DIY: Eggnog Cupcakes with Spiced Rum

Baker's Royale has made a picture look so delicious we wish we could eat two dimensional objects!!  These look unreal.  We know that our frosting will not look this amazing, but if they taste anything remotely like they look we couldn't be happier...

  

Makes 24 cupcakes | Preparation: Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 muffins tins with cupcake liners.

Ingredients:

Cupcakes:

• 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• ¾ cup eggnog
• ¼ cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Spice Rum Buttercream:

• 5 large egg whites
• 11/2 cup sugar
• 4 sticks unsalted butter, diced and softened
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• ½ cup spiced rum

Instructions:

To make cupcake:

1. Measure out flour and set aside.
2. Add sugar and butter in a bowl and cream on medium speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs in 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with the eggnog and vanilla to start. Mix after addition until incorporated-do not overbeat.
3. Fill cupcake liners about 3/4 full and bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer cupcakes from tins to cooling rack. Allow cupcakes to cool completely before frosting.

To make Spice Rum Buttercream:

1. Combine egg whites and sugar in a bowl placed over simmering water. Bring mixture to 160 degrees F while whisking constantly.
2. Transfer mixture to stand mixer bowl, fitted with a whisk attachment and beat on medium  high speed (speed 8 on a KitchenAid stand mixer) until mixture cools and doubles in volume and forms stiff peaks; about 10-12 minutes).
3. Add butter in one piece at a time, mixing to incorporate after each addition. The mixture may appear clumpy and almost curdled looking at first-this is normal. Keep mixing and it will become even and smooth again.
4. Add salt and spiced rum and mix to combine.

 

DIY: Meal Planning Magnets

If you are someone that is way more organized than myself, you will love this tutorial from The Red Chair Blog that shows you how to upcycle those obnoxious advertisement magnets into fancy meal planning magnets for you and your family.  We love the idea of these, but we just aren't those kind of people who plan ahead.  Perhaps we could put events on these instead of food?  Things we know are coming up in that week so that we can let the other person know what's on our schedule??

Head to their blog to find the printable PDF for these!!

Materials:

• Junk mail magnets (the best are those awful giant magnets from personal injury lawyers that are always glued to the back cover of the phone book, but any flat magnets will do: pizza delivery, dentists' offices, credit card solicitations, etc.)
• Wide packing tape (I used the glossy kind)
• Scissors
• Decorative paper (I used 6 x 6 scrapbook paper)
• Double-sided tape (optional--not pictured)
• Computer and Printer

Instructions:
1. Start by flipping through your recipe file and listing your favorite "old standby" recipes. This tutorial will teach you how to make 35 magnets, but you can make as few as you'd like; you can always add more later.

2. Open Microsoft Word and create a table that is 5 squares wide by 7 squares high (my "squares" were each 1.25" x 1.5"). Type the name of one meal in each of the squares. Keep it simple--just name the main dish. You might also want to make several magnets that say "Left-Overs", "Dinner Out", "Take Out" and/or "New Recipe". I used a 22 point French Script MT font, and I centered the meal names in the squares.




















3. Print your page, and cut out the meal names. My meal names were smaller than the outlined squares once I cut them out. This doesn't have to be perfect! And yes, if you look carefully, you'll notice that one of my meals is scrambled eggs. What can I say? I'm a lazy cook!

4. Using scissors, cut a magnet to roughly 1.5"(w) by 1.75"(h). Cut a piece of scrapbook paper to the same dimensions. If you really want to annoy your friends & family with your fastidiousness, you can color code your magnets. I used yellow for meals that are protein-based, and blue for "carby" meals such as pasta dinners; that way, I can tell at a glance if my week is balanced (I'm a vegetarian, so I need to be mindful about protein).

5. Using double-sided tape (or very good fine motor skills) to keep the layers in place, layer the magnet, scrapbook paper, and meal name.

6. "Laminate" the whole thing with packing tape. To do this, cut the tape a little bit longer than the magnet, cut off all four corners of the tape, and fold toward the back (see below). This step can be time-consuming, but it's mindless enough that it's a good while-you're-watching-a-movie project.

7. If you'd like to use my days of the week and the "What's For Dinner" header, you can download a free PDF from my website here. I'm 99% sure that this PDF is working and is scaled properly, but please let me know if you discover a problem! To "laminate" shapes with rounded edges using packing tape, use "V" shaped notches to navigate the curves.

8. Arrange the current week's magnets on the front of your fridge--keep other meal magnets on the side of the fridge for planning future weeks' meals. To further streamline your meal planning, you can make your own customized, pre-printed grocery list with the instructions that I provided here.

DIY: Edible Sugar Skulls

Let's kick off the beginning October with a great DIY for Edible Sugar Skulls from Dollar Store Crafts.  We are hoping that we can find this ice cube skull tray at the Dollar Tree or perhaps, Target!  Head to Dollar Store Craft's blog for a video tutorial on this one as well!

 Making edible skulls is cheap, and so easy even a preschooler can do it. I made a batch of them, and after I was done, my 4 year-old used leftover sugar mixture to make a skull all by himself with no help from me. 

This project works with any mold, so think beyond the skulls!

Project Materials:

• 1 cup granulated white sugar, on hand
• 2 teaspoons water, on hand
• Silicone ice cube mold (skull shaped), $1
• Piece of cardboard or cookie sheet, on hand

Total: $1

Put 1 cup of granulated white sugar in a mixing bowl. Make an indentation in the middle of the sugar and add 2 teaspoons (yes, the itty bitty ones!) of water to it. Squish the mixture with your fingers for about one minute until completely incorporated. Make sure there are no lumps of dry sugar. When it's mixed, it should feel like wet sand.

Fill the molds with sugar and pack tightly. Level top off with a flat spatula or scraper.

Put a cookie sheet or piece of cardboard on top of the mold, then turn over and unmold the skulls immediately.

Let the skulls dry 5 hours or overnight, or put them in a 200° F oven for 5-10 minutes to help them dry more quickly. When they're dry, you can decorate them.

DIY – learn to make edible spoons

 Great idea from Zomoc.com - wonderful for parties! Quick, easy, and to the point!

Cowgirl Cookies in a Mason Jar

Who doesn't love cookies??  These cowgirl cookies are just adorable and would make an awesome gift for anyone that loves cookies - including yourself!

Thanks to Bakerella for this fantastic idea! Check out her page for a free printable PDF of the label on the jar - and a how to on the topper with ribbon and fabric!

Cowgirl Cookies

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup & leveled
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cooking oats
3/4 cup m&ms
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 – 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Stir all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

LAYERING THE JAR:

Start with a 1 quart smooth Ball jar. I found these at Hobby Lobby craft store.

Layer the ingredients in like this:

First: flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt
Second: oats
Third: m&ms
Fourth: chocolate chips
Fifth: brown sugar
Sixth: white sugar
Seventh: chopped pecans

Pack each level down really tightly. I mean it. Pack it in. Or else it won’t all fit. Also, I added the chopped pecans last, because if the ingredients were too much or not enough, then I could add more or less pecans to adjust. I’d rather sacrifice nuts than chocolate, you know. The ingredients should be flush to the top of the lid when you seal it up.

DIRECTIONS FOR BAKING COOKIES:

Add

1 slightly beaten egg
1/2 cup butter (melted slightly in the microwave)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Use the back of a large spoon to work it all together. You may even need to use your hands to get everything incorporated.

Then roll the cookie dough into 1 1/2 inch balls, place on a parchment covered baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven. I got about 26-28 cookies out of these.