kitchen doughdough

Help 3 children come to America!

2011-01-30T14:26:00.004-07:00

I know I haven't been posting about cupcakes lately, but this is somewhat cupcake related...the Ceran family of Eagle Mountain is raising 40,000 to adopt 3 orphans from Ukraine, AND...

on February 12th, at 10 am at Rockwell Charter High School in Eagle Mountain, there will be a giant indoor yard sale with a bake sale! Come buy some cupcakes and support the Cerans.

Click here to see their story!

If you live in the SLC area, you can also get photos of your own children to support the Cerans. Click here for more details!

Valentine's Party Ideas

2011-01-20T18:51:00.004-07:00

Check out my friend Kara's darling vintage Valentine party! I had so much fun taking the pictures for her. Go to her blog for more details and my blog for more photos!

where have I been?

2011-01-10T10:10:00.005-07:00

Well, let's see...I've been teaching 600 elementary school students P.E. and Music...I've been using my index finger a lot to take photographs...and I haven't been baking!

I am going to be using content from this blog on my photography blog: www.lyndseyfagerlund.com/blog. Come on over and check it out...I'll be featuring photography tips, mother of the bride advice, wedding and party detail advice, and more! When I have new cupcakes to share, I'll be sure to post them to this blog too!

Good Things Utah!

2010-06-21T15:25:00.002-06:00

I had a blast sharing my orange cupcakes with the gals on GTU! More pics to come ;)

Cupcake Camp Seattle!

2010-05-18T18:02:00.008-06:00

I was thrilled to find out on a recent biz trip to Seattle that Cupcake Camp would be there at the same time!

Here are the happy campers...the line was super long!

Two awesome people I met in line:

While I was chatting with these two, we got word that the cupcakes were gone! Bummmmmmmer! But all the proceeds all went to the Hope Heart Institute. What is better than cupcakes and a great cause?

This was my fave! I LOVE orcas.

Thankfully, some kind folks gave me one of their cupcakes inside. But let's be real, I wasn't going in to get a cupcake, I wanted to meet Jessie Oleson of Cakespy!

Above a gal is modeling Trophy Cupcakes, except they had all been bought! Wouldn't it have been amazing to see the dress filled with cupcakes?! So sad I missed it.

Below is one of my fave cupcake vendors...although I have yet to buy some of their awesome "couture!" Check out more at Bella Cupcake Couture...they'd be awesome for a party!

These vendors were from Wink Cupcakes. I loved the cupcake headband! I need one of those!!

Last but not least, I can't help photographing children wherever I go (don't worry, I had permission from her mom!). And I loved her shirt. :)

P.S. I photograph lovely events like these...check out more of my work at lyndseyfagerlund.com!

alphabet party!

2010-05-14T20:40:00.017-06:00

Meet Max, the newly-turned two year old! He is modeling the alphabet shirt that grandma made for his party. I'm finally blogging his party...only a month after, not bad, right?!

The table:

The invites:

This was my plan for the invites...I sewed together two sides of the invitation with red yarn and put the name of Max's friend inside! Unfortunately, mommy wanted to invite her friends too, so I ended up just printing the invites on the front and back, but I loved the idea! I found these little wood letters at the dollar store to make the names.

Here is the party hat my mom and I made for Max...I am so in love with it that it is still being used as my table centerpiece in my kitchen!

Too bad Max hated it though...

His birthday cake! (See next post for a tutorial!)

These cupcakes were simple...but there is just something about piping up the frosting that makes them sooooo cute! I found the mini-letter tiles at Wal-Mart.

A couple of the party guests...

I made party hats with letters glued on for Max's little friends.

Decor...M&M's, letter stamps, alphabits, and letter beads.

My mom made this darling alphabet tablecloth for the party. Picked up the plates at Zurcher's.

My grandma found alphabet letter candy at Cost Plus World Market...it was a HIT!

Max's banner:

We decorated the floor with these alphabet tiles to match the cupcakes!

My favorite part of the party was these alphabet tater-tots! The party was at 10 am so we served them for breakfast. I found them at Harmons.

More decor...

My friend Kara found these AWESOME Dick and Jane style vintage letter books at Costco, and let me borrow the letters to Max's name.

My favorite quilt from my mom...guess what it has on it! Numbers! Just kidding.

We found these huge letters at Jo-Ann's and spray painted them blue.

I was going to hand out little bags of alphabits as favors with a letter stamp attached, but I ran out of time! (as usual...)

This is the thank you I sent out to the guests!

alphabet party cake

2010-05-05T17:15:00.000-06:00

Max's cake was a hit at his alphabet party! This is how I created it:

1. Make brownies in an 8x8 square pan.

2. Cut the brownie in half and form a T (Max's favorite letter!)

3. Frost with peanut butter frosting!

4. Make a white cake in the square pan. I added chocolate cheerios to the mix! YUM!

5. Trim the cake as needed and cut it in half. Put it on top of the frosting.

6. Frost the cake with chocolate peanut butter frosting. Decorate with M & M's! I used Alphabits cereal for the letters on the cake and as decoration around the cake. (They were sprayed with Wilton red cake spray!)

Wild Rumpus

2010-04-26T11:29:00.006-06:00

Images copyright Caroline Drake/Armelle Jewelry

My Max turned two last week! I can't believe it has been a year since his first birthday party...

Anyway, we didn't have another Wild Things party, but since it is taking me so long to prepare my blog post about his Alphabet Party, I thought I'd share an amazing Wild Things party!

Both images on this post are hers, so cute, huh?

Check it out at armelle. Click on her inspirational "Wild" links too, there is some adorable stuff.

Cupcake Cupcakes!

2010-04-03T22:27:00.006-06:00

Cupcake Pebbles, that is! This is my new favorite cereal:

I love Fruity Pebbles, so I was thrilled to find Post's new pebbles cereal. There is actually a recipe on the box for a "giant cupcake" made from cakes but it didn't make a lot of sense to me, so I opted to make plain old cupcakes.

Cupcake Pebbles Cupcakes

1 box Duncan Heinz Moist Deluxe Classic White Cake

Ingredients on box (water, veg. oil, and 3 large egg whites)

2 cups Cupcake Pebbles Cereal

Betty Crocker Strawberry Mist Frosting

Extra cereal for sprinkles

Simply follow the directions on the box and throw in the 2 cups of Cupcake cereal. Cook as directed on the box. I was feeling very lazy so I used store bought frosting. BUT it turned out being the perfect taste to match the cupcakes! Finally, sprinkle the cereal on the top.

By the way...does this gross anyone else out?! Is it common procedure to spoon the whitish stuff out of egg whites? Or am I just way too picky?

Here's the final product, complete with my new "cake plate." I found the two pieces at D.I. I think the bottom piece is actually for a light, but I liked the look.

Happy Easter to all my peeps!

2010-04-02T13:38:00.007-06:00

For me, the excitement of a new year lasts about a day as I realize how much winter I have left to endure. But spring is something to celebrate! I love how everything comes to life again and how the weather is more mild.

Above is an idea to give a friend...don't worry, you won't be giving them salmonella...it isn't a "real" egg carton! I found the carton filled with chocolates for 99 cents. Just replace the chocolates with some chicks, add a card that says something like, "Happy Easter to one cool chick," and you've got a fun Easter present! You could even throw in some Peeps Lip Gloss! Don't you just LOVE Target's dollar section?!

Just adding pics for decoration...throwing Peeps on top of a cupcake is nothing special. ;)

How do you like my leaning tower of Peepza? (I hope you like it more than my lame joke.) Just take a row of Peeps, make a circle and push the marshmallow together. If nothing else, your kids will get a few seconds of enjoyment from it. ;)

Do these cupcakes fool you?

2010-04-01T10:25:00.005-06:00

I like hearing about April Fool's jokes, but look out if you pull a prank on me! Just kidding.

In the spirit of April first, I was trying to remember a time I was tricked...the only thing that came to mind was when my aunt Joni prank called me at work. I was working at the University of Utah dorms (oh, sorry, they call them "residence halls" now) and always received complaints. My aunt thought it would be funny to pretend to be a student whose oven was on fire. I happen to be a patient person, so it wasn't a big deal...but she totally got me.

Everyone has probably seen cupcakes like these before, so I know I'm not fooling anyone, but they are CUTE, huh?!

The ingredients are frosting, raspberry jam, and chocolate covered peanuts! Super easy. I've seen these lots of places on the net, but my mom and I found these on delish.com.

Candy Cane Kisses Cupcakes

2009-12-13T18:07:00.005-07:00

I apologize for the lack of new posts! I have had a sinus infection for months. I finally went to an ENT and will be having sinus surgery on Wednesday. Long story-I've dealt with allergy and sinus problems my whole life and this will be my second surgery. Okay, for comic relief I'll tell part of the story. I had sinus/deviated septum surgery about 5 years ago, and soon after, my husband's weird sleep habits led to another deviation in my septum! Early one morning I was coming back from the bathroom, and as I was getting into bed, my husband woke up in a startle, and threw his head up-right into my septum. An ENT pushed it back into place (it was awful!), but it was still deviated. Then soon after THAT, my husband was having a dream that Carrot top was attacking him and he punched me in his sleep. Yep, right on my nose.

So, now that my husband is dying of embarrassment, on to the cupcake recipe!! I had to get at least one Christmas post in before my surgery.

Last year my friend/neighbor Shellbi brought Christmas cookies over-chocolate cookies with Candy Cane Kisses in them! I was in heaven. I made some of my own, and was going to make them again this year. However, as you well know by now, I can't make anything if it isn't in a cupcake tin, so I made Candy Cane Kisses Cupcakes!

Cupcakes-makes 24

Betty Crocker Super Moist Triple Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix (don't add ingredients on box)
4 large eggs
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup buttermilk (or 4 T Saco Buttermilk Blend and 1 cup water)
35 chopped Candy Cane Kisses

Add all ingredients except kisses to a large bowl. Blend for two minutes. Stir in candy cane kisses pieces. Add baking cups to cupcake pan and fill 2/3 full with batter. Bake on 350 for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out with a few tiny crumbs attached.

Candy Cane Vanilla Buttercream Frosting- adapted from a recipe from mom, www.potsandpins.com

2 cups butter, softened (do not substitute)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup milk

1/4 teaspoon salt

powdered sugar (approximately 4 to 6 cups)

1 package Peppermint Candy Cane cocoa mix (I bought it at Wal-Mart)

Beat butter until fluffy. Add other ingredients except the cocoa mix and 4 cups powdered sugar. Add more powdered sugar to desired thickness. Stir in candy cane cocoa mix.

Top the cupcake with frosting and a kiss!

Note to readers: You may think I'm a fraud always using a cake mix, but who ever said I was a baker? I want to make the recipes as easy as possible, and really, during the holidays, who has time to bake from scratch? Okay, so a lot of people do, but I'm not one of them! hehe.

Pumpkin. Need I say more?

2009-11-19T14:09:00.009-07:00

Okay, I'll tell you a little more. I've had this jar of Libby's pumpkin puree in my cupboard a long time, saving it for the perfect recipe. (Don't worry, it hasn't expired yet!) I decided the perfect recipe for it would include cupcakes. And something that tasted like pumpkin chocolate chip cookies-my favorite! So I planned my recipe and today I discovered a bonus! Libby's is having a contest through Bakespace, and the winner gets a Kitchen-Aid mixer...and gets to choose the color! YES! Since I haven't heard anything more from Ellen's peeps, I figured I'd try to win the contest. I REALLY need a new mixer.

So the pumpkin spice chocolate chip cupcake turkey with pumpkin spice mousse was born!

To decorate, I used circus peanuts, mini chocolate chips, and orange slices candy. These would make an awesome Thanksgiving dessert for the kidlets.

Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip Cupcakes - by the doughdough herself

1 Duncan Hines Spice Cake Mix

2 cups Libby's Pure Pumpkin

4 medium eggs (all I had was med., you could substitute 3 large eggs)

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

Pinch nutmeg

Pinch cinnamon

1/2 cup water

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup flour

2/3 cup Nestle mini chocolate chips

Add everything to a mixing bowl except the chocolate chips. Beat for 2 minutes. Stir in the chocolate chips. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Makes 24 mouth-watering, moist, eat-so-many-you-will-gain-1o-pounds cupcakes!

Seriously. I do have a sinus infection, but these are the best things I've ever tasted. Can you see the steam rising from these warm cuppies? They are the best hot out of the oven, so feast away if you are too lazy to make frosting!

Pumpkin Mousse Frosting

2 cups heavy whipping cream

1 package Jello Instant vanilla pudding

1 1/2 cups Libby's Pumpkin puree

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup powdered sugar

1 cup whipped cream

This may be a weird way to make mousse because I made it up and have no idea how to make mousse! But it's delish, so that's all that matters, right?!

Whip 2 cups heavy whipping cream until soft peaks form. Add 1 package vanilla pudding and beat in. (On second thought, you may want to fold it in, but I beated it in, which is probably why it started to look weird. But it comes out yummy, I promise!) Add pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, and gradually beat in powdered sugar. Fold in 1 cup whipped cream.

Okay, so I was a little worried about not having the best sense of taste and smell today, so I went outside and recruited the neighborhood sixth graders to be my taste testers (none of my friends were home, sorry guys). I told them I was bringing these to a get-together and I needed their opinion. They said, "If they don't like them, they're crazy!" Score! Of course, kids like anything with sugar and whipping cream and chocolate chips...

Note to self: Blogging the recipe is SO much easier if I do it while I'm throwing it together! No more lost recipes! Speaking of lost recipes, I found my Halloween Oreo cupcake recipe scribbled on a piece of paper mixed in with my baking cups. So next year I'll improve it and post it in time for Halloween. ;)

What's this? Cookies?

2009-11-10T21:09:00.003-07:00

So I wanted to make cupcakes tonight, but was too lazy to make frosting, so I decided to make cookies instead. Like a true doughdough, I couldn't find my favorite cookie recipe so I had to check online to see what was in Ranger Cookies and throw something together from memory. They weren't the same, but they were yummy. Really sugary...I'm thinking my recipe didn't have brown sugar, or as much. Maybe just do 1 cup, not packed. Come to think of it, that may have been my mistake, so I'll put 1 c. brown sugar, not packed. The smart thing to do would be to put my recipe on, but I'll have to wait until it turns up!

