For The Love of Cupcakes!

Cupcakes are in order for any celebration at our house. Monthly ( sometimes weekly!) we'll whip out a batch of cupcakes and decorate them to our heart's content. Here is a little collections of a few cupcakes that we've made:


Our next cupcake project will be these. Now, here is my challenge to everyone out there reading: Make the "Ice Cream Cone cupcakes" with your friends, children, or for yourself! Email your pictures to ericandbrandilynn@yahoo.com and one lucky person will be chosen at random to win all the fixin's to make these "Yellow Jacket" cupcakes! Entries must be in by 12AM on June 15th.

Have fun with this!

*Photos sent will be posted on this blog, unless you request otherwise*

Just To Make You Smile Today...

Homemade Rolls

Homemade rolls are one of life's greatest pleasures! Let me walk you through the steps of how to make delicious rolls from the how to make the dough to different ways to shape the dough.

Here'stherecipe or see below:

Potato Rolls

Ingredients:

• 2 packages of yeast ( 4 and 1/2 teaspoons)
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 cup mashed potatoes (you can use instant potatoes)
• 2 cups milk, scalded
• 8 cups flour
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 3 eggs
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt

Soften the yeast in the 1/2 cup of warm water. In a bowl, mix together softened yeast, potatoes, milk, shortening, eggs, sugar, salt and 4 cups of the flour. Mix together with a mixmaster until smooth. Add the remaining flour 1 cup at a time and knead well until mixed. You may need to add a little more flour to make a dough that you can handle, but not more than 1/2 a cup more. Turn the dough into a greased bowl and let it raise until double. Divide the dough into thirds and roll out in a circle onto a floured board. Brush with melted butter and cut into 16th. Roll them up as you would croissants. Place rolls on a greased pan and let raise for about 1 hour or until doubled in size. Bake at 350 for about 15-20 minutes.

Makes 48 rolls


1. So, the first thing I always start with is the mashed potatoes. I have used both mashed potatoes from scratch and instant potatoes in this recipe and I honestly cannot tell a difference in taste. What I'm getting at is--Use Instant! I even use the microwave directions, so it only takes me about 5 minutes.

2. The next thing I do, is pour the warm water into my mixer, along with the yeast, and let it sit for 5 minutes or so to activate. (the water should be foamy and bubbly looking--if it's not, you may need to proof your yeast to make sure it's still good.)


3. While the yeast is activating, I pour the milk in to a microwaveable container and microwave it for about 2-3 minutes to scald it. I was taught that you know the milk is scalded when tiny bubbles form around the outside of the pan or dish, so I cook it until I see that.


4. Now add the potatoes, scalded milk, shortening, sugar, salt, eggs, and 4 cups of the flour and mix until smooth. (I figure you don't need pictures of that...pretty self explanatory.)

5. Next add the rest of the flour. I usually add about 1/4 to 1/2 cup more flour to make the dough workable. You still want the dough to be a little sticky. Stickier dough makes fluffier rolls--trust me! Keep in mind that you will be rolling these out on a floured board, which will add even more flour. The dough will stick to your hands a little, but not much.


6. Take a large bowl and spray it with non-stick cooking spray. Put the dough in the bowl and let it rise until double in size. I made the dough before church, which is 3 hours, and I knew that the dough would be long done before I got home. I put the bowl in the fridge, which will slow the rising down. When I got home, it was perfect and ready to be rolled out!

7. Now for my favorite part, shaping the rolls! There are so many possibilities. First, flour your surface. Divide your dough in to three large balls. To smooth out the top, I pull the edges of the dough out and under, so that the imperfections are on the bottom.


8. Roll the dough out into a large circle. (and here's the best part!) Melt a stick of butter and pour a third of it onto the dough and spread it around evenly. Then, cut the dough (with a pizza cutter) into 16ths.

** To roll your dough into a "butterhorn" shape: Take the triangle by the short edge and roll it all the way up. This is the easiest way for me. I usually make my rolls this shape.

**To roll your dough into a "rosette" shape: (I still cut the dough into 16ths) Roll the dough into a long rope about 12 inches long. Then, tie it in a loose knot.

Then, tuck the top end of the knot under. Finish by tucking the other end up and into the middle of the knot, creating a rose type shape. Brush with butter.

**To make "clover" shaped rolls: (I still divide it into 16ths) Divide each roll in to 3 balls. Spread the top of the ball out and tuck edges under. Put three balls into a muffin tin. (sorry the pic is so hard to see, but you get the idea.)

9. Let the rolls rise until double (about 1 hour) Cook at 350 degrees. Watch the rolls to see how long they need to cook. My oven cooks them in 12 minutes, but my mother in laws oven takes 20. They should be golden brown. Brush with butter.

(One thing I should add--I have made these for Thanksgiving two years in a row. Both times I made the rolls and shaped them the day before, and then froze them before letting them rise. Then in the morning, I pulled them out of the freezer and let them rise all day while the other dishes were being made. They were ready to bake in a few hours, and were fresh and warm out of the oven for dinner!)

