Archive for July, 2010
About 21 Weeks Until Christmas – A New Blog Challenge!
As I was reading the paper last week, I saw all sorts of Christmas in July ads! That was a blatant reminder that I have tons of fabric, thread, paper, and other materials that are just sitting and waiting to be turned into Christmas gifts.
Marissa just finished with her 30 Days 30 Bites Challenge and is hopefully working on coming up with her next challenge but today I am announcing my Threaded Together Blog Challenge – Crafting for Christmas! Last year our goal was to have every Christmas gift that we gave be a homemade gift. I was successful but only about 70% of the gifts we gave were homemade. This year I want to get closer to 90% of the gifts to be homemade. I am staying at home again this year so our budget is tight!
Every week, I will post a new completed (hopefully!) craft that I will be giving as a Christmas gift. I am still on the look out for some ideas so if you have any great crafty gift ideas, please leave me a link!
Repurpose – Jewelry Organizer
Are you tired of rummaging through a tangled up mess in a drawer or box to find just the right piece of jewelry to wear with an outfit? This wooden thread spool holder served its intended purpose for several years in my sewing room/office – I’m sure that I got more than my money’s worth out of it. When I reorganized and moved my sewing thread to stacking see-thru plastic boxes, I couldn’t bring myself to throw the wooden organizer away and shoved it under the sewing table, only to be forgotten. I redecorated my master bathroom a while ago and was actually on the lookout for a method to organize my costume jewelry when I saw something in a catalog, which reminded me of the wooden thread spool holder – and it now has a new purpose. It fits perfectly in the space and holds all of the pieces that I wear on a regular basis. A small decorative plate sitting on the counter holds post earrings. Everything is handy, especially for those early morning rushes to get out the door for work. The raw wood look works with my “beach-y” decorating theme, but it could be easily spray painted any color to match your décor. If you don’t have a wooden thread spool holder stashed under your sewing table, you can pick one up at JoAnn’s for less than $10 (with a coupon!).
Linking up to:
Tags: Debbie, Organization, Repurpose, Sewing
Super Mario Bros Cake
this would be a problem, but tried anyway. The result was a whole lotta fondant that was flat and stiff as a board. With the inability to flex around the curved edges of the cake, it went in the trash too. I am still a little worried that Mario might pass out and fall backwards on the cake. Heat exhaustion maybe! Really, he is definitely top heavy in the back of his head and I will be very happy to find out that he stays standing all day tomorrow! (see bottom of post for more pictures)Other than those minor things, it really was an enjoyable experience. I learned so much about my own abilities and different techniques working with fondant. I used two different types of fondant – rolled fondant to make the creatures and marshmallow fondant to actually cover the cakes. I have found that the rolled fondant works much better when it comes to molding things than the marshmallow. But the marshmallow tastes so much better (in all the opinions of the people I have polled) so I prefer to use it to do the covering. As usual, I made all of the fondant myself, which I still prefer doing as well. The extreme heat made it difficult to work with the fondant at times. I felt like the Cake Boss when the edges of his Empire State Building were falling off in the heat. My A/C is already working double time with it being 104 degrees outside though, so there was little I could do about it!
I would have to say that Mario was the most difficult to make (go figure, the one I wanted to have the most detail!) and I had the most fun making Yoshi and the mushroom head guys. My 8 year old was ready and willing at all times to tell me what creatures I should be making, what they should look like, and what I was doing wrong with them!!! :) Credit is also due to my husband who thought of making the warping pipe (the green thing off to the side). I had extra cake and didn’t want it to go to waste! It became a cute way to show that little E is turning 5!
So now that I have sufficiently de-Crisco-d my kitchen, I can officially say I am done! The cake is ready to go to its Super Mario home tomorrow and I am sure little E will love it. His mom came over today and she thinks he will too. That is the most important part and I cannot wait to find out.
