Happy Holidays

Hey everyone!  Hope you all had a great holiday and did some fun things. I am sorry I have fallen off the bloggosphere but we drove to Indiana to see family and had a great time and then of course hit the ground running back home to get ready for Christmas. We had a good holiday and are now of course 'spring' cleaning so to speak so that life can resume some sense of normalcy. I am excited to get back to baking because I have missed it horribly so here I come TWD girls. The recipe for tomorrow is cheesecake and I could just about hang myself because I started my "no sugar and flour" lifestyle again. Great huh! So I will get into the kitchen and have some bitchn' pics for tomorrow. 

Love

I have a different life than most 'regular' people. My husband works overseas and I stay at home although I am a Registered Labor and Delivery Nurse. I have enjoyed staying at home more than anything in the world! I love being with my kids. I love enjoying my time for family and fun. There is nothing like it. My husband works a 60 day in Iraq 30 day home schedule. It is pretty cool. We get to spend a lot of time together when he is off. My schedule also changes when he is home. He is home on medical this time so it's been different than our regular time together but I am so glad to have him here. I haven't baked as much as I usually do but I am getting back into it this week. Sorry for those who have followed my baking. I am mentally prepping for Thanksgiving. I have never done a Thanksgiving dinner and I want to. So I have been doing research and think I can handle it. The only thing would be convincing my family (extended) to come and not throw a fit about not being at my moms. Time will tell but I think that I might do some cooking early to try and see how good it is. Thought I would include a few pics of us doing our 'everyday' thing. What a hunk huh!

Kugelhopf

The definition of a bread and cake to describe this cake was exactly right. That was the first comment that my husband made upon tasting the Kugelhopf. He said...it's like bread inside with a cake crust. So that means I must have baked this one right. I am currently on a "No Sugar, No Flour" torment so I did not get the opportunity to taste test but I could smell the yeasty bread smell strongly. My husband is home on medical and so I am doing my best to bake things I think he will like so we decided to make the Kugelhopf without the raisins because he is a plain eater so those were omitted...that being said; he actually thought the cake was TOO plain. Something I hardly ever hear from him. We then experimented with adding a simple syrup on top...and not enjoying that much we added Maple syrup. None were big hits. I think in the morning making toast might be the best bet...with an added butter and cinnamon sugar combo.

I will say that I am loving this group and feeling like I can bake and then experiment to see what we like the best. My house has so many different taste buds that someone is usually happy in the end.

I don't know if I will ever bake the Kugelhopf again as I thought it was a labor intensive, time consuming project. I am glad I got the chance to make it though.

Rugelach

Rugelach

I have no idea how to even say this cookie..But I will say that I have really enjoyed trying new things with the Tuesday's group. I substituted the marmalade and currants because we dont have currants here in my town (lame) and I had some vanilla spice butter that I thought would taste good. So ... I used the vanilla spice butter from williams sonoma and then used white morsels and toffee chips. The cookies were really good. I wished I had time to post more and I will tonight but as of now my husband is home on medical leave and we're back and forth to the dr's today. Cookies for snacks though!

Halloween '08

Have you ever seen more adorable trick or treaters. We had a great night. Got so much candy I think one could potentially become diabetic after comsuming it all...which we have yet to do but I am assuming it will happen soon. My fav..Twix...I stole plenty of mini twix for a small village.

IT ROCKED.....

The Day is HERE!!

