August 11th, 2010 / 3 Comments » / by admin
Welcome back to The little brown house cupcake war!
Ok – it isn’t a war, it isn’t even a competition..
It’s an adventure… yeah – that’s it . The cupcake adventure. Read about part 1 here:
Baby Shower Cupcakes
In this post I will show you how I made the filling and frosting for these cute little guys -
Now for the lemon filling – I once again used a recipe from Hoosier Homemade
Here are the ingredients – I think real lemons are pretty much a requirement in this recipe.
I told you there was lots of butter involved -
Cupcakes, filling, frosting.. all butter.
It’s a good thing..
You need the juice and grated rind from 2 lemons
also a good thing..
In small saucepan, mix together:
Lemon juice
Lemon rind
1 Cup Sugar
2 Eggs beaten
2 Tbl. butter, melted
Simmer on stove on stove until thickened, about 15 minutes. Then chill.
This is so good! It is like lemon meringue pie – very lemony.
You may need a couple of bites though, just to make sure it is ok.
I believe that is one of the heavy responsibilities that goes along with being a cook…
another heavy responsibility is large hips…
Any-hoo
After the filling is chilled, you are ready to put it into your cupcakes!
I used a straw to make holes in the top of them
I ended up using a honey bottle to squirt the filling into the holes on the cupcakes,
it worked great. There is a story behind it, however.
I wandered around the dollar store for a good 20 minutes looking for
some kind of a plastic bottle to use for the filling, and I couldn’t find anything.
I kept looking at the honey, but rejected it because I didn’t need any honey.
My sister gets me honey from a local guy who makes it, and it is fabulous, so I
don’t use any other kind. I was so torn because it seemed like such a waste of money
to buy the honey and then pour it out. Then after a few more minutes of wandering
around the store, it occured to me that it was the same price if a bought an empty
squirt bottle or the honey…….. a dollar… so I poured the honey down the sink. don’t hate me..
Don’t those look so good! I suppose not everyone loves lemon as much as I do. But you should..
I don’t know what is going on with my plate – it seems to be covered in scratches.
I guess I need to look at that as a blessing – new dishes may be needed..
So, after filling the cupcakes, I frosted them with buttercream frosting.
I am not going to cover that recipe in this post – I am afraid I already lost half of you
with my sad honey bottle story..
But – I will tell you that this is the first time I have used a pastry bag and tip
It is alot of fun and I highly recommend it! I will include how to do that
in my Buttercream frosting post. Just don’t make the same mistake
I did. I didn’t really realize there was such a huge difference in tip sizes – so I got one that
looked cute, but was way to small for what I wanted.
I wanted big soft waves, and I got tiny little stripes.
I got a different tip and am going to frost the rest of these cupcakes
and the other ones I am making for the shower – chocolate with raspberry filling -
tomorrow night. I will post some finished pics on my friday’s post where I will show
you how I made my cute little cupcake tray – and where I got the cupcake
wrappers and personalized toppers.
I know – I keep stringing you along this week!
Please don’t leave me though – I promise it will be worth it!!
See you Friday!
Note to self – don’t blog while on pain meds for root canal.. post may be long and rambling…
Updated to add Friday’s Post
Dollar Store Cupcake Stands
Posted in: Tasty Tuesday, Uncategorized, recipe
Tags: cooking, dessert, food, recipe, Tasty Tuesday
August 9th, 2010 / 10 Comments » / by admin
Has anyone else noticed the country’s fascination with all things cupcakes?
One of my new favorite shows is Cupcakes Wars, which is kind of the ‘Gladiator’ of cupcakes.
Three teams compete against each other, and the last two standing have to make up 1000 cupcakes
and a display to win the chance to serve them at some impressive function.
But I digress… always…
So when I decided to hold a baby shower for my younger daughter, I immediately knew I wanted
to serve… cupcakes! This post will have two parts because the entire recipe in one post would
not only put most of you into a coma, it would also just take up way too much bandwidth.
I have taken 80 pictures of the process so far, and don’t want you to have to spend an hour waiting
for all the pictures to come up!
So when I started looking for a recipe, of course I turned to the inter-web. I found an amazing
blog entitled “Hoosier Homemade” this gal is a master at cupcakes, and I found
a recipe I wanted to try at her blog in this Post
I decided to make these white cupcakes with the lemon filling and buttercream frosting.
