Birthday Beer Cupcakes

Today, my main squeeze turns 25! Happy Birthday to you baby! I've never talked much about him on my blog, but if you know him, you know that he is a beer FANATIC! He loves to homebrew, drink, and research beer! He doesn't like any beers by the "Big 3" beer companies within a 10 feet radius of our humble home! At one time he too consumed those beers, then he tasted the "real stuff". I'm not the biggest fan of most of the beers he likes, but some of them I adore. Guiness is not one of those that I like. But, I've always heard of cooking with it, so I thought for his birthday I'd make him some "beer cupcakes"! In ALL seriousness, they were some of the best cupcakes I've EVER had. Cheers!



Here is the recipe that I used:

• 1 cup Guinness stout
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 2 cups dark brown sugar
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

For the frosting:

• 8 ounces cream cheese
• 1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1/3 cup milk



THE STAR!

First, you want to preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Then, in a large sauce pan, combine the butter

and the 1 C of Guiness and let the butter melt. Remove from the heat.

In a seperate bowl, you want to combine the sour cream, 2 eggs, and the vanilla and whisk well.

Now, mix your sour cream mixture into your chocolaty beer mixture and whisk well. Meanwhile, combine your flour and baking soda into a seperate bowl. After you've whisked it well, pour into your flour mixture and stir well. Next, pour your mixture into baking cups or a greased muffin tin.



YUM!



(My oven baked them in about 15 minutes, so check yours frequently)

While your waiting, make your icing!

*TIP* make sure your cream cheese is at room temperature, it will make it easier to beat.

 Beat your cream cheese until it's smooth, then sift in your powdered sugar.

(I substituted part of the milk with the left over Guiness, to give the icing a beer flavor)

Look at these beauties

Go ahead, taste one, you won't regret it!

Okay okay, now that they are cool, put that icing on!

I am by no means a professional icer! :)

Hope you enjoy these as much as we did! Happy Birthday to my beer man!

JOY TO THE WORLD

I saw a really cute idea on some blog (I should really write them down!) using a big jingle bell for an "O"
 spelling the word JOY. So I looked all over for an oversized jingle bell and couldn't find one anywhere! I finally ran across one at Target. It of course ended up being the most expensive thing of this project, but totally worth it. I have to buy some ribbon to put on the jingle bell, but for the most part it's done! I love it :) Hope you do too!

All of these materials were purchased at Hobby Lobby (besides the bell of course)

I used Christmas Green, but later on I thought it was too bright, so I painted them a lighter green. That's why they will be different in the last pictures!

Then, I traced my letters on my paper to cut out and apply to the front. I also traced the bottom of a can to put on the round circles.

And then we distress! My favorite thing to do lately!

 Then, I applied my circles onto the rounds using mod podge.

Then, I attached the letters I cut out from my paper.

Next, I hot glued my letters onto the rounds, then my giant jingle bell.

(Notice the lighter green color now!)

Here's just some pictures of my letters by the tree. It's really easy to make, and will look even better with some ribbon on the bell. I can't wait. Hope you enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

*Amanda*

Christmas Candy Cook Off 2010

1.

Chocolate Bark

You will need:

• 2 sleeves of saltine crackers (I know what you're thinking, but trust me!)
• 2 bags of chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate because I like it more, but any works.)
• 1 bag of chopped pecans (I had some halves on hand and chopped them)
• 4 sticks of butter or margarine
• 3/4 C brown sugar
• 1/4 C granulated sugar

First step, take the 4 sticks of butter and melt them in a pot, adding in the brown and granulated sugar. Bring to a boil for one minute. Meanwhile, take two cookie sheets and line them with foil. Then, place the crackers in rows on the cookie sheets.

What about my sweet butter art?!

After your mixture turns this color:

Take it off the heat and pour it over those perfectly lined up crackers like so

 Now, stick these beauties in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes... Now, take them out and pour on a bag of the chocolate chips... and stick back in the oven for a few minutes, just to melt the chocolate.

 Next, you want to spread the chocolate all over the crackers and add the pecans. Then, it should look like this:

Let your pan cool a little bit, then stick it in the freezer for a couple of hours. Once its set up, crack the bark into pieces. Tell me you don't think it awesome! The salty-sweet combination is amazing! Enjoy!



