5 Things You Can Accomplish when You're not too Busy Blogging

WARNING - I'm about  to unleash a bunch of blogging cliches and excuses....

It's been a long time... Things have been busy.... blah, blah, blah, blah.

Truth is I just plain haven't felt all that inspired to blog for a while, and, I have been busy. Blogging is very time consuming.

Here are 5 things I have discovered that you can accomplish when you're not too busy blogging:

1. Clean out the store-room

2. Paint several rooms in your house

3. Take a Spanish class

4. Spend a day at the zoo

5. Help your son create stop-motion animation movies with his legos! (he did most of the work himself and I'm very proud!)

Of course I did find time to do a little baking. The photos above and below are both projects I never found the time to blog about.

Anyway - thanks for having patience with me. I've got photos all ready to go for my next post. I'm actually going to write that post right now - and publish later this week!

Thanks! - Emily

Pi(e) Treats!

Growing up my mom made the best pies ever... from scratch, perfectly baked and so yummy. Did I take the time to learn from her? No, not at all. I occasionally made "cookies" from the scraps and that was about the extent of my participation other than of course eating them. Last fall, my daughter was required to bring three pies for a fund raiser. My thoughts were that it would be a lot of work but I surely could figure it out. Well... it was a frustrating day to say the least. My pumpkin pie just wouldn't get done... I'm not sure how many hours I ended up baking it. In making my apple pie I didn't realize you should cut the top crust larger than the bottom so the edges looked funny. By the time I got to my cherry pie I did better but it still wasn't near "Mom" quality. So I called my husband and asked him to please pick up at least one pie at a bakery as I knew I for sure couldn't take the pumpkin. He did so I sent the bakery pie along with apple and cherry pies wishing my name wasn't on the bottom of the pie pans! Then I promptly called Emily and said that when I started blogging with her I would never ever make or talk about pies!

The next day I went to the fundraiser event and was greeted with praise on how great my pies looked and told that I must be quite the baker! So I looked at the other pies (which I quickly determined were mostly grocery store bought and baked) and realized maybe I'd been a little too hard on myself that my pies might not be my mom's but they were okay and I could try again. :)

So... in honor of Pi(e) day I thought I'd do just that. This time I decided to make tiny apple pies in cupcake tins. I cut small (about 4 inch) circles of pie crust and placed them in the bottom of the cupcake tins. One pie crust worth of dough made 5. I then peeled and sliced 3 apples and dumped some sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg on top and made sure all the apples were coated. I had a little dough left so I cut little strips for the top, placed a tiny bit of cold butter on top along with a little sugar and baked them until golden brown (about 20 minutes or so). They were super easy, turned out great and were very yummy! My son said it was the best pie he'd ever eaten. So yes, I'll make pie again. :)

Treats Made with Oreos

Oreos are celebrating their 100th birthday today so I thought I'd write an Oreo themed post.

As much as I love homemade cookies - I'll admit - Oreos are near the top of my list of favorite cookies. I could easily snarf a bag all by myself. And mint oreos? mmmmmmmm..... pure heaven.

I planned on compiling, testing and sharing a whole bunch of oreo recipes and ideas but this is as far as I got...

Oreos dipped in almond bark accented with a sugar paste diamond to match my napkins.

I do have to say - I love these napkins! I was cruising the aisles at Target the other day looking for a bit of inspiration and I found all their Mara-Mi party napkins and plates. Lots of great colors and patterns!

A Treat from Back in the Day!

The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook is coming out this week and I can't wait to get it! Cheryl Day allowed me to interview her for my blog about 3 years ago (way back in the day!). I asked all kinds of really ridiculous, snoopy questions and she answered them all. I thought her answers were really interesting, truthful and inspiring. Cheryl tops the list of famous bakers I'd most like to meet. I think she'd be a lot of fun to hang out with.

So - in honor of her/their first cookbook, thought I'd repost the interview. Congratulations Cheryl and Griffith!

Click to read more ...

Birthday Treats!

Amy's birthday is tomorrow and my Mom's birthday is Thursday so I've been busy making birthday treats!

Happy Birthday to two of my favorite people!

I made my mom's chocolate sauce recipe for the cake. Soooo gooood... I found myself making a few too many batches of it to pour over my icecream last summer.

Here's her recipe:

Chocolate Sauce

2 cups sugar

2 squares unsweetened chocolate

1 cup milk

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 T. butter

Combine sugar, chocolate and milk. Boil until a little holds its shape when tried in cold water. Then add vanilla and butter and beat until creamy.

Emily