Since I was covered in Crisco every step of the way, I wasn’t able to take pictures of the process. Probably a good thing since I tried to get the messy parts out of the way while my husband was gone! The last thing I need is proof of how the place looked! I will give you a quick run down of how it all went. We estimated the entire process took about 16 hours from start to finish. I used:
- 4.5 bags of powdered sugar
- 2 bags of marshmallows
- 1 container of glucose
- .5 containers glycerin
- A LOT of Crisco (makes everything not stick to everything else until you want it to!)
- The equivalent of 4 cake boxes (but I made mine from scratch)
- A lot of icing color
- 1 box of unflavored gelatin
- 12 eggs
- a few cups of oil
- I think that about covers it
I modeled the figures by their colors. I started with red and made the heads of the mushrooms and the backs of the turtles, etc. Then picked the next color that I would need on the most things that had red so I could build onto those pieces. So on, and so forth. Then I baked the cakes and let them chill before making the icing to top the cake. I put a crumb layer of buttercream icing on all the layers before putting them together and chilled them until the icing was set. I then colored and put the marshmallow fondant on top of each layer. Here is where I built the layers, putting measured and cut plastic dowel rods into the bottom layer which then supported the tiered plastic plate holding the top layer. After the layers were built I started placing the figures, really wherever they would sit! By the way, these were all dried by the time I did this. If I had ten people working for me, I would have tried to do this cake in a matter of hours, unfortunately that is not possible as a one-woman crew! After it was all done this evening, into the refrigerator it went!
I really do hope little E thinks it is the best cake ever and I hope to get many more opportunities to make such awesome cakes!
I should also say my husband is happy the cake is done because he has felt neglected this week when it comes to my baking. Apparently, the 36 scones I made him the other day have not been enough to put an end to his baked goods hunger. Sheesh!
Linking up to:
Tags: Baking, birthday, buttercream, Cakes, fondant, icing, Mario, Marissa, Super Mario Bros
Making a Cake Rise Evenly
How in the WORLD have I never done this before?! For at least a decade, I have baked a million cakes of all shapes and sizes. I make the batter, whether from scratch or a box, grease and pour it into the pan, and stick it in the oven to cook for half an hour. When the cake comes out of the oven it tastes delicious (usually). If I am baking it to just keep at home I plop some icing on it without thinking twice and savor the taste. If I am baking it to decorate and give to someone else, at least one more step is usually involved.
When you bake a cake, the edges of the pan cook first and the batter stops rising up the sides. Of course, this means the only place the cake can rise is in the middle. I am pretty sure everyone who has baked a cake has gotten a nice dome in the middle, more often than not. The fix to this problem when it happens is to level the cake by slicing the dome off the top. The end result is a shorter cake and a whole lot of wasted scraps that you usually just have to throw out. I cannot stand it when I have to throw food out!
I remember my grandmother wrapping these silver things around the outside of her cake pans when I was young. I had no idea what they were for back then, and as I grew older I didn’t put any stock into something like that affecting my cakes. How could a silver wrap change my cake?
Turns out, A LOT! Those silver wraps are called Bake Even Strips (though other companies produce them as well). Their one and only function is to make the cake bake evenly all around the pan and to eliminate that dome top. The strips range from about ten to twenty dollars and are sold in small and large sizes. You wet the strips and wrap them around the cake pan and the result is a level cake.
HOWEVER, if you are like me, the last thing you want to do is spend $20 on some funky strips. Another option for this is to create your own and it takes two seconds.
Homemade Even Baking Strips
Get an old bath towel (or anything terrycloth) and cut a slit in it about 2 inches wide. I did this going across the short side of the towel. Use this slit to rip the the towel the rest of the way (it just takes longer to use the scissors to cut all the way across). You now have a two inch strip of towel between two and four or five feet long. Wet the strip with cold water until it is soaking wet and wring it out just once. You want it to be thoroughly wet, but not dripping. Wrap the wet cloth around your cake pan and secure it with a large safety pin.
Place the pan in the oven as always (make sure the excess towel isn’t hanging down onto the oven coil or anything) and bake at recommended time. 
