Hello Kitty Pops.....My Very Sad Attempt

I will start off by saying this picture on the top is from Bakerella. She is extremely talented and I bow to her in her Hello Kitty making prowess. I have never made anything dipped like this before...not including strawberries and pretzels...they don't count.

Munchkin is the reason I decided to make these delicious looking pops. She is Star Student this week and was allowed to bring something to share with the class today. I showed her these and she was super excited to share them. Of course she wanted me to make power rangers or transformers for the boys. um....no.

I baked the cake on Wednesday night, crumbled it last night and added cream cheese frosting. It took us several trips to 3 different stores to find all of the supplies and we didn't even get them all. I could not find heart shaped sprinkles for anything. A week ago it may have been possible but now all of the Easter stuff is out. I did not buy edible marking pens because I had to buy a four pack. I only wanted the black one and I remembered I had black decorating gel at home. Guess what! Black decorating gel = a big fat mess. It does not dry and smears all over everything.

I rolled 20 cake balls and placed them on the sticks. Much to my dismay at least half of them slid to the bottom of the stick. I was so frustrated at that point I almost chucked the entire project in the trash. I was tired, I knew we were in for a long night with the weather, and I wanted to be asleep. My sweet husband came in and suggested I just do them without the sticks and then add them later. I am glad he came in when he did because he saved the day.

I obviously do not have the right tools for this because they did not turn out nice and smooth like the first picture. They were lumpy and ill formed. The gel was a mess and then stuck to the plate I put them on. Yes, I should have put them on wax paper. I was thrilled when they were done. Not because I was proud of them but because I was done.

After they dried a little bit I stuck them in the treat bags and closed them up with twist ties.



The only redeeming factor was that when I showed them to Munchkin this morning she kind of gasped "oooohhhhh"! She was thrilled with them. I was able to get away to have lunch with her. She shared my Chicken Strip Salad (with nuggets instead of strips) from Chickfila and then got to pass these out to her class. The kids all loved them and were more than happy to bite off Hello Kittys head. The boys even liked them!

Meouch!!!!!

Will I make these again? I have no idea. I may leave these up to Bakerella because she does them so beautifully! But you should definitely try them! :)

{TWD} Caramel Crunch Bars

Let me just state for the record that I heart chocolate. I truly believe it is its very own food group. What on earth could make chocolate better...besides being paired with raspberry? Being paired with caramel, of course. As soon as I read the title of this recipe I knew there would be love.
The dough/crust called for finely chopped chocolate. I had large chocolate chips but thought I could chop them. Normally my Pampered Chef Chopper would have come in handy for this part but I wanted to chop with a knife. As you can see the chopper probably would have done a better job.

The dough base for the Caramel Crunch bars was A-May-za-zing!!! The kids both gobbled it up and I had to get it in the oven quickly or there wouldn't have been actual caramel crunch bars. Yes, it was That Good.

Heath toffee bits covered the top of this delicious creation. Oh yeah, I also used bittersweet and milk chocolate chips for the chocolate layer. I just didn't think the amount of bittersweet chocolate I had left was going to be enough for these.

My Grandma Ruth and my mom passed down a recipe to me for Cracker Candy. It is kind of a toffee made with butter and brown sugar poured over saltine crackers and baked. You top it with chocolate chips and then you can add extras to the top if you want to. This was similar in taste and texture to that I thought, only a little bit thicker. My Grandmas birthday would have been this month if she was still with us so it was fun to think of her when making this.

Everyone in my family loved this recipe so it will be marked as a winner in my book. My neighbors also seemed to like it..unless they were pretending to make me feel like a good little baker. :)

Thank you to Whitney of What’s left on the table? for choosing Caramel Crunch Bars. You can visit her blog for the recipe. You can also check out the blogroll on the Tuesdays with Dorie site to see how over 300 other bakers did with this recipe.

Next week: Chocolate Armagnac Cake - or The Cake That Got Dorie Fired on pages 279-281 of Baking from My Home to Yours.

