Sugar Swings! Serve Some: November 2010

Monday, November 29, 2010

mini pop tarts....!


...since we were hosting turkey day, was looking for something super simple to throw together last minute...and since most are kinda sick of the cupcakes....went with mini pop tarts....been seeing variations of these all over so decided to give them a go.....and cheated a bit by starting with this....


...these literally got put together about 1/2 hour since the crust is pre-made.....(make sure to thaw it....if it's frozen that is....)


...cut into even rectangles...(used a ravioli cutter, but use whatever works best)....just eye-balled it for equal sizes...but you can measure it evenly if you get so motivated.....and fill with whatever jam or jelly you have around....these were made with cherry, peach, strawberry, and candied ginger preserves....if you use multiple jellies then do separate batches (otherwise you have mystery flavors at the end...kinda like when you have to guess what kind of filling is in the chocolate in a valentine's day chocolate box...!)....also when you cover with the top...press down to seal the jam in with a fork....make sure to press hard enough because if not....the layers don't seal as well and some jelly may ooze out....(see bottom left on the photo below).....


...bake at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes or until just golden brown.....once totally cool.....drizzle with a mix of confectioners sugar and milk plus a little vanilla...tinted with food coloring gels.....then top with sprinkles or whatever you like.....it looks a lot messier than it actually was....!


.....they were so easy to make....might not go with the chocolate sprinkles next time....since it kinda reminds me of ants attacking a sweet....but you get the idea....!...next time may try making homemade pie crust....1 pre-made pack only made about 15 tarts so go for more packs if you want more....oh and don't overfill with jelly....as that gets messy too.....!



Monday, November 22, 2010

Fire & Ice Cupcakes (Think Heat and Cold Miser or Game of Thrones!)




So remember when I mentioned diving full force into the holidays? Well somehow got the "year without a Santa" song stuck in my head - you know the one.....




....i'm mister white Christmas....i'm mister snow.....i'm mister icicle....i'm mister 10 below....friends call me snow miser...what ever i touch....turns to snow in my clutch...i'm too much!....


....he's mister white Christmas....he's mister snow....he's mister icicle....he's mister 10 below....friends call me snow miser....what ever I touch....turns to snow in my clutch....he's too much!.....

(ba dump baaa dump....ba dump...ba dump baaa dump....ba dump....)


....i'm mister green Christmas....i'm mister sun....i'm mister heat blister....i'm mister 101....they call me heat miser....what ever i touch....starts to melt in my clutch....i'm too much!.....


....he's mister green Christmas....he's mister sun....he's mister heat blister....he's mister 101....they call me heat miser....what ever i touch....starts to melt in my clutch...he's too much!.....



.....i never want to know a day...that's under sixty degrees...i'd rather have it 80...90, 100's a breeze!...


....he's mister green Christmas....he's mister sun....he's mister heat blister...he's mister 101...they call me heat miser...what ever i touch...starts to melt in my clutch...i'm too much!....too much!



Pixar and Disney have nothing on the stop motion 70's animated holiday specials.  Now you can watch them anytime on dvd or YouTube but way back in the day you had to wait for them to be shown the one and only time around Christmas.  And if you missed it well you just missed it and had to wait until the next year to catch it again.  It was awesome and the kiddos actually really love these old shows too which is doubly awesome!

And for those of you going "What the heck is she talking about?" Enjoy and happy turkey day to all!



OR use them for any of your fav hot/cold themes - like the uber popular Game of Thrones series.  So simple and they really scream Fire & Ice!

p.s. If anyone is interested cold miser is made from rock candy and heat miser from candy melts (red and a little yellow mixed together).  Same for the mini misers.  This one was super fun!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

vote for these cupcakes...!


....the voting started for sweetest kitchen's mystery box cupcake challenge...the theme this time was "ginger".....vote for the ginger cupcakes with wasabi kit kat frosting here if you like them, that is...!


Thursday, November 18, 2010

"i give up" cupcakes....!