This might increase your baking time. I have had to add ten to twenty minutes onto the few cakes I have already used this method on. I wish I had a picture of a domed cake to compare with the LEVEL cakes, but that will never happen now. There is NO WAY I will ever go back to baking without the towel around the edges. It is far too easy and simple and takes no time at all for beautiful cakes!
WOW!!! What a difference! The cakes shown here were all baked with towels around them. I didn’t cut the sides off or level any of them. The result is a beautiful evenly baked cake all the way around! Also, these are reusable, so just re-wet them next time you are baking another delicious cake!
Tags: Baking, Cakes, Even Baking Strips, Homemade, Level Cake, Marissa
How to Cut a Mango
Remember those banana muffins I made and was unfortunately unable to share the recipe with you? Remember how I said I would definitely be using mango next time I made them? At least, I think I said that. If not, I was certainly thinking it! Well, not even 36 hours after I finished 30 Days and 30 Bites, my husband was begging me to do some more baking! In the last six days since I "completed" my challenge, I have made Mango Muffins, 3 dozen (and three different types of) Grandma Johnson’s Scones, Focaccia Bread (which was great with a little tweaking to my own tastes), Oat-N-Honey Bread, and Chocolate Pretzel Rings. I think that’s it. I guess new habits die hard.
Though all of these things were more than worthy of blogging about, I chose to do a quick tutorial related to the first one – the Mango Muffins. I don’t know how many of you purchase fresh mangos on a regular basis, but these are my first choice when it comes to baking with this scrumptious fruit. However, the first time I cooked with a mango, I brought my fruits home and stared at them like they were aliens from outer space. I had never tasted, cooked, baked with, or even thought of dealing with them before that day. Not only that, but I had NO idea how to cut the dang things open!
Would it be like an apple that I would need to core? A peach with a pit in it I would have to cut around? An apricot whose pit falls out with little to no help? Since I didn’t want to do the job twice, I went straight to the internet to find out exactly what I should do. I found a tutorial online that was incredibly useful (turned out that mangos have a difficult pit to deal with). The tutorial gave clear and concise directions, however did not have any pictures on how to go about this process. This, of course, was forever ago and I cannot find the website again. Instead, I decided I would share my knowledge of the best way to dice a mango from beginning to end (pictures included).
1. The mango has two very obvious "flat" sides. Stand the mango on its end, stem up, and slice it parallel to one of its flat sides. Make this cut slightly off center to avoid the pit. Repeat on the opposite side. I will get to what you do with the other two short sides left over at the end.
2. Create a grid on the mango by slicing several cuts along the length and width of the mango. Use a small paring knife and do not cut through the skin of the mango while doing this. (you actually have to work really hard to cut through the skin unless the mango is over ripe so you probably don’t have to try to hard to do this properly). However large, or small, you make these squares is the size your diced mango pieces will be.
3. Flip the mango half inside out to expose the almost diced pieces of fruit.
4. Slice the pieces off of the skin using the same small knife. If desired, dice the mango pieces smaller until you reach the size you want. Repeat steps 1 – 4 with the other flat side of the mango.
5. Again, cutting off center to avoid the pit, cut off the other two short pieces of the mango and cut in the same grid manner. These pieces of the mango are often much tougher and sometimes not even worth the effort of cutting!
Voila! That’s how you cut a mango! Enjoy the FRUITS of your labor!
Piles of Pillowcases
Disney princesses, Cub Scouts, and soccer!
These instructions will make one standard size pillowcase (approximately 32” x 20”). I have adapted these into EASY instructions from some complicated directions I got for free from a quilt shop in California about 15 years ago. There are almost no limits to the fabrics and colors available. The instructions can be adapted to any size pillow.