Photo Tag

-Go to your 6th photo folder

-Pick the 6th photo and post.

I have already moved many of my photos to an external hard drive so I used my folder from 2006. This is Little Man at the Nashville Zoo. It is hard to remember him being this little! This was August 15 of 2006. He turned 2 in June and had just started walking a month before his birthday. This was probably our first trip to the zoo where he could get out of the stroller.

Frustration

Hi there OLD HOUSE. Why thank you for the money back from our old escrow account when we refinanced! Why yes, we would like to pay off at least one of our debts with it. What is that you say? There is a giant leak in a pipe in the basement? Well, here ya go, have this cash back. We are indebted to you anyway for being a roof over our heads.

Valentines Day

I heart Valentines Day! :) I know there is the whole commercial aspect of it that is appalling but I love it anyway. Our family tries to show love to each other every day. There is just something about taking a day to be really intentional about it. My sweet hubby brought me roses and Lindt chocolate! Yum!

Most of our morning was spent cleaning the living room and dining room. There was a little bit of protest from the oldest who kept saying "But, Mommy! It's Valentines Day!" I reminded her that we are a family and a way to show love was to work together.

The kiddos wanted to have a tea party so we did. I, of course, had a Diet Coke. Bobby had Coke and the kiddos had Chocolate milk. What says tea party more than that? Ya know....besides tea? I shamelessly stole the following idea from Chocolatechics amazing blog. She has the best photos of chocolate on her site. I am serious! Want to drool? Head on over and check it out! She had taken Oreo Cakesters and cut them using a heart shaped cookie cutter. What could be better for our tea party than heart shaped cakesters? Nothing!

After tea, our sweet kids put on a little show for us. It was hilarious! I am sure you can't tell by the clothes but these two are a couple of hams. A fun Valentines Day was had by all!

{TWD} Devils Food White Out Cake

Stephanie of Confessions of a City Eater chose this weeks recipe. Thanks Stephanie for choosing the cover cake of our illustrious baking club! You can visit her site for the recipe or checkout Tuesdays With Dorie to see how over 300 other bakers did this week.
I have been itching to make this and I am so happy that it was finally chosen.
I realize this is titled Devils Food White Out Cake but as it was Valentines weekend I thought a little red food coloring was in order.

Procrastination is not really my friend and I tend to wait until the last second to read the directions. I found out I needed a candy thermometer and being the newbie I am did not have one on hand. Target is a friend to the procrastinator.

I wanted to make this special for Valentines Day, but ended up making it on Valentines Day. The recipe calls for mini chocolate chips or chopped chocolate. I didn't have either but I did have baking M&Ms. They sunk. Fortunately I had to cut the 2 round cakes in half for the layers. I simply put the two bottom layers as the bottom and top layer. The M&Ms were a delicious addition to this cake.

Making the frosting was a little bit of a challenge for me. I have never made meringue or whipped eggs...except in my failed berry surprise cake. The syrup had to be a specific temperature and had to be poured into the whipped eggs in a way that wouldn't scramble them. I think my syrup got a little too hot as the little drips turned into hard candy practically as soon as they hit the counter. It did mix well though so all was well in the end.

To get the cute heart on top I pulled out my trusty heart shaped cookie cutter. I was pretty thrilled with how this cake turned out. The real test was to come though with hubby and kiddos.

They all loved it! A+ all the way around. Bobby really liked the M&Ms in it so I am glad that I added them.

This is one cake I will definitely be making again. I love the versatility of it too.

Impromptu Preds Game

As I was packing up my purse and trying to juggle all of my stuff to leave work last night Jason Mraz started blaring from my phone. My co-worker was dancing to it as I tried to answer. In a good mood already I answered my sweet hubby who joyfully asked if I wanted to go to the Preds game. A shout out goes here to the bands manager Scott, who had gotten tickets and couldn't use them. We met up with him downtown and headed to the game.