White Chocolate Ranger Cookies

1 c. butter
1 c. white sugar
1 c. brown sugar, not packed
2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

2 c. flour
2 c. oatmeal
2 c. Rice Krispies
2 c. coconut

1 c. white chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla, salt, baking soda, baking powder and beat. Add flour and beat. Add rest of ingredients and stir into the mixture. (If you're lazy like me, you'll just beat it in, but that may be another reason the cookies aren't as perfect as they could have been, but they are really good!) Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Made approx. 4 cookie sheets worth (I'm so technical, I know!).

Note to Self: So awhile ago I was talking to my friends about kitchen doughdough and my photography business and they asked, "What if down the line you had to choose?" I said definitely photography, since that is my real passion, this blog just gave me the courage to start a business! Who knew I'd have to choose so soon! I've been so busy with my photography business that poor kitchen doughdough has been ignored! (Well, trust me, the doughdough is still here, always doing silly things in the kitchen, just haven't had time to blog!) I'm hoping with the holidays here, I'll be baking more again and when I do, I'll be sure to share my creations. I still have a long list of cupcake ideas that I'll get to eventually, I'm sure.

Halloween Oreo Cupcakes

2009-10-20T15:55:00.005-06:00

Here's part 1 of my post with the pictures...now I need to find the recipe! These cupcakes were SO good! I used Halloween Oreo orange filling for the frosting and it was AMAZING!! I'll try to post the rest today...

Ellen! Look at my pitiful blender! Don't you think I need a kitchen-aid?!!

So now it's after Halloween, and I still can't find the recipe I wrote down! I basically just used a chocolate cake mix and threw in blended Halloween Oreos. The frosting was made with whipped cream and I whipped in the middles of Halloween Oreos so the frosting was orange. As I'm cleaning my office over the next couple weeks, hopefully I'll come across the recipe!

Egg Nog Spice Cupcakes

2009-10-16T21:35:00.003-06:00

If any of you live in Utah County, check out my feature in the Daily Herald tomorrow (Saturday)! I made these cuppies while they photographed me for the paper. I was pretty happy with how my creation turned out...although I would make some changes and I'll tell you what they are!

Egg Nog Spice Cupcakes - by me!

1 package Duncan Hines Spice Cake Mix (just the mix, don't add anything)

1 stick unsalted softened/melted butter (hmm...did I just make up a new term-mefted butter?? sof-elted?? I'm a nerd. Really, I just didn't melt the butter all the way, so it was half softened, half melted.)

3 eggs

Pinch cinnamon

Pinch nutmeg

1/2 cup egg nog

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup applesauce

1 1/3 cup water

All I did was combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and beat with a beater for 2 minutes. Then add them to your cupcake pan, 2/3 full. FYI, they didn't rise a ton, so you can fill them that far...I put less because I never know if the recipe will rise too much! Makes 24+ cupcakes. Oh, and bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

I thought they were delish-but I did want them to be more egg nog-y (I LOVE egg nog!), so next time I would try adding more egg nog, like 1 cup, and less water, like 3/4 cup. But they were great as they were-really moist! My mom of Pots and Pins approved!

Cinnamon Cider Cream Cheese Frosting - by Pots and Pins

4 1/2 cups powdered sugar

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

2 T. apple cider

1/2 tsp. cinnamon (or to taste)

pinch of salt

Mix cream cheese and butter till fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add in powdered sugar, cider, cinnamon, and salt. Beat well. Frost. Keep in refrigerator.

The frosting was really yummy! Thanks, mom!

Trophy Cupcakes...where it all started!

2009-09-19T21:10:00.002-06:00

This was the first gourmet cupcake spot I ever visited...well, the location in Seattle anyway! I've been in Washington on vacay and I had to go to Trophy where my cupcake obsession began! They have a chic new spot in the Bravern in Bellevue. (By the new Nieman Marcus...which was fab, but I felt very out of place!) I love their colors (they are the colors I decorated my bedroom with!) and I LOVE their cupcakes! The frosting is so stinkin' delish (in a good smelling way)! Seriously, I don't like ANYTHING chocolate, and I was devouring their chocolate frosting. My favorite is of course their lemon-it made me forget ANY cupcake I'd ever had. It is the best cake- the moistest, yummiest cake ever. To the question cake or frosting, I would usually choose frosting, but this was a toss-up. Of course, I still need to try Cupcake Royale while I'm here...

My favorite cupcake

2009-09-15T12:42:00.004-06:00

I've said a lot of cupcakes are my favorite, but this one still is. My husband brought it home from Mini's the other day! What a guy. I'm so glad they opened a store near his office! What really makes me buy a cupcake is fillings. This lemon mirengue pie cupcake is perfect. Mmmm. I want one now!

I have lots of fun cupcakes that I am ready to bake-I just need to find the time! I've been so busy with my photography biz. I still plan on learning to cook...so far, not much progress. I'm excited to go to Seattle this week and learn from my mom ! (You'd think I'd have learned growing up, but no, I was too busy socializing!)

Scrumptious Starburst Cake

2009-09-02T12:10:00.003-06:00

I must admit, this is my favorite recipe so far...it was so delicious! I've had this idea in my mind for awhile, so I was thrilled when my husband signed me up to bring dessert to his work party a few months ago.

Since it was awhile ago, the doughdough is having a hard time remembering the recipes. Oops. I did figure it out though. Trust me, this cake is so good. And easy!

Lemon Cake

1 box Pillsbury Golden Butter Recipe Yellow Cake Mix

1 cup water

1/3 cup softened butter

3 eggs

1 small box lemon instant pudding

1/2 cup applesauce

Make the cake with the instructions on the box. (Or make any yellow cake.) Add 1 box of lemon instant pudding and 1/2 cup applesauce. The applesauce makes the cake super moist! Bake the cake in 2 8x8x2 square pans. I bought the pan at Orson Gygi; I only have one, I baked the cakes separately. Bake at 350 until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs attached.

Raspberry whipped cream frosting

Fresh raspberries

Junket Danish Dessert Raspberry Pudding/Pie Filling/Glaze (use the recipe on the box for fruit sauce. Any type of raspberry sauce would work great.)

Whipped Cream: 1 cup heavy whipping cream, 1 T sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla. Mix ingredients on low until sugar dissolved. Beat on high until soft peaks form. I use this recipe from America's Test Kitchen cookbook.

All I did was combine the ingredients to make a raspberry whipped cream filling to go in between the two square cakes. Make the fruit filling first, add the fresh raspberries and add extra sugar to taste. Then mix with whipped cream.

Lemon Whipped Cream Buttercream Frosting

1/2 cup heavy whipped cream

1 cup softened butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 cups powdered sugar

Rind from 1 lemon

Whip the cream until soft peaks form. Beat the butter until smooth in a separate bowl. Add the whipped cream and vanilla to the butter. Slowly beat in the powdered sugar and lemon rind. You've got yourself some delicious frosting! It tastes like frosting with an aftertaste of whipped cream. Or vice versa. I can't remember which, but it was awesome! Some of my husband's friends kept sticking their fingers in the bowl after I frosted the cake at his work party!

Decorating: Frost the cake with the lemon whipped cream buttercream frosting. Then decorate the top with Starburst! It took awhile, but it was worth it! It was the talk of the party! I had originally planned on covering the whole cake, but I didn't have enough Starburst. I think it turned out super cute just having the top covered!

Note to Self: Blog about recipes right after I make them...it will make things easier on me and my readers!

Beef Cupcakes...It's What's for Dinner!

2009-09-02T11:28:00.000-06:00

I truly did not wake up this morning and think, "I'm going to make a meatloaf cupcake today!" It was totally a whim.

I'm not a huge meatloaf fan, but my aunt Joni gave me a recipe a long time ago that I actually liked and remembered when attempting to plan meals this week. I really don't like onions in meatloaf or burgers, though, so I thought I'd change up the recipe. As I was getting out my broiler pan for the meatloaf, I saw the cupcake pan, and that was that, we were having cupcakes for dinner. Then inspiration struck as I remembered the IronCupcake: Earth July challenge was herbs! And so my basil meatloaf "cupcake" was born!

I'm a little unclear as to whether my "cupcake" will pass for IronCupcake, but it has oats and eggs in it, it looks like a cupcake, it has "frosting," and it has herbs, so why not?! I guess it isn't really cake based, it's meat based. That sounds gross...they really were delicious though! I'l admit when I think of a delicious cupcake and then think of a meatcake, it makes my stomach turn a little...

Oh, and a WARNING! You need to refrigerate these cupcakes! haha.

I now look at my pictures and laugh...I guess beefcakes are a little crazy...but hey, I get points for creativity! I should have made my french fry cupcakes for dessert!

The meatloaf cupcake is made with ground beef, oats, eggs, ketchup, and basil, plus a couple other things. The "frosting" is SO good! You glaze it on and bake it. It's made of ketchup, mustard, and brown sugar! The fam loved it.

P.S. If you think I'm crazy now, wait until you see Monday's post!!!

Meatloaf or Beefcakes... Makes 2 loaves or approx. 24 meatcakes

2 lbs. ground chuck

3/4 c uncooked quick cooking oats

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

4-5 basil leaves finely sliced into small pieces

1/2 c ketchup

1/4 c milk

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

Topping/ "Frosting"

1/2 c ketchup

3 T brown sugar

2 teaspoons prepared mustard

Combine ingredients in large bowl. Shape into 2 (7 1/2 x 4 in.) loaves or balls that will fit in a cupcake pan. Place loaves on a lightly greased rack in broiler pan, or in a cupcake pan. Bake loaves at 350 for 40 minutes. Bake meatcakes 25 minutes. Take them out and put in a broiler pan to cook the rest of the 40 minutes.

For either type: Combine topping ingredients and spoon over meatloaf; bake 15 more minutes or until meat thermometer registers 160 degrees.

Okay, so this picture is TOTALLY a buzzkill on your appetite! But remember, you can still use the recipe for regular meatloaf, and it's a good one! I guess there is a reason you are supposed to cook meatloaf in a broiler pan! And okay, the picture below doesn't make you say, "give me a meatcake with fat baked around the edges!" But am I at least getting some laughs?

So Cupcake

2009-09-02T11:06:00.004-06:00

If you haven't tried So Cupcake yet, you've got to go! 3939 South Highland Drive in Salt Lake City. It is such a cute store with tons of tasty flavors to try! I bought the one below for my aunt's birthday...and forgot to drop it off. It ended up a huge melted mess in my car and I'm just realizing now I never brought anything for her birthday. Oh my. What a terrible waste of an awesome cupcake!

Below are some of the colorful selections! Visit their website at www.socupcake.com!
They also have really cute cupcake things for sale...I loved these cards!
They have a fun board with polaroids and "SO..." written on them. And a great pic of their cute daughter meeting Emeril! She's an example to me of following your dreams!
LOVE their open sign! SO clever. haha.

DJ Par-tay

2009-09-01T16:04:00.009-06:00

It's about time I post about my husband's birthday, considering it was 2 months ago! So I threw a surprise party for him since he is the funniest person to scare. I pretty much pulled it off, although he said thinking back on it he had some hints. He used to "DJ" in college...as a matter of fact, the first time I met him he had on headphones and he couldn't hear me say hello to him. Little did he know I'd be after him. haha. So above is the turntable cake I made for him. I used a Costco cake, lots of black frosting (that looks purple-gray...does anyone know how to get frosting really black?), a twizzler rope, a black plate for the record with my husband's picture on it, and a round cake underneath the record. The other pieces are fondant covered in frosting.

Here's some of the decor that I threw together...I decided for sure like 2 days before that I was going to do the party.

Of course a party wouldn't be a party without cupcakes! I created a cupcake tower to go with the turntable cake. I used two black trays and plastic "champagne" glasses. I found the disco balls at a party store...they were keychains, I just took the keychain part off. The other cupcakes are headphones and records.

Couple of doughdough moments...I really wanted to make a disco ball cupcake. I'd seen some examples online and here's what mine turned out like. Lovely. Don't use marshmallow creme as frosting...it drips right off! And obviously the foil covered party mints did not stay close to each other. What was I thinking?!I have the hardest time in the kitchen because I don't do things in an orderly fashion! As I was making my record cupcakes, I ran out of cakesters when I knew I had lots left! I spent so much time looking through the pantry and through the mess in my kitchen over and over again. I finally gave up thinking I'd just make more of another kind. Well, the next time I threw something away, guess what I found?

Above is the headphone cupcake made from tootsie rolls.
I made the records from smashed sides of Oreo cakesters and mini marshmallows. Later I discovered something easier to make record cupcakes with-Oreo makes a new cookie and as usual, I can't remember what they are called. But you can see below I turned it upside down and plopped it on white frosting.

Lion House Lemon Bars

2009-08-28T22:11:00.006-06:00

Before I talk about the lemon bars, I have some FUN news to share!!! Actually, one piece of news deserves its own post, so I'll save it. The other news is that my Thing 1 and Thing 2 cupcakes were selected as one of the winners of Martha Stewart's Cutest Cupcakes 2009 contest!! They also told me that they may feature more than just that entry in the gallery of best! I'll let you know when they post the results!

I love the Lion House rolls that they sell in Utah...so I was thrilled to see a Lion House Desserts Cookbook in my gramma's kitchen! I took it (with permission, of course!), along with a book that I can't even look at because I get the craziest cravings and drool on the page. I'll be making something from that one soon...I'm drawing a blank on what it's called at the moment.

Anyway, back to the Lion House...as you've probably gathered, I love anything lemon, so my first choice was the lemon bars. They were really easy and I had all of the ingredients handy!

So, my review. Well, I have two reviews. I had in my mind what I thought they would taste like, so when I first tasted them, I wasn't crazy about them as lemon bars (but remember I am a doughdough and could easily have messed up the recipe!). I didn't think they were lemony enough and I thought there was too much crust and too little filling. If I made them again, I'd try not using all of the crust mixture. However, my guests loved them.

So the next morning, I thought I'd give them another shot and I wolfed down pretty much the whole pan of them! They really were delicious, they just weren't what I expected at first.