- I first made pillowcases when my daughters were headed off to college:
- If your students attend a large school it is fairly easy to find novelty fabric, otherwise use the school colors
- Use stencils to cut out the school/sorority letters out of iron-on patch material; zigzag around to make sure they stay on through repeated washings
- I have also made them to decorate beds
- An inexpensive way for decorator pillows to coordinate with sheets on the bed – pick up a twin size flat to match to use as the fabric
- Use ribbons and buttons to close up the end
- Now I make them for the “grands”
- for holidays
- to decorate their bedrooms (e.g., anything pink, baseball)
- or their hobbies and interests (e.g., Boy Scouts, dance, soccer)
Fabric (44-45” wide) required:
1 yard (44-45” wide) for body of pillowcase
1/3 yard for end of pillowcase
1/8 yard for accent strip
Recommended fabrics:
It is up to you to decide whether you want to use something recommended for children’s wear (e.g., flame retardant fabrics). I’ve always used 100% cotton (e.g., quilting-type fabrics, novelty & holiday-print fabrics and flannel). Prewash all fabrics.
Optional: Rickrack and other embellishments
Cutting (or “ripping”) Directions:
From the 1 yard piece, cut one piece 27” x 41”
From 1/3 yard piece, cut one piece 10” x 41”
From 1/8 yard piece, cut one piece 3” x 41”
Instructions:
Press the 3” x 41 accent strip in half lengthwise, right side out, raw edges together (strip will now be 1 ½” x 41”) .
Press the 10” x 41” end piece in half lengthwise, right side out, raw edges together (strip will now be 5” x 41”).
Sandwich the accent (1 ½” wide) strip between the end piece (5” wide) and right side of the bottom long edge of the body fabric with all raw edges together. You can pin them together if you are hesitant about feeding them along, or do like I do and just hold them in place. Make sure that your “body” fabric is going in the desired direction.
Sew a 5/8” wide seam along the bottom edge. Don’t panic if they don’t match up exactly on the other end, just trim accordingly!
Press: 1) seams up; 2) accent piece up; and 3) end piece down.
Top stitch the accent piece to keep it standing up. This is a good time/place to add rickrack or ribbon, if desired. I only add buttons and other embellishments if the pillowcases won’t actually be used for sleeping (who wants a button in their ear?).
Fold the body piece (with attached accent and end piece) in half with right sides together, matching the edges (should be starting to look like a pillowcase at this point!).
Sew a 5/8” seam around the long side and top open edges. You can doublestitch this if you think it will get heavy duty wear.
Clip close to the seam and the corners.
Turn inside out and press.
Taking pictures and all, this one took me about 30 minutes. Usually I make these in “assembly-line” fashion. In no time at all you’ll have a Pile of Pillowcases.
I just had a brilliant idea to make “tooth” pillows – will let you know how those work out (when I get around to them).
Sweet Dreams!
Linking up to:
Tags: Boy Scouts, children, Christmas, Debbie, Easter, fabric, Halloween, Holidays, home decorating, Kids, linens, pillowcases, pillows, Sewing, sports
Pacifier Clip
A little while ago, I was out with a friend who has a little one and she had the cutest pacifier clip. I asked her who made it for her and she said she bought it at a baby boutique. I took a closer look and decided it was a crafty project I was going to try. I didn’t use a tutorial for it but after I made it, I did a quick search and found the following tutorials: 1) Pacifier clip with snaps at This and That; 2) 8 paci clips for only a dollar at Ruffles and Stuff ; 3) Paci clips using fabric at So Simply Stephanie.
For this paci clip, I was trying to find the easiest and quickest way to knock it out and I certainly did. This pacifier clip took all of about ten minutes! I would love to make half a dozen of these for a baby shower gift. Since they are pretty inexpensive and quick to make, they make a perfect baby gift!
What you will need:
A strip of grosgrain ribbon (I like the way this ribbon holds up a little better than satin) cut to the length you would like (my ribbon was 13 inches long)
Velcro
Sewing Machine and thread
Suspender/Mitten Clips
What to do:
1. Slide one end of ribbon through the suspender clip and sew to the other side of ribbon. Before I sewed the ribbon into place, I folded the ribbon over 1/4 so that it had a clean edge to it. As you can see in the pictures below, I had the suspender clip facing the wrong way! I took the pictures before I realized what I did. Note to crafter: Be sure to pay attention to the way that the clip is facing before you sew! :-)
2. Fold over the edge on the other side of the ribbon so that it makes a clean edge. Stick one piece of velcro on the end of the ribbon and the other about an inch down. This is the side that will hold the pacifier!