....yep, i give up....halloween stuff is in walgreens by the end of august.....turkey paraphernalia shows up in cvs when the kids start school, and holiday/christmas tchotchkes by the time you decide you're in need of some face make-up for the halloween party you forgot you got invited to comes around.....


...so decided today that instead of complaining about how fast the holidays are coming this year yet again.....to just dive in and accept it.....accept that yes....it's less than a week away until thanksgiving....and that means that christmas is only a month or so away.....so in the spirit of that....baked up some christmas cupcakes to start off my acceptance of how fast the time flies and that i will, repeat, will start enjoying the holiday season, no matter how busy life is....


....but you can take short cuts as necessary....!....this is a doctored box mix (use an extra egg and replace the water with 1 cup of buttermilk)....decided to mix it up a bit and still go with green and red cupcakes (tint half the mix with red food gel and half with green)....but sliced them up and mixed and matched the layers....freeze the baked cupcakes first....it's much easier to slice them evenly......


...then filled with a marshmallow buttercream between the layers....swirled on top.....and sprinkled with some red and green large non-pareils...


....life is good and there are so many things to be thankful for....so these are a present to myself for remembering that's the case everyday.....happy holidays....!

Hoosier Homemade - Making Your House a HomeTidy Mom I'm Lovin It Fridays


Tuesday, November 16, 2010

look what i got today....!


.....so you know when a blog has a fun contest to win something and you leave a comment along with bunch of other peeps never thinking that you'd win....??!....well i won this very cool decorating book!!!!....and it's loaded with awesome pics of cakes, cookies, and cupcakes.....thank you so much loren from The Baking Sheet (she even wrapped it and included a cute cupcake card!)...she's featured in the book as well as meaghan from The Decorated Cookie...it's one of those books that you just can't put down once you start perusing the pages.....it was so nice to come home and see this after a long day at work.....can't wait to pay it forward one of these days soon :)


Thursday, November 11, 2010

turkey cupcakes...!


......ok, caved and did a turkey cupcake....not sure what it is, but not a fan of turkeys or food that's turkey shaped in general.....don't get me wrong...it's tasty and all....it's not thanksgiving without turkey and some killer gravy.....but the actual animal or bird...kinda creeps me out...maybe it's the gobble it does, or that red gobbler thingee which doesn't really have a purpose......a really bad nightmare would involve being trapped in a turkey farm at night....pretty terrifying right?.....


....but with turkey day coming up, the kiddos in kindy are having a thanksgiving day feast and of course they may be getting some cupcakes.....so needed a topper and decided to go ahead and turkey them up.....and was hoping for cute....but afraid these may show up in my turkey dreams too....!


......the cupcakes themselves are a sweet potato recipe (and actual sweet potato not yams) with a cranberry buttercream......


....the turkeys are candy melts....nuked in the microwave for a minute or 2 then piped from a plastic baggie....outlined first with chocolate candy melts....let dry......


.....then fill in with the other colors (you may have to smooth them a bit to fill in all the crevices).....and let dry.....


....flip over so you have the flat side and using some melted candy, attach a yellow candy coated sunflower for the beak and a red candy coated sunflower for the gobbler thing.....


....the recipe used a small sweet potato---roasted, peeled, and then mashed....hubby picked up a white fleshed one not orange, so the color is not orangy like in most recipes......


....they baked up nicely and were super super moist....not a huge sweet potato flavor and they seemed a little more cinnamonny...is that even a word...?....may be it's due to the type of sweet potato used but it definitely contributed to the moistness.....!


....the buttercream is just a vanilla buttercream but with dried cranberries, that were rehydrated in water overnite, then food processed into some mush, then added to the buttercream.....it was probably 1/4 cup of the cranberry mush to 4 cups of buttercream.....


....obviously these are not going to make it to the kindy feast since that's a week and 1/2 away, but needed to practice the turkeys to see if the candy melts would work....still can't decide if they look cute or not....leave a comment and let me know if they are cute or creepy.....!....thanks...!!!!


