Tote Bag

 

As age12 and I were browsing through Hobby Lobby, we ran across the cutest handkerchiefs.  This blue and brown one really caught our eye.  I'm not sure what made us think of it, but we thought it would make a cute large tote bag.  So we bought two and a plain brown to line the inside and detail the outside. 

I helped her design the style and she sewed the whole thing by herself.  I was pretty proud of her!

Chocolate Ombre Cake and a cake mix extender recipe

For my daughter's birthday this year I made the popular ombre cake in pulled petal style.  Obviously I didn't get a picture of the best side, I was too busy trying to get it on the table for the birthday guests.     I used a chocolate butter cream and a vanilla (from here) and mixed to get the shades.  I learned that these two types of frosting do not play well together.  It ends up the more of chocolate that I added, the more gooey it got.  I had to refrigerate it to get the dots to stay long enough to pull them but the cake was still cold from the freezer over night so that helped them set up.  As you can see they did stay set up but the mixture of all the left over at the end, I ended up dumping rather than use again.  Did I mention that in addition to the birthday cake I made 11 (ELEVEN) dozen half-size (bigger than mini but smaller than regular) cupcakes for a Marching band bake sale.

I used a cake extender recipe just to try and make the box at least semi homemade.  When I can, I prefer a scratch cake but when I have to make a large or a lot of cake I use box mixes because they are cheap and a LOT quicker.     So in the end 3 cake box mixes made this 3 layer 8 in cake and the eleven dozen or 6 dozen whole size cupcakes.

This is also known as WASC or White Almond Sour Cream and usually starts with a white cake mix but you can use most any flavor of mix or added flavorings.  One nice thing about it is that it cuts out the Oil usually called for in a box mix but then you are adding extra sugar and the cream.  Oh well.  This recipe isn't necessarily my favorite extender recipe but it's the one I used this time.

WASC cake mix extender.

1 box cake mix
1 cup flour
1 cup granulated sugar
generous dash of salt
1 cup sour cream
1 cup water
3 whole eggs
1 tablespoon flavoring  ( I use 2 teas. vanilla and 1 teas. almond)

Mix dry ingredients together.  Mix wet ingredients together.  Beat together well.     Bake in usual manner (I do 325º for about 30 min for 1 8 in. round pan.)

More Headbands

I made these headbands for a soon to arrive, long awaited niece.  I hope they fit.  The grey one is a smaller version of my previous headbands.  The black one is my design, the ribbon can be in or out or used to tighten etc.  The pink hat is a modification of a pattern out in the www.  It looks so tiny!  I tried a few different flowers but I came back to this design.    I also made a tiny little bracelet to match both the headbands and a watch band I made for the mother last year. 

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars

I love these bars.  Too much.  I need to be less selfish and greedy and give stuff like this away more so I don't have to eat left overs by myself.  Because I am such an awesome mother though I take all the fat and unhealthy stuff so my kids don't have to suffer.  It's true, look at my daughter and husband who have about 4% body fat combined.  I have taken all that pain and grief and suffering from them and lovingly added all their extra fat to myself.  That is what I tell myself anyway when I sneak the extra bar or two... while they are at work and school.



I made these for book club once.  I'm very talented at being able to make the words that come out of my mouth not match the thoughts in my head.  One women said "Who made these, they taste so deliciously naughty."  Instead of responding I made them, thank you.   I said "I'm good at naughty."   I actually meant I was good at making desserts that taste good and are not healthy in any way.   We all got a good laugh. 

I have been using a new ingredient in my baking.  Black Bee Vanilla  It is made locally and I like it.  I have the double Madagascar which I use in baking and a single Tahitian which I use in things that are not cooked or at least not as much.  This is not a paid endorsement, I just wanted to give them a shout-out.


Cheesecake Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Chocolate chip cookie layer:

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup butter flavored vegetable shortening
1 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp salt
1 T cider vinegar
1 large egg
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Cheesecake layer:

1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, at room temp
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, shortening, sugars, vanilla, salt and vinegar. Beat in the egg, then the baking soda and flour. Stir in the chocolate chips. Divide the dough into two equal portions and set aside.

2. In a medium mixing bowl cream the cream cheese with the sugar until thoroughly combined. Beat in the egg and vanilla.

3. In a 9x13 pan, spread 1/2 of the cookie dough mixture evenly across the bottom. (This is somewhat tricky to do. I find it easier to add dollops of cookie dough throughout the pan and then spread all the dollops together. Spread the cream cheese mixture on the top of the cookie dough. With the remaining cookie dough, flatten chunks of dough between your hands into discs, and then place on top of the cream cheese mixture. (The dough discs don't have to touch, just place them near each other so they cover the surface as well as possible.)

4. Bake at 350 for 35-45 minutes, or until the top is brown and cooked through. Cool completely and store in the refrigerator.


I found this recipe at Heat Oven to 350.  Thank you for sharing it with the world.

Magic Wands

My Son(s) have one of those "Wizardology" books that has fun open the envelope and take out the secret things on each page.  One part says how to make a wand, cut a stick and carve it etc.  My son mentioned it allllll weekend.  Now I don't know if you have been around here lately but we are short on substantial sized sticks and I'm not so sure I trust Age8 with a carving knife yet.    But I saw a super fun other idea for making wands just the last week and So I promised him we could do those.   I found the instructions on Instructables and they were very simple to make.  I should have gone back to look instead of going from memory but they still turned out alright. 

First you take a sheet of regular ol' paper and roll it from corner to corner, or at least in that direction in a manner that makes one end fatter then the other, placing a piece of double stick tape diagonally on the paper about 2/3 of the way to the end.  I did this part because my son thought it was hard to get the paper to go the right way and tight enough.  (not super tight)

Then you are supposed to put elmer's glue on the remaining part and finish rolling up.  This is the part I missed, I put another small piece of tape on the end instead and I think that worked well too but the glue probably would have been better and made it slightly sturdier.

Cut off each end so they are even then make a dot of hot glue in each end to seal and add to the shape/illusion.  Use the Hot glue to decorate the stick as you want.  It was hard to keep an even flow coming out for me so some spots are more bump-line-bump-line-etc.  We then painted a base color and let dry, then painted accents.  By this time Age11 was home from space camp and so mine  became hers and she finished painting the brown one while Age8 painted the silver.  When they were done I sprayed them both with a finish spray so the regular paint wouldn't rub off on their hands.  Fyi, the silver was spray paint and the brown  and gold were acrylic.

If we do this again I would change the following for me.  Insert another rolled up paper that is tighter on the inside to help it be sturdier.  Really it was pretty sturdy except at the smaller end where there wasn't any glue to reinforce it.  Also I would do the Elmer's glue at the end instead of another strip of tape but the benefit was we didn't have to let any glue dry before we went to the next step.  It was good to have the helper so that he could hold the wands upright while the hot glue ends were cooling.  I did roll up a wad of paper towel in each end just to catch the glue so to speak so it didn't drip all down the tube and was a good base for the hot glue.

I don't think Age8 put his down for 5 days and would have slept with it had he not know it would crush.  They spent the day casting spells and whatnot.  After a few days the silver one got slightly crushed on the end from too much touching/poking stuff instead of just pointing. But you don't notice right off. Plus that way if a kid gets a little rambunctious the wand will crumple before anyone gets hurt.  And when it truly dies then I know it's easily replaceable if he isn't over that already.

Coincidentally I noticed while posting that Age15 is in the background watching Merlin. (probably only because it says Merlin did I notice what show it was) Quite the wizardly day at our house.