Coffee floats and fall baking

A weekend off for a bakery worker is a rare and beautiful thing. So what better way to spend it than baking? 

Weekend time also means time to hang out with friends who have more conventional work weeks. I decided a pie was in order. 

Apple cinnamon with rosemary. I got fancy with the maple cutouts but opted not to use my usual egg wash in light of high egg prices. The recipe is adapted from a Rocco Dispirito cookbook. 

I also made a Saturday afternoon treat for all the coffee lovers out there. Coffee floats! 

(Tony's Vanuatu mug and my brand new mermaid mug!) 

A scoop of Haagen das coffee ice cream, splash of milk and some cooled coffee made for a delightful afternoon pick me up. I also want to make some cold brew coffee and try that next time. 

Hope everyone else is having a great weekend! Now for some car ride crocheting on our way to friends and games night! 

Cheers! 

Thursday Thrifting

Haven't posted my thrifting finds lately. I have been trying to be good but I have had a couple of really good days!

Here is the haul from a couple of weeks ago. I collect the pie dishes with the recipes in them, my problem at this point is I don't remember which ones I have! So if it is a good price and I don't KNOW I have it I go ahead and get it. This Raspberry Cream Pie plate was only $2.99. My dream is to someday have them all displayed in my house and any extras or doubles I have can then be gifted.

I also bought the old wooden rolling pin for $1.99. The paint is peeling and the handles are a little wonky but I loved the look of it enough to buy it as a decorative piece. I have seen these types of rolling pins go for way more at antique stores, so I thought for the price it will look awesome in my someday kitchen.

The two cake plates are matching and were $3.99 a piece. Steal! I love cake plates and as I may actually set a date and get to plan a wedding here sometime in the hopefully near future these will be put to good use on a dessert table.

The clear pasta container has been on my radar for awhile. I have a pin saved on pinterest where someone used this type of container to store their cupcakes liners. I am notorious at losing track of cupcake liners, shoving them in strange places and generally either squashing them or not knowing what I have. As I find my stashes around my kitchen and elsewhere I have been adding them to the container and now I know where they all are, what I have, and they aren't getting squished anymore! Huzzah!

Harder to see in the picture is a simple wooden napkin holder. I'll admit right now that I don't buy napkins but hoard them from take out. (Most notably chipotle). We end up eating in the basement in front of the tv a lot and the napkins have just been strewn about on the coffee table. Now at least I have them contained. Baby steps towards classing the place up a bit.

So a good haul all around. Yay for good thrifting days!

Find yourself some treasures lately?

Back to School Cookies

Today is the first day of school here in our district. To celebrate I made some back to school cookies at work.

These were actually 'gift package' cut out cookies. We get our cookies in frozen and bake them off in store. We don't use a traditional royal icing, like I would prefer, but a glossy frosting more used for donuts. It never gets super hard, which makes it delicious, but also harder to decorate. I am taking it upon myself at work to sort of be 'in charge' of the sugar cookies though as we roll into the holiday season. Most times we do 6cts that are simply decorated with icing and maybe sprinkles. I'm hoping to bump it up a notch this year and offer at least some cookie options that really tap into the cute factor. There are some truly amazing cookie artists out there! I am nowhere near as talented as some of them but I vow to continue to try to make cute yummy cookies.

To all my teacher friends: Good Luck with this school year! And a special Shout Out to my fiance who is starting as a Math Corps Tutor!

Settlers of Catan: Cupcakes

I can't believe I didn't post this last year but I am fixing  it now. Have you played Settlers of Catan? It's a fun game that quickly gets competitive and sometimes heated :) 

Last year I was invited to attend a birthday Catan tournament. With over 30 people invited I knew I probably wasn't going to bring home the game trophy... But they were also giving a prize for best food- now that I had a shot at. Lots of people have done versions of cupcakes or cookies so building from those ideas I made a cupcake version of the game board.

I used a combo of frosting, candies, and a bit of fondant.  I was super pleased with how it turned out. And at the end of the day I did being home the award for best food! 

Now the tournament is again taking place this weekend and I have to live up to my name.... What to make! I haven't figured it out yet but I'll share once I do. 

Cheers all and may your Catan playing bring you much glory. 

Hoppy Easter

See what I did there? Well so much for "hoping" right back on the blog bandwagon. 

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter. I spent a good chunk of it in my car alone, but hey that's the price you pay to get to go see your cousins's adorable twin girls. Babies! Silly hormones. 