Halloween '08

I am such a Halloween buff. My house has been decked out since early September and I love this day. It is so much fun to me and I have passed this on to my kids. As I was home baking some awesome treats, and some tricks too, I was IM'd by a friend who said that she doesn't celebrate Halloween because her boyfriend believes its "The Devil's Holiday"... and she has small children! Now I try to be open minded and not post here some of my beliefs because it's not about that; it's about my baking and pictures but I just couldn't help it with one. First when did all celebrations or holidays have to be religiously based? And what is wrong with good wholesome fun...my kids love dressing up and being something they are not and getting to go door to door late at night and running and playing in the neighborhood and it's all allowed. We never discuss evil spirits ect it's just about the fun. And I thought too, well maybe it's about the candy but you know what if people were handing out freakn' rocks I would still do it and then compare size and colors to my friends. So..without sounding too upity... Get out there today and have a DAMN blast..And learn to relax, smell the crisp fall air, listen to the kids laughing, look at their genuine smiles, and have some chocolate. That's my plan for the evening!!! Especially the chocolate part :)

Tuesday's Vampire Suicide

Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes

The recipe of choice this week comes from Clara...here...which I was glad about because you know all the room mama's are makin cupcakes and cookies this week. I am also working on the vampire cookies and cupcakes found at the coolest blog...here...I love this site. But as far as this batch of cupcakes they were decent. I substituted the "Swirled" milk chocolate and peanut butter morsels for the bittersweet chocolate. I thought this would make it more kid friendly for the parties. I also turned them into mini cuppies for bite size eating. With the thought of tons of kids devouring cupcakes well one bite seemed easier.

The unfortunate suicide was due to one vampire 'jumping' off the top of the muffin stand and taking another down with him. It was horrible. On the upside I got to eat two additional cupcakes and you can now see the underside of the poor cupcake.

I made mummies and spiderwebs also. I hope the kids enjoy them. I loved making these. The recipe yields 36 minis by the way.

Cranberry

Cranberry is the theme for November's Cupcake Challenge. Seems quite appropriate given the time of year. I am undecided on if I am going to participate this month. Seem to be in a bit of a "rut" as my husband says. I have decided to maybe just relax a bit and reevaluate my priorities. Sometimes passion takes a backseat to responsibility right??? Needless to say, growing up my family never incorporated cranberry into our Thanksgiving routine...my mom always made starches and fats...we had the tendency to avoid any fruits. Well..there is the fruit salad with creamy cool whip but i think that was usually it. I have avoided many new "flavors" in my life due to my upbringing but I am more comfortable branching out now that I am older. The first time I ever had pumpkin pie was last year when I decided that the recipe on the can was lame and I challenged my sister to a 'bake off'. This was my first taste of food competition... No one would commit of course to the better flavored pie but I will post mine and you can make it and see for yourself as it was the recipe that converted me and in fact made pumpkin one on my "treat" flavors and when I was debating my birthday cake choices this was number 2 only under ice cream cake. I opted for the ice cream cake because I didn't want to make it myself...lazy huh! Anyways...I was planning on making a quick post and I got long winded again... I will see how things go but as of now....Cranberry is a thought and not an action ( yet )

Cheese Challenge Prizes and Deadlines

Voting will begin on Sunday, October 26 at 12 noon at NO ONE PUTS CUPCAKE IN A CORNER, http://mkecupcakequeen.blogspot.com and will be open through Thursday, October 30 at 12 noon. PLEASE PLEASE VOTE FOR ME HERE...IT WOULD BE THE COOLEST HALLOWEEN GIFT EVER...

I am competing for these wonderful prizes...

ETSY artist ART ON THE MENU with her awesome little cardboard cupcake, her link is: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5738002
a pair of cupcake earrings from Lots of Sprinkles at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6057281.
As an added bonus for October only we have a sassy and sweet T from Bakelove Bakewear, http://www.bakelove.com/cupcake_t-shirt.html.

as well as to our corporate sponsors

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
CUPCAKE COURIER http://www.cupcakecourier.com
TASTE OF HOME BOOKS http://www.tasteofhome.com
1-800-Flowers http://www.1800flowers.com .

All of the "Cheese" entries can be viewed here http://www.flickr.com/groups/795630@N24/

Go to IronCupcake:Earth cuphub at http://ironcupcake.blogspot.com to become a part of the excitement.

Strawberry Visual Stimulation