Fall Fun with Pumpkins and Mason Jars

Hello! Long time, no blog! :) But that's just the way it goes, I guess. In case you haven't noticed, I have thrown all notions of becoming a "regular blogger" out the door! I've decided to stop stressing over not posting once a week, and it feels great!

Anyway...today is one of those days I just felt like posting. (Well, actually, I felt like it about 5 days ago, but it's taken me this long to actually sit down and do it.) Lol!

Lately, I have been experimenting with pumpkin-themed recipes. There are so many good ones out there on Pinterest and my favorite blogs! I also had a little craft workshop with some friends a few weeks ago where we got creative with mason jars. And since I knew I'd never get around to writing TWO posts, I decided to combine my efforts. 

Here are some of the great pumpkin/Halloween/fall things I've made during the last month:

From the top left corner going clockwise (are you with me?), here's a run-down of what we have:

1) Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins

2) Coffee bean mason jar candle holder

3) Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

4) Pumpkin scones

5) Halloween mason jar candle holders

I have to say, my favorite of the mason jars is the "BOO" with the old style witch. It reminds me of the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz. My favorite recipe so far has to be the pumpkin scones (oh, by the way, I also made plain pumpkin muffins, which did not last long enough for a photo shoot) . I have never made scones before, and always thought they would be hard. They just sound so sophisticated! I made these for a breakfast my husband had last week, and I'm glad I was wrong! They were super easy & very delicious! I'm sorry to say, I can't remember where I found the recipe (I looked it up late at night, wrote it down and then made them...forgot to save the website!) I do remember that they are a Starbucks "knock-off" so if you like their pumpkin scones, this is the recipe for you!!  Here it is:

PUMPKIN SCONES 

2 cups flour

7 Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

1/4 tsp. ground ginger

6 Tbsp. cold butter

1/2 cup canned pumpkin

3 Tbsp. half & half

1 egg

1) Preheat oven to 425 & lightly spray baking sheet or line with parchment paper

2) Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt & spices in a large bowl.  Using pastry knife, fork or food processor, cut butter into the dry ingredients until mixture is crumbly & no chunks of butter are obvious.  Set aside.

3) In a separate bowl, whisk together pumpkin, half & half, and egg.  Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients. 

4) Form the dough into a ball. Pat out dough onto lightly floured surface & form into a 1" thick rectangle. (About 9" long x 3" wide). Use knife or pizza cutter to slice dough twice thru the width, making 3 equal portions. Cut those 3 slices diagonally so you have 6 triangular slices of dough. 

5) Place onto cookie sheet & bake 14-16 minutes. Scones should turn light brown. Cool on wire rack.

Now here is the glaze recipe (which is VERY IMPORTANT...and tasty!)

1 cup + 3 Tbsp. powdered sugar
2 Tbsp. milk
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 pinch ginger
1 pinch ground cloves

Combine ingredients & drizzle over scones.  Allow to dry before serving (approximately 1 hour)

The scones were a big hit. I actually made a double recipe, and they were gone in no time. I'm looking for another excuse to make some more sometime soon!

So far that's about it for my fall craftiness. I'm still hoping to come up with a fabulous Halloween costume, get some freezer meals ready to go, and clean off my dining room table (yet again!) in the next week. Stay tuned!

Chocolate Malt Cupcakes

We recently had a potluck at church to go to for an end-of-the-year kids' activity. I wanted to make something "fun" to take that all the kids would like. So after a little Pinterest research, I found a recipe for these:

These Chocolate Malt Cupcakes from Your Cup of Cake are so yummy! Of course they aren't just a regular old cake mix with canned frosting. There's just a little butter, sour cream & cream cheese involved!

They must have been okay, I knew I would be a little bit late and had dropped them off ahead of time. By the time I did get there, they were ALL GONE. I even heard from one of the younger kids at the dinner..."DON'T tell my mom, but your cupcakes were WAY better than hers!" I'll take that compliment any day :)

Bunny Bread!

Yes, this Easter post is a tad late. But 3 posts in one week, how about THAT??!

For several years, one of my Easter traditions is to make "Bunny Bread".  It's easy, the kids love it, and it always gets eaten!

I originally found this recipe in Taste of Home magazine (way back when I actually got the magazine each month in the mail!) But you can also find it here: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/easter-bunny-bread

Instead of using the frozen bread dough as the recipe suggests, I usually make my own. This year, I used a recipe for my bread machine and just put it on the dough setting.