I will tell you that midway through the many stages of these cupcakes, I pondered
the sense of going with cupcakes I made rather than a bakery cake.
Well let me tell you – tonight I tasted the finished product, and it is worth every stinkin step!!
Here are the ingredients – I will put her recipe at the end of post.
Warning -these recipes use lots and lots of butter…..did I mention lots?
Start by creaming together 6 Tbl. butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar.
Add 3 egg yolks and beat till thick and lemon colored
In a separate bowl, mix together
2 1/4 cups flour
3 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
Add flour and 3/4 cup milk alternately to butter/sugar mixture, mixing well.
Then mix in 2 t. vanilla.
Beat the 3 egg whites till stiff peaks form… I did not deliberately make this picture look like this..
And resemblance to any person or body part is completely unintentional…
Fold egg whites gently into batter
Pour or ladle batter into muffin cups.
Bake at 350 degree’s for 20 minutes, then cool.
Ta-Da!
Now you pop them into the freezer if you are not yet ready to finish them! Which is what I did!
Stop in Wednesday to find out how to make the lemon filling and lemon buttercream frosting -
In the meantime here is a little sample of how they turned out!
I will also show you how I made the cupcake stands you got a sneak peak
at on the top of this post – for only $3.50 each!!
Lots of incentive to come back huh… oh I am an evil blogger….
Updated to add part 2!
Baby Shower Cupcakes – Part 2
Updated to add Cupcake Stands!
Dollar Store Cupcake Stands
Ingredients for Cake:
- 6 Tablespoons Butter, room temp
- 1 1/2 cup Sugar
- 3 eggs, seperated
- 2 1/4 cup Flour
- 3 teaspoons Baking Powder
- 1/4 teaspoon Salt
- 3/4 c. Milk
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugar, add egg yolks and beat until thick and lemon colored. Combine dry ingredients, mix with fork add to creamed mixture, alternately with the milk, stir in vanilla. In a seperate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form, fold gently into batter. Divide batter into 3 buttered 8? cake pans (or make cupcakes like I did) Bake for 20 minutes or until done. Cool.
Posted in: Tasty Tuesday, Uncategorized, recipe
Tags: cooking, dessert, food, recipe, Tasty Tuesday
August 7th, 2010 / 25 Comments » / by admin
I finally collected enough plates to do an arrangement on my wall!
Last month I was on Rhoda’s Southern Hospitality blog and saw this post about hanging
plates. She used these amazing discs from a place called Dischangers.com
I promptly went to their website and ordered some – they are very affordable!
I got an assortment of sizes, not sure where or on what I would be using them -but I knew I would use them!
I decided on a spot in my living/dining room, and begin putting together some plates to use.
This big blank wall used to have a clock on it, and nothing else.
It was a big clock.. I kind of have a thing for those..
I laid out the plates I had chosen to get an idea of the arrangement I wanted.
Then I had my husband come in and put the nails in the wall.
He measured the plates on the table and then the wall.. all of that nonsense
that I don’t have time for…
Then I got out my vast assortment of disc hangers.
I had exactly enough!
They came with great instructions.
You have to put some water on the sticky side using your finger -
then let them sit for 5 to 10 minutes.
At that point you place them on the plate backs – the instructions show where-
And then let them dry overnight. As usual, that was the hardest part for me!
The next morning I hung them up and snapped some pics -
The discs make them lay pretty flat against the wall -
I really love the way they look!
But – I do want you to help me decide something.
I found an additional plate that is a print.
I put it in the middle, and want your opinion of which way looks better -
The thing about this plate, which you may have already figured out,
is that it is a paper plate.. but it matches so well!!
I just don’t know if it looks dorky.. I would so hate to be a dork..
I have a morbid fear of dorkdom…
So tell me what you think!
Dork or No Dork…. that is the question.
And thanks for coming by The Little Brown House!
Click on this button to find more exciting projects!
Posted in: Home Decor, Uncategorized
Tags: craft, Decor, easy, Frugal, home, Home Decor, wall art
August 5th, 2010 / 16 Comments » / by admin
When I say super simple I mean…. super simple… as in, I am almost embarrassed to do a tutorial on it
Almost, but not quite!
Maybe there are some of you out there like me that like things
that look impressive but were actually easy..
I am a fairly recent convert to costume jewelry,
but, as with every thing in my life, I jumped in with both feet.
So when I discovered I could make my own I was very excited!
