A Peice of Cake...er Pie

I have come to surface! I have been cheating on this calorie filled blog with hot glue, scissors, yarn and more hot glue. Crafting has taken over and it isn't making my butt bigger - so that's a plus.

But we all know where my alliance really lies - butter. Butter for President!!

A few weeks ago I joined three of my favorites for a dinner in and brought a Apple Crumb Pie. We got to meet new baby Josie - who is stunning and sweeter than pie. I bribe people with food so I can cuddle their babies. haha Look how beautiful she is!

Did I mention that my super awesome (non-dessert eating) Hubs got me an iPhone 4? It is so cool, I hardly know how it works but I love it and it has a great camera on it! The bad news is that I didn't have this sweet new phone/camera while making the previously mentioned pie. So - I have no photos of the pie...but here is a link to the recipe from BHG.com.

Wha-wha.

That recipe post was super lame - Josey made up for most of that but moving on!

On November 12 there is a great par-tay happening with some friends - Rock My Plymouth Party that is. Now I can't make this party because I'll be having slumber party with the Little People (baking, fort building, hide and seeking, movie watching, ice cream eating and so on) but I couldn't miss an opp to make a traditional Pumpkin Pie for the event.

I had attempted a fancy pants pumpkin pie last Christmas. Pumpkin Pie is my mom's favorite so for my first Christmas dinner hostessing experience I thought, "What better than to make this fancy pants pumpkin pie?" Well turns out it was a bit advance and more fancy than just pants...more like ruffled tuxedo fancy. Oy. It was pumpkin/carmel soup in a burnt crust.

I will not be defeated - I am smarter, wiser, and not as fancy pants. Traditional. Six ingredients and I'm not making the crust. BAM!

So here are the ingredients:

• 1 16oz can pumpkin
• 1 14oz condensed milk
• 1/2 cup milk (as I typed this...I just realized I forgot to add this. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Damn it. Strike one.)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• Pie crust (Schnucks does a nice crust)

Wow. I cannot believe I forgot the milk. Crap. I even bought milk at the store because of this. Eff.

Ummm. Okay. Moving on. Guess I haven't graduated from fancy pants.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450. Dump everything, except the dough, in a bowl and blend (gently) together.

Wow. That was tough. It would have been tougher to add the milk...but I'm not dwelling!

Roll/spread the dough across the pie pan (sending this pie in a disposable plate because I have a feeling I will never see the pan again if I send it to the party haha). I read in a blog once about stabbing the bottom of the dough with a fork a bunch helps it cook through and through. Okay. Sure. I'll buy that.

Our in pumpkin mix into crust. Using a fork make the cute little lines on the edge. You know what's even cuter than rippled edges? MILK IN A PIE. Frig.

Bake for 15 minutes. At this point, your house will smell heavenly.

Reduce heat to 350 and bake for another 35-40 minutes.

It took way longer than 40 mins. in my opinion. The article said to stick a knife in it to see when it is done.

Pie is great...tricky and fancy pants...but great. I don't know how the pumpkin pie tastes...luckily it will be consumed by very drunk adults dressed up as Pilgrims and Indians on Saturday...so they probably won't notice there wasn't any milk in the pie.

I'M OVER IT!

Yum,

Laura

Muffins for the Little Muffin

Well, it has been awhile friends. And although I have been baking (I'm actually baking as I type, such a multi-tasker) I haven't been blogging. So get ready.

A few weeks ago...aw hell, months now. My good friend and colleague Stevie (Death Claw) had a beautiful baby girl, Avery. Let's take a moment to adore this little girl for a minute.

She is fabulous and sweet and just too stinking cute. This Little Muffin deserves some Little Muffins. Done - and since it is Fall it is only fitting to make something with Pumpkins for this Little Pumpkin.

I should mention that I tend to refer to babies as food - pumpkin, muffin, potato, tater tot, hot dog...no, not hot dog but you get the point.

So I found a great recipe from The Pioneer Women for pumpkin muffins and since I'm super fancy I decided to throw some crazins in the mix. Yum.

Ingredients:

• Muffin Mix
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 4 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
• 1 cup (heaping) pumpkin puree (I just use the whole can, 16 oz)
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk (that's about 2/3 of a can, annoyed? You should be.)
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cups crazins
• Topping
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• Frosting
• F-that noise. Buy a jar of vanilla or cream cheese icing. You've done enough. :)

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and grease your muffin pans. Trust me, you do not want to use paper wrappers. I got to make this recipe twice because I used paper wrappers the first time and the muffin totally stuck to the paper and made a disastrous mess. So. Lesson learned there.

Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt into a bowl.

