Votive Holders

So for one of my best friends' birthdays, I decided I wanted to be crafty and make her something! One thing I've seen on Pinterest was someone used a hot glue gun to write words on a bottle and then spray painted it. I thought this was a really cool idea, so I decided to put my own little spin on it.

I bought three small votives (odd numbers are always more pleasing for displaying things), some puffy paint, and metallic gold spray paint (gold is her favorite color!). This overall project will cost about $10...more or less depending on the size of candle holders you get.

My new favorite phrase (and one I will be living my life on as I find my new path) is "Live. Laugh. Love." Three of the most important things you can do in life. So I decided that would be a great thing to put on the votives! I printed out "Live" and "Love" in Fine Serif and "Laugh" in Vivaldi (both fonts can be found on dafont.com), and then taped each word into a votive.

I then took the puffy paint and traced the letters. Unfortunately, my hand is a little shaky, so it wasn't perfectly smooth.

Once the words are dry, you'll want to take the votives outside and lay them on newspaper. You can decide what you think is the best way to spray paint them. Some people might stuff them with newspaper and leave them sitting on their bottom, but I chose to put them upside down on the newspaper so I could cover the bottoms.

It takes about 2 hours for the spray paint to dry, but I left them outside for a few hours just to make sure they were 100% dry. And once they were, I had custom votive holders!

I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out, even though the letters are a little shaky looking. I hope once she puts candles in them, they create a really nice glow.

Happy (Early) Birthday Caroline!

Christmas Baking: Apple Butter Banana Bread!

As most of my friends should have gotten their packages today (or will be tomorrow), I can share with you my Apple Butter Banana Bread and how you can use it as gifts! The recipe is super simple, and you could make the recipe as one large 9x5 loaf, or you can make it as three mini-loaves (3x5 pans). If you're making the one loaf, just add 10 minutes to the baking time.

For all the loaves I was making, I made five batches of the recipe, and after doing it twice, I didn't even have to keep looking at the recipe since I pretty much had it memorized at that point!

Start by combining 1.5 cups of flour, 1.5 teaspoons baking powder, half a teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg in a large bowl. Once it's mixed well together, make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and set the bowl aside.

Then in a medium-sized bowl, mash two bananas until they're smooth, yet slightly lumpy.

Then you add two eggs (slightly beaten), 3/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup canola oil, and 1/2 cup apple butter. I love WhiteHouse, but any kind you want to use will be good (if I had time, I would have gone to the farmers market because fresh homemade apple butter is amazing!).

After mixing all these ingredients together (without over mixing), then you pour the wet ingredients into the well of the dry ingredients.

Obviously it overflows past the well, but by doing the well, it makes it a little easier to mix together. I used a wooden spoon this whole time, there is no need to use a hand mixer or anything for this. You'll want to mix the wet ingredients with the dry just until everything is combined. You definitely don't want to over mix!

Then, after spraying my mini loaf pans with Baker's Joy (the best baking spray to make sure things don't stick!), I poured in the batter, about half to two-thirds full.

I baked the loaves for 35 minutes at 350 degrees. This was the perfect amount of baking time, but always check your loaves before taking them out by sticking a knife or toothpick in them and making sure it comes out clean.

After letting the loaves cool on an wire rack in the pans for 10 minutes, I popped them out of the pan and let them finish cooling all the way.

One tip I would give, is even though this recipe makes three mini loaves, if you have any intention of making more than one batch, have six pans. That way, as soon as you take one batch out, you can put another batch in, rather than waiting for the breads to cool and then reusing those pans. It'll save you a lot of unnecessary oven time!

I finished off the Christmas packages by wrapping each cooled loaf in clear plastic wrap, and then tied a Christmas-themed ribbon around the loaf!

It's nothing fancy, but I like the festivity of it!

I love my new tradition of sending my friends baked goods for Christmas (last year I sent different types of cookies) and mixing up what I send them! 