Here is the finished bunny:

I have used all different recipes for the bread, but I usually prefer a sweeter variety. The Taste of Home recipe calls for raisins for the eyes and sliced almonds for the teeth. But depending on what I have at the time, my bunnies have had black beans for eyes, or slivered almonds for the teeth (like this year, his teeth are a bit fang-like!) I will use whatever looks like it will work!

This recipe could work for other holidays too...four leaf clover for St. Patrick's Day, a turkey for Thanksgiving...maybe if I'm creative enough, I'll have to try it out!!

Valentine Chaos

I know, it's been two whole months since my last post! Yes, I am still alive and well, just extremely busy! But that's the story of my life!

I just wanted to share a couple pictures of my attempt at a Valentine's celebration at our house. I call it an "attempt" because as I'm writing this, both kids are in bed for the night & the cake has not been touched! So much for trying to save it until everyone was home together!

I hope it tastes good...the cake is from a box (Red Velvet, yum!) but the frosting is home made...the only way to go!

These pictures by the way, are totally UNedited, taken with my new iPhone :) Awesome! Editing would have taken another 10 minutes AT LEAST, and also would have involved getting out my laptop, loading the pictures on, etc. (I'm thinking this Blogger app is going to be a really great thing!)

I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day...I promise to try and be a little faster with my next post! (At least before the 4th of July!)

Whoopie Pie Wednesday

I'm still trying to get into somewhat of a blog "routine" after my break. I'd like to have some regular weekly topics, and one thing I want to try is a recipe of the week. I made these tasty treats last week for my sister's birthday and took them to work. But....too bad for her - she was sick on the big day! Oh well, I think all the guys enjoyed them for her! This is a combination of two different recipes I found, and I just kind of put them together since I didn't have all the ingredients for either one! (What was that old Saturday Night Live bit? "We make do with what we have?" It's so old I can't even find it on Google. But it was funny!) Anyway, I'm a little off track! Here's the recipe:

WHOOPIE PIES

Pie ingredients:

1 (18.25 oz.) box chocolate cake mix

3 eggs

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 400. In mixing bowl, beat cake mix, eggs, water & oil on medium/low speed until well blended. Drop by tablespoon-full scoop onto lightly greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Bake 8-10 minutes or until puffed. Do not over bake. Allow to cool completely on cookie sheet.

I used this scoop with a flexible rubber middle and sprayed it with non-stick spray - LOVE that thing for making cookies!

Filling Ingredients:

1 cup milk

5 Tbsp. flour (oops - forgot to put that in the picture!)

1 cup sugar

1 cup shortening

2 tsp. vanilla

Mix milk & flour in saucepan on low heat. Stir until thick paste forms. Let cool. Beat sugar & shortening in bowl. Add vanilla. Add cooled flour mixture & beat until double in volume.

This fluffy filling is GOOD. I know because I sampled way too much a little while I was frosting them. (In my defense, I did get up at 4:45 the next morning to go to spinning class. So there!)

And finally - spread filling between two pies.

See how thick & yummy it is? Almost one whole inch of fluff!

YUMMMM-EEEEEE!


This post linked to:

    

     

Alderberry Hill - Make the Scene Monday
Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons: Crafty Friday Link Party

Butterfly Cake How-To

Last weekend was my daughter's birthday. Since she has inherited my indecisiveness (so I'm told by family members!) I didn't know what kind of cake, decorations, or even what presents she wanted until the day before! Her party was on Saturday, and on Friday night she finally informed me that she wanted a butterfly birthday cake. I don't happen to have a butterfly-shaped cake pan laying around anywhere - so I considered driving up to the public library north of us where they have a zillion cake pans you can check out. But what if there was no butterfly? That would be about a 40-minute round trip ride for nothing. Sooo....I came up with a genius idea.

After mixing up the cake, I used my heart-shaped cake pan to make two layers:

Then, I cut the pointed ends off the hearts about 2-3 inches in from the edge:

Put the straight edges together:

I made the butterfly head out of one of the remaining scrap pieces - the shape was a little off, but frosting does wonders for that!

And...the finished cake (no there wasn't really a big blank space on half of it. That's just me being private...Insert any little girl's name of your choice in the big pink space!) :)

We did a little decorating too (like I said, everything was last minute!) Here are some pics of balloons & tissue paper flowers that my BFF's made for her:

The little spots on the bottoms of the balloons are actually marbles. This makes them hang straight down - it looks really cool!

And we had a few of these lovely tissue-paper flowers:

Not bad for a last-minute party, if I do say so myself!