Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Cake Balls

So, I found a new amazing cooking blog called Bakerella. She makes these amazing cake balls. She also makes something called cake pops. Here are some of her fun designs: smiley faces, Hello Kitty, sheep, baby chicks, bunnies, cup cakes, and many more fun cake pops and other recipes. She is really amazing! Go check her out and your dessert world will never be the same!


I'm going to give you some basic instructions, but you have to just go check out Bakerella. Basically, bake a cake, let it cool completely, break it up in a bowl (as pictured below), add about 3/4 of a tub of frosting, mix it together throroughly, form it into balls (I used a mini ice cream scoop and it worked perfectly), place balls on wax paper on a cookie sheet or something, place the tray in the freezer for 5-10 minutes (longer is ok), melt your chocolate or candy coating while the ball is in the freezer, coat cake balls in chocolate and then let those set. ENJOY!


I decided to try them out last weekend and they were amazing and they totally got gobbled up! You can tell Bakerella has made these a ton because hers look so good and mine are a little funny :) They just take a lot of practice so get ready for some more cake ball designs coming up.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Fun Chunky Crayons


I got this fun idea from my friend Suzanna! It's a great way to use up all of your old broken and stubby crayons.


First peel all of the paper off of the crayon pieces and then break them up into small pieces.



Preheat oven to 225 degrees and put crayon pieces in the greased muffin cups. Put the tin in the oven and melt crayons for about 7-9 minutes (crayons melt pretty quickly).


Let the wax solidify again and then pop them out of the muffin pan. If the crayon doesn't totally come off your pans when you wash them, just use a little Dissolve-It or a Magic Eraser.


Sunday, April 5, 2009

Sunday Morning General Conference Pancakes

I found this recipe on Make and Takes and she calls them Pop Up Pancakes which I think is really cute. They taste a lot like crepes or German Pancakes...


Here's the recipe:

1 cup milk
1 cup flour
6 eggs
1/4 cup melted butter
pinch of salt

Directions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease your muffin tins. For best results, blend all ingredients together in a blender and then pour into the muffin tin cups. If you fill them a little less than half way you should bet 24 pancakes (or 1 9x13 baking pan).

For more detailed instructions and pictures visit Marie's post for Pop Up Pancakes.


I made them this morning before Conference and they were a hit with my husband and my kids. It is so fun to make lots of different creations:

Peaches and Cream


Bananas and Cream


Chocolate Chips and Cream


Homemade Raspberry Jam and Cream

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Sweater Vest and Matching Leg Warmers


Ready for a fun project that requires no sewing. My friend Jessica saw this idea on Good Things Utah. Anyway, here's what you do, go through your closet and find an old wool sweater that you don't wear any more...or go to Savers or DI or Good Will and find some wool sweaters. Go home and wash the sweaters in hot water in order to shrink them. Then simply cut off the sleeves. The sweater becomes a sweater vest and the sleeves become the leg warmers or leggings. So, here are the steps:

Step 1: Get a wool sweater.

100% wool is probably the best, but as you can see mine is 98% lambswool, 1% nylon, and 1% lycra spandex.


As you can see, the washing instructions clearly show that you should not wash a wool sweater in hot water. However, since we want it to shrink, go ahead and ignore that. Also, I threw mine in the dryer for a bit after I washed it and that seemed to be fine.


Step 2: Wash your wool sweater in hot water to shrink it and then allow it to dry.



Step 3: Cut off the sleeves at the seams


Step 4: Find a cute little girl to wear it like my neighbor Chadley.


She is about 4 1/2 years old and was the perfect size for my new sweater vest and leg warmers.


So this sweater went from a GAP woman's size S to 4T-5T...pretty awesome huh?

After cutting off the sleeves at the seam you will need to even them up so that they have a straight top. Also, according to Chadley, the wool leg warmers were a little itchy for her so I would recommend having your child wear tights or something like that under the leg warmers.