Lion House Lemon Bars - from the Lion House Desserts cookbook

1 1/4 cups butter
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Filling:
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
6 T lemon juice (I used freshly squeezed)
4 T all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

To make crust: Preheat oven to 350. Put butter in mixer bowl and beat until softened. Add flour and powdered sugar and mix on low speed until just combined. Spread dough evenly in a 9x13 inch pan. Bake for 10 minutes or until the corners are light golden brown. Remove from oven and pour filling on top of crust.

To make filling: In a small mixing bowl, mix together eggs, sugar, lemon juice, flour, and baking powder with a wire whisk or on low speed of a mixer for just a few minutes. (It is important not to mix a lot of air into the filling.) Pour on top of partially baked crust and bake for 30-35 minutes. Allow to cool slightly and dust with powdered sugar. Cut into small bars. Makes 18-24.

SLC Farmer's Market open on Tuesday evenings

2009-08-24T06:58:00.004-06:00

It was so fun to go to the farmer's market on a Tuesday evening! It is open from 4 to 8pm. There aren't nearly as many vendors, but we were thrilled to not have to get up at the crack of dawn to make it to the market. (We don't live close to it.) The highlight for us was Bear Lake raspberries.

Beyond Glaze Doughnuts

2009-08-22T00:23:00.005-06:00

My fam and I had some delicious doughnuts the other day from Beyond Glaze. It is located in Draper and has some awesome doughnut choices. See a full list on their website, www.beyondglaze.com. The Smores was yummy, the white chocolate mint was REALLY good and the key lime crumble was AMAZING (shown below)! I can't wait to go back and try more! I was intrigued by how the frosting glaze tasted just like a filling...I may have to start making doughnuts and figure it out! Prices are great too, only $1.49.

2009-08-19T01:29:00.004-06:00

This post is way overdue...I'm always saying I'll post something and then forget about it! I told some of the audience of Good Things Utah that I'd post this picture I took, so here ya go!

I also wanted to post some cupcakes I made for that day and I didn't get around to taking pictures of them until after...and by then most had been eaten! I improved upon my big bird cupcake for the show and am so sad I don't have a good picture! Above you can see it, but it's a little fuzzy. I worked really hard on the fondant legs to go under the cupcake-it was so CUTE! Here's cookie modeling big bird's legs...
I also made a more user-friendly sock monkake...I didn't use all of the pieces of cake this time, I just used a cupcake! Here sock monkey is opening his lunchbox and finds a cupcake! haha.
The eyes are black frosting, the ears are brown m&m's, the mouth is cut from a raspberry fig newton, the white part of the mouth is built up with frosting, the "fur" is clear sanding sugar and brown sprinkles, and the hat is made from twizzler pull and peels! It was so much easier than the last one, and I think it still looks a lot like a sock monkey!
I set up a quick photo shoot with the monster cupcakes...they are posing with my son's 1st birthday present, the Max bobblehead (my son's name is Max)....which finally arrived: about a month and a half late! Oh well, he can make his debut at my next Wild Things party...maybe for the movie opening in Oct!

Last but not least, I told the cute girl featured in this pic that I wanted to show off her hair accessory on my blog-isn't it cute? She said her friend makes them, and now I forget her friend's name!

A Delicious Dessert from Chili's

2009-08-14T14:34:00.003-06:00

My mouth is watering. I am so craving this. I am a die-hard white chocolate fan, so of course this was the best thing I'd ever tasted!

This is Chili's white chocolate lava cake and it is so darn good. I was dying to try it when we went to dinner there, but we don't get dessert to save money. So how thrilled was I that when the waitress found out it was our 9 year anniversary, this is what she brought!!! That is white chocolate sauce oozing out of the cake-I was in HEAVEN!!! Thanks Sarah at the American Fork Chili's for making our evening!

Traffic Sign Cupcakes

2009-08-12T17:19:00.005-06:00

These are nothing special...but I thought these cute toys would look fun on cupcakes! I found them in the party favor section at Partyland in American Fork, UT.

It's been really hard for me to find time (or the patience) to learn to cook! I'm too busy being meal planner doughdough. For me, it is easier to just make spaghetti and cupcakes. I planned a whole 2 week menu awhile ago in hopes that I would have great recipes to add to my blog, and I don't think I've made one thing from the plan! Then the food goes bad and I have to buy things again. and again. and again. Story of my life in the kitchen. I had the hardest time planning the meals too-it took so much focus and time...anyone have any great meal planning tips that I can share with the doughdoughs of the world?! Email kitchendoughdough@gmail.com.

Bert Cupcake Pops!

2009-08-08T15:26:00.004-06:00

I think this is my favorite creation. (Sorry for the mug shot, Bert!) I have been thinking about how to make Bert's head right since I made my Sesame Street tower. I noticed the other day that my Wilton silicone brownie pop pan was the perfect shape! So I used cake mix in the pan to create Bert's head.

Hair=black frosting using a hair decorating tip (any ideas on how to make it stick up higher?)

Skin=yellow frosting

Ears=yellow M&M's

Nose=orange M&M

Mouth=reddish pink frosting and half of a sour patch kid

Unibrow=black frosting with a skinny, flat tip (don't know what it's called!)

Eyes=white and black frosting using a round tip

Cure-ious Cupcakes

2009-08-03T00:50:00.005-06:00

I've wanted to create a pretty pink cupcake for a long time! So when one of my facebook fans suggested I make a breast cancer cupcake, I thought it was a wonderful idea.

You can click here to donate money to Susan G. Komen for the Cure!

I was also inspired by the AMAZING tribute to those struggling with breast cancer on So You Think You Can Dance. I think it was the most beautiful dance I've ever seen, choreographed by Tyce DiOrio. I'm sure it will win an Emmy, so if you missed it, you'll probably still get to see it!

I almost forgot...these are pink lemonade cupcakes and I loved them! I know there are some good recipes out there, but I just dumped a package of pink lemonade kool-aid in a white cake mix and prepared it as it said on the box. I was too lazy today to look for a recipe, but luckily, I thought they turned out great! I just used buttercream frosting...the recipe for the frosting is on my Wild Things post.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

2009-07-31T01:59:00.009-06:00

I think these are my favorite cupcakes EVER!! It's just too bad I have nothing planned to do with them! Anyone having a Finding Nemo party today?

When I searched the net for Finding Nemo cupcakes, I couldn't find any besides fondant fish on top...so I thought I'd better create a whole tower! Oh, and the cupcakes are a recipe I made up with mandarin oranges in it. I'll get around to posting it sometime...

I love Bruce! Everything is frosting except for the eyes are mini choco chips and the teeth are slivered almonds. Oh, I cut the fins from thin cookies that I got from Ikea.

I love Crush too! Isn't he fun? Sloppy, but fun ;) This was the last one I made and you can tell! It is all frosting except for his eyes have candy melts tucked in the frosting.

So you are probably wondering what these are supposed to be...the orange ones are Nemo's brothers and sisters that didn't make it past the beginning of the show :( The eggs are a nice tribute to them though ;) In front is the "butt" (If you haven't seen the movie, Nemo calls the boat a butt) with divers (sour patch kids) in it and one in the water.

Here's Nemo and a Marlin that doesn't look right...they are swimming next to their anenome home made from twizzler pull and peels. Nemo and Marlin are made mostly of frosting, with candy melt eyes and cut orange slices candy for their fins.

Last but certainly not least is Dory. This one was really hard. I really wanted it to look like Dory, and since she is skinny, I didn't want to just use the top of a cupcake. So I used two large, oval butter wafers and stuck them in the cupcake. That is why it is lopsided...the cupcake didn't stay together. But I fixed it with frosting and spent awhile crafting this out of frosting and a couple more wafer pieces for the fins. The eye base is white candy melts. I didn't get it quite right. Oh well, it was still fun to make!

Worm Cupcakes

2009-07-28T23:09:00.002-06:00

We have a new Wal-Mart by us that has a good selection of baking items. Recently they started selling candy in different shapes that are all the same color. I saw these green bananas and thought there must be something fun I could do with them! This is what I came up with:

Don't the bananas make cute grass?!

Blueberry Buckle by Jersey Girl Cooks

2009-07-26T01:27:00.003-06:00

When our big winner Carol told me she had just put a blueberry buckle in the oven, I wanted to know what exactly a blueberry buckle is. So she contacted Lisa of Jersey Girl Cooks to get permission for me to post this on my blog and I'm thrilled! This sounds delish and that is saying a lot because I am not a huge fan of blueberries! I have to admit I'll be making her Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins first...I am now craving donuts. Make sure to check out Lisa's blog Jersey Girl Cooks for some award-winning recipes! Okay, I just visited her blog again and you have to see her watermelon, feta, and arugula salad!

Blueberry Buckle by Lisa of Jersey Girl Cooks (Click on the link to see pictures and more info!)

Cake ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk
1 pint blueberries

Topping ingredients:
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup sifted all purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease a 9-inch spring form pan. Sift together the 1 1/2 cups of flour, the baking powder and the salt. Set aside. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the egg. Add the flour mixture, alternating with the milk. Mix in the berries. Pour batter into the prepared pan. Combine ingredients for topping with a fork to make a crumbly mixture. Sprinkle this over the batter. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until cake is golden and you can test test for doneness by gently inserting a fork. If it does not come out clean, give the cake another 5 to 10 minutes to bake.

Double Boiler

2009-07-21T15:48:00.005-06:00

If you're like me, you thought this was a major skin problem...

but it turns out a double boiler is a useful item to have in the kitchen! While making my lemon mirengue cupcakes awhile back, the mirengue recipe called for a double boiler. Or maybe it was the lemon filling. Anyway, how was I supposed to know what a double boiler was? (My mother is cringing right now, I'm sure.)

Wikipedia says: " A double boiler is a stovetop apparatus used to cook delicate sauces such as beurre blanc or to melt chocolate without burning or seizing. It is a double-decker saucepan with an upper vessel that fits into a lower pot.

One fills the bottom with boiling water and places the food to be cooked in the top one. The top pot is kept above the boiling water and heated only by steam, but tight fitting of the two pots prevents steam from escaping."

A beurre WHAT-Y?

Above is Sur La Table's double boiler for $199.95. Yikes! More like double broke if you ask me. One day I'll have money to drop on a d.b. at sir la tay-ble (that's what I called it when I first saw it....) but for now, my home-made one worked great!

Hope you enjoyed my little lesson...I'm going to attempt to balance my cupcake posts with entertaining "anecdoughtes" from my kitchen! By the way, if you think my hand looks a little mannish, you're right! That hand belongs to Mr. Doughdough.

Messy Monday: Fondant Flop

2009-07-19T23:39:00.001-06:00

When I made the Sesame Street cake for a friend's son's birthday, I had been excited to try fondant. It started good enough...I made a marshmallow fondant recipe that was easy and actually tasted really good! Click here to go to Peggy Weaver's tutorial.

This picture shows my result:

Looks like I succeeded, right? Wrong. I started rolling it with my pin that I thought was non-stick, and used corn starch like I was told, but I kept hitting sticky parts. Plus my counter was a huge sticky mess. I was not a fan...although the problem could be fixed with a cutting mat (that it turned out I needed anyway...keep reading!) or by patience while I was kneading...I didn't knead long enough and with enough powdered sugar. I guess I'm not the person to make fondant! So I decided to scrap using my marshmallow fondant, and use the premade fondant I had instead. This is my cake:
This is my fondant covered cake. I think it's headed to the cover of Martha Stewart! Okay, so my first attempt flopped. When I rolled it, it wasn't in the right shape I guess...I'm having a hard time remembering what my dodo brain was thinking! I think I put the cake on the fondant and tried to move it up to the top of the cake...at least I was smart enough to figure out that I was doing it backwards.
Since I am a determined person, I was not going to leave it at that! I rolled the fondant again.
You're probably thinking, "THERE you go!"
yes.......yes......it's working.......
Yay! Time to cut the excess...with my pizza cutter....
Voila!
Okay, here's another messy part of my experience...I got so into making the fondant letters, rolling my pizza cutter around to make them, that I didn't realize I had no mat underneath, and I made some cuts on my counter. Go ahead. Shake your head. I deserve it.
Got a kitchen catastrophe to share? Email kitchendoughdough@gmail.com to be featured on Messy Mondays!

Yummy summer shake

2009-07-18T21:10:00.004-06:00

The hubby just made the best shake, which I'll call Strawberry Cupcake Shake! It's so delish and simple, too! The only thing is, he's a doughdough like me, apparently, because he didn't really know what he was doing, he just threw these ingredients in a blender!

Cake Batter ice cream

Strawberries

Milk

You get the idea. Just add more of any of the ingredients to taste. I'm pretty sure the Cake Batter ice cream was from Wal-mart. I was also thinking of using it in an ice cream cupcake (they are the latest cupcake trend), but have yet to try it!

Lost Party

2009-07-18T21:05:00.000-06:00

I've been so excited for my turn to host the monthly movie night for a group of girls in my neighborhood! I've been collecting some really cute tropical ideas, I've been dying to make Lost cupcakes, and Lost is my favorite show (after Frasier, but it isn't on anymore), so it was a perfect theme! Above are the invites...with my personal info changed, of course...I don't really live on "john doe"-doe street. :)

This is also a perfect post to celebrate Lost's Emmy nom for Best Drama! Yay! (Even though the actors were ignored...)

So now it's time for some doughdough-ness. Make that dodo-mess.

So I've tried twice now to make a blue jello mold with swedish fish in it. You can see what a success the first one was...NOT! I thought maybe I didn't refrigerate it long enough...or maybe it was all the non-stick spray I coated on the pan...not to worry, I thought, we all have recipes that don't work the first time, I'll just do it again!

Here's attempt #2:

Oops. I'm notorious for having butterfingers.

Lovely. And I'm not just talking about the weird use of flash and the shadow in my picture!

One of my friends suggested maybe I needed to use a Jello Jiggler recipe since it makes a firmer mold. I thought I must have read the recipe wrong, but no! It just said to follow a regular jello recipe. So I give up. For today! Someday I'll have that perfect jello ring mold to create the luau centerpiece by Lori Needham that I saw in the June/July 2003 edition of Taste of Home magazine. The mold had a pineapple in the center with fruit kabobs coming out of it.