I can be fickle in my tastes in colors and styles, and I feel
alot less guilty about casting aside something that
was only a couple of bucks to begin with.
So – with that – here you go!
I started with some buttons..
We will be ignoring the butterfly ones for now – they will be featured
in an upcoming post.
I pulled out my handy E6000 adhesive that I used on my first ring making experience
The Secret Life Of A Crafting Blogger
And one of the ring backs that I got from Ebay.
( please excuse the purple hands – I am firing the photographer as I type this..)
I filled the top of the ring back with the adhesive
Then pressed the button into the glue.
And by the way – I am not hiding some skin disease secret..
That is dried glue… its very therapeutic.. you should try it..
Then I clamped the ring with my uber cute mini clamp from Home Depot.
And paused to admire the lint and dog hair on my work surface…
I let the glue dry for about an hour
then I was ready for the second part of this extremely complicated project..
I placed more of the glue on the top of the button
And pressed a second button into the glue
Another hour with the clamp to dry the glue.
Interesting note;
As I did this complicated project, I was also working on two other
craft projects in different parts of the house.
Because I am …… a ninja crafter…
I thought I should share that..
Now.. the moment you have been waiting for – the reveal..
Aside from the wrinkly old lady hands, what do you think?
Would you be willing to wear this cheap costume jewelry?
I wore it today, and got lots of compliments.
Proving once again that I am just a cheap kind of gal -
Thanks for dropping by the house…..
Posted in: Frugal Friday, Uncategorized
Tags: craft, diy, easy, Frugal Friday, Jewelry
August 2nd, 2010 / 4 Comments » / by admin
If you are my Facebook “Liker” you will remember I picked a bunch of these
out of my garden a few days ago.
Well today I pulled them out of the freezer and decided to make some freezer jam.
I use the recipe that comes on the box of pectin, so I figured I wouldn’t post about it as I
wasn’t doing anything different. But then I remembered that there may be some visual learners
like me out there – who prefer to look at pictures rather than reading instructions.
Back when I used to do a lot of sewing, I would lay the pattern instructions on the
floor and just follow the pictures – I think it is just my rebellious side that hates
to read instructions! So here is my freezer jam tutorial -
Aren’t these Ball jars just too cute! I may have to figure out some other way
to use them because I just love the way they look.
These are the ingredients that you need. I had fresh raspberries, but wanted
to add some blackberries to it too, so I got frozen ones. There was no way I was
going to pay $4.00 for a container of about 12 blackberries!
You start by mashing your berries until you have 3 cups worth -
Put them into a medium mixing bowl
Now you are going to add some sugar.. 4 and 1/4 cups of it to be exact.
Yes, that is quite a ratio.. Just don’t dwell on it – it is the right thing to do in this case.
Pour the seemingly endless cups of sugar into the bowl of berries.
See the berries? Me neither..
Stir all of that sugar in really well – we certainly wouldn’t want to leave any out.
Actually there are warnings all over the pectin label not to change the amount of sugar
or the recipe will fail and global warming will come upon the earth..
Now put 3/4 of a cup of water on the stove. Add the pectin..
Take it out of the box first.
Stir to disolve, and while you are doing that admire your new zipper ring
which is going to be a frugal friday post soon.
Bring to a boil, stirring constantly
Then allow to boil for more than one minute.
Now stir into your fruit/sugar mixture.
Stir until all of the sugar granules are dissolved.
Now pour into jars or plastic containers, making sure there is room at the top for expansion.
The instructions say to use plastic containers, but my Mom uses glass all the time
and it works fine. Hey! I guess I did give you something new in this tutorial!
Now the instructions say to let the jam sit out on the counter for 24 hours to rest…
I would like to know what the heck it is supposed to be resting from -
Sounds to me like this is another opportunity to be rebelious!
Mmmm – yummy!
These are supposed to be put in the freezer and used as Christmas gifts.
We will see if there are any left.. I think I had best go pick more raspberries.
Oh – and for those of you that read my post yesterday about my daughter moving to a land far, far, away?
Birthday’s, Goodbyes, and Moses – Oh My!
And I said I didn’t help at all with putting stuff in the U-Haul?
She did give me one lamp to put in it, said she wasn’t sure it would fit.
Looks pretty good in my family room, dontcha think?
Posted in: Tasty Tuesday, Uncategorized, recipe
Tags: cooking, easy, food, furniture redo, recipe, Tasty Tuesday