3. Sew a line through the velcro so that it will stay attached to the ribbon.
That is it! Seriously, this is the easiest sewing project I have ever completed! I would show it to you with a paci attached to a baby, but my babies aren’t so baby anymore and I couldn’t locate a dolly pacifier in the pit we call Little S’s room so this picture will have to do!
Linking up to:
Zucchini Bread
It is summer time and the living zucchini is easy cheap! Do you have an abundance of zucchini from your garden, from a neighbor’s garden, from your local farmer’s market (we love the Palafox Market in downtown Pensacola), or like me, picked up a couple of pounds while grocery shopping the other night because it was about as cheap as we’re going to see it all year … This rich, moist recipe came from another student wife when we were living in married student housing at Oregon State University in 1978 and has become a perennial summer family favorite.
Zucchini Bread
Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 cup oil (I use canola)
2 cups grated zucchini (skins on)
2 cups brown sugar
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 teaspoon vanilla
Directions:
Beat eggs. Add oil, sugar, zucchini and vanilla. Mix well. Add dry ingredients. Mix until all combined, but still lumpy. Lightly grease pans (try to use pans that are the same size so that they will finish baking at the same time). Bake 60 minutes at 325°, or until a pick inserted comes out clean. Makes two 8 or 9” loaves. Also makes great mini-loaves and muffins.
30 Days and 30 Bites – DAY THIRTY!
This is it! Today is the day! 30 Days and 30 Bites has come to an end! I have made it through heaps of chocolate, fondant, fruits, FLOUR and more…and I am still standing and still married to my amazing husband :). I cannot express to you how glad I am that it is over! I am so happy I chose a THIRTY day challenge, and not a 365 day challenge. I give major kudos to Julia for making it through that cookbook in a year! I thoroughly loved this walk down the baking path, but I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. The last thing I want to look at for at least a week is SUGAR. I don’t want to smell it, see it, eat it, feel it…I may even bring what I have left to my neighbors so it is out of the house!
When I started this challenge I thought it would be a good idea to keep track of the volumes of the various items that it took me to make it through the 30 days of baking. This was a bit of a let down actually. I definitely went through several bags of powdered sugar (all that icing!) and there is a good dent in my Sam’s Club size vanilla extract bottle. Other than that though, the amounts of things were not that impressive. I may have used 10 lbs of flour and five of sugar. Definitely half a (big) bag of brown sugar. I didn’t even use more than one or two cake boxes though. What a let down! I did, however, buy all sorts of things I never thought I would. For instance, almond paste, which took forever to find and looks like a refrigerated sausage. This just goes to show though, baking can certainly be done on a budget. For the most part, if you do any baking at all, you are probably going to have most of the materials on hand. And let me tell you, Chips Ahoy ain’t got nuthin on my chocolate chip cookies! I would much rather bake fresh goods than buy them packaged, any day!
I would like to thank my husband, who not only encouraged this baking bonanza, but also gave his honest opinion. Thank you sweetheart, for always eating the ugly cookies and cupcakes so I could save the pretty ones to give to our friends. You are the best!
So, a few things I learned: there is no such thing as too much vanilla; washing the stuff it takes to bake every day is really annoying; chocolate is God’s gift to mankind; my husband really will eat anything; sometimes simpler is better; sometimes better requires A LOT of work; I have a long way to go before opening that bakery!
So what am I going to do now? I thought about 30 Days of Diet, but to be honest I actually lost 4 pounds this month. I certainly had my days where I pigged out on that daily concoction, but for the most part I was so good about only eating one of what I made. Let me tell you, it was rough at first, but you already know how I feel about sugar now! I really do know why bakers can be thin…you really get to the point where you just can’t eat anything made with flour and sugar anymore!