.....linking these up to Hoosier Homemade's Holiday Cupcake Challenge for thanksgiving cupcakes....!

Friday, November 5, 2010

ginger cupcakes with wasabi kit kat frosting.....!

....so who likes ginger.....???.....these are ginger cupcakes with wasabi kit kat buttercream filled with ginger preserves.....!...say that 3 times fast......


......if you happen to be a ginger freak...and meaning a lot of ginger....not ginger ale or gingerbread men cookies....the real spicy hard core ginger without all the holiday spices to go along with it....then, this is the cupcake for you.....


....made with australian crystallized ginger and ground ginger in the cupcake itself.....ginger preserves as the filling....and for a twist on a fav food, sushi (the picked ginger and wasabi are sometimes the best part)....wasabi kit kats (for anyone that can't read japanese) mixed into buttercream....!....apparently in japan there are a plethora of kit kat flavors, there's a blog dedicated to it......who knew?....aloe vera yogurt or soy sauce kit kats anyone???.....anyway, read about the wasabi flavored ones on cakespy's blog earlier this year and had a friend who just happened to be in japan for work.....text'd him that nite to bring me back some and he totally did....


......so the wonders of technology brought wasabi kit kats the next week.....the wafers are in white chocolate flavored with wasabi (at least think that's what it is, have do some rosetta stone japanese to be sure...)....they are still sweet and actually not too spicy, but you definitely get a wasabi flavor.......wanted to do something with them, but couldn't figure out what until the ginger cupcake recipe came up.....so the buttercream is just a vanilla buttercream with chopped up wasabi kit kats in them---with just a smidge of green food gel to match the kit kat color.....


...the 3 ginger flavors in the cupcake itself are something else....the crystallized ginger is really very good on its own--sweet and spicy at the same time, and the ginger preserves is a bit of the same but a little more mellow.....the cake itself is pretty dense too---it actually makes a great combo and with the wasabi kit kat buttercream.....you definitely only need 1 or maybe 2.....!....also note to self...if you chop up anything and put it into the frosting and want to pipe it....make sure the pieces are small enough to fit through the tip....!


...these are for my 15th anniversary....what better way to celebrate an awesome marriage then with a sweet & spicy cupcake....!

....also entering these into sweetest kitchen's mystery cupcake challenge, because i am a glutton for punishment......actually it's creative and definitely need more of that around here....plus everyone comes up with some really unique ideas.....!
The winner of November’s Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge will receive prizes from:  Thank you to all our prize sponsors!
Beauty and BedlamMommy’s Kitchen

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

fall whoopie pies!


...so decided to give whoopie pies a try, since they are the new "cupcake" or was that macarons?....anyway, tried 3 different types....classic aka chocolate, pumpkin (since it is fall and all and pumpkin must be in the repertoire), and green tea (well...because i heart green tea and the green color looked good with the others....!).....

....did them all in one day, so i'm a bit whoopie pie'd out....but it was fun all the same.....aren't they really just inside out cupcakes anyway?....


.....the chocolate were filled with a marshmallow fluff buttercream and the other two with cream cheese buttercream......both perfect fillings for these flavors......


....decided to go with the plastic baggie method so they would be more uniform...but some people just like to spoon them onto a baking sheet.....

...the green tea batter was doctored a little....used more matcha powder (about 2 tablespoonfuls) and 1/4 cup of buttermilk in place of the milk....it was still a little thinner than the other batters and spread more and didn't rise as much as the others.....


....they were still very tasty though (if you like green tea) and very moist.....the pumpkin batter was pretty thick, and actually kept the swirl when they were piped and baked......i have to say they were very yummy, like little pumpkin cakes, and moist as well....


....the chocolate recipe was the winner around here and almost exactly like a devil dog...so it can't get much better than that....well if you love devil dogs that is.......they baked up perfectly too....this recipe is from the marshmallow fluff site and is super simple....it doesn't even use butter.....the biggest "kid" in the house loved them so much they were requested as a birthday cake.....can't beat that for a thumbs up.....!


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