The 10th Kingdom

I was updating my profile and there was a section about your favorite movie and I remembered this one.  I loaned my copy of this wonderful mini series and not exactly sure to who.  I miss it.  We use to watch it over spring break because its really long.  I think I am going to look for it on eBay.  If you ever get a chance to watch it, do it.  I won't say to much about it because I don't want to spoil it for anyone.  Its a fairytale that is a little twisted.  That's all I will say.  I don't want to spoil it for you.

The trolls are great

  of course there is true love

The Professor's Monthly Homework Assignment - Spring!

I love spring.  The only thing I love more is full blown summer but that is another blog.  I love pastels.  There I’ve said it.  I love pastels and I am not ashamed.  I love Easter because of the pastel colors.  As a young girl I thought the most beautiful thing was the color baby blue paired with baby pink,  I pinned a brave woman’s hair in those exact colors on my pinterest and that has gotten the most repins of anything I have ever put on it?  I don’t even know what all this means.  I guess it is not the coolest thing in the world that you love the smell of the Easter candy isle at Wal-Mart which is huge and pastel colors of the Easter baskets.  Everything is a baby at Easter.  Bunnies, chick’s cute human babies dressed as bunnies and chicks.  I use coco butter for my daily body lotion and have been told I smell like Easter candy.  Which I take as a compliment.     

I Think spring is the perfect time for carrot cake.  I make a carrot cake that is my specialty.  This has not always been the case.  When my children were young I use to have family birthday parties for them.  On one such occasion I made a carrot cake from a box mix.  My mother takes one bite of it and immediately spits it out which results into a domino effect of everyone else refusing to eat the cake and discussing how it does not remotely resemble carrot cake.  I suppose another mother and another family would have politely thrown the cake away and kept completely silent about how awful it was.  This would not have resulted into carrot cake being my specialty. 

 

I like to think of myself ahead of the times and a real trendsetter.  The reality of it is I am a day late and a dollar short of the trends and times.  That being said I have decided to make my carrot cake into cupcakes.  I think I read somewhere cupcakes are out.  Macaroons in.  Stay tuned.  I will probably have macaroons on this blog two years from now.  I don’t really get the whole cupcake craze?   I am old enough to thinking of cupcakes of the thing that I did as a room mom (which I am sure that now days they call it something way more deep and meaningful then that like maybe Angle mom who knows?) so the whole cupcake trend that has come and gone is really wasted on me.  But lucky for you bloggers here is goes.  My attempt at turning my favorite cake into cupcakes.

I think every woman has her go to cookbook.  Mine is Better Homes and Gardens.  In my opinion everyone else is pretty much the same with some slight tweaking.  Kind of like build a better mousetrap thing.  My carrot cake is theirs with some tweaking.  You can almost take any favorite cake recipe and convert it to
cupcakes.  Cook at the same temperature but for 1/3 to ½ the amount of time.  I cooked my cupcakes at 350 for 22 minutes but do a toothpick check at 19 to be safe.  Also for cupcakes switch places in the oven with the two muffin tins and turn them at 14 minutes, a mistake I made was not to use muffin liners.  I had every holiday but Easter.  After the fact my husband said why didn’t you just use the other holiday and pull them off?  Don’t you hate the logical male mind sometimes?  My plan was to use some cupcake wraps.  I did find some really cute ones on line to print but my computer went down and I was done and just wanted to clean up.  I did have a few pastel color muffin liners for my photo shoot.  It is really hard for me to say photo shoot with a straight face. 

Best-Ever Carrot Cake: directions for layer cake

Prep time: 30 minutes Bake:  350 Cool 2 hours makes 12 servings (or almost 24 cupcakes I made 22)

  

4 beaten eggs 2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon (optional) I use it

½ tsp baking soda

3 cups finely shredded carrots (lightly packed) *

¾ cups cooking oil* 

2 tsp vanilla (secret ingredients)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

 

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8 oz package cream cheese

½ cup butter or margarine (real leery of margarine in frosting)