The kids were super excited to be at the game and I swear Munchkin will one day end up with a hockey boyfriend. She screamed her little lungs out every time the words MAKE SOME NOISE came up on the screen. Little man was completely into the game and was quite content throughout chanting "Let's go Preds!" right along with big sister.

What could make free tickets to a game even better? The Preds coming back in the last 3 seconds of the game to tie it up and then winning the shootout! It was pretty exciting. Oh yes, and funnel cake.

A few funny things:

1) the band played "Life is a Highway" so fast the singer could hardly keep up.

2) drunk guy in front of us tried to get everyone to do the wave and failed miserably

3) when I took Munchkin to the restroom there was a man in there nonchalantly washing his hands. I think it was too early for him to be drunk, but who knows.

4) I went to lunch at Munchkins school today and her friend had been at the game as well. She was up in a suite and saw me and Munchkin up on the jumbotron. We watched for ourselves all night and the 5 seconds we were not watching we were up there.

If you ever get a chance, hockey is really entertaining. Go see a game!

Girls Get-Away

Wow! It has been a crazy couple of weeks around my little neck of the woods. Munchkin and I had the pleasure of going on a Girls Getaway Cruise, on the Carnival Holiday,with Bobby's Mom, 2 sister-in-laws, and 2 nieces. All the girls on this side of the family. A fun girlie vacation for his mom who only had boys! :)

Munchkin and I managed to get out of dodge of Wednesday evening and made it to Mobile at around midnight. After trying to check in at the wrong hotel, chit-chatting for a bit, and finally getting to sleep do you think my night owl would sleep in in the morning? I can't drag her hiney out of bed to get ready for school, but on a day we can sleep in she is chipper an ready to go.

To let our roomie sleep for a little while we ran around the hotel and checked in for the cruise. We thought about going out to get some breakfast but ended up checking back in with the rest of our crew, waiting again for check in with them and then getting some breakfast. We had plenty of time because our boat was delayed. We were able to go to the port to drop our luggage but had to go back to the Civic Center and wait. We were provided with a box lunch from Honeybaked ham (yummy), a balloon artist/face painter and a showing of Finding Nemo. Not a bad day but I heard more than one person say the excitement had drained out of them by the time we were finally in line at security for the ship. That first day was a lot of hurry up and wait. We waited for check in at the hotel, in the civic center, in line for security, for dinner, for a show to start and then for the boat to finally depart. I was kind of proud of myself because 5 years ago I would have been really frustrated and annoyed that I couldn't control the situation. This time was different. I just chose to have a good attitude and to just go with it. It was a "Christian" Girls Getaway so to act otherwise would not be good.

Day 2 was spent at sea. Rox and I got up early to go to aerobics. There wasn't too much cardio but tons of ab work. I was still hurting several days later. Our instructor was from South Africa and we thought he did a fantastic job. Munchkin came with us and participated in some of the exercises and helped us count in others. We partook of breakfast in the Four Winds dining room. The server thought it was funny that Munchkin asked for Special K with chocolate in it. When they didn't have that she got Lucky Charms. I had eggs Benedict for the first time ever and decided that it is delicious! I hear that poached eggs are better for you anyway. Our next stop was to see Candace Cameron Bure. A long time ago...when we were both 12 and she was DJ on Full House people would say I looked like her. I even contemplated cutting my hair into the bob she had at one point. She had a wonderful testimony and I really enjoyed hearing her speak.

When we got on the boat the first day, one of the first things we noticed was the pool was empty. This was really disappointing because we had made sure to pack our swimsuits. Munchkin had been super excited about the water slide we had seen on the website. Much to our surprise it was full the next day. It was explained to us that they use water from the ocean. Brilliant! :) We got our suits on and practically sailed to the top of the waterslide. Another bummer, Munchkin was too short to go on the slide. She took it ok though and just really wanted to swim. So I helped her down to the bottom, had her take a picture of me sliding and then let her get in to swim for a bit. It has been quite awhile since I have been in salt water. We stayed for a little while in the pool and then hit the hot tub.

