Food

Grass Block Cake

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I knew that it was inevitable at some point my kids would be talking about something I knew nothing about. That day has arrived. Minecraft has invaded. I still do not understand it completely, but my oldest loves it. He looks forward to computer class once a week when he gets to play it and the rest of the week he talks about it. 

On his birthday, I made him a grass block cake. In Minecraft, everything is built from blocks, and apparently, grass comes in blocks too. The cake is made from two 8×8 chocolate cakes frosted with chocolate icing, and the top is frosted with green icing. I used the Wilton grass tip (233) to make the green icing look like grass.

Minion Cupcakes

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I am that mom that sends cupcakes to school for her kid’s birthday, please don’t hate me, I like baking. One of the kids in my son’s class asked him how many days it took me to make them! Honestly as you might be able to tell these were very quick, from start to finish it didn’t take more than 2 hours including baking time.

I challenged myself to make and decorate cupcakes without going to the grocery store. It’s beginning to look like Michael’s in many parts of my house and it’s about time that I used some of the supplies I have. Believe it or not I had minion cupcake wrappers, no doubt I saw them somewhere cheap one day and bought them (then forgot about them). So Minion’s were the theme. With cake mix, frosting, food colouring, eggs, oil, white lifesavers, and chocolate chips on hand I got to work. Here was the result.

On the eighth day of Christmas…

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On the eighth day of Christmas we were baking again, if you can call making rice crispy treats baking. I am that mom that sends treats to school with her kids for holidays, birthdays or once because I was taking a cake decorating class and I needed someone to eat my homework. Before school broke for the holidays I sent rice crispy tree treats to school with each of my kids. My husband brought the ones to my sons preschool party because I was writing an exam, and you will never guess where the Tupperware container is. If you guessed still at the school you are correct. So much for being green.

I made the rice crispy treats as per the box instructions in a parchment lined baking pan, sprinkled them with coloured sprinkles and put them in the fridge. After they were formed I removed them from the tray using the parchment, and cut them into rectangles and then triangles. To be totally honest I had the frosting in the fridge already mixed in piping bags so it looks like more of an effort than it really was. I piped on some details, and popped on some edible ornaments and a few dozen trees were born.

On the seventh day of Christmas…

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It’s well past the seventh day of Christmas and it has been a busy few days. On the seventh day of Christmas I did some baking, about seven dozen treats in under four hours. In an ideal world I would have a day to bake and a clean kitchen to do it in, but in reality Christmas baking was crammed in after an exam and before my helpers had to go to bed. I do like to get the kids involved in the kitchen which often proves to be a challenge. This time I put them to work smashing candy canes.

We made three different treats:

  1. Peanut butter cookies with Hershey kisses. The recipe was on the back of the peanut butter jar, simple. When the cookies were hot out the oven I put a kiss in the middle of each and popped them into the freezer so that the chocolate didn’t melt everywhere.
  2. Peppermint Brownies. In an effort to be fast and efficient (read lazy) I made brownies from a box mix complete with frosting. The kids smashed candy canes which I gingerly placed (read dumped) on top.
  3. Gingerbread people. These were made from scratch, the recipe is here. I sprinkled powdered sugar on some of them, decorated the six in the photo but in truth most of them are naked in my fridge. They may or may not get all spiffed up before we gobble them up.

 

On the second day of Christmas

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On the second day of Christmas my true love made for me two types of reindeer treats, and a veggie tree.

Reindeer Cupcakes

reindeer cupcakes

Reindeer Cookies

reindeer cookies

 

Crafting through the holidays

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I started this blog years ago under the title Crafting Through the Holidays and each day during the 12 days of Christmas I would post a new craft. The last few years I have continued the tradition and this is the 4th anniversary of the 12 days of Christmas crafting. It also happens to be smack in the middle of my graduate school exams. So I am going to share some of my past favourites and a few new crafts over the next 12 days. Enjoy!

On the first day of Christmas…it’s not a partridge in a pear tree but a veggie tree.

veggie tree

On the first day of Christmas…my true love made me a Veggie Tree

Frightful Tricks and Treats

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Halloween is one of my favourite days of the year. With little ones it’s easy to get caught up in all of the excitement. Here are a couple of projects that we made for the holiday.

Mummy Cupcakes

We went to a Halloween party and brought these mummy cupcakes as dessert. They are chocolate cupcakes with white icing, and red M&M’s for eyes.

Pumpkin Rice Crispies

These treats went to one of my boys classes for a Halloween party. I found the instructions here. I took some liberties with the recipe and added pretzels for stems and green frosting leaves.