I also got the idea for this palm tree in the same article:

Isn't this fun? The palm tree "leaves" are made from green peppers, the trunk is a carrot, and the "island" base is half of a potato! It was super easy to make, as long as you are able to take your time so you don't slice your finger like I almost did! You can see my jello mold salvage...I actually think it looked more like water than the mold would have. You can also see that the Swedish fish have a major case of pruny-ness from being in the water too long!

Since this blog is supposed to show that I am learning things, I'll share my new knowledge...how to cut a melon! Okay, I won't really tell you because I'm sure you know and you are laughing at me right now. I honestly had to ask my friends how I should cut the melon and serve it. (If you're thinking that means I wasn't ready when my guests arrived, you're right! I'm always running late, which is why I could never be a party planner.)

When I went to get a bowl for the melon, I decided to put it in the melon instead! Cute, no?

Plates and napkins for the party:

Last, but not least, Lost cupcakes! I LOVE these! I got the idea for the plane and sand from myaimistrue's lost party post. (Check out her fish biscuit cookies, too!) My husband came up with the idea to put Jack on them...okay, I think he said one of the characters, I picked Jack.

Here's another tropical party idea that I saw in a magazine awhile ago, and I can't remember which one! Pirate chests made from Swiss Rolls! I thought they were cute with Rolos or gold coins. Aren't they fun? Great for a Pirates of the Carribean party!

Good Things Utah!

2009-07-16T21:28:00.008-06:00

I had SUCH a blast on Good Things Utah today!

Cutest Invitations I have ever seen!

2009-07-10T15:51:00.004-06:00

Since I'm still on a Dr. Seuss kick, I wanted to share these adorable invites my friend Kara of Kara's Party Ideas made for a Dr.Seuss baby shower! I LOVE the poem!

Thing 1 and Thing 2 Cupcakes! And Dr. Seuss stuff at Target!

2009-07-01T23:17:00.005-06:00

My favorite thing about Dr. Seuss is Thing 1 and Thing 2! I love the wild blue hair, so naturally I had to create Thing 1 and Thing 2 cupcakes!

All you need to do is bake red velvet cupcakes in red liners, frost with white frosting, and add cotton candy for their hair!

To make the cotton candy hair, I pulled off long strips and gently pulled it apart from the sides. It is really easy to work with because it is so sticky (although it does build up on your fingers. I had to wash my hands a couple times). I pushed the piece I was working with into the frosting and kept making pulled apart pieces until the cupcake was filled. I filled in little pieces where it needed it. Then I pulled off another long strip of cotton candy and wrapped it around the bottom, pushing it into the pieces that were already there in spots so that it blended in.

The final touch was the two circles. I just typed up Thing 1 and Thing 2 on my computer, printed it out, drew circles in black permanent marker, cut out and stuck on the cupcake liners!

There is one drawback to the cupcakes...if you don't serve them soon, you'll end up with this:

At this point you might as well dump blue sugar on your cupcake...haha. This was after several hours, they don't sink too quickly...but they don't look as good after about an hour, so if you are having a Dr. Seuss party, don't decorate with cotton candy until right before!

Speaking of Dr. Seuss parties, I was thrilled to find a TON of Dr. Seuss stuff in Target's dollar section last night! I think Thing 1 and Thing 2 are the new sock monkey for me! I'm loving these things I bought...a magnet sheet, magnetic notepad (all Thing 1 and 2-LOVE IT!), and adorable badges! Perfect for your Dr. Seuss party, along with the Thing 1 and 2 cupcakes, of course!

Completely edible Cupcakebabs!

2009-06-30T23:52:00.005-06:00

Cupcake kebabs are all the rage right now on Cupcakes Take the Cake. Awesome baker Nora started it all (is she the next Bakerella?!), and I just had to create my own version! I am thrilled that they are now featured on Cupcakes Take the Cake too!

Mine are a little different...I tried to make them look like actual grilled kebabs!

I took these to my friend Kara's July 4th BBQ and they were a hit! Thanks Nora for the fabulous idea! Everyone was very impressed!

Here are the basics:

Pineapple slices aka Cut-up Lemon Wafer Cookies
Cherry tomatoes aka Red Velvet Cupcakes
Steak pieces aka Cut-up Brownie pieces

The look is completed with skewers aka chocolate pocky sticks which make the whole thing totally edible!!! (I know, I'm obsessed with Pocky lately!)

Detailed How-to:

1. Bake brownies in a 13x9 or similar pan. I used dark chocolate fudge-like brownie mix from Betty Crocker...they turned out great! Let the brownies cool. Cut out squares to mimic steak pieces. I was going to draw lines with frosting to make the "steak" look grilled, but I didn't get around to it.

2. Bake Red Velvet mini-cupcakes in Wilton's Brownie Pop Pan. Only fill a little so it comes out looking round like cherry tomatoes! I haven't solidified a baking time yet...just watch them and check with a toothpick. It took at least 20 minutes. I found the longer I baked them, the easier it was for them to pop out. I only have one pan so I had to keep refilling it while I was doing other things. (By the way, I made some other cupcakes with the mix...I am LOVING the red color! Not jazzed on the flavor, but I just used a mix for these.)

3. While things are cooling/baking, get your lemon wafers ready. Cut them carefully into squares. Prepare them to go on the Pocky sticks by gently rotating a real skewer into the middle of the cookie piece. I made one hole, then made it wider on all sides with the skewer. (The pocky sticks are the right size on the end, but you'll need bigger holes to fit around the part with the chocolate cream.)

4. You are ready to make the cupcakebabs! Just stick the pieces on the pocky stick! It worked pretty easily for me; I just had to make sure the brownies were cooled off a little so the chocolate cream didn't melt off.

We ran out of kebabs at the BBQ, so I made some more using real skewers...

Messy Monday!

2009-06-29T23:24:00.005-06:00

If you aren't familiar with Becky of Project Domestication and Utah Loves Cupcakes, let me fill you in...

She loves Utah and she loves cupcakes! I love to read Utah Loves Cupcakes to keep up on all of the Utah cupcake gossip.

Becky shared this with me:

"Okay, I have a total mess up every once in a while."

That doesn't sound too bad...

"My favorite tasting cupcake recipe is the Salted Caramel Cupcake by Shelly Kaldunski in her cookbook "Cupcakes. It's a fabulous recipe but like every other time I make it I have this:

happen!!!

I'm not sure if it sinks because I overfill the cups or if it is an altitude problem. To my knowledge all my leavening/rising ingredients are up to par."

Anyone have any advice for Becky and her yummy volcano cupcakes? (hehe. Sorry Becky...the picture just reminded me of lava!)

It sounds like she's made these cuppys a lot, so I'm sure she's not filling them too much. My thought is that it may be the altitude...a lot of recipes that I get excited about don't turn out tasting the best...but don't ask me, I'm a doughdough!

I love hearing about your mishaps! Keep the submissions coming to kitchendoughdough@gmail.com!

Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes

2009-06-29T08:55:00.001-06:00

This is my IronCupcake:Earth entry for June's Summer Berries challenge! These turned out to be one of my FAVORITES!!! This was also the first recipe I completely made up and just gave it a try...although I have become pretty knowledgeable about what/how much goes in a cake recipe, so it wasn't too daring! What I loved about the recipe is I tried it by just combining ingredients and not really paying attention to any steps...if you are like me, you don't like having to pay too much attention to recipes! The dense, coconut-y cupcake went perfectly with whipped cream and strawberry glaze! I was SO excited with the results. I am just loving how cupcakes turn out when you add coconut milk.

Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes

Dry ingredients

2 1/2 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar

Whisk!

Wet ingredients

1 14 fl. oz. can full fat coconut milk (or 1 2/3 c.)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 egg whites

Whisk!

Combine and beat the mixture. Put in cupcake liners or grease pan. Bake at 350 until a toothpick comes out clean. Easy, huh?!

Whipped Cream

I'm pretty sure everyone knows how to make whipped cream! Just beat heavy whipping cream until it forms soft peaks, add sugar to taste, beating after each addition!

Strawberry Glaze

I used a package of Junket Danish Dessert Strawberry Pudding/Pie filling/Glaze. (Anything similar would work great!) Then I put strawberries in a food processor and added them to the glaze. I made cuts in the top of the cupcakes so the glaze would soak into the cupcake. (The cupcakes are so dense that just poking holes with a toothpick wasn't enough!

The final touch was my favorite: strawberry pocky sticks!!! I am now addicted to them! They are Japanese biscuit sticks with strawberry cream on them. (See top picture.)

One last thing...any idea what I tried adding to some of the cupcakes?

I thought I was SO clever when I thought of adding gum to a cupcake...yeah, not so much. They sunk to the bottom while baking, and of COURSE they melted. What was I thinking? (Well, I was thinking strawberry gum might be a creative addition to my entry...)

4th place at i heart faces!

2009-06-27T12:07:00.004-06:00

This has nothing to do with food, but I just had to share some exciting news! My adults entry in this week's contest at i heart faces was picked for 4th place! These are my cute boys on their first carousel ride! My husband absolutely adores our son, and I love how this picture captures their bond. Let's hear it for my boys!! (That was this week's theme!) I'm even more thrilled that this was picked by a guest photographer judge, Lori Nordstrom!

Totally spaced it on Messy Monday!

2009-06-23T01:05:00.004-06:00

It is barely Tuesday, so hopefully you'll forgive me. I'll tell you what I was doing all day on Thursday's post...

But for now I do have a funny story to share! I laughed out loud at this submission from Frieda of friedalovesbread.blogspot.com! Perfect for a messy Tuesday...

"I love my Kitchen Aid mixer. My boys gave it to me for my birthday several years ago, knowing that they would be the beneficiaries of home baked goodies. 51 weeks later, I was making some wheat bread dough, which takes quite a bit longer to knead than the traditional white dough. I decided to leave the kitchen "just for a moment." The smoke alarm came on. I went back into my kitchen and my Kitchen Aid was on FIRE! Flames were spouting out of the sides of the on/off and lock switches! The flames were only centimeters away from the underside of my cabinets...I yanked the cord out, pulled the mixer away from the cabinets and waited for the flames to die down.

I called Kitchen Aid and they said, "What?! Your mixer caught on fire? What were you doing?" After giving them the details, they reminded me that I still had one week left on my original first year warranty. They sent me a brand spanking new mixer, complete with a shipping label to return the fried one.

I am happy to say this mixer has served me well over the 15 years, though I still watch it closely..."

Too funny! Who knew a mixer could go up in flames...and not just any mixer, the famed Kitchen Aid! Thank goodness it happened on week 51, and thank goodness for Frieda's story to give us a laugh!

Submit your messy kitchen stories and/or pictures to kitchendoughdough@gmail.com!

Sesame Street Birthday Party

2009-06-21T02:30:00.007-06:00

I had so much fun making two cupcake towers and a cake for my friend's son's first birthday party! My friend and I looked on the internet and saw a TON of darling examples, so these are definitely nothing new! I used the examples we saw as inspiration to create the cake and cupcakes.

The birthday boy who turned 1!

Big Bird cupcake on a cake! I LOVE his legs! I was in a rush, so I didn't have time to make them look as good as they could have. They are made from mango laffy taffy sticks and fruit loops. I made the feet with fondant. Eyes are melted white chocolate, frosting, and mini choc chips. I made the beak from fondant. The feathers are made with a #61 decorating tip. I think a leaf tip may have worked well too.

Another view of the cake. My friend loved the sign she saw on the adorable cake by The Little Cupcakery. Click here to see the cake on flickr! Can I just give a shoutout to Australians?! So many of the cutest cakes and cupcakes I've seen were made by bakers in Australia! I made the sign with fondant...which was not my favorite thing to use for letters, I'm too impatient! I'll be posting about my fondant experience soon. (Get ready for a disaster averted!)

Mouths are made from Oreos, eyes are upside down white candy melts, blacks of eyes are made with a round tip and black frosting. Oscars eyebrows were my FAVORITE!! I used a basketweave tip and brown frosting. I also liked my idea to turn the cookie upside down for Oscar's mouth. Elmo's nose is a peanut m&m. Grover is seen in the top picture, made with a red m&m and a piece of red twizzler cherry pull-aparts.

Detail of cookie and big bird. Cookie Monster was SO easy! I just used a grass/hair decorating tip and stuck a cookie in his mouth! Below are a bunch of the Elmos! My friend and I's inspiration for the Elmo cupcakes came from Kara's Cupcakes. Be sure to hop over to her site to see her creations!

Check out this cute cupcake!

2009-06-17T21:51:00.002-06:00

Now check out the onesie! LOVE it! My friend's darling baby modeled this fun cupcake onesie made by her sister-in-law. I told her she needs to sell these! Too cute! Maybe I can get one for my upcoming giveaway...

i heart faces kodak printer giveaway!

2009-06-17T18:23:00.008-06:00

Can I first just mention that I am working on a great giveaway! You're probably thinking, 'Your blogaversary is not even close...why would you be having a giveaway?' It's a surprise, but it's going to be awesome! (in my humble opinion, anyway!)

Okay, the awesome Kodak printer giveaway! It's worth 300 bucks, so it's totally worth your time to enter! And I'm sure you'll enjoy the i heart faces site while you're there! The site is so fun...they host weekly photo contests and anyone can enter. I entered this picture of my son for this week's sepia contest:

Messy Monday!

2009-06-15T15:32:00.004-06:00

Thanks to Jen at Delightful Delicacies, we have a Messy Monday!

I laughed out loud when I saw this picture:

I only laugh because it looks like something I would do! And I had no CLUE what it was! Any guesses?

Jen tried a recipe for a Daring Bakers challenge, and says on her blog, "I'm sure you're wondering 'what in blue blazes does this picture of tar have anything to do with a Daring Bakers challenge?'"

Did anyone guess lavash? If you're a doughdough like me, you don't even know what lavash is! (and is it la VASH? or la VOSH? lay-vush?)

This is what Wikipedia had to say:

Lavash (also known as crackerbread) is a soft, thin flatbread made with water, flour, and salt. (Click here to see the full article!)

You'll learn even more at delightful delicacies! Go there to get some more laughs and some fabulous recipes. You'll see that this was truly a fluke, for she is an awesome cook!

I don't think I've ever looked forward to the next Monday on a Monday! Keep the submissions coming to kitchendoughdough@gmail.com!

