Oh sugar sugar!

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of watching some of my best friends' little boy, Little N, for a few days while they went out of town for a work convention. 2 year old boys are so much fun and so sweet, but definitely require a lot of activity. We did just about everything: Chuck E. Cheese, running through the sprinklers and playing outside with sweet Cali. But you don't think I wouldn't put some sort of craft/art/cooking project, do you?

Of course not! Now, I didn't really want to do something that would allow Little N to make a huge mess and possibly ruin something in his parents' house, so painting was out. I also didn't want anything that required a whole lot of planning, but I did want something that would peak his interest and get him excited! What do little boys like more than anything (other than The Wiggles, that is)? COOKIES!

Big box of cookie cutters...
$9.99 at Bed Bath and Beyond

We went out and got some sugar cookie dough, cookie cutters, chocolate frosting and sprinkles! I rolled the dough out between two sheets of parchment paper and let Little N pick out his cookie cutters. I won't lie and say I let him do it all by himself. I'm too much of a control freak for that. I let him do a couple and then sent him off to play for a few minutes while those cooked. While they were in the oven, I rolled and cut most of the rest.

Little N chose this one for mom and dad...
Apparently he thought they spent their whole vacay on the plane. 

When they were out and cooled, I let Little N help me put some frosting and sprinkles on top of the cookies. He was so proud. I wish I'd taken some pictures of the final product because no one in the world will believe the insane amount of sprinkles that were on some of these cookies. It would have made a large man have a sugar high that could last for days.

With the left over dough and sprinkles, I had a great idea. I rolled it into balls and let Little N roll them around in bowls of sprinkles. They turned out really cute, but he didn't like these as much as his crazy sugar-coated sugar cookies.

All I can say is YUM! 

All in all, I have to say this was the highlight of my weekend with this little guy! I had so much fun, I almost wanted to tell his parents to go away for another few days so we could do more fun stuff! :) Almost...

Give me "Samoa" that Cake!

Oh birthdays...I love them! Especially when they involve my wonderful boy or my girls! This past Saturday we celebrated Rachel's birthday and I have to say, I wasn't sure I could top what I did for Gen's birthday! Rachel also wanted something very specific and I wasn't really sure I could make that happen either.

But I did...

Enter the tastiest cake I've ever made...

The (total knockoff of a Girl Scout Cookie) Samoa Cake:

Man, it looks like a hot mess in these pictures (and, honestly, it kinda was a hot mess, but there's a reason for that) and it fell apart when we were trying to cut it, but who the heck cares when it tastes just like a Samoa cookie.

If you guys don't know me very well, you might not know that every year I tell myself not to buy Girl Scout cookies from the nanner girl, but every year, she gives me that sad puppy-dog look and her big blue eyes guilt me into buying 3 or 4 boxes of Samoas and 2 boxes of Thin Mints. (As far as I'm concerned, they might as well not even make any of the other cookies. They don't exist to me.) And every year I manage to consume all of the boxes I've bought within two weeks. Sometimes even one.

That said, I knew I had to make this cake taste perfect. To be fair, Rachel didn't ask for a Samoa cake specifically, but she did ask for a chocolate coconut cake and when she said that, all I could think of was the delicious coconut and caramel mix of my favorite cookie drizzled with chocolate on top of shortbread. Sigh...when are those damn girl scouts going to take my order?

I started off by making my own version of the cookie to see if I could get it right, but I used dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate and they didn't taste quite right. I decided to call them Samo-eh's and let E take them to work. Everyone in his office (with the exception of one guy who doesn't like coconuts) liked them fine but agreed that they weren't quite the same.

I perfected my recipe and was all set to go to the grocery on Thursday, but then it started storming like crazy. Another fun fact about me: I HATE thunder. I will not go outside while it is happening and I will not do anything involving me and water. I think I was told as a kid that you shouldn't take showers or baths while it's thundering outside because I won't go near the stuff. I am also pretty sure mom made me try to take naps during storms because they ALWAYS make me sleepy if I'm at home.

So, I made a plan for Friday. I was all set to go. But then I took the nanner kids on a little excursion. On bikes. Down the road. Which was dumb. Everything was going well at first. But then nanner girl, bless her heart, stopped short in front of me and I had to swerve to miss her, causing me and nanner baby to tumble to what could have been our collective doom. Thankfully we lived and he was totally fine. I sustained some minor scrapes, some extensive bruising and a (still) very painful shoulder, elbow and wrist injury.

As it was my dominant wrist that got hurt, making this cake proved to be a challenge, not only to my baking skills, but also to my ability to push through pain. Hence why the cake is a little less clean looking than I would like.

Anyway, here's what's inside. Sorry I don't have a picture of this, but it was rather messy once we cut into it.

