Cupcake Bouquet

How fun is this? A friend found this on Pinterest one day and asked if I would make it for her grandmother's birthday. It takes some time, but the results are SO worth it!

Start with cupcakes that have been decorated using a middle-to-outside swirl so that they resemble a flower. 

Insert a Styrofoam ball into a flower pot. There are several different sizes so I suggest taking your pot with you to test out which size works best. 

Insert toothpicks into the ball wherever you want the cupcakes to go. Here is a tip: leave your toothpicks pretty high. If you insert them too far, they will be too short and the cupcakes will slowly fall off. For some of the cupcakes I used three toothpicks.

Close up view of how the toothpicks should stand.

Once you have the cupcakes secure, cut strips of green tissue paper...

...then fold them accordion style at one end and insert between the cupcakes.

After the tissue paper was between all the cupcakes and all empty spaces were filled,  I then used a glue gun to secure some pieces around the outside edges to hide any of the ball that might be showing. Then I glued a white ribbon around the base of the ball in order to have a clean edge.  (I apologize I did not get any action or close up shots of this.)

What's better than flowers and cake? Both! This cupcake bouquet is sure to make anyone's day over-the-top special.

Can't Do Without...

This is the Tervis Tumbler. It is something I absolutely cannot do without, especially during these hot summer days. There are several great things about these cups. First, they keep cold things cold longer than regular glasses or plastic cups. The ice melts incredibly slow in the Tervis Tumbler. And I love that I can use a Tervis lid so that I can take my morning smoothie on the drive to work and drink it with a straw. It keeps the smoothie from melting and I don't spill it all over myself or the car, which I am notorious for.

Second, it keeps hot drinks hot. During the winter, I use the Tervis Tumbler as my travel coffee mug. (They also make a coffee lid.) I have left the cup in my car while I went into the doctor's office and an hour later my coffee is still as warm as when I left it. 

Third, and my favorite characteristic about the Tervis Tumbler, is that it produces NO condensation since it's double walled. That makes me one happy mama. My furniture does not get ruined and I don't have to keep up with coasters. In fact, since the Tervis Tumbler is the only cup we use around my house, I don't own any coasters! I made the mistake of using a glass one day last week (haven't done that in a long time) and I ended up with a puddle on my end table within just a few minutes. It made me realize even more just how much I love these tumblers. 

I even have a large 24 ounce Tervis Tumbler with a lid and straw that I keep at work. I refill it a few times a day. No condensation and my water stays cold!

The Tervis Tumbler is definitely something I can't do without!

Best Ever Banana Bread

Ever heard of Nurse Maid's Elbow? We found out about it the hard way yesterday. It sounds all simple and insignificant. "Nurse Maid's Elbow. Aw. That sweet little nurse maid has a tired elbow." Ha! Hardly. Basically it's a dislocation of the elbow in children. It's super common and it happened to Mini Mac yesterday. It scared the bejeezus out of me. 

See, this pigeon has been showing up in our backyard this week while I have been on vacation. We're talking huge, fat, blue-headed, downtown pigeon that should be perched on top of the courthouse. NOT in my neighborhood. (For some reason my yard is a favorite hangout for all types of wildlife. Pretty fun for us and Mini Mac.) The first day it appeared, it flew off before I could get Mini Mac to lay eyes on it. Yesterday, I called her to the back porch quickly and she came running. As I held her hand, she stepped off the back stoop and began to lose her footing. I lightly lifted her by the hand to keep her from hitting the ground. Immediately she started crying and holding her arm to her body. Last year one of the bloggers I follow posted about her 1 year old dislocating his elbow and I automatically knew that was what had happened. Off to the ER we went. She was not hysterical but crying and in pain.

Now, those who know me and the men in my family, know that we have "trick knees." They dislocate without warning and for no reason at all. (In fact, it just happened to one of my brothers a few days ago.) I am never doing anything cool like snowboarding or mountain climbing. I am usually just reaching for a paper towel or getting groceries out of the car. This has happened many times and I have made a few ER trips to get it popped back into place. Not fun. Not pretty. NOT a good sound when they pop it back into place. Needless to say, all I could think of was how uncomfortable and in pan Mini Mac was.
 

We got to the emergency room and luckily were the only ones there. Mini Mac was not happy about the triage activities that took place even though it was just temperature taking and heart rate checking. The nurse tried to tell her the electrode was just like a band aid and I had to interrupt her quickly to tell her Mini Mac is the only child in the state who does NOT like band aids. We called it a sticker instead. 