Messy Mondays

2009-06-15T11:49:00.003-06:00

Be a guest blogger on kitchen doughdough: I want to hear about your messes!

Last night after baking strawberry shortcake cupcakes (they were delicious...post coming soon!), my kitchen was again a disaster. Every time I bake I have the hardest time keeping things clean and organized. Scroll down to the end of this previous post to see an example. (Shameful, I know.)

So, I thought, why not give the world's kitchen doughdoughs a chance to show off their kitchen disasters?! Please email kitchendoughdough@gmail.com with your kitchen catastrophes and include pictures if you can! You can submit pictures of the aftermath of your culinary experiences, a story of a good meal gone bad, accidents in the kitchen-anything you think is an entertaining mishap! I am SO excited to hear from you. I will feature your submissions each week on Messy Mondays! (My Mondays are always messy whether I'm in the kitchen or not!)

Monkey See, Monkey Do

2009-06-11T08:57:00.003-06:00

My son's "lair," as my mom called it, is being featured on Project Nursery today! Click here to go to the "Real Rooms" section; the rooms are absolutely amazing! I am really embarrassed about the photos on my feature...they were taken before I got my new camera! It's funny how my eye has changed since I've been looking through the lens of my Canon EOS 50D. (Had to put in a plug for it, I LOVE my camera!)

Would you like fries with that?

2009-06-05T23:13:00.008-06:00

I LOVE the different examples of hamburger cupcakes that I've seen on the net...except how can you have a burger without fries?!

The idea for these cupcakes actually came to me at church! The speaker made an analogy using McDonald's french fries, so naturally I was craving them...then later in our meetings, a child received a Kit-Kat for their birthday, and inspiration struck! Cupcakes in a french fry box with Kit-Kat fries!

I loved making these because it was really easy...if you don't mind dealing with chocolate. (I hate cleaning up the mess after it hardens!) Even if you are a doughdough like me, you can make these for the dessert at your next BBQ!

French Fry Cupcakes How-to:

Step one: Make whatever kind of cupcake mix you desire! I went for a plain yellow in the spirit of french fries.

Step two: Get out your french fry boxes! Burger King was happy to give me some for free. I LOVE BK fries! Their boxes work perfectly with large nut cups. You just stick the cups down in the box, and you are ready to add the cupcake mix! (I would have just filled the boxes, but they had holes on the sides.)

Step 3: Put the cupcake boxes on a baking sheet. Bake your cupcakes until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. I had to bake mine for about 25-30 minutes.

Step 4: Frost your cupcakes. I just used basic vanilla buttercream. Like the Star Trek boxes? At first I was bummed they didn't have ones with the BK logo on them, but then I figured Star Trek is popular right now, so kidlets would probably enjoy the box.

Now you are ready to make the fries! You'll need mini Kit-Kats (they come wrapped in twos in a big bag in the candy section), white chocolate chips, and yellow icing color (or food coloring).

Step 1: Prepare the kit-kats by opening the packages and breaking them apart. Put out some parchment or wax paper out on your counter to put the fries.

Step 2: Melt the white chocolate in 20 second increments in your microwave. Stir after each time until it is smooth.

Step 3: Add lemon yellow icing color or yellow food coloring to the chocolate and stir until it is the color of fries!

Step 4: Put each kit-kat piece in the white chocolate individually. Use a fork to turn it around to the other side, lift it out of the chocolate, and place it on the parchment paper. Don't worry if traces of brown show from the Kit-Kat chocolate; it makes it look like they are toasted a little!

Step 5: After the chocolate has hardened, use a knife to saw off the excess chocolate.

Step 6: Gently push the fries down into the cupcake, and voila, you have french fry cupcakes!

Another thing I tried was to add the cupcake mix directly into a McDonald's fry box that I had on hand. I used the reject fries in this one, but I like the pic!

Note to Self: Don't bake with fry boxes that have had fries in them; the whole house reeked of burning grease!

.com, baby!

2009-05-31T23:56:00.002-06:00

You can now visit kdd at www.kitchendoughdough.com! I couldn't resist adding the domain on to my photography business' host! You can still type in .blogspot.com if you'd like.

More Good News!

2009-05-27T01:09:00.003-06:00

Tip Junkie is featuring my Shovelin' Sand Cupcake Tower today! Can you imagine life without the internet?! It's so easy now to get awesome ideas...go to Tip Junkie to grab some useful tips on just about anything!

The Wild Things Are...

2009-05-26T01:12:00.005-06:00

at Creative Parties and Showers! My Where the Wild Things Are party is being featured there today! Be sure to check out the amazing parties featured on the site. Thanks so much for the feature, Shannon...I can't wait to show it off to Max when he is older!

Cupcake Par-tea!

2009-05-23T17:14:00.027-06:00

Kara and I are happy to be your hosts! Be sure to check out more

cupcake craziness on Kara's blogs at Kara's Party Ideas and

Kara's Cupcakes!

Obsess much? YEP! We love cupcakes! Last time I was in Seattle, I caught cupcake fever and immediately called my friend Kara who was already burning up! We decided to follow in my mom and her Seattle-ite friends' footsteps and host our own cupcake party in Utah!

These aprons were super easy to make! I bought the apron at Ikea and added an iron-on rhinestone cupcakes (you can find them at Wal-Mart) to the top. Then I found the adorable cupcake fabric at JoAnn's and added a strip on the bottom to cover up the designs that came on the apron. Kara introduced me to spray adhesive to attach the fabric-definitely beats digging through my basement to find my sewing machine! They are great aprons-the straps adjust; they just pull through the sides of the apron!

I made some cupcake flip-flops to complete the look! I found the stickers at JoAnn's and just stuck 'em on!

Aren't the chairs cute with tulle tied on the back?!

Shown above are the Cupcake Par-tea cupcakes I made! Alpha-Bits cereal is SO fun to use to decorate because you don't have to bother with any icing! In the pot are mini-cupcake pops on Pixy Sticks. More fun than sucker sticks because there's more to eat!

Kara made this TOO CUTE banner to welcome our guests! Can you guess what the table is? It's my ironing board! Kara seriously needs to be a party planner-who else would have thought of that?

To start off the festivities, we did a little demo on how to pipe a cupcake. The cupcake chicks got to pick what decorating tip they wanted to try. We assembled the grape crush cupcakes I created and took them to our seats to begin girl talk! You're probably wondering how we "assembled" a cupcake...the bottom was basically a grape crush shake frozen in the bottom of nut cups, so we added our cupcakes and piped on the grape crush buttercream frosting! Stay tuned if you want to know more...I'll post the recipe inspired by The Vanessa Contessa soon! (After my fingers recover from this LONG post!)

The strawberry lemonade cupcakes with the umbrellas are THE BEST cupcakes I had ever had (until I tried the ones in the next picture!)! I found the recipe at Love and Olive Oil and just had to try it. I can't even DESCRIBE how amazingly delicious they were! I think the secret in the cupcake recipe was the coconut milk-they were SO moist! I cannot stop craving the frosting...which has strawberry puree and lemon juice and a meringue-y type addition that makes it so creamy and fluffy...have I raved enough yet?! Go to Love and Olive Oil to get the recipe! (If you think I'm exaggerating about how good they are, check out the comments from those who made them!)

Kara's amazing chocolate cream cheese cupcakes with peanut butter frosting! Go to

Kara's Cupcakes for the recipe. By the way, this cake plate is DIY...keep reading!

Here's we are enjoying the par-tay!

A place setting at our table-complete with cupcake lip gloss on the napkin ring holder, cupcake sugar cookies, and chocolate cupcake suckers! You can see Bakerella's cake pops in the background-we made sure to have all things cupcake! See Kara's blog for even more info!

I found some cupcake soap at Mini's Cupcakes...but I guess we should have served more beverages if we wanted the soap used...haha.

My mom sent us this super cute (I'm running out of adjectives for all this fun stuff!) cupcake table cloth that she made. I made the cupcake in the center and it was really easy. We served raspberry "tea" (lemonade)...we figured, what's a little more sugar going to hurt?

I found these lights at Wal-Mart and decided to make them into cupcake lights! It's simple! Just use a hot glue gun to attach cupcake liners to the lights. Then use the glue gun to attach little rhinestones to act as sprinkles. We hung them over the table-not that anyone looked up, we were too busy stuffing our faces!

In the background, you can (kind of) see the fun cupcake canvas my mom painted. It reads, "Got Cake?" Like how we covered our thermostat with a cupcake?

Fun cupcake towels on my oven!

I had to add a shot of my son trying the grape Crush cupcakes-he gave me an A+! (Of course, he'd give anything a high score-he loves to eat!)

Kara (faded out in the background) made this AWESOME cupcake cake with Wilton's pan!

Here's a close-up of the glasses and silverware. The mini-silverware is at Ikea near the mini-teasets shown below. Kara made the cupcake tags at the bottom of the glasses-what a great idea!

Here's our mini-cupcake placecards in mini-teacups! I think these are my favorite!

Here's the brownie pops I made for the party. I used rolled fondant to make the flowers and placed them in my chalkboard pot. I wrote "Cupcake Par-tea!" with chalk around the top.

Here's another view of my brownie pops...I used Pixy Sticks for the sticks and it turned out SO cute! I also sprinkled Pixy Stick on the brownie pops to decorate them and it was actually VERY good! The orange ones tasted like those chocolate orange sticks that you can get at the store. It made it look like a bee had stopped by my flowers to pollinate them-haha!

We had lots of prizes to give away: stamps, notepads, shopping lists, candles...and of course they were all cupcakey!

Katie...come on down! Here's Kara proudly displaying the winner of a cupcake stamp set! We used the place cards to enter everyone in a drawing for the prizes.

Kara made this adorable display to hold the cupcake polymer earrings she made for EVERYONE! How cute! We found the idea at Saucy's Sprinkles.

The paper cupcakes shown above and below held the darling earrings so the guests couldn't lose them on the way home!

My mom had a great idea to make your own cupcake plates-they are shown above. All you do is buy plates and candlesticks at your nearest thrift store and glue them together. Kara did a great job making one for each of the ladies to carry out their loot! She also made a large one to display cupcakes-a great alternative to spending your precious baking money on a cupcake tower!

After a lotta sugar and silliness, the gals got to take home cupcakes to their family in a cute cupcake box!

We had so much fun we decided to make it a yearly event to debut new cupcakes!

Note to self: I've had too much glucose-no more sugar for the rest of the week! (In my book, the week ends on Saturday...)

Shovelin' Sand Cake Tower

2009-05-20T23:00:00.004-06:00

Yep, that's a cake! Here's the shovelin' sand cake I made today...I saw some cupcakes similar to this in the book Little Cakes from the Whimsical Bakehouse and I thought it would make an adorable cake. So I bought this sandpail, shovel, and sifter thing at Wal-Mart today and here it is! When I shared what I was doing with a friend, she said people have done this before, which doesn't surprise me. There are people out there who are a lot more creative than me! I used a 6X4 inch cake pan and cut the edges to fit the sandpail. I put a thin layer of vanilla buttercream frosting on top so the topping would stick. The "sand" is crumbled cupcake, which I saw in the book, too. Here's what the cover looks like:

I would HIGHLY recommend this book...the ideas in it are adorable! I only got a chance at the bookstore to peek in it, but it was enough to catch inspiration for this cake tower (shown below)! They have a cute website at http://www.whimsicalbakehouse.com/.

Here's a little sour patch kid with his "lifesaver!" This cupcake was my idea, but I bet someone has thought of this before, too. I used mirengue frosting with blue food coloring (see next post for the recipe) and used the back of a spoon to make the waves. Sour patch kids are my fave candy, so I thought to use them right away. I originally had some circular mini-pretzels picked out for the life preserver, but then I realized Lifesavers would be perfect! I LOVE going down the candy aisle, there are so many things you can use to decorate!

I didn't get a close look at the cupcakes in the book, so I tried this. I made the shovel from Airheads and a lollipop stick. Just use scissors to cut the pieces. I cut about an inch off of the Airhead and curved it to look like a shovel. I also cut the corners off of the bottom to round them a little. The handle on the shovel was a little difficult...I rolled the Airhead with a rolling pin to flatten it and cut out the handle piece. I cut out the middle so it looked like a handle. Then I cut out a thin piece to stick to the back of the shovel handle to make the handle stay on. The pail's handle is cut from Airheads Extremes.

Below is an example of the cupcake with the nut cup colored with a marker to make it look more like a pail. My idea was to have a whole cupcake tower ready with the pails decorated by the time my guests arrived, but as usual, baking took longer than expected!

Here's another idea for beach cupcakes. I just used the mirengue frosting and colored goldfish crackers.

Lemon Meringue Pie Cupcakes

2009-05-20T22:00:00.003-06:00

For my birthday, I wanted to bake cupcakes (I know it's weird, but that's how I wanted to spend my afternoon!) so I attempted to make some like Mini's Lemon Pie Cupcakes (see next post). I'm not thrilled with how the cake part turned out...they were a little too dry. I just looked in America's Test Kitchen's cookbook and the first thing it says is, "Be careful not to overmix the batter or the cupcakes will be tough and rubbery." It must have been because I finished mixing the batter and then realized I still needed to add lemon rind and lemon juice. I'll write the recipe so you don't have the same problem!

Here's a math problem for the doughdoughs out there...
These recipes call for 6 egg yolks and 4 egg whites. 6 + 4= 10 eggs, right?
Wrong. As I discovered while baking. I only had 4 eggs, so I called my neighbor and asked her to bring over 6 eggs. Then I realized that eggs have a yolk and an egg white. (I know you are thinking, DUH!!) So...the problem is really 6-4=2 eggs! I had to call her back, plead guilty for being a doughdough, and tell her to only bring 2 eggs.

Lemon cupcakes - adapted from America's Test Kitchen's Easy Yellow Cupcakes

3 cups cake flour (you can make it yourself, but I bought Pillsbury's Softasilk Cake Flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups sugar
12 T (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 1/4 cups buttermilk (I used Saco dried buttermilk-you just mix it with water and there is no expiration date if you put it in your fridge)
Rind from 2 lemons
Juice from 1 lemon (Remember, just like the eggs, you can get the rind and juice from the same lemon! haha.)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line 2 muffin pans with nut cups.