It's similar to Gen's cake in that it has layers and the whipped cream but I changed some stuff up a bit.

Layer of dark chocolate cake, layer of dark chocolate icing, layer of homemade shortbread, layer of coconut caramel mixture (just like the cookies...ahhhh), layer of chocolate cream cheese whipped cream. One more layer of that topped with a final layer of cake and SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS...

You've got the interior finished. Now, ice it with the chocolate frosting, cover with chocolate fondant, sprinkle it with leftover shortbread and coconut, drizzle with chocolate.

I'd recommend keeping this in the fridge until you're ready to eat it. The problem lies in the coconut mixture. I have to find a way to keep it softer, even in the fridge, because as it was, it was nearly impossible to cut.

It sure tasted good though...I even got marriage proposals from some of my friends. Although Evan didn't seem amused by this, I took it as a compliment.

Chocolate Covered Goodness!

Sometimes it seems surreal, but almost a decade ago, I met my absolute best friend. We weren't exactly friends at first, but one fateful weekend in our old sorority house, when everyone else had gone home for a break, Gen and I had no choice but to bond. Since then we've done practically everything together. (You know, except for the fact that she has a husband and a kid now, but that's besides the point.) 

Anyway, two weeks ago I got to celebrate Gen's 27th birthday with her. How better to do so than with an epic cake and some new Jessica Simpson shoes! If you don't know me, I LOVE shoes! Evan thinks I have a problem. Maybe I do, but I love the fact that Gen and I wear the same size! 

Nicole, Gen and me in our FAB shoes!
We all love shoes and share excellent taste,
if I do say so myself! :) 

While putting on our dancing shoes and hitting up our favorite places in Buckhead was fun, the cake definitely deserves a mention! I usually try to surprise people, but I pretty much run everything by Gen, so why should this time be any different? I asked her what kind of cake she wanted. She said "chocolate with strawberries. Nothing too fancy."

You really want me to do something simple? I didn't think so! I took her idea and I ran with it.

I knew I wanted to do something with strawberries in the middle and I knew I wanted to layer it a little. Kinda like a trifle, but not really. I started with the basic chocolate cake (2 of them actually) and baked them in the awesome 9x square pans my mom just bought me (thanks mom!). After they cooled, I sliced them and put a thin layer of cream cheese icing on the first layer. Then I put a layer of strawberries on top of that.

A note about the strawberries: I cut them up, sprinkled them with sugar and let them sit for a while. When I say I sprinkled them, that is a lie...I actually poured sugar on them, but I suggest just sprinkling because pouring lead to a massive mess later.

After the strawberries I added a layer of homemade cream cheese-based whipped cream. This stuff was AMAZING! I can't even pretend to be humble about this. It was a total success. You blend the cream cheese and sugar together with my secret ingredient: 2 teaspoons of ALMOND EXTRACT. My Nana is probably fussing at me from Heaven because she believed religiously in vanilla extract and would NEVER have put cream cheese in her whipped cream, but let me tell you...this was a whole new ball game, Nana...you would have been proud. Whip in the heavy whipping cream until it makes a stiff peak. Layer that on top of the strawberries. Add another layer of cake, icing, strawberries and whipped cream. One more layer of cake and you're finished with the inside of the cake.

Stick it in the freezer for a minute while you mix the fondant. I set some aside once it was mixed and left it white. Then I mixed up the color for the rest of it. I was trying to make red, but unfortunately I mixed pink in there instead. Fortunately it ended up looking really pretty so I decided not to freak out about it. Later. I did freak a little at the time and my hands were stained pink for quite some time.

With the leftover white fondant, I did something that most people would call...obsessive. I rolled it all into little tiny balls to look like pearls. :) Pearls make everything classier!

Once the cake was cooled and delicious looking, I covered it with the same cream cheese icing and then rolled out the fondant and placed it over top. Then I stuck it back in the freezer. For good measure. And to solidify its perfection.

While that was going on, I decided to cover some strawberries in chocolate and drizzle with white chocolate on top. Then I did that on the cake too. Top it off with the strawberries and add the pearls at the bottom and voila! You've got a masterpiece for your mouth. Delicious!

Happy Birthday, bestie! So happy we've been friends for so long! You're the best!

Beer me, Baby!!

So. I'm pretty much the best girlfriend in the world at this point. Evan and his twin brother had their birthday this weekend and I have been planning an epic birthday cake for months now. Evan and Cam both really like beer. And I really like challenging myself. So I decided to make a "beeramid" cake.

As much as I would like to go into great detail here, I'm not feeling super hot today and I've got to work (7 days off and I've forgotten how cute these kids are!) so it's gonna be a short post with lots of pictures.