Once Mr. Mac got there, he held Mini Mac at her request for her daddy and the doctor came in to check her out. I talked with the registrant about payment for about a minute and by the time we were done the doctor had put her elbow back into place. She didn't even make a peep. And right away she was moving her arm like a champ. She thanked the doctor for making it "Aww betta" and told me later in the day she wanted to go back to see him. 

The tricky thing here is that apparently she is now predisposed to Nurse Maid's Elbow. It can happen again. I have had friends on Facebook tell me they know people who have been to the ER 4 times in 2 years. Fantastic. I CONSTANTLY walk around aware of my knees and their odd and totally useless superpower of taking on characteristics of Optimus Prime and now I have to do the same for my daughter's elbow. Fingers and toes crossed that we get blessed and never have to go through this again. 

Needless to say, the morning was so exhausting we both napped for 3 hours in the afternoon. When we woke, I had a hankering for the best banana bread you will ever eat so I participated in some baking therapy. 

Seriously, this banana bread will knock your socks off. The addition of sour cream or yogurt just amps up the flavor and keeps the bread very moist. And it's also super simple. 

Best Ever Banana Bread  (Recipe Credit: Martha Stewart)

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup (1 stick) room temperature butter, plus more for pan

1 Cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 & 1/2 Cup unbleached flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 Cup very ripe mashed bananas

1/2 Cup sour cream (or plain yogurt)

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 Cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Directions:

~Preheat oven to 350 and butter a 9 x 5 x 3 loaf pan. Using an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and beat to incorporate. 

~In a medium bowl, whisk flour, salt and baking soda together. Add to butter and sugar mixture and beat until combined. Add bananas, sour cream and vanilla again beating until combined. Add nuts and pour into prepared pan. 

~Bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, about 30-40 minutes. Let rest in pan for about 10 minutes then turn out onto a cooling rack. 

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Here are some variations:

-Add a cup of fresh blueberries with the nuts.

-Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners to make an easy grab-and-go breakfast muffin.

-Remember the banana cake I made a while back? I used this recipe for the cake the other day and it was SO much more flavorful. I will do this from now on.

Happy Birthday, Mini Mac!

Well, I can't very well call her "Baby Mac" anymore now that she is 2. I thought "Mini Mac" would be a good replacement.

My BABY is 2! What? How did that happen? Before I had her I often heard people say, "I can't believe my little one is already [insert age here]!" I would think, "Yeah, well kids grow up, what did you expect?" But I get it now. Time flies SO much. It seriously feels like it was only 6 months ago that I was in the hospital giving birth to that 9 pound baby. I swear, she came out looking like she was a month old.

I have mentioned before that she adores Caillou. I was so excited when I came across an edible sugar image in a birthday catalog I got in the mail. I hate junk mail but I am a sucker for any catalog or circular that sells fun stuff. And my curiosity paid off! The image is super cute and so easy to use!

I mixed up a Funfetti batter and divided it between three 8 inch cake pans. I had some Oreos on hand (I am as shocked as you are that they have made it this long without meeting their demise) so I crushed them up, mixed them with some buttercream and used it as a sort of filling. I piped a dam...

...and spread in the filling. It looks kind of funny because I used my off-set spatula to spread the dam into the filling to make up for some holes.

...put on a crumb coat...

...and tinted some icing. Caillou is drawn in primary colors so I decided to use red, blue and yellow for the accents. 

After I smoothed on the top coat of icing, I peeled the image off its backing and gently laid it on the cake. It reminded me of an iron-on transfer. Remember those? I had to be very gentle when peeling it off the paper, but it was simple to do. I will definitely be using these in the future. I can't wait to see what types of images are out there!

I piped dots all over the cake. I like the simplicity of the dots. I considered using a star tip but it just didn't seem to fit Caillou's personality. I think he would approve of the dots.

I can't wait for her to see this cake. I know she is going to flip!

Happy Birthday to the best thing that has ever happened to me. Words cannot express how completely blessed your daddy and I feel to have been chosen as your parents. You have defined love for us and it's greater than we could ever imagine. 

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Thank you SO much to my aunt Joanna for the beautiful cake stand! I did not have one and she thought of me at an antique store one day. I feel so fancy not having to put Mini Mac's cake on a plastic cake carrier!! I love you so much Joanna and I will think of you every time I use it! Which will be A LOT!!

