Friday, March 31, 2017

Hero Tribute 2017


This year for Clint's tribute we made cupcakes for a policeman that attends our church. We made chocolate cake, raspberry filling and chocolate frosting. My kids made this sweet card for him.

Since I'm not on Facebook, his sweet wife sent me this and I wanted to include it to show you what an incredible man Ken is! 

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Robot juice box

Wyatt's snack for Robotics.




 

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Birthday Celebration

Tonight we celebrated the 175th birthday our our churches Relief Society organization. It is know as one of the oldest and largest women's organizations in the world and it is awesome!
I am on the committee and was asked to make the cupcakes. 
I made chocolate with raspberry:
Too Much Chocolate Cake from Allrecipes.com:
  • 1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix
  • 1 (5.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 4 eggs
  • 1/2 cup warm water
  • 1 cup mini semi sweet chocolate chips 
  • Bake in a jelly roll pan. 350 for 20ish minutes. Once cooled cut cake in half, pipe a damn around the edge of one half of the cake, add raspberry filling to the center and top with other half of cake, and pipe rosettes. Double the frosting recipe.
Raspberry filling
16 oz. frozen raspberries thawed
1/3 cup sugar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
Drain raspberries, reserving liquid. Add enough water to liquid to equal 1 1/4 cups. In large saucepan, combine liquid, sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice; mix well. Heat and stir until mixtures boils and thickens. Cool completely. Stir thawed raspberries into cool mixture.

Patti's Chocolate Frosting:
1/3 cup cocoa
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup softened butter
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
3 1/2 cup powdered sugar
I also made lemon:

For the vanilla cupcakes: 

I used a cake box with:
-an extra egg
-replace water with milk
-1 cup of sour cream

For the lemon curd (makes extra):

  • 1/3 cup lemon juice, about 2 lemons
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 1 tablespoon heavy cream
  • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • pinch table salt
I used my Lemon Cream Cheese frosting because it's my favorite.
1/2 cup butter softened
8 oz. cream cheese softened
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2-1 tsp. fresh lemon juice
Zest from one lemon
3 to 31/2 cups powdered sugar
 

Make the lemon curd filling:

  1. Heat lemon juice over medium heat until hot but not boiling.
  2. Meanwhile, whisk eggs and yolk in a medium bowl. Gradually whisk in the sugar. While whisking, slowly pour hot lemon juice into the eggs. Return to saucepan and cook over medium heat. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon until mixture registers 170 degrees and coats the back of a spoon.
  3. Remove pan from heat and stir in butter. Once melted, stir in cream, vanilla, and salt.
  4. For a more even texture, strain mixture through a fine-mesh strainer (optional). Curd is able to be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to two weeks, just cover with plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out.
*I used a cupcake corer to gently hollow out the center of the cupcake. You could use an apple corer too but just don't got far down. 

I found these toppers here  on Etsy.
I wanted to include these cute table decorations. My friend is super talented and came up with a different birthday party theme for each table.
"around the world"
"circus"
"tea time"
"owl"

Fruit Rainbow

Lucy's class snack
We made a fruit rainbow
We didn't want to forget the gold at the end of the rainbow. It is St. Patrick's Day after all (well almost.)

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Harry Potter Snack Day

Wyatt's class snack for March. He wanted to do something Harry Potter themed since we just got back from Universal Studios last month. 
Hufflepuff Popcorn aka White Chocolate Popcorn:
2 bags of microwave popcorn(Homestyle Pop Secret is my favorite brand) with 2 or 3 squares of melted white almond bark. Mix in a big bowl and then spread on a big pan to dry. 
Chocolate Pretzels
I dipped them in almond bark and added gold sprinkles to the tip. Once they dried I piped on different designs to make them seem for wand like.
I found these awesome tags here at A Crafty Chick. I love the all the different magical substances she created for each wand. So fun!
We also wanted to send in a healthy snack. We thought a Golden Snitch orange was a good idea!
Thanks mom and Bree for helping me make all this!