Needless to say, I am taking a break from the kitchen. I have a few things (like those mango muffins) that I have the supplies for, so I need to bake them! I think I’ll enjoy it even more now without the pressure of having to write about it each night! I only missed one day out of 30, and that was day 15. I figure I deserved a break at the halfway point.
Of course, now on to the topic of tonight’s post…
I was trying to be so clever for my big finale. First I thought I would do some enormous topsy turvy cake. I decided I didn’t have it in me. I’ve tried that once before and the results weren’t pretty. Then I thought I would do something that required NO baking. Alas, I did not feel like making cheesecake (I just ate a friend’s 2 days ago) or no bake Krispies cookies. I finally just decided that I would delve into my allrecipes.com recipe box and find something I have been wanting to do for a while and haven’t. The final decision: Magic Peanut Butter Middles.
These required a little bit of extra work. As I have shown in the picture, you form the middles of a peanut butter mixture and then wrap them with a chocolate mixture. Everyone’s comments on the site were about different ways to make this work. You can try one or all of them, but in the end, it is all about what you feel comfortable doing.
The cookies received rave reviews after we brought them to a friend’s house this evening for game night. I definitely think I prefer the peanut butter cup cakes I made on day two of 30D30B. Those took a lot less work for something that tasted just as great, if not better.
Still, the best word to describe these: YUM!
I hope you have all enjoyed 30D30B. I know I have! Thanks to you for reading and thanks to my neighbors for allowing me to invade your houses with baked goods this month!
Tags: Baking, chocolate, cookies, Marissa, peanut butter
30 Days and 30 Bites – Day 29
I have discovered yet another fun new nut to play with! 
I mean pistachios guys. Have you ever baked with them before? Today marked the first time for me when I made Pistachio Muffins for breakfast this morning. I adapted the recipe from here but will again re-write it with the changes I made. First, let me say that pistachios really are such cool nuts. I have never eaten them before and thus, never realized that they were so unlike the nuts we usually see.
I was not able to find pistachios that were already shelled, so this created the longest step of this baking piece. It wasn’t a painful process or anything, just took longer and required a bit more effort than I prefer. You know how I like to dump and bake. This process introduced me to the wonderful colors of pistachios. Each layer, something new. Inside the shell, there is a paper thin part that is a deep purple. After you wipe that away the pistachio itself is almost neon green, which explains why they always color pistachio recipes as such. When you crack the pistachio in half, you’ll see that the inside is a vibrant yellow glaring like the sun.
What I loved about this one – it seems like a great healthified recipe, combining whole wheat flour, oats, low fat (I used fat free) milk, and more. Any time I can get a little extra fiber into a recipe, I’m a happy lady. Not only that, but they did not TASTE healthified. They were a great muffin and would make a tasty addition to the end of any dinner. They stand on their own as a breakfast muffin. Eat a banana with it and drink a cup of orange juice and you’ll be a happy person too.
What I changed in the recipe – it originally called for applesauce, which I don’t bake with so I used all oil; I added a 3.4 ounce package of pistachio pudding mix to make sure the pistachio taste was in there; I increased the topping amount by 50% because it just wasn’t enough to cover the muffins.
Pistachio Muffins
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup old fashioned oats
- 1/4 cup chopped pistachios
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 3.4 ounce package pistachio pudding mix
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup fat free milk
- 1 cup oil
- 1 egg
- Topping:
- 1/2 cup chopped pistachios
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees and place muffin cups in 12 count muffin pan. Combine flour, sugar, oats, pistachios, baking powder, salt, and pistachio pudding mix in a bowl until blended. In separate bowl combine milk, oil and egg until blended. Pour wet mixture into dry mixture just until combined. Do not over mix. Fill muffin cups 2/3 way full. For topping, mix pistachios and brown sugar in a small bowl. Spoon topping onto top of each batter filled cup. Bake in oven for 18 to 22 minutes.
