It's October!

I am so excited it's finally October, it's ridiculous. As I've gotten older (fyi I am only 22 years old haha!) I have noticed that I am becoming more and more like my mom. Which is scary by the way! My mom is NOTORIOUS for calling her children 1000 different names before getting it right....I'm not that bad yet, I've still got my names and faces in order, so at least I've got that going for me still...right? However, I have inherited her undying love for the holidays. I think if we would have let her listen to Christmas music in July, she would have.

More than the decorations, the weather, and the holiday parties, I love most of all, the food. The food in and of itself is a holiday decoration! There's just an endless array of options to choose from! You can make ghost shaped sugar cookies, deadly vampire cupcakes, pumpkin this, pumpkin that, gingerbread houses, caramel apples, etc. It's truly amazing.

So today's post is a little sneak peak at my pathetic attempt to make homemade cookie and candy jars with homemade sugar cookies that are fitting for Halloween!



SMILE :)



I am a big fan of giving credit where credit is due, so I'd like the thank Our Best Bites for the sugar cookie recipe and for the glace' recipe. You can get their awesome recipe from their site (I'm still learning all this blog stuff so I don't quite know how to put links and what not in).

As for the jars, well I have been wanting something...festive I guess you could say, for my cookies and goodies for the holidays. Except, I'm still living the life of a starving college student so I'm on quite a budget. And, we live in an apartment, so there's not much room for storage. Instead of buying a jar or plate for EVERY single holiday, I wanted something interchangeable. So I came up with jars that are decorated to each holiday and that cost hardly anything!

So here's what I did (sorry I forgot to take pictures while I was doing this) it's pretty simple.

1. Buy jars large enough for cookies to fit into. (Hobby Lobby has some good ones for cheap)

2. Pick out your favorite holiday themed scrapbook paper, 12 x 12 is the best.

3. Choose a matching ribbon, accessory, etc. to wrap around the top of the jar.

4. Measure and cut your paper to size.

5. Before attaching both ends of the paper, measure the same size cut out of wax paper (this helps prevent the scrapbook paper from getting greased by the cookies)

6. Tape wax paper to scrapbook paper cut out, then attach the two ends to make a circle.

7. Slip it inside, and tie the ribbon around the top of the jar!

Viola! Easy and cheap.

That's it, easy huh?! I am so excited for my next post! Halloween Cupcakes and Fall Cupcakes!! Now go get baking!

HOORAY!

My husband is a Registered Nurse! And a graduate of the University of Southern Nevada, now known as Roseman University! Since we met in 2008 he has been going to school full time and working like a mad man. We are so happy that he is done....for now :). His school was an 18 month long Bachelors of Nursing program. Insane right? The last 18 months have been absolutely nuts. ABSOLUTELY NUTS! The day he had his school interview was the same day we found out we were expecting our first child! As a side-note, we had only been married for FOUR MONTHS when I got pregnant! So first he gets into nursing school, then we find out we are expecting, then the pregnancy was extremely difficult and scary, now he's graduated and passed his NCLEX and is an RN at the University of Utah Hospital. Compared to the last 18 months, life almost seems boring.

So, to celebrate my husband's graduation we threw a little BBQ with friends and family. And naturally, I had to make a cake :) So there's my cute husband holding his RN Grad Cake!

This was my first cake I have ever made with butter cream! As you can tell...I need practice!I'll be honest with this post and cake....it was my first butter cream cake and I hadn't quite mastered a good recipe so....I used frosting from a can :/ I know, I know....don't worry, I have not used a can since! Congrats Jason! Here's to you and becoming a Nurse!!  Here's the deets on the cake:

The Cake

I used a recipe from Allrecipes.com. For the record, if it's not a recipe that I came up with, I will ALWAYS give credit where credit should be given. Here is the link Allrecipe's Strawberry Cake from Scratch. Filled with cream cheese icing and fresh strawberries.

RECIPE

2 cups white sugar
1 (3 oz) package of strawberry gelatin
1 cup butter, softened
4 eggs (room temp)
2 3/4 cup sifted cake flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup whole milk (room temp)
1 Tb. vanilla extract
1/2 cup strawberry puree (I used fresh strawberries, not frozen but their recipe calls for frozen)
*1/4 cup white chocolate shavings, optional. I added the chocolate to give it a little creamier taste and add some dimension to it.

First preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Now the original recipe makes 2 9 inch cake pans, however I made 1 and a half batches of the recipe to make my husbands cake that was an 8 inch and 6 inch round. Make sure to grease AND flour your pans. 
In a large bowl or mixer, cream butter, sugar, and dry gelatin mix together till they are light and fluffy. Beat eggs in one at a time until well combined. Combine the flour and baking powder; stir into batter alternately with the milk. Blend in the strawberry puree and vanilla. If making two 9 inch rounds, divide batter in half and fill each pan.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. To test if done, stick a toothpick or knife into the center and if clean when removed then its done! Also, if the edges have started to pull from the pan. Let sit to cool and remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.

ICING RECIPE:

Cream Cheese Frosting

4 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 stick butter, room temp
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1 (8 oz) block of cream cheese, softened

Sift the sugar and cream with butter and cream cheese. Add vanilla and mix well.

Filling

2 cups mashed strawberries, fresh or frozen
1-2 Tb. sugar
1 tsp. lemon juice
1-2 tsp. orange juice (if you use extract I'd use only 1 tsp.)

Wash, cut, slice, and mash your berries. Add sugar and juices. Mix well and chill for about an  hour.

TIPS:
I always grease and flour my pans and it's usually pretty fool proof, however if you are still nervous that your cakes will stick to your pans then I suggest making a cut out of wax paper that fits the bottom of your pan. Also, always always always cream sugars and butters first (unless otherwise directed). My mom always had a rule of mixing all wet ingredients first then mix dry and then combine slowly.

Stay tuned for more posts!

The first of MANY!

Finally!

I've decided to start a blog. I must admit, I have been a blog "hater" for a few years now and felt pretty good about being one of the few that doesn't blog. Even after getting married and having a baby, I STILL didn't want to start blogging. But then......Then a long lost love of mine came creeping back into my life and now here I am, blogging.

I started "caking" I guess you could call it, when I was about 17 years old and fell in love with the idea of working with cakes and frostings all day long. Who wouldn't right? My sister and our friend were both pregnant at the time with boys! So when they decided to do a joint baby shower, I jumped at the idea of making my first cake! A wonderful lady from my church offered to teach me the ropes and I couldn't be more thankful. All it took was that baby shower cake and now I'm hooked.

I hope everyone gets as much joy out of my blog as I've gotten from making these cakes.

This is the cake! To be honest, I was a ditsy teenager at the time so I don't even remember what the flavors were or anything. Sad huh? But for my first ever cake done with fondant, not too shabby?