2 tsp vanilla

5 ¼ to 6 ¼ sifted powdered sugar

Beat cream cheese, butter, vanilla and powdered sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy.  Gradually add 2 cups of the powdered sugar beating well.  Gradually beat in additional powdered sugar to reach spreading consistency.  Makes enough for a layer cake or way more then enough for a sheet cake which is all I make because I need it for a crowd.  If you are doing a sheet cake, you can half the frosting recipe.  Not sure how much for cupcakes since it went terribly wrong.  For my photo shoot (still funny) not sure since the 3 cupcakes in the photo I used a pastry bag, the frosting went quick.  If you use a knife to frost them, it goes really far I think you can half the recipe if just frosting the cupcakes with a knife.  There is nothing wrong with having extra cream cheese frosting (thinking Cinnabon cinnamon rolls in the morning.)  Tons of copy cat recipes using your bread machine for the dough recipes out there.  I have one if you need it^.  Once again dating myself.  My new much younger friends know nothing about the whole bread machine craze.
I use to always use store bought frosting.  I have noticed a change in some of my old favorites of everything. (Don’t get my started on chocolate bars and gram crackers. S’mores is forever ruined for me) something is going on.  I will admit it really could just be me and my aged taste buds but I don’t think so.  So for the first time ever I am making my own.  If you think store bought in the cute tub works I say go for it.  Making homemade frosting is a pain.  It is messy.  Is it good?  Yes but if you think store bought is good and like it then go for it.

Candy is Dandy but Liquor is Quicker

Since sometime middle January there have been so  many over priced cheesy gifts for men to buy for women for Valentines Day.   One of them are Sherry's Berries.  They are beautiful and good for Sherry making a honest living but my husband being practical (cheap) could not believe the $50 price for them.  "I can make those why cheaper that's crazy"  So my daughter and I at the same time "Make those for us for Valentines Day!"  What could he say?  Then yesterday I was at the salon getting my hair done and bragged about my husband making these for me.  One of the stylist said soak them in vodka first.  Genius!  My husband got involved with his prime rib so I made these myself.  All you do is soak the berries in vodka for 24 hours.  Drain and pat dry.  Melt the Bakers chocolate in the micro container that it comes in.  Just follow the directions which is heat 30 seconds stir repeat.  So easy and not messy.

Bought this on clearance.  I knew it would come in handy one day

Christmas Cookie Day 13

Krumkake

This is on the back of the iron box.
2 eggs                                        1  tsp cardamom
1 cup sugar                               1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup butter, softened          1 scant cup milk

Beat eggs well. Add sugar, butter and cardamom, beat well. Add flour and milk even parts at a time beat until smooth.  Heat the iron until drops of water sizzle on it.  The recipe said put a tsp on the griddle.  That is not enough.  I did one Tlbs.

Okay so the first thing was what in the H is scant.  I had to google it.  I means just barley.  So I did not fill with milk all the way to the 1 cup line.  I was afraid that the cardamon spice would be to spicy like ginger bread or something like those kind of cookies so I only used 1/2 tsp cardamom.  I wish I would have used the whole tsp.  I like it.  I got my iron off of ebay.  If you go looking for one of these, I recommend starting with an antique store first.  After I bought mine I found some in the Swiss town New Glarus.  Duh.  I know that this whole area that I live in was settled by Scandinavians.  The shipping on ebay will kill you.  My iron, even though old, was very gently used.  The cone thing was missing.  I have not had a chance to find one or jury rig one.  It is hard to clean.  There is a learning curve to getting these cookies right so I really can't give any pointers.  You just need to mess around with it until you get your cookie mojo.  I never did get the pretty design to show up on the cookie except for the burnt ones?  This was fun but messy and the design is not the best.  The handle gets hot.  I need to get one of those little pot holder things like they put on the cast iron skillets.  Also be careful when you squeeze the irons together I did get burned a little so I hold my hands kind of to the side when i squeeze it.  The picture on the back of the box shows a child making these I think?  I wouldn't let my kid.  

Hold your hand to the side.  Don't grip it or the steam will come out and burn you.

Christmas Cookie Day 12

• Paula Deen's Snowflake Cookie Recipe

• 
  
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy. Beat in eggs, vanilla and almond extract until combined.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add to sugar mixture, beating until smooth. Wrap dough in heavy-duty plastic wrap, and refrigerate 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4-inch thickness. Cut with assorted snowflake cookie cutters and place 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Chill dough 15 minutes. Bake for 10 minutes, or until edges are very lightly browned. Let cool for 2 minutes on baking sheet. Remove from pans and cool completely on wire racks.

