Strawberry Blossom Cupcakes

These tasty treats are a rare occasion where I used a boxed cake mix, but...they are gluten free!! Moist cake filled with Strawberry Mascarpone cream topped off with cream cheese frosting and strawberry petals ended up tasting just like strawberry shortcake...but fancier! :P

They were baked in these elegant cupcake liners from Paper Chef!

Summertime Steak

     Using this recipe for pan seared, oven baked steak, I was finally able to make a steak with a nice pink center! Every other time I tried to make steak inside, because I hate being outside in the Texas summer, my meat has been dry, tough, and not something I would show off. This cut of Top Sirloin was reasonably priced! I marinated it with Worcestershire sauce and a dry rub, along with a tenderizer for only an hour before cooking. Made some Mashed Potatoes and Carrots on the side, super yummy! 

Old Time Tunes

Frank Loesser's song Heart and Soul makes me smile every time I hear it, so naturally I learned it on my ukulele today. It's a simple song to play, but will be stuck in my head forever!      

            

Bye Bye Berries

This little, 6 inch cheesecake is the perfect size for a small gathering, but it was surprisingly hard to find a recipe with portions I needed for my new pan, so I made one myself!

Lining with parchment paper is an important step!

By not opening the oven, and filling the pan up just enough, I got a perfect, crack free surface!

But I overfilled the second one, and the top of it cracked from boiling over, so be careful!

 But regardless of the blemishes, it really was immensely delicious! 

 

If you want, you can put some raspberry near the edge halfway through pouring batter, for stronger berry flavor. I changed up this recipe a little to write mine.

Vintage Revisited

Rachelle and I both got new dresses at Blue Velvet Vintage here in Austin, Tx that we are completely in love with. I got my sweet white sandals at A-Town, a local boutique, and am wearing a cameo that belonged to my amazing great-grandmother Ruby.

Postal for Postal

Here's a doodle over a photo of a really great door I saw in New Orleans. This song cover is beautiful.

 

Pink Lemonade Macarons

          There certainly is an art to making Macarons, but I firmly believe anyone can do it as long as a kitchen scale, and timer are used to keep things exact. I am certainly no expert myself, but have gotten some swell cookies in the past!
          This recipe, stuffed with this to die for lemon curd recipe, made some pretty divine tasting treats. When actually making the recipe though, I would highly recommend this walkthough.

Here's a little video I made of exactly how I use my kitchen aid(or mixer) to make a great, "lava" textured Macaron batter.

I brought some to my old French teacher, and he loved them, which of course made me all too happy!!

Berry Delicious Cupcakes

So, to make these I used this cake recipe, with the cream cheese frosting and cooking time from this recipe. Martha Stewart recipes rock, but I wanted a really moist cake, that I never seem to get with cupcake recipes. These are so delicious, I cannot even put it into words.

Ma Mère

 A little while back I took some photos of my mom, and I thought they would be nice to share. She sure is one stylin lady!

Crafty Craving

 I've decided to revisit candle making in a much more detailed way. Here are the steps it takes to create a smooth, soy, bubble free candle that burns evenly. Each time I do this I get better, but it is so simple anyone with these few ingredients and a double boiler can do it at home as well! 

 For the Candles:

Containers that are heat resistant, Crayons for color, soy wax, any scent of essential oil, sticks for poking, zinc core wicks, and wick tabs.

Tools:

A double boiler, candy thermometer, hot glue gun, and glue sticks.

 Last time I made candles I poured it all in one step, and when it burned it was full of air pockets, that create a less smooth looking candle. This time I did a few more things in between pours to assure a smooth, bubble free candle.

 Use hot glue to stick your wick tabs to the bottom of the containers. In a double boiler heat your wax with a crayon of your choice, and 15- 20 drops of essential oil, until it reaches 160 degrees.

 Pour 3/4 of the way full, unless you plan on doing multiple layers of colors.

 As it cools, the candles will become cloudy, before they are completely solid poke holes in the tops of them about a half inch down. Then fill the holes with more of your wax mixture, and fill the containers to the top.

 Cut your wicks!

 Voila!

Etching Madness

 ↓Photos from iphone↓

Here is a copper intaglio print I'm working on. The process involves dipping a sheet of copper in acid multiple times to get tone (in the simplest terms), then of course printing it on paper with a press. I have fallen in love with printmaking as of this last year, and will sell prints of this soon!

Cat Cookies

I was feeling limited by my sad lack of cookie cutters, but decided to get creative. I used a circle cookie cutter, then cut out a piece of each cookie to create the cat shape. Still getting used to royal icing but I use this recipe  to decorate these simple sugar cookies. Leo and Einstein got portraits, but not Pendleton, simply because I can't make black frosting! Yum Yum and Meow! 

(almost feel bad eating the cute little kitties)