I did get to try a new recipe from Pinterest. I made blueberry white chocolate chip cookies and they were amazing! Often times my cookies don't turn out as lovely as I would hope so this was a nice change. They were a big hit for Easter and I think the flavor is perfect for spring. Maybe add some dried cranberries to make it red, white, and blue worthy for 4th of July! 

Here is the recipe 

http://www.stetted.com/index.php/2013/07/25/blueberry-white-chocolate-cookies/#_a5y_p=1417149

Dragon Eggs!

Did everyone have an epic Game of Thrones day?! (And a Happy Easter?) Season 3 premiered last night and I made a set of three mini egg cakes as a hostess gift.

Mini chiffon eggs with Bavarian cream in the center. Two have buttercream frosting and the third is chocolate ganache. They are decorated to look like the three dragon eggs from Game of Thrones. And yes, they were quite delicious.

I have been neglecting my little corner of the internet. Finally getting some time to dust off the cobwebs a bit. I hope it keeps up because I have lots of cool things and ideas I feel like sharing. Happy April!

Classic Gingerbread

Have I mentioned that I am obsessed with Gingerbread houses? I think they are just the most adorable. I have dreams of hosting an epic gingerbread house decorating party but everytime I start to think about the details it all becomes a little overwhelming. Some day. For now I will have to console myself with helping out at my work's gingerbread class they host every year. We had an extra house one day, and some extra time so I got to decorate a house. I did one last year with the candy and such but this year I decided to let the kids use the candy and I would content myself with just using some royal icing.

Classic and sort of vintage feeling. And delicious...did I mention delicious? I think I better go make some gingerbread cookies to enjoy right now!

Happy Holiday Baking and Making!

Baking season

Working at a bakery sometimes the LAST thing I want to do when I get home is bake, but I love it so I have been forcing myself to make stuff! A couple of weeks ago the Derby team got together for a potluck- and I brought the skate cake! I bought the pan at the local Hobby Lobby with a coupon. I really shouldn't collect this kind of bakeware because I don't have the room...but oh do I love it!

And cupcakes are always a favorite! I made these easy peasy egg cupcakes for my friend's birthday Brinner (breakfast for dinner).

These are so easy they are criminal! I loaded up a pastry bag with white frosting and put an irregular dollop on each mini cupcake. Then I separated out some plain yellow m&ms and made sure I put the 'm' side down. Ta da! These are nice because they don't have an obscene amount of frosting on them. Another cute idea is to use green m&ms for a green eggs and ham/ Dr. Seuss party.

Now it is all about the turkeys and fall leaves and getting ready for winter.

Weddings, and Derby, and Pie! oh my!

This month has been CRAZY. But now it is almost over and we can get on to more important things, like Halloween!!! But seriously what a month.

I made pies for my friends wedding... 27 pies.

 Crusts

 Heading to the bakery to bake them in the giant oven. Thanks bakery!!!

 Delivered. 

 Pie table. 

County Apple, Peach Blackberry, and Cherry. Nom. 

For as much as I flipped out about this project it all came together in the end. I may be a terrible procrastinator (ahem...friend's t-shirt quilt I still haven't finished...ahem) but when it comes down to it I get shit done. 

The day before the wedding I was running around doing last minute projects, including making helmet covers for my roller derby team! We were short a set so I found a pattern on the internet, ran to the fabric store and busted them out! On Saturday after my hair appointment (which on a separate note I am never doing again) I sneaked over the arena where my girls were setting up for their bout. They ended up loosing but I am so proud of all of them and I am sad I could not be there for them. After a day of recovery it was back to grindstone. Now here we are a few minutes from October and it starts all over again! Another bout to plan, more baking to be done and costumes to figure out and be made. Let the epic-ness continue! 

Farewell September. You have been busy. 

Wedding Sweets

Most days I am a bit cranky about work (shocking I know) but some days are pretty good. This day I got to make these lovely wedding cookies. I have seen the idea several places and it was really fun to make them.

Have I mentioned that I am making wedding pie for my friend's wedding? Well I am. And that project is coming up rather quickly. I will hopefully be documenting the successful process right here! : )

Poison Ivy Cupcakes

Even though the weather has been sweltering lately I have been doing more baking than I have in a long time! My fishing themed cupcakes for my friend's bridal shower turned out cute...but I forgot my camera so I am waiting for my other friend to upload her pics from her camera (which she is notoriously slow at : ).