Whisk flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda together in a large bowl and set aside. Whisk the eggs and vanilla together in a large bowl. Slowly whisk in the sugar until combined. Whisk in the melted butter a little bit at a time. Whisk in the buttermilk. Sift 1/3 of the flour mixture into the batter. Whisk it in until a few flour streaks remain. Repeat with the next third of the flour mixture. Add the lemon rind and juice, and the last third of the flour mixture. Whisk the batter gently until most of the lumps are gone, but don't overmix! Fill your nut cups about 2/3 full. Bake until a toothpick comes out with 1-2 crumbs attached. It took mine about 22 minutes to finish baking. I actually used regular cupcake liners for one of my pans and they finished about 4 minutes sooner.

Lemon Pie Filling - Made exactly from America's Test Kitchen's Lemon Meringue Pie Recipe
I'm not sure if I can post it since I didn't adapt it at all...anyone know if that's okay? I can't find a link to it online.

Cut out the middle of the cupcake, leaving cake on the very bottom. Spoon the filling into the hole.

Meringue - made exactly from America's Test Kitchen's Lemon Meringue Pie Recipe

After the cupcakes are filled, add the meringue to the top with a spoon. Use the back of the spoon to make peaks. Preheat the oven to 325. Put the cupcakes on a baking sheet near the top of the oven until the top of the meringue turns brown.

The final product! They turned out so cute! And delicious! I now prefer my lemon meringue pie in a cupcake!

Note to self: You do not need eggs for egg yolks, and more eggs for egg whites...one egg contains both parts!

"Change your cup size" at Mini's!

2009-05-19T18:31:00.003-06:00

I have a new favorite place-Mini's Cupcakes in downtown Salt Lake City! I had a lemon pie cupcake there today that was TO DIE FOR!!!!!!! I was mmmmmming out loud by myself in my car. I am now on a mission to find a recipe that rivals it, but it's going to be a tall order!

They have a CUTE shop and I love their motto, "Change your cup size." Very clever. All of there cupcakes were mini's, which was cute...but I needed a CAKE of that lemon pie concoction. Oh my, was it delicious. I brought a couple to my grandparents and my grandma said hers was great too...Grandpa wasn't home yet to try his, so I'm awaiting the verdict.

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me, so click here to see their site...make sure to click on their menu and photo gallery! I just noticed that on Wednesdays they have a Key Lime Pie cupcake-I guess I'll be getting that for my birthday cake tomorrow!

Oh, they also have adorable cupcake things to buy! I bought some cupcake soap for my guests to enjoy after they use the loo at our cupcake tea on Saturday!

Brownie Pops 1

2009-05-17T16:33:00.001-06:00

At Sur La Table last week, I discovered Wilton's brownie pop silicone baking pan and had to have it! Tonight I did my first trial and they turned out very cute! I ran out of time before we were expected at a friend's house, so they are decorated simply with powdered sugar. I have a better idea for my brownie pops 2 post! There was too much batter in each cup (they looked like mini-cupcakes on top when I think they were supposed to be more flat), so next time I'll try to fill the cups only halfway.

We also made mini-brownies in mini-cupcake cups...which is a great way to eat a brownie. Usually when we make a pan of brownies, we are lazy and never end up cutting pieces for a plate. We'll keep a fork in the pan and every time we walk by, we take a bite. This time we were able to just pick up a mini brownie!

They were a hit with the kids at our friends' little get-together! My son LOVED it! He had his first lollypop the other day, and he is now apparently obsessed with eating things on sticks.

Chalkboard Pots

2009-05-16T13:22:00.004-06:00

Just wanted to share a cute idea! I was at Robert's craft store and saw some cute pastel pots in all sizes with chalkboard around the top. I wanted to get one to put a cake in and some cake pops decorated as flowers. Then with the chalkboard, you can write "happy birthday" or whatever you want.

Then I found this on Martha Stewart that helps you DIY!

http://www.marthastewart.com/good-thing/chalkboard-pots

They use the idea as planting pots (which was also really cool to label your plants!), but you can definitely design your own cake pot! I had no idea there was such thing as chalkboard paint! I can't wait to try it!

Italian Cream Sodas and Fettuccine

2009-05-15T15:48:00.004-06:00

I used to always squander my money at Olive Garden on their yummy Italian Cream Sodas...until I figured out I could just make them at home! Another bonus of making them yourself is free refills! You just need club soda, half and half, and flavored syrup. If you know me, it's a no-brainer that I used cherry, but you can use whatever. Just use 5 parts club soda for one part syrup. Then I just dump in the cream.

I think the alfredo sauce that I made from America's Test Kitchen is the best I've ever had! I took the recipe straight from the cookbook and it isn't available online from what I could see...it's the usual alfredo ingredients with a pinch of nutmeg. I just grilled chicken with olive oil and garlic salt and it was delicious on top.

Happy Mother's Day, Pots and Pins!

2009-05-10T13:32:00.010-06:00

My son and I wanted to wish my mom a Happy Mother's Day...and since my son can't talk yet, we decided to write it with his Alpha-Bits cereal!

As a tribute to my talented mother, I thought I'd create some pots and pins cupcakes!

The pic below is a little hard to see with all the pins, but they were so cute, I had to post them!

My mom is the most amazing person I've ever met. If you don't believe me, check out her blog pots and pins. She inspired me to create my own blog, which led me to have the confidence to get into photography, which has led to a lot of happiness! She has done more service for others than most people could do in a lifetime. She is such an example to me of selflessness!

Here's some more cupcakes inspired by her:

All of the cupcakes are a delicious lemon with lemon buttercream frosting. Unfortunately, since my mom is in Seattle, she won't get to taste them (but her familiy that lives here will!)! But I thought it would still be fun to "deliver" them via blogland!

I'll post some extra info about the cupcakes later...off to share these with the fam!

Simple Scrumptious Spaghetti Sauce

2009-05-06T19:02:00.006-06:00

You all know how to make the spaghetti, so I'll spare you the details...the sauce would be great with fresh tomatoes, but I didn't have any on hand.

Spaghetti Sauce - the hubby always makes this, says it's something his mom always made, we'll have to ask her where she got it!

1 large can whole tomatoes
5 T extra virgin olive oil
5 garlic cloves
10 basil leaves

Here's how we make it, but I'm sure there are better ways!
Put the tomatoes in a pan. Use a potato masher gently to mash them up the best you can-watch out for flying tomato juice! Add the olive oil and use a garlic press to add the garlic. (I usually end up doing 6 or 7 because nothing comes out from the first one!) Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer about 20 minutes. Add the basil by cutting small strips into the sauce. Stir and leave on low another few minutes. Your sauce is ready!

This is pretty healthy, too! Use whole wheat pasta to make it even more healthy!

Cool bonus on "How to Eat a Cupcake" blog

2009-05-05T21:14:00.006-06:00

I just found the blog "How to Eat a Cupcake." Check out today's post on the top 100 (actually 158!) things to bake. I'd make one of my own, but I think she included pretty much everything that I want to try!

I love the "Excuses to Bake" feature on the sidebar! Who knew that May was strawberry month? Every month is strawberry month for me! I can't wait for cherry dessert day on May 26-I am nuts about cherries. There is just one important excuse to bake missing...May 20, kitchen doughdough's birthday!

Cupcake Pops-icles!

2009-05-04T23:51:00.005-06:00

At the store the other day I saw these cute mini craft sticks and I instantly thought...cupcake popsicles! Participating in Iron Cupcake:Earth has changed me...everything I look at in the store makes me wonder how I could make it into a cupcake! These are made from yummy lemon mini-cupcakes covered with a thin layer of fondant.

All I did was cut a mini-cupcake like it shows in the picture. You put the mini craft stick in the bottom (with it oriented like it is in the picture. It goes in the south end, not the back.) Roll your fondant (use whatever colors you choose). I used yellow fondant, but I plan to use all different colors like popsicles next time I make them. (Purple for grape, Red for cherry, etc.) Ooh...I just thought of something...this one looks more like a creamsicle...I need to add another craft stick and shape the fondant to look like two popsicles-that would be really cute! Turn the cupcake stick sideways and gently cover. It worked pretty well to just fold the fondant over to meet on the bottom and top and shape it a little with my fingers...I think they turned out looking like popsicles. It took a couple tries to get the right width of fondant to look right.

I got the idea for the name "pops-icles" from Bakerella's famous cupcake pops-check out her link on my link list if you haven't seen them yet!

Since we learn from our mistakes...here's my failed attempt! My first idea was to cover the cupcakes with colored white chocolate. I pictured perfect fondant-like popsicles, except that they tasted better...HA!

I first tried cutting up the mini and sticking it on like this:

You can see how well it worked... Everything just fell apart. Duh...the white chocolate was warm and the little pieces obviously weren't going to stay together!

I must admit though that the minis were very good, and I did like the white chocolate glazed on the top-it tasted good with the lemon.

Lemon mini-cupcakes - adapted from Stephanie Ashcraft's Luscious Lemon Cake
makes 2 batches of 24 mini cupcakes

1 yellow cake mix

1 small box lemon pudding

3 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup frozen lemonade concentrate (with nothing added)

1 cup water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup applesauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or line your cupcake pan. In a large bowl, mix together cake mix, pudding mix, lemon juice, lemonade concentrate, water, oil, and applesauce. Beat until smooth. Add each egg separately, beating well after each. Beat on high 5 minutes. Fill each cup in your pan 2/3 of the way full. Bake 15-18 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean with a few crumbs attached.

I used melted white chocolate for the "frosting," but you can use anything. Vanilla buttercream with lemon rind would be yummy!

Bacon-wrapped Turkey Kabobs

2009-05-03T21:00:00.008-06:00

I think I figured out why I haven't been into cooking until now.

1. Getting out a cookbook and following a recipe makes me yawn (hence my addiction to creating cupcakes).
2. Recipes look too complicated and I don't know if they'll even be worth it. (I'm a fan of simplicity.)

But we need to eat...so I decided to start with my head rather than a cookbook.
I thought about the best things I have eaten, which led me to think of the bacon-wrapped turkey I had at Rodizio Grill located in Trolley Square. I decided how I would try to interpret it, and the result is this recipe that is so good, we wolfed it down and the only sound you heard in my house was /m/. (Our dogs can also testify to this.)

I am miserably sick today (don't worry, you won't be infected with swine flu, it's just a cold!), but thankfully my husband loves to cook. As a matter of fact, he once told my friends that he wanted to join the CIA. They were incredibly impressed. But once he clarified that it was the Culinary Institute of America, not so much.

Bacon-wrapped Turkey Kabobs by kitchen doughdough

You'll need:

Turkey cutlets from the meat section of the grocery store (photo from http://www.eatturkey.com/)

Apple Juice-enough to submerge turkey cutlets, approx. 4 cups

1/3 T Onion Powder

1 T Soy Sauce

Bacon (America's Test Kitchen suggested Farmland's Hickory Smoked Bacon, and it was really yummy!)

Applesauce

Step 1: Cut the turkey cutlets into strips. Put them in a flat dish (we used 9x13). Add enough apple juice to cover the cutlets. Add onion powder and soy sauce, stir. Marinate for 20 minutes. (I guess my husband wanted to be a part of my blog, so he added his hand to the pic.)

Step 2: Crank up the grill and let it heat up while the turkey is marinating. Soak skewers in water. (This is something the hubby decided to do, maybe he learned it from the CIA?)

Step 3: You're ready to make the kabobs. Take a turkey cutlet, wrap it in one piece of bacon, then "zig-zag" it onto the skewer like an accordion. Make as many as you have meat.

Step 4: Grill on medium-low to medium heat, turning as needed. Cover and check often. They are ready when they are cooked. I've just discovered the drawback to making up your own recipe when you are a kitchen doughdough...I don't know how to describe things correctly! I'm working on it!

Step 5: Use the applesauce to dip the kabobs as you enjoy!

Note to self:

1. Figure out the right terminology for my recipes.

2. Check the grill after hubby picks up dog feces on the lawn. Today when we opened the grill there was a bag of feces left from the last time he cleaned up the grass. He suggested we grill it and call it "kitchen doodoo." Lovely, honey.

Dippidee Desserts

2009-05-03T00:00:00.000-06:00

Every time I go to American Fork, UT, I want to stop in to Dippidee, but I always say I'll do it next time. Now I wish I'd stopped by sooner! They call themselves a "place of sweet surprises," and I would agree, as I was pleasantly surprised when I saw their creations. It was hard to decide which desserts to try, but I ended up getting the white chocolate and raspberry lemonade cupcakes. I am a white chocolate and strawberry/raspberry lemonade fanatic. The raspberry lemonade cupcake was amazing!!! I'm afraid I'll be buying it every time I'm in the area. I LOVED the frosting and the raspberry cream filling. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

The white chocolate frosting with caramel drizzled on it was excellent.

My favorite was their cakes that looked like cupcakes (seen in this pic on the bottom shelf)! They cut the top off and put a filling beneath it and frosted the top.

My trip to Highland and the cupcakes I picked up along the way

2009-05-02T23:00:00.008-06:00

I call it a trip because I have to drive so far to get anywhere! The hubby watched the babe today so I could get out of the house. I went to one of my favorite boutiques, Dear Lizzie, in Highland, UT. It is SO cute! And pricey. I had to force myself not to buy some adorable cupcake things. I was, however, going to buy a cupcake, but their cute little bistro was sold out of them! So I went across the street to Subway to eat lunch. It may not be a fancy bistro, but hey, it was cheap!

LOVE the cupcake frame...I may need to make something like it for myself.

My next stop was a store I'd been meaning to go to for awhile. It's owned by the same person that owns Dear Lizzie, it's a children's store, it's called LaDeDa Baby Chic, and it's adorable! (They also have maternity clothes.) Two thoughts came to my mind while I was there...one, that I want to have a baby girl, and two, that I can't look closely at the boy things or I would leave in debt. Look at how LOVELY this store is:

Across the street was Blue Lemon Restaurant and Bistro. I definitely liked the ambiance...I want to go back with the hubby for dinner at the restaurant. (Mr. architect will like the modern design.)

