A (good) reason to entertain!

Yesterday we celebrated Mother's day with my husbands grandmother, mom, and sister. It was a great day (other than the random rain shower...grr) to spend with family.  My sister-in-law's kids are absolutely adorable and wore my husband out by the end of the day.  Here are some of the goodies I made.

Mmm...Oreo truffles...so good.

I added some homemade oatmeal cookies--Granny's favorite!

All packaged up and pretty.  Aren't they cute?

Yum! I tried out a new decorating technique. I loved the the way it turned out!

This was a vanilla cake with butter cream frosting.

This one was a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting. I LOVED this cake.

Delicious!

The only thing that would have made yesterday better was if my own mom and dad were with us to celebrate.

I hope everyone had a great weekend.
Kc

St. Patrick's day dessert

Old McDonald had a farm...

One of my nieces turned two a few weeks ago. She is so stinkin' cute!  She's currently really into the whole barnyard and farm animals right now so that was the theme of her party.  We had the family over to our house for a small gathering to celebrate (in the midst of Hurricane Irene)!

I made cupcakes for the day. I made these cute little fondant toppers to honor the barnyard theme. I had so much fun doing this. I think I entertained myself with these more than the toddler!  Although, she did keep 'moo-ing' and 'oink-ing' at the cow and pig. 

For her birthday present, I wrapped it in white paper and the decorated it with cow spots. Again, it entertained me quite a bit. So easy and effective!

Lastly, the adults needed some dessert too so I made my first pie ever. I've never been a pie person before but it's growing on me and I wanted to try it out. This is a fresh raspberry pie and it was delicious! I will definitely be making more pies in the future.

I love entertaining and doing this type of stuff. I wish I had more opportunities to do so!

Happy Birthday Samantha!
~Kc

Platte County Pie

Joe and I stopped at the cutest little restaurant in Liberty, MO for a quick bite to eat.  I loved all the quaint memorabilia that was spread around the store.  It was nice to find a unique restaurant in the sea of familiar chain restaurants. 

I desperately wished that it had been Wednesday though so I could try the Platte County Pie.  Can you read the description? If a chocolate chip cookie could be a pie, it would want to be this pie! I neeed to get my hands on this. So, I did what any good research librarian would do. I found the recipe!

The recipe can be found at Allrecipes.com. I will be testing this out soon!
~Kc

Mason jars...my new obsession

I knew mason jars were handy tools. Aside from canning/preserves, they can be used as drinking glasses, pencil cups, a catchall, etc.  Lately, I've been seeing a ton of super cute recipes using a variety of mason jar sizes. They go way beyond the old 'cookie in a jar' that you would see everywhere. I think this will be great for gifts around the holidays or for party favors.

Courtesy of Confessions of a Cookbook Queen

Courtesy of My Baking Addiction

Courtesy of Picky Palate

Courtesy of My Baking Addiction

Courtesy of Get Off Your Butt and Bake

And then, there's this wonderful slideshow of more fun (and yummy) ways you can use mason jars. I'm particularly interested in the Monkey Bread in a jar.

I hope my coworkers and family members are prepared. More than likely, these will be their Christmas presents this year!

Enjoy,
Kc

Twix Brownie Bars

I came across the blog, Confessions of a Cookbook Queen.  I've only read a few entries, but she's a good combination of my blog mates.  Funny and witty like M, intriguing like Kate, and a good baker like KC.

I saw her entry for Twix Brownies and I'm totally, completely obsessed with the idea!  In fact, if I wasn't one hundred percent sure that I'd eat the entire finished product in under one hour, I'd be in the kitchen attempting to whip up this ridiculously awesome treat.  

Photo and Recipe found here

Follow her blog.  I bet you won't regret it (although, your waistline might)!

Hugs to our followers,
LC

Can we eat dessert for dinner?

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I got to go to NYC for a few days for a conference.  One night my husband asked me what I wanted to do that evening. Being an avid blog reader of various baking blogs (ahh, Picky Palate, Let's Dish, Bakerella and sooooooo many more!), I had several dessert shops that I desperately wanted to visit.  Three of the stores happened to be within about five blocks of our hotel...perfect!

Our first stop was Crumbs. We got the Dulce de Leche and the Raspberry Swirl cupcakes.  These were absolutely delicious. I have been slightly disappointed with the cupcake shops in Raleigh but this one gave me hope that there are amazing cupcake stores out there. I would go back in a heartbeat!

Dulce de Leche from Crumbs

Raspberry Swirl from Crumbs

Our next stop was the Macaron Cafe. I had heard that this was a great place. I hadn't had a French macaron before so we had to give it a shot.  We got a box of six flavors. Maybe we were being too adventurous for our first try but I was not a fan of these. I'm not sure why...if it was the texture or just the flavor.  My husband, who likes different things, wasn't a fan either.  Anyone else have this problem with macarons before? We got the rose flavor (tasted like perfume), white chocolate, mango, strawberry, caramel and passion fruit (the only one I somewhat liked).  They weren't awful (except for the Rose) but also didn't want another bite.

Passion Fruit  from Macaron Cafe

Rose from Macaron Cafe

 Our last stop was for Baked by Melissa. While the cupcakes from Crumbs were dee-licious, the cute little mini cupcakes from Baked by Melissa were just adorable. I LOVE the concept of these bite size cupcakes. You truly get to have a guilt free experience. The price was right for trying a bunch without hurting your wallet. What a great gift idea! I wish there was one closer to me. I am now on the hunt for the pan (or method) of how she makes these. I need to figure it out.

Image from Baked by Melissa

This is just a piece of our little trip to NYC. More posts on what we did and saw coming soon!

~Kc