Behind the Scenes Baking

One of my most wonderful friends, Nichole, is starting her own event planning business. You should really check out her blog, http://www.sweetcarolinablog.com/, and follow it! To get started and show off her skills, she's doing an inspiration shoot, and she's enlisted my baking skills to help her with a few items. Now, I won't tell you what these items are being used for (you'll have to read her blog for that!), but I will show you what I made and how I made them!

First up, I made three dozen donuts. Yup. Three dozen. It's a lot of donuts, but it actually was super simple to do. Since I wasn't worried about taste for these, I just went with the simplest recipe I could find, which happened to be the one that came with my donut pan. I only had to make the batch three times, but since I only have a six cavity pan, I was taking it in and out of the oven 6 times. Phew! It's a lot of baking but it's worth it.

 You want to use cake flour to get that nice cakey texture in the donuts. I combined 2 cups cake flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 2 tsp baking powder, and 1 tsp salt. I whisked the dry ingredients together in my stand mixer bowl.

I then added two slightly beaten eggs.

As well as 3/4 cup buttermilk and 2 tablespoons melted butter.

You just have to mix the ingredients together for about 30 seconds until they're combined.

Then you fill the donut cavities about 2/3 full.

You bake the donuts at 425 for about 8 minutes, when the top of the donuts spring back when you touch them. And then you have donuts!

Lots and lots of donuts!

Now my second project for Nichole was heart shaped marshmallows. I had seen a tutorial on Martha Stewart where she provides instructions on how to make marshmallows and then cut shapes out. This actually ended up being a little more complicated than it was made out to be, so using a little internet research halfway through, I think I got a final product that should work.

You start by pour 1/6 cup of cold water into the mixer bowl, and pour a packet of unflavored gelatin onto the water. You'll let that sit for five minutes.

Then in a saucepan over medium-high heat, you'll want to bring to a boil 3/4 cup sugar, 1/3 cup light corn syrup, 1/16 tsp salt, and 1/6 cup water.

 You'll want to let this boil for about five minutes.

Then, with the whisk attachment on your mixer, start mixing the gelatin/water mixture on low speed, and slowly pour in syrup (very slowly so you don't splatter).

And then, once all the syrup is poured in, gradually turn it up to a high speed, and let it beat for about 12 minutes. You'll then see the mixture transform, double in size and turn white like marshmallows!

The hardest part, because it was sooooooooooo sticky, was getting it onto the cookie sheet. I should have sprayed my parchment paper a little more (and maybe should have used wax paper instead), and it might have been a little easier, but I was able to get a good enough glob on to be able to make the marshmallows later on.

I let this sit for about 6 hours to harden up, but you can wait anywhere between 3 hours and overnight if you want. Now, this is where I got into a little predicament. I couldn't figure out how to cut out the marshmallows! It was so sticky and was not cooperating with me still. So after some internet research, I discovered a technique that others have used in the past. I poured a whole lot of confectioner's sugar on the counter, laid down the marshmallow on top of it, and then slooooowly peeled off the parchment paper, using confectioner's sugar to cover the underside as I pulled it off. And then after dipping my little cookie cutter in a thin layer of vegetable oil, I was able to cut out a little heart! I then covered them completely in confectioner's sugar to seal in the stickiness.

I'm hoping these will work for their purpose, but I guess we'll have to see!

If you haven't already, start following Nichole's blog, and I'll let you know what happens with the final product of what these items were used for!

Felt Ruffle Christmas Wreath

So my wreath obsession continues!

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, I needed to try to get my apartment in the Christmas spirit (which is made more difficult by the 70 degree weather outside). I found this awesome looking ruffle wreath on Pinterest (http://www.designsponge.com/2009/12/diy-project-kristens-ruffly-felt-wreath.html) that I really wanted to make.

In the instructions, they say to use a 12inch styrofoam wreath, but the problem is that it's way too small for my door. You wouldn't be able to see my apartment number, and I wouldn't be able to see out the peep hole! Both important things. So, also using Pinterest and the awesome tips that site leads you to, I learned that you can use pipe insulation foam to use as a wreath!