Dinner that night did not take nearly as long to get into. Both seatings were open so there were fewer people to worry about. The first night Munchkin wasn't given a menu so I had to share mine. That is fine except that the child reads really well and wouldn't give it back. Each time she ordered the servers would laugh because she would point to what she wanted and read it to them. One night was a baked potato, white rice and strawberry soup. Another it was Northern Fillet of Salmon. Dessert was always a highlight with at least a couple of people ordering Chocolate Melting Cake each time. I ordered that twice but couldn't again. As much as I love chocolate it was just too rich to have a third time.



Well, here are a few pictures from my digital camera. I took 6 rolls of film that need to be developed before I can share more. Hopefully I will have another post soon with more of our Girls Get-Away adventures!

{TWD} Floating Islands

Sorry ladies! I was on a floating island this week, also known as a cruise ship. I missed out on making this though. It looks like there was a lot of success!
Check out Whisk: A food blog by Shari for the recipe. I am hoping to make this sometime this week.

Things that shouldn't happen in the morning

-Darling daughter sits on the floor and will not get dressed. She doesn't have a fit or anything just sits and continues to be quietly defiant.

-Realize 2 minutes before walking out the door you have to find daughters cookie dough order form to turn in today.

- Cannot find charger for Mp3 player and take it out on sweet husband who just burned you a CD.

- While getting sons shoes on you ask "What is that darn dog doing now" Sweet husband replies "eating the empty napkin off the counter". Just a moment before the empty napkin had blueberry muffin tops that were planning on being consumed by me on the way out the door.

- Harebrained mommy walks out and leave essential caffeine in the form of a Diet Coke sitting on the counter.

- After getting gas and dropping kiddos off sweet hubby drops harebrained wife off at the airport to pick up a rental car. No issues there except that it is 18 degrees.

- Check in process goes smoothly. Apparently harebrained mommy isn't the only one harebrained this morning. Mommy was given keys to a Chevy and the car in the assigned spot was a Nissan. After walking across the parking lot to find the wrong car in 18 degree weather Mommy was not happy. Of course, mommy was friendly with the lady at the counter who immediately gave her keys to a Toyota much closer the building.

- All of that happened before 8:30 this morning. Mommy is praying the rest of the day is less eventful and more on time. :)

{TWD} World Peace Cookies

Wars, floods, earthquakes, tornado's. All of these can be diverted with these cookies. I really need to start looking at the directions for these recipes ahead of time. More than once I have been surprised by the chill time. Not that I am complaining, I most certainly am not. I just need to remember ahead of time to plan my time accordingly. World Peace can only happen when planned.

Hubby had a gig on Saturday so I was hoping to have these ready by the time he got home. No such luck. He got home as I was mixing the dough. My little beater licker was back in action and happy to be. I informed her there were no eggs in the batter so it was completely safe to eat. I took my own advice and tried some of the batter, and some more of the batter, and just a little more. It was a good thing the saran wrap was close at hand because I could have eaten a lot more of the dough before getting it to the fridge.

The defining ingredient in these cookies in Fleur De Something salt. I didn't have any and couldn't find any so I used sea salt instead. I also used milk and semi sweet chocolate chips instead of bittersweet since that is what I had leftover from previous baking adventures. My family loved these cookies. My hubby said "oh! These are really crumbly" Which I thought was really funny since Dorie says in her description that she loves how crumbly they are. We shared a few with neighbors and took the rest to a SuperBowl party. I came home with an empty plate. That was great news since I did not need to finish them off myself.

Thanks to Jessica from Cookbookhabit for choosing this weeks recipe. I had heard about these before and was so happy to finally get to make them. Jessica has the recipe on her site or you can pick up Dories book at Amazon or your local bookstore. Next weeks recipe "Floating Islands".