Thursday, September 16, 2010

Mini-road trip

I'm heading to Kansas tomorrow to pick my Mom and head to northern Kansas. We're going through Kansas City on the way and I plan to pick up some goodies at Dean and Deluca while my Mom wants to check out Victorian Trading Co. From there, we're heading north to spend the night in St. Joseph before hitting the HWY for the HWY 34 sale. I'm a little apprehensive since there seems to be nothing much online about it but hopefully I'll get a chance to use this



which I will be storing in here



Tomorrow will be a long driving day and quite the trip since I'll hit 4 states in one day! I'm trying to be good diet wise but it's a road trip and if I see a Cracker Barrel all bets are off!

Monday, September 06, 2010

Baking Goodness

I came into a little book gift card windfall and picked this up as part of my loot.



So far, I've made the Chewy Oatmeal cookies, blueberry buckle and pumpkin bread. I was especially excited about the pumpkin bread since my current recipe, which is super yummy, has shortening and I'm trying to avoid it. The cookies came out really weird but tasty. I think they would be better if chilled prior to baking.

Pretty much this has been the extent of my labor this weekend. It's been awesome to take 3 1/2 days to do nothing except relax and do all kinds of odd errands in and around the house. I'm thinking we should all revolt and make these holidays mandatory every week!

Hope you guys had a great weekend.

Friday, September 03, 2010

Cupcakes, Holiday and Oh My!

I had a baked goods request the other day so I went with the favorite cupcake which is truly just a vehicle for icing. In this case I went with the all time best chocolate cake (recipe on the back of the hershey's cocoa tin) and peanut butter cupcakes. Turns out, the only peanut butter I had was the super crunchy flax seed from Trader Joe's (seriously come to Dallas already!!!) which made them a little dense and dry but still tasty.

Pre-frosting and cool on the wire racks.



Double batch of frosting (not the one found on the back of the cocoa tin) but a double batch does have 6 sticks of butter. You know, just to keep it light.



Frosted. These are the peanut butter designated by a lone peanut on top. I wanted to pipe the icing on but all my icing bags and tips have vanished. A trip to Sur la Table is imminent since I have a coupon and have ambitions to get the piping down. Also, it cuts down on the icing looking like poo.



All packed up and ready to go. The lone cupcake was for a friend who requested no frosting. He prefers things not too sweet but the cake was super moist (hehe) and yummy.



I plan to start working through a few books. This one and this one specifically.

I'm beyond excited about the long weekend. My vacation started at 12:40 today and I immediately grabbed a chai tea, hit the bookstore and grocery store. Back home by 2:30 and watched The Time Traveler's Wife. It got mixed reviews but I loved it. I thought they did a great job translating a fairly complicated idea and feeling from the book to the big screen. Also, I covet that house they bought. Seriously, I would sell a lot of cupcakes for that! Ready to rest up, bake and play in the studio.

Happy Friday!