This week though one of my derby gals was in need of some cupcakes to go with her Poison Ivy costume. I jumped on that task! I knew what I wanted them to look like in my head and I think they turned out rather well. Nice bright red and green (it looked like Christmas threw up in my kitchen because I am a messy decorator!) in two flavors: Red Velvet and white. I threw in some green into the white batter to continue the theme.

All boxed up and ready to go! She really liked them but I am still waiting to hear if they were a hit at her event!

It might not have been one of the better Batman movies (understatement of the year) but I really loved Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy. She totally rocked it and looked like she was having an absolute blast!

Thrifted Lovelies

A couple more thrifty finds.


My sweet mother bought me this glass set at a garage sale.

 Right after I took this photo I tried to break them all, dropping them as I tried to put them on the shelf. Thank goodness they are all ok!

I found another vintage pie dish at one of my favorite thrift stores. There is not a lot of turnover and most times I don't find anything but once in a awhile there is a real gem and it is dirt cheap.

 I guess this would technically be a 'Cheesecake' dish. I am adding this to my growing collection of baking dishes with recipes on them. At $1.25 I couldn't resist!

Happy Thrifting!

A Very Haunted Harry Potter Birthday Party

It was a lot of work and we were scrambling at the end a bit but the party came together rather nicely and was a SUPER GOOD TIME. Probably the best 'Halloween Saturday' (as I like to call it) in quite a long time. I just can't help imagining what I could do with more time and money!

 Cauldron cakes, licorice wands, Bertie Bott's every flavored beans, and dips, chips, and other goodies.

 The Three Broomsticks

 Butterbeer!

 Group shot (thanks to Muggle camera woman Miranda)

 Fluffy

 Doby the house elf

 Time turner!

 Ron

 Hermione

 Dolores Umbridge

 Trelawney

 Harry Potter

 Professor McGonagall

 Trelawney (less unhinged)

The birthday kids. Hahahahahaa. I love this picture! I will write another post and go into some of the crafty details in a different post. But for now I wish you a good nights rest before All Hallows Eve.

Happy Haunting!

Maple Cookies

Working in a bakery my little inner home-baker gets pretty excited. Completely convinced that I would rock at cake decorating I decided to start small and tackle some cookies.

I have been trying to find a recipe/baking technique that produces super smooth professional looking cookies. This one wasn't bad but I feel I can do better! Then I just googled a maple glaze (since I am in full Autumn flavor mode right now) and then topped the cookies with some orange frosting just to play around with decorations.

 I boxed some up to give to my friends. Too much cookie goodness to keep to myself!

I got some good reviews from my taste testers so I will have to make another batch soon!

The return of a legend

One of my best friends in the whole world has just moved back to my town! I can't contain my excitement. It is seriously the best thing to happen to me in a long time.

Too much Thrifting?

 

I love thrift store shopping but lately I keep buying things that I perhaps don't need. Probably the one thing I really don't need (seeing as I am living at home) is more dishes but they are the thing I can't seem to stop buying! Some day when I  have my own place again I will be completely set. I probably have enough stuff to fill an entire house and right now it is just living in stacks in my room and basement.

I can never say no to pie plates! In theory I would make cute gifts out of them or something but we all know that I am just going to keep them because no one will love them as much as I do. Same thing goes for other decorative/display dishes. You will be hard up to find a cake plate/ stand that I am not in love with.

 The only thing better than a pie dish? One with a recipe on it. These were bundled all three together for $6 at a local thrift shop. How could I say no?!

 Ok these next dishes I probably didn't need but once again I got into my bad habit of "Someday I will need pasta dishes!" Ah the elusive 'someday'. 'Someday' I will make a huge pot of pasta and use one of these gems to devour it as I have a Godfather marathon. (Preferably my cute 'someday boyfriend' will be sitting next to me- he can use the other dish.)

These last few dishes are a bit beat up but they have some really cool botanical designs on them. The have a few tiny cracks in them so I will probably use them at some point for holding indoor potted plants or something like that.

 

So when is it too much? When your current digs cannot contain the amount of stuff you accumulate any more? Perhaps. Between my dishes addiction and my dress addiction I may have to go into retail therapy.

Other things:

~working on some sewing projects that I will share later this week
~still 'trying to figure it all out' (my ongoing and never ending project)
~already looking ahead to October (omg is it August already?!) and the Halloween festivities to come
~my best friend in the whole world is moving back to MN! She will be back one week from today! SO EXCITED.