Here's the short-hand how-to...

Cut off the end of a can: 

Spray it with PAM and stuff it with rice krispie treats that you JUST made (don't let them cool down and harden!)

After you've made as many as you want (one batch of rice krispies will make about 4 cans), let them harden over night. 

Cali badly wanted to eat them. Mercedes did too, but she
was trying to be stealthy about it and was hiding
from the camera. Smart cat...

Mock-up of how they'd stack...looking good I think...

Put a ring of fondant around the top and use some fondant to fill in any weird holes or gaps in the treats. 

Then cover the whole thing with grey fondant. I also used a little darker grey to make the hole and the same light grey to make the pop top. :)

Make sure you are using cornstarch to keep the fondant from sticking to your rolling surface or itself. Please avoid getting cornstarch on your dog. She will not like it. 

Now you've got to figure out what you need to do for the labels. I talked to one of Evan and Cam's best friends, Andy, who just happens to know everything there is to know about craft beer. I asked him to send me a few pics of craft beers in cans that the twins liked. He recommended Brew Free or Die, Gordon, Dale's Pale Ale, Surly Furious and then I added in Yuengling because I know Cam likes it. 

I rolled out white fondant in the right size for a label and used edible markers to decorate. The lovely ladies at Cake Art also suggested this white edible food coloring that I used much like acrylic paint. It worked some of the time, but not all of the time. Might have been user error on that one. 

Anyway, I can't tell you how I made the labels look so awesome because I'm just talented like that...ok, I'm just really good at copying things. But I still can't help you get better at that. You have to do that for yourself. Anyway, I finished up the beer cans and decided to do some playing cards as well. Reason for this: anytime there ends up being a "beeramid" on the table, there has usually been a drinking game of some sort that involves playing cards. Simple enough. 

Anyway, the next day, Cam's girlfriend, Allie came over to help me do the grunt work. We made the cake (1/2 sheet red velvet...exciting, right?) and covered it in icing and fondant. She also had the great idea to make a playstation remote for the cake as well. Since I am lousy at sculpting on my own, I was glad she was there to do that part. She sculpted the remote and I made the buttons. Then we decided it was time to add everything to the cake. 

We used skewers to make sure the cans stayed where we wanted. That was harder than it looks.

Remote close-up

Crushed can: I carved some of the sides out and made it
look all crushed like that before I added the label.

The cake with all the candles.
There is a napkin in front of it for a reason.
Someone decided to put their finger in it. :(

Anyway, that's all she wrote. Hopefully y'all liked the cake. I sure enjoyed making it! :) Thanks for the help, Allie! Happy Birthday, boys! :) 

Chow down!!

For the love of...US

What a crazy year it’s been…

A little over a year ago, I met the most amazing guy…we went out, we had some dinner, we went to Ikea…we fell in love.

Since then we’ve had about a million adventures and made some really great memories. With Evan’s birthday fast approaching, I wanted to give him something heartfelt and original. Well, maybe not so original…Evan and I recently went to church with my friend Rachel and there was this amazing painting behind the pastor…I might have used that piece as my inspiration, but I definitely made it my own!

What I did was paint the entire canvas red and let it dry. Then I layered different colors top of it with no real rhyme or reason. Finally, I painted a big red heart smack-dab in the center.

While that dried, I sketched out some of the things I wanted to put on our “For the Love of Us” painting. In case you couldn’t tell what really is on there, it’s a year’s worth of inside jokes, things that we’ve done, places we’ve been and a lot of who we are. Evan’s family is from California, mine is from Georgia, we’ve taken quite a few trips this year, we got a dog, we love Ikea…just the usual stuff.

Anyway, after about 3 hours of sketching, I didn’t want to have to re-do all of my pictures, so I decided to use transfer paper and then go over those pictures with sharpie later…

This also allowed me to cut the pictures out and place them where I wanted to and mix it up a bit. So, that’s what I did. After I’d placed all of my important pieces, I realized I had a lot of space left over so I filled in with little phrases we say, tiny little things that only make sense to us.

Now I was planning on giving this to Evan on his actual birthday, but he had to go pick up the pup from my place and I forgot to hide it before I left. Anyway, he saw it way before he was supposed to and now it’s hanging over Evan’s couch. He loved it! (or so he says! Haha)

So, as I've been spending quite some time outside with the nanners this summer, I've taken a good hard look at my midsection. We are not pleased. (yes, I'm invoking the royal "we" here...I like to pretend I'm a princess sometimes...get over it.)

It's not that I'm big or even that out of shape, but compared to where I used to be when I was dancing and singing and running around like a mad woman in high school, there is something to be desired. Don't worry, this is not going to be a "Debbie Downer," self-loathing post. Quite the opposite, really.