Pumpkins

Halloween Wreath

I copied my own idea from last years Christmas wreath and made a similar wreath for Halloween with orange and black washi tape.

wreath

As a pretty passionate maker you might think that I would be making the kids halloween costumes but I don’t. The reason why is that it’s just too expensive. I do however make my own costume every year. This year I was little red riding hood. I didn’t make it into any of the photos this year 😦

Happy 3rd Birthday

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At the end of August my youngest turned three just a couple of weeks after I had surgery. We still managed to celebrate multiple times. When my parents were here we had a little family celebration complete with store-bought cupcakes. On his actual birthday we had a store-bought cake. There isn’t anything wrong with buying cakes from the store but I use every occasion as a reason to bake.

The baker in me was having a really hard time but I was not in any state to be baking. I was still recovering from brain surgery. But that didn’t go on forever and when I was feeling better we threw a birthday party/Timmy the tumour eviction party. We asked friends for donations to the Brain Tumour Foundation instead of birthday gifts. That might seem mean but we have so many toys he really doesn’t need anything else. Can you find him in toy mountain?

The theme for the party was robots because now that I have a titanium plate in my head I am part robot. But really it’s what my little boy asked for. In keeping with the theme we made a robot pinata. Unfortunately when I took the robot outside for a photo-shoot one of my assistants closed the front door which locked behind us. Even more unfortunate I had to call my husband at work 45 minutes away to come and let us in the house. It was just before lunch and the kiddies were hungry thankfully my husband rescued us before we needed to smash the robot for lunch.

By the time the party happened I was four weeks post surgery and I figured that I was fine to start baking. Which I would have been if I chose to make a less detailed cake. After completing the robot cake I needed a nap.

The birthday boy said that it was the best day of his life and of course that makes all of the effort worthwhile.

The children ate my homework

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the baby ate my homeworkYears ago when my oldest was about 1 he actually ate part of an essay. He was sitting in a highchair at the dining table while I was working on an assignment and I looked over and there he was chewing on my homework.

I enrolled in a cake decorating class in June and after the first session the instructor needed to post-pone the balance of the classes because he had to go for surgery. Then I had to go in for surgery and I restarted the course in September. With this class comes a lot of baking. Each week I need to bring cake, cupcakes or cookies to class to decorate depending on what we are learning.

I have zero self control so I can’t have all of these treats in the house week after week. The first week our babysitter accepted payment in cupcakes. The second week I brought a cake to two different events on the same evening. This week my homework is headed to my son’s grade 1 class. Amazingly there are no food allergies in a class of 23.

On the menu this week, sugar cooking with buttercream flowers. The children with eat my homework and hopefully enjoy it.

The first week back

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It’s been 5 weeks since my craniotomy to remove Timmy the tumour. This past week was also the first week back to school. My oldest started grade 1 without any tears, which was a very big deal. I started back to school pursuing a MBA online for my third semester. My youngest starts preschool next week which we are both looking forward to. My husband was at a conference all week and basically came home to change and sleep. On Thursday he flew to Ontario for the weekend to spend much needed time with his family.

For the transition back to school I was pretty much flying solo and by Friday I was so proud of myself. I had S to school everyday on time with a healthy lunch and clean clothes. I managed to complete the course work for the first module in two of my classes. I finished an art piece for a juried Brain Tumour exhibition. The kids had an after school play date three of four school days. I hit my fitness goals twice in the week by walking S home from school. I even managed to bake a cake for my cake decorating class. My house was moderately clean which is about as clean as it ever gets. I felt like I was on top of the world. After four weeks of resting it was a busy week.

I had registered for a cake decorating class in June and after the first class the instructor had to cancel because he had to have surgery. Then I had to have surgery so we coordinated schedules and I am back to class in September. This class requires that I bake something every week so that I have something to decorate. Which also means that I have way too much baking in the house thankfully our babysitter accepts payment in cupcakes!!

Saturday morning my youngest had a runny nose which isn’t such a huge deal, but then my oldest started throwing up. He had a fever and it was probably the sickest he has ever been. He slept with me so I could keep an eye on him and we have an en-suite. I knew that the kids would be fine they bounce back from being sick so quickly. But I have been afraid of getting sick since I had surgery. I am not interested in a head cold because my head is still healing. I am really not interested in throwing up for many reasons but primarily because I am supposed to stay away from jarring activities. Plus does anyone ever want to get sick.

The chances of making it through the weekend without getting sick were not in my favour. Saturday night I got a sore throat and was congested. But on the bright side I can now sleep on the left side of my head! After 5 weeks of only sleeping on my right side it a welcome change to sleep on my left. It was pretty much a necessity to be able to switch sides so that I could breathe. Perhaps this cold is my body’s way of telling me to slow down and rest again, or it’s those germy kids either way I am going to have an afternoon nap. If I have learned anything from this brain tumour it’s that we should listen to our bodies, we only get one and it’s a gift that needs to be taken care of.