Now, it's not a perfect circle, but it's pretty close. To make sure that you don't have the kinks with this, you just open up the slit, and tuck it in tightly, and then duct tape the ends together. The only thing that worries me with using this method, is that it'll sag, and keep sagging as the days go on. You'll see this a little later.

So I ended up getting about 4 yards of felt. This was WAY too much. It was on sale, so I figured better safe than sorry, and I'll probably end up using the extra as a tree blanket once I get a Christmas tree in here. I also decided that I wanted the wreath to be a tad more Christmasy, and a little glittery, so I also got a few fake poinsettia flowers to add to the wreath.

You want to cut three inch circles for your wreath. I used a glass which ended up making the process a lot quicker. I highly recommend that over using a paper template or something similar.

I got a lot of circles. A LOT. I decided to do it in sections to save my hands: draw, cut, pin, draw, cut, pin.

Now, to make the ruffles, you fold the circle in half, and then in half again.

And then you stick a pin at the corner of the ruffle, and then into the form. After sticking in a few pieces around the foam, fairly close together, you want to fluff them to make it nice and pretty!

In the middle of my cutting and fluffing, I had a little kitty get lost in the felt.

As far as the poinsettia's went, I just cut them off the stems and jammed them into the foam, and it worked perfectly! It also saved me from making even more ruffles because they took up some space. Now, initially, I made a little felt hook on the back of the wreath, hoping that would be the best way to hang it.

The problem with it, was that it hung way too low on the wreath hanger and you couldn't see my apartment number. So, even though it messed with the appearance of the wreath, I just put it on the hook.

 Here's a close up of the ruffles!

It took me 4.5 hours and approximately 350 circles of felt. It was a huge undertaking, but it turned out just how I wanted! Now, I'm worried about the sagging. You can already tell that it's more oblong now, and part of that might be from the weight of the felt, and hopefully it won't keep getting worse. If it does, I'll have to research a way to make it more stiff. But for now, I love it! 

Gingerbread Mini-Donuts

Cupcakes have been the trend for quite awhile now, but now it looks like donuts are becoming the new popular food. I've been seeing recipes for donuts and mini-donuts everywhere, and now baking pans are popping up everywhere and being bought. So of course, being sooo on top of trends, I bought some pans and decided to make some donuts!

I found this awesome baked gingerbread mini donut recipe, and seeing as how it's Thanksgiving weekend, I knew it was the perfect flavor for this time of year.

You start by mixing all the dry ingredients together. Now, I doubled the recipe to make a little more, so I'll tell you the normal recipe. Combine one cup flour, 3/4 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, a pinch of all spice, a pinch of cloves, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/4 cup brown sugar.

Once that's all combined, you mix together the wet ingredients: 1/4 cup applesauce, 2 tbsp maple syrup, 1 egg, 1 tbsp milk, and 2 tbsp melted butter (like I said, I doubled the recipe, hence why there's two eggs in the picture).

After adding the wet ingredients into the dry, I put it into a plastic bag to pipe into the pan. 

I may have cut the hole too big because it was pretty difficult to pipe it in well. But it worked well enough!

I baked each batch about 8 minutes at 350 degrees.

Then once the donuts are done, you need to make the frosting/glaze!

Start by melting 2 tablespoons butter with 1/4 cup brown sugar over medium heat.

Once it's all melted, let the mixture boil for a couple minutes, and then add 1 tablespoon milk. After that's mixed in, add 1/2 cup of powdered sugar and another tbsp of milk.

Once everything is mixed well, reduce it to low heat, and let it simmer while you dunk!

Oh man, they were SO delicious. Absolutely perfect with a mug of pumpkin spice coffee. The gingerbread flavor wasn't too strong, it was just right. They also made my apartment smell like gingerbread! Since the donuts are baked and not fried, they have that perfect cakey texture. I'm definitely excited to make more donuts in the future!