LEMON BUDDIES!

 My mom is NOT the biggest fan of puppy chow (muddy buddies), so I found this recipe using lemon instead and she loved it!

This is what you'll need:

• 2 lemons (for the juice and zest)
• 2 C confectioners sugar
• 9 C Rice Chex
• 2 Tbs lemon juice, 2 Tbs lemon zest (I add more than 2 Tbs because I like it lemony)
• 2 C white chocolate chips, melted
•  1/4 Tbs butter
• 1 Gallon ziplock baggie



First melt your chocolate chips and butter.

Then add in your lemon zest and lemon juice. Put all your chex in a bowl.

I know this doesn't look awesome, but bare with me! Mix well, then add to your ziplock bag!

 

Then, throw on some Justin Timberlake and shake it up!!!

...........

Sorry, I'm a dancing fool! Anyway, put it in a bowl and ENJOY it!

That's all for right now. I'll post my brittle pictures later in the week! These two recipes are SO easy and quick! Not to mention they are amazing!!! Happy cooking!

*Amanda*

Strawberry Cake Cookies

Today, I decided I was going to cook up some good eats! My friend, Sara, came to visit and we ventured to the store for our ingredients. We knew what we wanted for dinner (King Ranch Chicken, yum!), but what to make for dessert?! I decided I wanted to try out the strawberry cake cookies that I had the privilege of trying at a Thanksgiving dinner. This recipe is from my cousin, Amanda, but I'm not sure where she found it.

Hope you enjoy!!

You will need:

1 Box Strawberry Cake Mix
4.5 oz. of whipped cream (Cool Whip)
2 eggs
Confectioners Sugar (Powdered Sugar)

First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Combine the cake mix, the 4.5 oz whipped cream, and the 2 eggs.

My lovely assistant, Sara.

Make sure you combine all the ingredients well. You should have a mix that looks like this:

Now, you will want to dust your counter top or cooking mat with the confectioners sugar. You want to have enough to coat the cookies you will be "dropping" into the sugar. Then, take a teaspoon (make sure you put some cooking spray to prevent the batter from sticking) and drop teaspoon fulls of batter onto the sugared surface like so:

After you coat the entire cookie with sugar, you want to roll the cookies into balls and place on a greased cookie sheet.

Now, you want to put the cookies in your oven and bake them for 10 minutes......

10 minutes later...

COOKIES!

These cookies are so yummy and easy to make! You could substitute any cake mix if strawberry isn't your favorite. I think chocolate or a spice cake would be delicious! This recipe yields 24 cookies.

Hope you enjoy!!!

 

New Directions

Helllooo Blog world! I've tried and tried and tried to maintain a blog, and thus far, I've sucked at it. Royally. So, I started thinking that perhaps an easier thing would be to blog about the (hopefully) creative things that I will be doing. I have so many aspirations and not a lot of time before school will start again. Here's the scoop!

I'm a nursing student. That's code for I have no extra time. I was at one time, a pretty creative person. I NEED that creativity outlet back in my life! I look back on this old stuff and its lovely. So, over my Christmas break, I'm begging my closest nursing friends to become creative! I know they can do it, and hopefully they will!

So, I hope I can inspire you to also be creative! It's such a wonderful stress reliever and with the holidays, we all tend to have a little stress! Here's a short look at what I'll more than likely be attempting!

• A recipe box. I am planning on decoupaging something on to the top, making cards for the inside, and FINALLY giving ALL my recipes a tidy home.
• An apron. I've ruined five too many shirts cooking. The end.
• A braided chain necklace that I found on this blog DIY Necklace, using the enamel chains I bought off of this site BeadevilBeads (Etsy). It will be wonderful, and a great accessory to my jewelry holder.
• Baking! Yes, I will be causing all of my friends and relatives to gain 5+ lbs, in addition to the 15 that we all gain! Breads and desserts get excited!
• Christmas candy (hopefully) if my mom feels up to teaching me again!

Those are just a few! If anyone has any cool blogs, websites, or recipes that I should check out for ideas definitely let me know! One of my closest partial family members has a good blog that she, unfortunately, seldom updates is pretty awesome so check it out here Cook.Craft.Blog.Repeat. Hope you check in often!