineapple upside down cake chock full of veggies but I figured I'd try a chocolate approach. Devils food cake mix, 3 eggs and carrot, celery, zucchini and yellow squash make up these deliciously moist chocolate cupcakes topped with strawberry sauce sweetened with agave nectar. My two year old is eating them up. I don't feel the least bit bad for having to mix chocolate with the veges to get the men in my life to eat better. Next up is making my own cake mix so I really know what I'm feeding my family. It seems the older I get the more I care about what we're stuffing into our faces. Hopefully, this will make all of us into a healthier family so we can enjoy everything life has to offer for a long time without all the medical issues that seem to be plaguing our country.

Christmas Treats

This Christmas we headed out to chilly Minnesota for a couple weeks. It had been a LONG time coming and I told myself I was going to relax while on break from school. Instead of keeping the couch occupied I decided to fill the house with yummy deliciousness. Since it was Christmas time I opted for the traditional gingerbread cookies and not so common homemade marshmallows. My in law's were ecstatic to learn you could make marshmallows at home without the use of corn syrup. I made two batches... one with corn syrup and one without. they were both amazingly fluffy and delicious but the one without the corn syrup was a little more dense but perfect to pop directly into a cup of hot cocoa after some time playing in the beautiful glimmering snow for a bit. This wasn't all my culinary adventures in MinneSNOWta but these are the most festive.

Tipsy Dinosaurs

For Preston's 2nd birthday we did a dinosaur theme and I had planned on making a Dino on top of two 8'' rounds but then I saw something like these in the store we were getting our last minute supplies at. Needless to say the Dino's I made didn't feel like staying up so I found a few candy bars my husband his away to use as trees. Well, by the time it was cake cutting time the Dino's were exhausted and so was I. I let Preston blow out the candles and dig in. At least they tasted great. His third party I'm not trying anything too extreme for my armature cake decorating skills.