I arrived to try the cupcakes at the bistro and ended up signing up for a cake decorating class with their pastry chef. (Anyone want to do it with me? It sounds so fun!) There wasn't a huge cupcake selection...but it was after 5 on a Saturday, so what did I expect? I had a chocolate cupcake that was good (I'm not a huge choco fan)...the cream cheese frosting was yummy. I look forward to trying something else at the cooking class...hopefully the ones with Swiss meringue buttercream that I read about on Utah Loves Cupcakes. Now that I think about it, maybe they were on the dessert menu...I guess the hubby and I better go on our date soon!

On the way home, I bought more cupcakes...I'll give them a separate post.

Frugal Fridays at My Wooden Spoon

2009-05-02T10:48:00.004-06:00

I love to save money, so I loved this link my mom sent me today (along with a message that I better click on it since I am baking daily now)...and the site was a bonus too. I laughed at My Wooden Spoon's creative slogan: "Where it's perfectly legal to use a little pot!"

Cupcake Pancakes!

2009-05-01T19:50:00.008-06:00

Finally, a food post! But wait, it's still baking! This month's Iron Cupcake Earth Challenge is "Savory." Basically, they wonder how you can get your favorite dish in a cupcake. (Later, I found out what savory means and that this doesn't exactly fit...) I LOVE breakfast. Even though I never eat it. Hmmm. Anyway, as I thought of my love for pancakes, strawberries, and whipped cream, I had this crazy idea to try baking a pancake recipe in a cupcake pan. Turns out it's not so crazy after all...after I made them I did an online search and a few others have had the same idea. (I never check before I make things...don't want it to discourage me from trying the recipe!) But I still think mine has something different to offer. Can I just tell you, this recipe turned out absolutely DELICIOUS!!! This is a very easy recipe too-perfect for a doughdough.

The cupcake tastes exactly like a pancake, just thicker. The whipping cream has maple syrup in it and tastes divine with the cupcake!

Cupcake Pancakes - adapted from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook's pancake recipe

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare cupcake pan by spraying with non-stick cooking spray.

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, melted butter, and then the buttermilk.

Push the dry ingredients to the side of the bowl, leaving a hole in the middle. Pour the buttermilk mixture into the center and whisk slowly until buttermilk mixture is just mixed in. America's Test Kitchen's tip is to "mix the batter minimally" and to "stop stirring the batter when there are still streaks of flour visible."

Your batter is done...now just put about 1/3 cup in each cup of your pan. Put the pan in the oven and bake about 10 minutes on 400 degrees. At 10 minutes mine came out perfectly. I was able to tell they were done by doing the toothpick test, just like cupcakes!

Maple Syrup Whipped Cream - adapted from America's Test Kitchen's whipped cream recipe

1 cup heavy cream, chilled
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons maple syrup

Whip the cream, sugar, and vanilla in a bowl with a mixer on low speed to dissolve the sugar. Increase speed to high. Whip until soft peaks form. Add the maple syrup and whip for about 10 seconds. It took me just a few minutes total to make the "frosting."

It's a bite out of heaven!

Plenty of dodo moments while making my first cupcakes from scratch

2009-05-01T01:02:00.007-06:00

Does this seem a little confusing to you? My first attempt at making cupcakes presented a problem. By the way, totally copied Bakerella's idea here...did you see how she wrote "help" in flour in a recent post? What a creative way to gain reader interest on your blog! I thought I'd try something like it to display my math problem. The conundrum was this: My recipe called for 4 ounces of dark chocolate, chopped. Thinking I would save time, I bought a bag of dark chocolate chips (Hershey's Special Dark-it came highly recommended by America's Test Kitchen). As I began to make the recipe (posted below) and measured 4 ounces of chips, I realized the recipe was calling for 4 ounces in weight and I was measuring 4 ounces in volume in my measuring cup. To spare you all of the details, here's how I solved it...basically I had to figure out how many ounces in volume equaled 1/2 a cup. As you can see, on the side I wrote, "brain hurts...call it 1/3 cup."

Okay, disaster averted. Let's continue with the recipe. I like that I didn't have to use my hand mixer, although my arm didn't like it.

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Newton Cupcakes - adapted from America's Test Kitchen

16 T (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped OR 1/3 cup bittersweet chocolate chips :)
1 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs, at room temperature (I wasn't prepared, so I followed Test Kitchen's tip to cover the eggs in hot water-not boiling-and let stand for about 10 minutes. Seemed to work great!)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup sour cream
24 raspberry newtons

After preheating the oven to 350 and preparing your cupcake pan, microwave the butter, chocolate, and cocoa together. I put it in increments of 20 seconds and whisked after each time. To get smooth it takes 1-3 minutes. Let it cool off to the side.

Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside. Whisk the eggs and vanilla together in a large bowl. Slowly whisk in sugar until combined.

Whisk in the warm-to-the-touch chocolate mixture. Sift one-third of the flour mixture over the batter, then whisk it in.

Whisk in the sour cream. Sift the remaining flour mixture over the batter and whisk until completely mixed. Batta will be thick. Put a raspberry newton in the bottom of each cupcake cup. Fill your cupcake cups about 2/3 full. Love this tip: "Bake until a wooden skewer inserted into the cupcake comes out with a few crumbs attached, 18 to 22 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking." (America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook)

Makes 24 of these delicious cupcakes (seen below)...or you can half the recipe. These would be great as minis because they are rich!

*A variation I tried that I thought was yummy...put about 15 raspberry newtons in your blender or food processor. Whisk this in after you whisk in the remaining flour mixture. They turned out pretty good...tasted like raspberry-chocolate newtons! You've gotta like 'em a lot though.

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Frosting - adapted from America's Test Kitchen

8 ounces melted semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pinch salt

2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

2 cups confectioner's sugar

2 T cocoa powder

1 cup raspberries, fresh or frozen, thawed

Add the vanilla extract and salt to the melted chocolate. Stir to dissolve salt. Beat the butter with a mixer on med-hi speed until smooth, about a minute. Reduce speed to med-low and slowly add confectioner's sugar. Beat in the cocoa powder, then beat in the raspberries. Beat until smooth, 2-5 minutes. Beat in the chocolate mixture (I had to heat it up again for about 15 seconds). Increase speed to med-high and beat until fluffy, 4-6 minutes. My fave part was this frosting-delish!

Note to Self: Clean the kitchen as you go along. (I know this is ridiculous, but who wants to be bothered with cleaning when you are creating???)

Sock Monkey Nursery

2009-04-30T22:27:00.007-06:00

So I uploaded these pictures in the order I wanted them, but they are backwards! It doesn't really matter except first I was going to talk about the sock monkey quilt pictured last...are you still with me? (If I've lost you, at least click on the link at the end of the post.)

I was having the hardest time deciding what to do for my son's nursery. We're not big sports fans, and I wanted it to be creative (and honestly, something that was challenging...I love the hunt when I pick a theme!). My mom made me the adorable sock monkey quilt and I was instantly a fan. Luckily, they were coming back in style and we found SO many cute things.

Above you'll see my son modeling his adorable sock monkey bib made from a talented seamstress/friend Roxanne. LOVE this sock monkey vampire!
A fun lamp from Ikea, pictured next to a cute sock monkey light switch cover.

Sock monkey clock, box, and blocks!
The walls were hand-painted by mom talented mom, who also made the valance. I chose the rope at Home Depot and we attached it and hung the monkeys. You'll also see on the changing table a diaper bag and changing pad my mom made, and a wipes holder and diaper holder that were gifts from a friend who loves finding things for themes as much as I do! Click on the pic if you want a better view.

My latest purchase...I found this jungle leaf bed canopy at Ikea! It matches perfectly. I REALLY want to use my hubby's idea to get more and alternate them on the ceiling so you feel like you are in the jungle...someday. Notice the night light-I love it!
The adorable sock monkey frames were also a gift from my friend. My mom made the sheets. I recently found the wall stickers (along with a HUGE sock monkey that I sadly had to walk away from)...the sock monkeys look so cute hanging from the tree!

Last but not least, you HAVE to click here...trust me, it's worth it. You'll laugh.

Ta-DA! Say hello to sock monkake!

2009-04-30T12:47:00.006-06:00

Yay! I created a sock monkey cupcake that looks like a sock monkey! It was a LOT harder than I thought, but I now know what I am doing. It ended up being more like a mini-cake...but it is made of all cupcakes. Here is what I ended up doing:

The hat and ears are pieces cut from a cupcake. The nose is an upside down mini cupcake. I added the eyes (made from Oreo cakesters...I just pulled off the cake part and rolled it in my fingers to look like eyes) and frosted the ears and then used long chocolate sprinkles and clear sugar sprinkles to frost the white frosting. Next, I added the raspberry part of the newton, frosted the snout around it with white frosting, and added clear sugar sprinkles. I added more frosting to the hat (and clear sprinkles) and face and used a small round tip to pipe the hat, after coloring some frosting red. The final touch was two chocolate sprinkles on the snout.

Now that I've shown the final, here are some of my prototypes:

My original idea was to slice off the end of a raspberry newton...I still think it's a cute way to make them.
Here's one with the ears made of the Oreo cakesters.

I found a cute way to make sock monkey cupcakes easily if you aren't into cake cutting and decorating...click here to see.

Sock Monkey Preview

2009-04-30T01:14:00.007-06:00

I've been on a quest today to make the closest replication of a sock monkey that I can with a cupcake! (Remember I said I - I'm sure someone else could do better!) I am obsessed with sock monkeys-I chose it for my son's nursery theme and I've been collecting things ever since! I've seen some adorable monkey cupcakes, but I just had to do a sock monkey cupcake! It is taking longer than I thought...I think I finally have it how I want it after many attempts. I am really tempted to show you, but it looks sloppy at the moment and I need to make some "final copies." So for now I'll show you the first steps.

Below is the basic form of the monkey head, the cupcake, frosted with white frosting, and an upside down mini cupcake...

Here are some of the pieces. Are you curious yet???

Cupcake Par-tea!

2009-04-27T15:39:00.005-06:00

My friend Kara and I are having a cupcake tea at the end of May! In Seattle last month, my mom took me to all the cupcake hotspots and I was addicted at once! My mom and her friends were planning a cupcake party, and I had to join the fun! I immediately called my friend who is a cupcake fanatic and we've been obsessing ever since. She had the cutest idea to have a cupcake tea...so while at Ikea this weekend I just had to have this little teaset! I thought it would be so cute to put mini cupcakes in them for the party. So here's a sneak peak.

While talking cupcakes at Kara's this weekend, her husband said we should just put the placecards in the mini-cupcakes we set at their places. So here's an idea for the placecards...it was Kara's brilliant idea to have a sit-down set-up! I found the wire and wire cutters in my hubby's architecture supplies-it was SUPER easy to make.

By the way the background is a shower curtain I found at Ikea-it's going to be so cute as a tablecloth for the party.

Click here to see the adorable par-tea invites Kara made!

An added bonus of the Ikea teaset was these mini ice cream cups! I love the mini cupcakes in them.

Cupcakes Take the Cake!!!

2009-04-27T13:54:00.006-06:00

I'm so thrilled to be featured on Cupcakes Take the Cake today! I can't believe it. Click here to see the direct link. Thanks, Rachel!

Also a big thanks to my inspiration, bluecupcake! I'm grateful for her amazing creations that led a new baker to create a simple cupcake decoration!

Bruschetta Sandwiches

2009-04-27T00:59:00.002-06:00

So here's an update on my meal planning: We had leftover honey-glazed chicken Thursday and Friday, grilled cheese Saturday for lunch and dinner at Ikea, and today I don't even know what we ate...needless to say, I'm not doing very well yet. But I did come up with a delicious meal to eat for dinner tonight! I wanted to spice up our grilled cheese sandwiches, and I thought of how much I love bruschetta, so here ya go. (I'm sure this isn't a unique idea, but I'm glad I thought to make it! It's yummy!)

Bruschetta Sandwiches

French bread, sliced
Mozzarella Cheese, shredded (it cooks more evenly, according to America's Test Kitchen)
Tomato, diced
Fresh Basil

Turn on your oven broiler and set to high. Prepare the sandwich by adding the cheese on a slice of bread (or as many slices as sandwiches you want). Add the tomatoes and basil. Add more cheese to the top if you'd like. Butter the top of the bread for the opposite side of the sandwich. Place the bread on a baking sheet.

Now stick the sheet in the oven and broil your sandwich! Watch for the top of the buttered slices to be toasty brown and the chesse to be melted. You're ready to take it out, assemble your sandwich, and enjoy!

Red Creme Soda Cupcakes for the Iron Cupcake: Earth April Challenge

2009-04-24T10:47:00.020-06:00

I have been so excited to create these cupcakes since I first heard the Iron Cupcake: Earth cupcake challenge was soda pop! (They challenge bakers each month with a new ingredient. Check out their site at http://www.ironcupcakeearth.com/)

To decorate the cupcake, I put Barq's Red Creme Soda in the bottom of a glass, and cherries for added decor. I dropped the cupcake in the mug, letting the creme soda soak the very bottom of the cupcake. Next, I piped the frosting to look like ice cream using a 1A decorating tip. Finally, I wolfed it down with a fork! I LOVE anything cherry. I also added a straw so I could sip some of the red creme soda from the bottom. It's my favorite soda pop, after all, which is where I got the inspiration for my cupcakes. In our house, we love to make red creme soda floats, hence the decorating idea.

As for the contest, I thought I had until the end of the month to make and submit my cupcake...turns out it was due today at noon CENTRAL time! Yikes, I'm in mountain time, which means 11 AM! This morning I went as fast as I could (I even had to use a cake mix in the recipe-probably a huge blunder for iron cupcake!) and finished my creation on time-BARELY! I love how light and moist they turned out. Next time, I'd definitely make my own white cake, which was the original plan. Next time I need to pay more attention to the deadlines...but that's typical of me-I'm such a procrastinator!

Red Creme Soda Cupcakes

1 white cake mix (or a white cake from scratch and skip the water, oil and whole eggs)
1 c water
1/3 c oil
3 whole eggs
1/4 c Barq's Red Creme Soda
1 T Stasero cherry syrup

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare cupcake (muffin) pans by spraying cooking spray (I use Baker's Joy) or lining with baking liners. Stir cake mix, water, oil, and eggs until moistened. Add red creme soda and cherry syrup. Beat with a mixer on low speed for 2 minutes. Fill each part of the cupcake pan/liners 2/3 full. Bake about 16 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out with just a few crumbs attached to it. This time is for 12 cupcakes.