Decisions, Decisions

So, a little while ago I mentioned that I won a gift card for Cooking.com and I was trying to decide whether I should be smart and get something I need or be fun and frivolous and get something I want. I decided on the latter and got something I have had my eye on for a couple of years but had forgotten about.

This is the Zoku Popsicle maker. It's pretty cool. You keep it in the freezer and pull it out when you are ready to make some pops. It makes 3 at one time and they freeze in 7-9 minutes. It comes with 6 sticks so you can make 3 more after the first round is done. I thought this would be great for Baby Mac.  I could make healthy concoctions right along with the sugary ones to balance things out!

People who know me know I am the most indecisive person on Earth. If I go into the grocery store without a list I am screwed because it will take me 20 minutes to decide what kind of peanut butter to buy.

I got the Popsicle maker this week and now I am not so sure about it. After reading the manual I realized you can't use some of the concoctions I planned to, such as ice cream mixes or pudding. They tend to not freeze well and the sticks just slip out. I also realized that if I make 3 pops and only one is eaten, what do I do with the other two? It's not really worth it to only mix up enough ingredients for one pop. This item would be fabulous for entertaining, but for my house with just myself, Baby Mac and Mr. Mac (who is not much of a sweets person) it may not be ideal.

Then, what really changed my mind was when I came across this item that I hadn't noticed before:

It's a Cuisinart 1.5 quart ice cream maker. I know I had mentioned the Kitchen Aid Ice Cream Attachment, but this is actually cheaper and easier to use. It just seems more practical and I think I will get more use out of it. I can still make healthy stuff like sorbet or even encourage my new vanilla bean habit by making some homemade ice cream. Plus, Mr. Mac does enjoy ice cream from time to time, so he would be more apt to enjoy this as opposed to the pop maker.

This weekend my mom made some banana ice cream that Baby Mac just fell head over heels for. That will be on my Ice Cream To-Do List for sure.

Yep. I think I have talked myself into it.

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I have recently come to the conclusion that I have way too many "irons in the fire." As much as I would love to dedicate a ton of time to this blog, I just can't. I have a toddler and husband who I want to spend as much time with as possible, plus I work full-time and have a few other commitments that take up any extra time I have. I am still going to post, but just not as frequently as I have been. Once or twice a week as a general rule, but if I have lots of baking projects come up at once it could be more on occasion.

I am so grateful for my readers and I will not leave you hanging! Be sure to like my page on Facebook, follow me on Twitter or even Pinterest. I will always have updates on any posts there. 

I will be back later this week with a super special birthday cake!

Minnie Mouse, Take Two

My friend Karen's daughter, Kylee, is turning two tomorrow. We were pregnant at the same time and she delivered her a week before Baby Mac.  She asked if I would make some Minnie Mouse cupcakes for her special day and of course I said yes!

The last time I made Minnie Mouse cupcakes I used Oreos. This time I decided to work on my fondant skills. 

I piped on some pink buttercream and added some pink sugar. I made marshmallow fondant and cut circles out for the ears and fashioned bows from strips I cut from some fondant I tinted pink.

I was so happy with how they turned out! But the icing on the cake, or should I say cupcake, was Mr. Mac's reaction. See, he is a man of very little words. Usually when I show him my creations I get a head nod and a "That's cool, Babe." Which is great. I know in Mr. Mac terms that means he likes them and he is proud of me. But, when I opened the box to show him these, his eyes got big and he said, "Wow, those are awesome!" That let me know that I am getting better at my craft and that I made something extra special. My day was made. Heck, my week was made!

Happy Birthday, Kylee! I hope you have the best birthday ever!

Graduation!

The Rams (school colors, red and white)

I have three cousins on my mom's side of the family who graduated from high school this year. Three! I can't believe they old enough to be going off to college! (I am sure if they had a dollar for every time they have heard that over the last year they could fund their college educations.)

The Flyers (school colors, gold and navy)

My aunt asked me to make some cupcakes in honor of their accomplishments. I decided to use their Letterman images to make some flag toppers and mimick their school colors in the icings using the swirling technique. I was so happy with how they turned out!

The Knights (school colors, maroon and sliver)

Now, I photograph every cupcake I make. But for some reason this time around I had a major brain malfunction and forgot! How could I forget? I honestly think I was so much looking forward to getting the cupcakes to them that it was the last thing on my mind. Luckily, my cousin Amy was nice enough to take some pictures and send them to me. Thanks, Amy! This is your To Bake or Not To Bake debut!

The Graduates (Our family sure makes 'em good lookin'!)

Congratulations girls! I am so proud of you! You will go on to do great things!