Seeing so much of my stomach, which has been in hibernation until recently, has made me realize that if I just pay a little attention to what I eat and actually make an attempt to work out every so often, I will be a happier, healthier me.

I've already done a bit of research on exercise that can reduce stress and help me tone up and I've decided to start doing pilates a couple of times a week. That started last night with my friend, Casey and a trip to Target. I honestly felt sore this morning (sad, right?) and it made me feel like keeping up the trend of healthy living.

So I opted for yogurt instead of cupcakes this afternoon and I felt inspired to cook for Evan and myself tonight. Unfortunately, all I had in my freezer were toaster struedels, pizzas and vodka. Not really much you can do with that (although the vodka might replace my glass of wine tonight...what's up Ketel One? It's stress-reduction in a bottle).

Evan saved the day, though. He dashed off to the grocery after work and before tonight's summer storm settled in. When he got back, I started cooking. Here's tonight's somewhat healthy summer meal:

Caprese Chicken and Couscous

Doesn't it look yummy?! :) I love all of these ingredients and I feel like it's pretty healthy.

Ingredients:

• Chicken Tenderloins (Evan opted for the free-range, organic ones. Do we get double healthy points for that?)
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil (we got ours in Napa at Lava Vines Vineyard. It is the best stuff ever. Honestly. It's to die for! www.lavavine.com check it out!) 
• Minced Garlic or whole cloves minced
• Kosher Sea Salt
• Pepper
• Italian Seasoning
• Fresh Basil
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Balsamic Vinegar
• Couscous (I recommend Near East's Garlic and Olive Oil variety--it's done in 5 minutes!)

Start off by lightly coating the pan in olive oil. Add garlic and basil and sauté. Add salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and balsamic vinegar. Warm for a few minutes.

Salt and pepper chicken before adding into vinegar mixture. Cook over medium heat, flipping a couple of times to make sure it's cooking evenly.

While the chicken is cooking, get started on the couscous. Just follow the directions on the box. If you can't make this stuff...go with the pizza and vodka in the freezer. 

After the couscous has started, halve the cherry tomatoes and throw them in the mix. Stir and flip and add seasoning if you feel it needs a little something extra. 

Add a few pearls of cheese while the pan is still hot. 

When it's all cooked and yummy looking, fluff the couscous and serve it all up. Add a few more pearls of cheese and sprinkle with balsamic vinegar. 

Enjoy! :) I know we did! 

And for dessert? Yeah, I fell for the yoplait commercials and am trying the "dessert" flavors of their light yogurt. Jury's still out on these. 

Welcome to the World, Jaxen Lewis Knight!

First off, I have to say congratulations to my dear friends Danielle and JD on their adorable new addition, Jaxen! That is precisely what this post is about, as well!

JD is in the army and therefore travels quite a bit, so Danielle and JD decided to make Jaxen’s nursery travel-themed! They’ve decided to go with a vintage-map look in brown and navy blue, which is where I started for this piece.

I’d love to say that I made a deliberate decision to use four small canvases, but honestly, I was going to see them the day they came home from the hospital and I just so happened to have four small ones instead of one large one. So that’s what I used. I do feel like it gave it a bit more character than the traditional route. Then again, I think it goes without saying that none of my friends have really been “traditional” when it comes to their nurseries.

Anyway, I started by washing each canvas with a light brown paint and using a hair dryer to dry them quickly. Then I sanded them a bit to give them a more old-world feel. Next came the hard part…the map it self posed quite some problems. I found an old map online and printed it out. Then I used a little trick that Gen’s mom taught me…I laid a grid down on top of the map and used it as a reference guide for where exactly things needed to go on the canvases. (how is it that Gen keeps coming up in my posts? Haha)

Once the basic outline was done, I brushed from the outside in, filling in the shapes with a darker brown. I was hoping to make the edges darker than the middle, but it worked in some ways and not in others. Once that layer was dry, I sanded yet again. Once I was finished with the background of the map, I mixed up a shade of navy blue and wrote Jaxen’s name on the canvases and outlined them all in blue.

Sadly, now I have a large blue stain on my carpet (goodbye security deposit…) thanks to my clumsy puppy!

All in all, I think it turned out rather well! I love giving my friends custom gifts rather than store-bought ones. I feel like I’m passing a piece of my heart on to them and hopefully it will bring love and happiness to those in their lives. Cheesy, right? Well, that’s me!

Congrats, JD and Dani! Thanks for bringing yet ANOTHER boy into our group! Let’s see…that’s number 7, I believe! Maybe we’ll see a girl sometime soon? (And no…I don’t mean from myself. I’d kinda like to get something small and sparkly first! Hint hint…E)