Red Creme Soda Frosting - Adapted from America's Test Kitchen's Quick and Rich Vanilla Frosting

2 tablespoons whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch salt
2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 T Stasero cherry syrup
1 T Barq's Red Creme Soda
15 maraschino cherries (you could just do 2/3 cup)

Stir the cream, vanilla, and salt together in a small bowl. Beat the butter on med-high speed until smooth. Reduce speed to med-low. Add the confectioners' sugar slowly and beat until smooth, about 2-3 minutes.

Beat in the cream mixture. Add cherry syrup, red creme soda, and cherries. Beat on high to puree the cherries. Beat until mixture is light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.

I'm competing to win the following prizes!

Our April ETSY PRIZE-PACK is from artists:
A creation by FRUITFLYPIE, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=16748
a pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6057281.
a sweet surprise from Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Cupcakery, http://www.acupcakery.com/
PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5243382, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice - sweet!Last and certainly not least, don’t forget our corporate prize providers: HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS, http://www.fiestaproducts.com/, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, http://blog.hellocupcakebook.com/, JESSIE STEELE APRONS http://www.jessiesteele.com/; TASTE OF HOME books, http://www.tasteofhome.com/; a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM http://www.upwithcupcakes.com/. Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers, http://www.1800flowers.com/ .

Blog Design

2009-04-21T22:56:00.004-06:00

I never thought I'd learn how to use Adobe Photoshop. However, I am very impatient (and impulsive!) when I get an idea, so I'll muddle through something rather than wait for help. When I decided to start my own blog, I really wanted to design/create it myself. Pretty soon I was learning html (all the info is out there on the internet!) and photoshop (the hubby is an architect and was a big help when I hit roadblocks)!

Thanks to my neighbor Preston (also an architect-they went to school together) who took my dodo drawing and got it up on photoshop for me. Check out his blog http://www.deanworks.org/

So, voila, I'm ready to share my blog...I think! It's hard to feel like it is completely ready, but I can always make changes in the future! I still have many posts to catch up on, but I guess it is better to save them to keep your interest!

A fabulous cookbook for kitchen doughdoughs!

2009-04-20T11:14:00.011-06:00

Before I tell you how excited I am about my new cookbook, I thought I'd better look up the definition of dodo and make sure I'm using it the right way. Of course, the first definition was about the bird. It reminded me that the dodo is extinct. Let's hope that as a cook and a blogger I don't end up extinct like the dodo! The second definition was "a. one hopelessly behind the times b: a stupid person." Okay, so I don't think it would be wise to insult my readers by calling them "kitchen dodos," i.e. stupid people. I am a beginner in the kitchen, and I've definitely done my fair share of stupid things in the kitchen, but I'm not stupid, and I know others aren't either! However, I would say I am behind in my kitchen skills, especially for being married almost 9 years! 9 years of mostly eating out. 9 years of spaghetti, tacos, and a few other recipes that are super easy. It is time for me to learn how to cook!

I'm certain my new book will help me. I bought The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook at Costco for about 20 bucks. It is so user friendly, and has all the basics. My main cook book for reference has been the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. It had great info, but every time I looked through it for something to make, nothing popped out at me. We have a couple recipes we make from it, but other things we've tried haven't been that great...I'm sure because I've messed them up! The Test Kitchen book tests recipes over and over, so I'm hoping I'll get better results. There are tons of pictures and step by step instructions. I love that on every few pages there are pictures of what things should look like, and what they shouldn't look like. Just by flipping through the cookie and cake sections (which are marked by tabs), I have found the correct way to do things I messed up on last week when baking for Max's party. The creators promise on the back, "Our recipes work, the first time and every time. As we like to say, 'We make all the mistakes, so you don't have to.'" I'm sure I'll still make mistakes, which is how I learn, but I'll sure feel better if there aren't as many at once!

Blog Glossary:
Kitchen dodo: someone that has done stupid things in the kitchen
Kitchen doughdough: someone that wants to further their knowledge about things pertaining to the kitchen

"I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma." ~Eartha Kitt

"Learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back." ~Chinese Proverb

My boy at one year

2009-04-19T09:00:00.004-06:00

I'm hoping to start a photography blog to post my favorite pictures. Since I don't know when I'll get around to it, I just had to post this picture I took of my little angel! Happy first birthday, Maxwell!

Where the Wild Things Are Party

2009-04-13T18:35:00.014-06:00

The wild things were at my house for my son Max's first birthday! I love parties, especially when there is a theme involved. I threw lots of parties for my third graders when I was a teacher. However, I'm not quite used to entertaining adults (see my note to self)! But wait, wasn't the party for my son? Okay, we all know first birthdays are more for the parents. Max and his little friends had a great time too though!

The guest of honor was dressed in this adorable Max costume from the book!

Here is the cupcake tower I created for the party. Click on the pic to get a close-up of the cupcakes. (There is more info on my inspiration and recipes on my cupcake tower post.) My mom made the cake/cupcake toppers of Max from the book with my Max's face on it. I bought the Where the Wild Things Are cupcake topper rings from ebay. The kids at the party took home the rings as party favors.

Here's my Max with his monster toy that I ordered from Amazon. I'm still waiting on a Max bobblehead that I ordered-they sent me a Maxwell Smart instead! We used the big floor puzzle that has a picture from the book to entertain the kiddies for a little bit.

I created Max's boat out of butcher paper, mimicking the one in the book that Max uses to sail to "where the wild things are".

I love the new banner pieces you can buy...I picked the colors and letters I wanted and added pictures of the monsters from the book to complete the banner.

I used a crown cookie cutter for these "king of the wild things" cookies. They were delicious! I used my mom's sugar cookie recipe...I'll bake some more soon and post the recipe-you've got to try it!

Here's the awesome table cloth my mom made. I scanned the pictures from the book and she ironed them on using photo transfer paper.

Daddy read the book to all the kids at the party. They were riveted! Below is another pic of my little king of the wild things. My mom made the adorable costume because I had to have him dressed up as Max from the book! I added the wolf tail and made his crown. I bought a crown at a party store, cut the top into points like the book, and added the wolf fur to the crown. He also had a royal scepter rattle to complete the look.

Note to self: Next time I throw a party 1) bake a little the night before (hopefully it won't be Easter next time!) 2) be ready when your guests are instructed to arrive (yes, I was still frosting cookies and filling the punch bowl as they were arriving) 3) don't let your husband fill up the pitcher (he left it filling up on the fridge water dispenser and it spilled all over the floor...yes, the guests were there to witness it) 4) clean up ALL of the dog feces from your yard (even though my hubby picked up the feces from the main part of the yard and it was out of the way, it was still a faux paw, as you could see some at the side and I'm sure it wasn't very appetizing!)

Where the Wild Things Are Cupcake Tower

2009-04-13T15:00:00.004-06:00

Here's a pic of the (shortened) cupcake tower I made for Max's first birthday party. My inspiration came from blue cupcake's cupcake tower that was inspired by the book. Check out her cupcake towers, they are amazing!

http://bluecupcakebyjulie.blogspot.com/2009/03/cupcake-towers.html

Making the Cake:
The "king of the wild things" cake I created was a little difficult, but it was fun to make. I used a 6x4 inch cake pan to bake a chocolate cake mix (didn't have time on Max's day to bake from scratch!). I lost track of baking time as usual (I promise to have more clear recipes in the future!), but I used the toothpick test to make sure it was done. When the toothpick came out clean, I took it out of the oven. I know this cake can be improved upon, but I used graham crackers to make the top of the crown. I took a square piece and cut it gently with a knife diagonally. Then I flipped it to make the crown pieces.

The graham crackers I used were really flaky and broke easily, but I managed to get enough pieces to make the cake work. I frosted the cake first (forgetting to dye the frosting gold-oops!) and put a lot of frosting on top and around the top. I frosted around the entire graham cracker piece with a small butter knife and stuck it on the cake. I continued until the crown was complete. I added frosting where needed and tried to smooth it out. Finally, I added dusting crystals, but it didn't cover the whole thing like I wanted. The frosting wasn't smooth enough and it was hard to add to the side of the cake. I would frost and dust the cake first next time. It would be hard to dust the frosting on the crackers before you stuck them on because you have to touch it and it will get messy. Ideas, anyone? I also really wanted to add "they made him king of the wild things" to the cake somehow, but didn't quite get to it.

Monster Cupcakes: These monster cupcakes were inspired by the ones on blue cupcake's cupcake tower. Since I haven't used fondant (yet!) I decided to create my own version using cashews, lemonheads (with the eyes drawn on with edible markers), and slivered almonds. Aren't the paper cups cute? I got them at a fabulous cooking store, Orson Gygi.

To decorate with frosting, I used tip #12 round and piped it up. (Is that the right term? I'm still learning, here!) After the party, I got around to creating the monster that has hair in the book (see below). I used tip #233 multi-opening. Isn't he funny? Obviously, I need to practice using that tip some more. And now for the recipe...

Old Fashioned Applesauce Spice Cupcakes - adapted from a Duncan Hines (r) Cakebox Recipe

1 package spice cake mix (I used Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe)

3 large eggs

1 1/4 cups applesauce

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare cupcake pan by adding paper liners (or greasing). Combine cake mix, eggs, applesauce, and oil in large bowl. Beat at medium speed with electric mixer for 2 minutes. Pour into cupcake liners, 3/4 of the way full. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack for 15 minutes. Cool completely before frosting.

Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting - adapted from my mom's vanilla buttercream frosting recipe http://www.potsandpins.com/blog/2008/03/sugar-cookies-f.html

1/2 cup butter, softened (do not substitute)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
powdered sugar (approximately 4 to 5 cups)

Cream butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Add vanilla, milk, salt, and cinnamon. Add 2 cups powdered sugar and blend, adding more powdered sugar to get the consistency you want. (To pipe the frosting, you'll want at least 4 cups total. You want it thick.)

After you taste it, you may want to add more cinnamon and blend again.

Max cupcakes: To decorate this cupcake, I used tip #22 star, and the cupcake toppers my mom made.
To make this cupcake, I used a lemon cake mix, but I did make the frosting from scratch. If you love lemon, you will LOVE this frosting!

Lemon Buttercream Frosting - adapted from my mom's vanilla buttercream frosting recipe http://www.potsandpins.com/blog/2008/03/sugar-cookies-f.html

1/2 cup butter, softened (do not substitute)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
Zest from 1 lemon
powdered sugar (approximately 4 to 5 cups)

Cream butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Add vanilla, milk, salt, and lemon zest. Add 2 cups powdered sugar and blend, adding more powdered sugar to get the consistency you want. (To pipe the frosting, you'll want at least 4 cups total. Just keep adding a cup at a time until it is thick enough.)

Orange you glad it's Easter?

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Here's the first cake I've ever decorated (other than writing happy birthday in messy writing)! I got the idea at Wal-mart in their Easter section. Everything is color-coded! The idea to use orange came from a fun store called Pioneer Party and Copy. They had cute premade birthday bags with everything orange (a Sun-Kist, Reese's, etc.) and a tag that said, "Orange You Glad It's Your Birthday?" Cute! So here's my Easter cake for the fam. I just used a cake mix in my new 6x4 inch round cake pan. I don't remember how long I left it in...I thought it looked done and took it out. Silly dodo that I am, I forgot all about the toothpick test! I was too excited to decorate, as usual. I added my orange bunny and jellybeans, and set up a photo shoot. My hubby gave me a new camera for my birthday last May, and I'm just now playing with all the settings. I love photography and look forward to practicing my skills on my new blog. By the way, this cake would be cute with jellybeans covering the entire cake; I just didn't have enough. I also tried to write "Orange you glad it's Easter?" with Wilton's edible food markers, but it didn't work. Maybe because I was writing on the side of the cake and the frosting wasn't that smooth? I'll need to try the markers again on something else to see if they work.

Note to self: Use a toothpick to stick in the center of your cake and make sure it comes out clean before taking the cake out of the oven! When we ate the cake on Easter, it was gooey in the middle. Oops!

Baby Girl Cupcakes

2009-04-11T00:35:00.005-06:00

I can count on my fingers how many times I've made cupcakes. So it surprised me when I caught cupcake fever after visiting Seattle last month! I have so many ideas, but the problem is I have no idea what I'm doing. I proved this today...I made mini cupcakes and cooked them way too long. Then I was so excited to decorate them, I frosted them while they were still warm! Hence the melted looking frosting. The little pink binkys on top do make them look cute though.

Note to self: Don't frost your cakes or cupcakes until they are completely cooled!

A perfect example...

2009-04-10T23:27:00.000-06:00

...of why I am a kitchen dodo. It's time to eat lunch, I don't know what to make, and I pop in a frozen pizza! I keep meaning to plan meals for the week, but I always end up just running to the store and buying the same things to make the same meals-if I even cook! I really don't like to cook-yet! I think I would if I planned what I was going to make and had all the ingredients ready. I'd much rather be baking, although I have no baking knowledge either-just lots of decorating ideas! By the way, the pizza was the best frozen pizza I've had recently...it's California Pizza Kitchen's new rising crust pizza (as opposed to the thin crust ones, which I also love).

Taco Soup

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This is a great recipe that makes a lot of leftovers! The hubby loves to bring it to work for lunch.

Taco Soup from my friend Mandy who found it in the Rockland, ID cookbook

1 pound ground beef

2 cans corn, undrained

2 cans kidney beans, undrained

1 large can of diced tomatoes (28 oz.), or 2 smaller cans (14.5 oz.)

2 packages taco seasoning (we like Taco Bell seasoning)

Toppings: grated cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips (we like to use Tostitos Scoops)

The recipe is simple, which is why I love it-I don't need to think much while I'm cooking it! Brown the meat and drain. Put all of the ingredients together in a large pot and heat it up! Top with cheese and sour cream and eat like a soup or use chips to dip.

I know fresh veggies are better than canned, but this is a great quick meal. It would be easy to make and bring to a potluck. Maybe next time I'll try using fresh ingredients!