Paint cookies with Edible Paint Icing. Garnish with silver dragees, sugar pearls and sparkling sugar, if desired.

Icing Recipe

• 1/4 cup cold water
• 3 tablespoons meringue powder
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• Food coloring, optional
• 
  

In a medium bowl, combine water and meringue powder; whisk until foamy. Whisk in confectioners' sugar until smooth. Add food coloring, if desired. Use immediately.  We added a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla and almond extract.

I have been asked by Rhonda to be a guest blogger! It is fun to be doing this for her because I share her love of cookies and baking.  My boyfriends sister came over last night to make cookies for a family holiday party we are attending on Sunday.  We did get a little carried away with the Corona Light and eventually had to break into Jim's stash of Summer Shandy.  So as you can imagine there was a lot of laughing and girl talk to go along with the drinking and baking! Oh I almost forgot the pictures we took to post them on Facebook because we thought we were hilarious.  The only problem with the Thirsty Thursday festivities was going to work the next day.

We rolled these out to be about a 1/4 inch in thickness.  If you roll them thinner you really have to watch them or the cookies crisp up quickly!  I personally like a soft cookie over the crispy crunchy cookie.  This is by far one of the BEST sugar cookie recipes I have ever had.  I really love sugar cookies.  Julie bought the Betty Crocker icing in Red, White and Green.  I will say what a great idea that was because it has the best flavor (not the powdered sugar flavor homemade icings have) and we did make home made frosting and those were Yellow and a Light Blue.  Away we went with the decorating.  As you know we were celebrating the upcoming holiday season with the Corona Light and Shandy and eventually Jim and Julie's mom joined in the fun (she was tired and wanted to go home) and then the decorating became very creative.  What a great time we had last night baking cookies.
I hope you enjoy these as much as wee did and it really has been great that Rhonda asked me to be her guest!
Lisa

Christmas Cookie Day 11

BELLRINGER COOKIES
1 cup all purpose flour

¼ tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda

1/3 cup soft butter or margarine

1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp orange rind

2 tsp apricot nectar
1 tbsp maraschino cherry liquid

2 tsp soft butter or margarine

1 tbsp light brown sugar

½ cup finely minced nuts

Quartered maraschino cherries about 6.  Cream 2 tsp butter and brown sugar, stir n cherry liquid and nuts set aside cream 1/3 cup butter and sugar, stir in orange rind and nectar. Sift together flour, baking powder, soda. Stir into butter-sugar mixture until well blended. Make into 2 balls of dough. Roll out, one at a time on lightly floured pastry cloth to 1/8” thickness, Cut into 3” bells and place on ungreased cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Spoon ½ tsp of nut cherry liquid mixture into center place a cherry quarter at wide end for clapper bake at 375 12 to 14 min until golden about 2 dozen cookies

You really need to watch these while baking so they don't get to brown.  I use margarine because that is what my mom used and afraid to mess with it.  I cut the cherries in half because I love them.  They really don't make 2 dozen.  I have not had good luck doubling this recipe.  I don't know if there is a trick to it but seems like my favorite recipe's are unforgiving when I try to double them.  I always use parchment paper. They are one of those cookies that can brake when you try to take them off. Also I always roll out my cookies in powdered sugar instead of flour. They will not get tough if you use sugar.

Christmas Cookie Day 10

KISS COOKIES

Ingredients:
2 cups sifted flour
1 cup margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans
1 pkg kisses
powder sugar
Directions:
Beat margarine, sugar, vanilla until light and fluffy add sifted flour and nuts, mix well chill dough 30 min shape 1 level tsp around kiss completely bake at 375 10 min do not let get brown roll in powder
I used half margarine and half butter. For some reason, growing up I don't ever remember my mom using butter. So most of her recipes always say margarine or oleo. My nephews told me that not even flies will land on margarine. I keep dipping my fingers in power sugar when putting the dough around the kiss. It makes it easier and if you use powder sugar instead of flour, the cookies will not get tough. I wrap the least amount of dough around the kiss. These cookies are so good that if people gave them as gifts, there would be peace and joy for Christmas.

Fresh out of the oven before powder sugar