Cut butter into chunks with a knife or pastry cutter until it is fully mixed. In a separate bowl, mix together pumpkin, evaporated milk, egg and vanilla. Pour in that mess into the flour mix. Add crazins...because they are crrraaazzzzy. Stir/mix it up.

Pour mix into muffin pan. Now, I don't have the steadiest hand so I have found that if you pour batter into a sandwich bag or a piping bag to get it in the cups without having a mess on the edges of the pan...and who likes to scrape pans? Not this lady.

Now this photo was taken when I was using the cursed paper liners but imagine they weren't there. Also, I know how yummy these muffins are, please don't be grossed out by how that looks...because I'm realizing that right now. haha Ew.

So, once the batter is in all the cups (recipe usually makes 12 - 18 muffins) sprinkly the topping mix on the raw batter. Now bake for 20 - 25 minutes.

Take 'em out when they are done, let them cool enough and scoop them out with a spoon. I got to use my sweet new piping bags and tip as well for the frosting. I don't like a lot of frosting so here they are.



Yummmmmmm. Hopefully Little Pumpkin Muffin's Mama and Daddy enjoyed these as much (if not more) than her wonderful arrival.

Yum,

Laura

Boo! I'm a cookie.

Welcome to October. The month of spooky and scary things. Why should things that are sweet and sugar filled be any different?

 

I cannot take credit for this fabulous and funny (wow, there are so many adjectives in this post already) cookie. Let me be the first, if not second to introduce you to Pinterest. Pinterest is like Facebook with fun photos of DIY projects, food, drinks, quotes, clothes, dream kitchens, and anything you can think of! And it is pretty much boy free, which is kind of fun. I am obsessed and have logged a zillion hours on the site so far and I encourage you to do the same. Here is one of the easy (yet BRILLIANT) home projects I did that I found on Pinterest. Common sense but, man! That is sweet. I got the hooks/pull tabs from Target and hung 2 - 3 cups/spoons on each. Perfect and saves so much room. Love it.

 

 

Onto the haunting goodness. This recipe is crazy easy because well I gave myself a break. No homemade dough, icing or marshmallows. If you've got that kind of time on your hands, I tip my hat to you and will be calling you later to help me do laundry, sweep, mop, dust, redecorate my living room (which I'm at a loss - really if anyone has time and a good eye I could use some help), make the bed, organize my cabinets...you get the point.

 

 

Things you'll need to have to make the goodness -

• Sugar Cookie mix (Betty Crocker, eat your heart out)
• Vanilla Icing
• Marshmallows
• An egg
• 1/3 cup of butter
• Black icing
• For rolling purposes

 

So make the sugar cookie mix and roll the dough out on a floured surface - about 1/4 of an inch thick. You don't need a perfect circle (you'll see why in a minute...hold your horses) but I like a nice juice glass to make circles for these cookies.

 

 

Preheat the oven to 375.

 

Okay, so no one's perfect, right? And since this is such a soul bearing blog I thought I'd throw these out there. Ashamed? No. Annoyed? Yes. Tried to eat them anyway? Hell, yeah. Ew.

A few reasons I think this happened -

1.  I rushed. I tried having to pans of cookies in the oven at once and maaaaay have left the cookies on the bottom rack on a bit to long. Patience is a big part of baking I'm finding out.
2. I sprayed the aluminum foil with cooking spray that is 'Butter' based...that can't be helpful, right?
3. Listen to the timer. It beeped and I was rolling out dough for the next round. "Eh, a bit more time never hurts," continues to roll dough like a fool. A FOOL!

Moving on! So once the cookies (non-burnt and delicious) are cooled spoon some icing into a dish and microwave it for about 8 seconds. Using the back of a spoon spread the icing on the cookie and again I like that this wasn't smooth and in a shape. Have you ever seen a ghost who is a perfect circle...bet not. Also, taken the marshmallows and pinch them in half. Before you stick the marshmallow on paint the face on with a toothpick. It is was easier than trying to paint a face on something with a body.

 

 

Oh. My. Gosh. How stinkin' cute is that?! Oh. I mean terrifying. Very scary....and adorable! I got board with ghosts after awhile and tried my hand at cobwebs. The cobwebs on the right were first attempts, cookies on the left are better. The trick was to do the circles first and then the lines from the middle sweeping out. Fun. Fun. Fun.

 

 

I have a few other Halloween inspired desserts in the calendar. Also, I get to visit some of my lovely friends new babies this week and next and you know I'm not going empty handed - I have to win love some way and it might as well be with sugar, flour and butter. A lot more to come.

 

Yum...er Boo!,

Laura