Here are the butterhorn rolls. Perfect!

Here are the Rosettes (on the left) and Clovers (on the right)

Every time I make these, I wonder why I don't make them more often. They are so easy! Enjoy them!

Word Games

One of Hayden's "chores" for the day is to practice his handwriting. I looked for a few ways to make this fun for him and I came up with a few good ideas. The first idea came when we were playing one of my all time favorite games- "Scattergories". Inside the game there is a die with the letters of the alphabet on it. We have Hayden roll the die and whatever letter it lands on, he has to write that letter, lower case and upper case.

Before he was learning how to write, we used to roll it and have him say a word that started with that letter or say the letter sound. Before that, it was just used to identify what each letter was. What a wonderful little thing this has been. He actually looks forward to writing his letters!





Another idea, if you don't have the Scattergories die is to write all of the letters down on separate pieces of paper and put them inside a paper bag. Then have the child draw out a letter and do the same ideas as above.

To print the lined drawing paper that they use in school, I go to THIS site.

My Daily Cleaning Schedule

When I started this stay at home mom stuff with my first child, I realized that I had so much time on my hands! I went from working 45 hours a week managing a clothing store, to being at home raising this cute little round ball of energy. I had so much time on my hands, in fact, that I really got nothing done. Are any of you like me? The more I have to do, the more I get done. The less I have to do, the lazier I am. We'll say that the cleaning and laundry got put on the back burner and I spent my time lounging about, going to every park in the city, long walks, and a nap everyday! (Now that was the life!)

So, like I said, nothing was getting done around the house and I realized that, "Oh, yeah...that's my job." The house doesn't clean itself, and dinner doesn't just appear. (Let me know if you find some way for those things to happen, though!)

I got down to business. I wrote down every chore that needed to be done every week. Then, I broke the chores up into manageable chunks that needed to be done daily, and to my amazement I still had time to lounge about and go to the park and my house was sparkly clean all of the time. (Ok, maybe not...but close!)

Do I follow the schedule exactly every day? No. But it helps me stay on top of my home so that I don't spend a huge chunk of time cleaning EVERYTHING at once. Although that does happen sometimes...

Here's the schedule:


Let me explain a few of the jobs. I make sure that I do at least two loads of laundry a day. It's the first thing I do in the morning--Put a load of laundry in the washing machine. It's also the last thing I do before bed. You'll notice that the last chore every day is "Wash clothes worn today". I take the PJ's from the night before and the clothes that every one wore that day and I wash them and put them in the dryer before bed. This has made it so much easier to stay on top of the laundry. Then, in the morning after I put a load in the washer, I take out the clothes from the dryer and fold them and put them away.

There are also things that I didn't list-obviously-because the list would be HUGE! I just figure that I know that I do the dishes every day and I clean up the play room every day. Things like that.

One tip that I learned from FLY LADY is to always go to bed with your sink sparkling and clear of any dishes. This habit, alone, helps me to start the day off right. Who wants to wake up to a sink full of dishes to be washed? Definitely not me!

Look over the list and feel free to copy it or make one of your own. This list has been one of my life savers, and now I hope it will benefit you!

Happy Cleaning!

Customized Candy Bar Wrappers

When Eric and I got married, we thought it would be so cute to make personalized favors to hand out at the reception. We wrapped mini Hershey's candy bars with our engagement picture and on the back of the candy bar it said,

"Here's some candy!
Love, Eric and Brandi

How cheesy is that?! We thought we were really funny back then! :)

So, anyway, I was thinking about those the other day and how easy and cute it would be to make them for different occasions and with different sizes of candy bars. I have started making a few.

The one below is one that I made for my step sister, Krystle, who just returned from an LDS mission.

Here are the other ones that I tried: (feel free to print these wrappers if you'd like! Just click on the layout and copy the picture. Save the picture to your computer and then open it in Word or any other program that you print from. Then resize to fit the candy bar size of your choice. Wrap the paper around the candy bar and tape on the back.)

Here are the sizes that the pages need to be printed:

• Extra Large candy bars need to be sized to be 6 3/4 inches wide by 8 3/4 inches tall.
  
• Regular size candy bars are sized 5 inches wide by 5 1/2 inches tall.
  
• Small gum packets are 2 3/4 inches wide by 2 3/4 inches tall.
  

1) Happy Birthday: Printed to fit an extra large Symphony bar.

2 and 3) Blank Wrapper and "Summer" Wrapper




4) Valentines/ I love you: What's better than chocolate?

5) Small gum packages: "Good Luck" (for a football team) and "Thank you!"

I know it's a horrible picture, but these are so cute! (so try to imagine great picture quality!--Heidi, Help!!) I think it would be so fun to make these as party favors, reception favors, or anything where you need a treat for a large group.

I hope you enjoy these! They are so much fun to do. If you have an occasion coming up and would like me to design one for you and send you the file, leave me your email address.
Thanks!