They smelled SO good.....

Boyf and I were at the grocery today and the Giant Red Grapefruits were teasing me with their overwhelming scent. As a kid, we used to pile on the sugar to make them edible...so I thought pairing the juice with piles of powdered sugar HAD to be equally as tasty in frosting form.

So, I gave it a shot, and it sort of worked. I made regular white cake cupcakes, and turned my favorite frosting into Pink Grapefruit Buttercream Frosting! The frosting tastes awesome, but ended up a bit thinner then I would have liked. Charley was curious and bugging me as usual, so i thought I would give him his first taste of Grapefruit. Judging the before and after, I would say that he didn't care for my trick. Oh Charley!

Orange Creamsicle Cupcakes

FINALLY!!!! My Orange emulsion came in the mail. I starred this recipe a while ago, from one of my fave blogs, Not So Humble Pie. This lady is baking up a storm every day. I reserve Sunday for my kitchen days. So here they are in all their Orange Dreamy Glory!

Charley was EXTRA curious today...and even Dakota showed up for a while!!

The recipe is here, on Ms Humble's blog...and let me tell you, it's deelish!

I had to order Orange Emulsion off of KitchenKrafts.com :)

Gummi Bears...Bouncing here and there and....

I had a guest Chef in my kitchen today, Master Chef and Candyteer, Kyle!
His idea was simple. To make Gummi Bears. We headed of to Michael's to get some supplies.
A few candy molds and some bright ideas, and we were off.
Charley at first, was a bit unsure of our guest Chef so he was sure to investigate every move carefully. He approves of Kyle!

The recipe is simple, and we made a few modifications, they are part of this recipe here:

INGREDIENTS
3 packages gelatin (each box has 4 packets in it)
2 tablespoons flavored Jello packages with
1 tablespoon Kool-Aid* (flavor to match Jello)
*each kool-aid pack was about 1/2 tablespoon, so we added sugar to make it one tablespoon
1 additional tablespoon of sugar
1/2 cup ice water
Candy molds

DIRECTIONS
Mix the gelatin with the Kool-Aid and Jello
Slowly add gelatin, Kool-Aid, and Jell-o to 1/2 of a cup of water
Mix well in a bowl, not too fast but not too slow
Allow to stand until mixture looks slushy or liquidy
Microwave the mixture on high for 1 minute and 15 seconds (or just until the top of the mixture bubbles or foams)
Carefully fill candy molds with the now liquidy mixture- we used empty bottles with a tip!
Put the molds in a freezer for 10 minutes
We have decided to let the gummi shapes 'get some air' overnight in the hopes that they firm up nicely.

Fall in love with Turkey again........!!

I know this is old, but it is WAY too good to pass up.
It all started with volunteering to host Thanksgiving for our friends. I have an extreme oppositon to any overcooked bird products. So does Boyf. Good god he hates dried out meat.

In my extreme nervousness over cooking my first very own big ole bird, I panicked and turned to the interwebz for answers. Boy, was that even more confusing.
Ev-ah-rey-one seems to have THE secret to cooking the most perfect turkey-lurkey: Cook it in a bag, brine it, don't you dare brine it, rub it all over with olive oil, sit on it, turn it upside down, fry it but don't burn down your house, burn down your house and let the bird cook in the ashes, wish upon a star, cook it at 250, cook it at 350, blah blah blah.

I went back to my roots and called a force WAY more powerful then the internet. My Mom.
She recommended the cooking temp, the cooking time and told me to use the meat thermometer she put in my stocking (last year), and add a few beers to the roasting pan. Yessssssssssssss.

REWIND; The sunday before Thanksgiving I was cooking some delicious bacon for breakfast. I thought enough to save the bacon fat for sumpin' special. Bacon???? Hmmmm......

The Result, the Ingredients and the Directions:

1 Big Turkey (room temperature)
roasting pan with rack in the bottom- rack is VERY important, don't ask why it's science
1 pound of bacon worth of reserved bacon fat from Sunday's breakfast
Numerous Bud Lite's
1 Apple
Fresh Rosemary
Fresh Garlic
1 Large Turkey Injection Needle (what??!!?)
Lawry's Season Salt

Do This:
melt bacon fat in saucepan with 2 beers- low/medium heat
inject bacon and beer heavenly mixture INTO entire turkey (use all of it, I promise)
peel apple and put into the cavity of the bird (I don't care for in-bird stuffing)
add fresh rosemary and fresh garlic to bird cavity
pour and entire beer INTO the Turkey cavity
pour remaining beers over turkey, drown that sucker! I think i used a total of 6-7 beers
coat the skin with olive oil or any remaining bacon fat (shame on you for having any left)
dust on some Lawry's salt

Cook at 325 until Turkey is 165 degrees.
It was the BEST turkey I have ever eaten. I'm not just saying that because I made it. The turkey meat was tender, juicy and just had a lovely hint of smokey, bacony goodness.

Charley of course was nailed to my hip. The photo included really best describes what he likes to call, "Helping."

Where it all began......my cooky obsession.

Over the Holiday, I became obsessed with baking sugar cookies.
I was inspired by this blog: The Decorated Cookie!
clever ideas + clear instructions = enabling!!! Yay!

The first set were the cartoonish turkey legs I made for Thanksgiving- very Flinstonian. Then the dogs and Christmas fun. I asked Boyf if he wanted to decorate a few....hence the rabies dog and mean tree. :/ Oh Boyf!
Last but not least is what I cvonsdier the pinnacle of my cookie making. The Moose, Surfboard, Skinny Jeans and Waxer Surf Dude cookies. :)

I made my own unique "cookie cutters" by freehand drawing on thin cardboard (think soda can box) and then cutting a generous amount around each shape. I rolled out the dough and put my 'cutter' on top of the dough and used a knife to cut out my shapes. Easy peasy!

Charley was in fact around and delighted (as you can see by the confused look on his face) in me dusting him lightly!?! with flour. Oh Chaaaaaaaaaaaaahrley!!!

I used the same dough recipe each time- and I love it. Easy to make and VERY tasty. Tasty is #1 priority.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

I used frosting that i bought at the grocery, and the next time I do any sugar-cookie-ing I'll be studying up on Royal Icing. It's what all the respectable Blogerino's use.

Spring Fling- Key Lime Cupcakes!

With the weather looking up, it only seemed right to make some Key Lime Cupcakes with a surprise Key Lime (kinda looks like ecto-cooler) filling. Yum.

Charley, as usual was as helpful as ever. Even going so far as to lick some evidence off of my pants. Who doesn't get frosting on their pants when cooking?!!?

For the cake, I totally cheated and used Betty Crocker White cake mix, GASP! Box mix, yes.

FILLING:
1 box of instant vanilla pudding
1/4 cup lime jiuce
drops of green food coloring
1 1/2 cups of whipping cream
1 1/2 cups of powered sugar
whip it in the kitchen aid, place in fridge to firm up.

FROSTING:
I have had past luck with this recipe for Lemon butter cream frosting, so why not lime?
1 cup butter- room temperature
31/2 cups of powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
juice from 1-2 Limes
lime zest
beat butter and sugar first
add in other ingredients and beat until light and fluffy

YUMMMY!
Boyf said that maybe the goo in the middle was too much, but I did it anyways.

I had extra goo, so while I was at the store I nabbed some lil graham cracker pie crusts just in case! Good thing, you can see the little ecto-pies in the background of one of the cupcake shots.
Wee!