Caramel Dipped Devils Food Cupcake with Pecan Topping

I love to bake. I don't really like to cook that much but baking that's a different story. No cutting or peeling to be done. Just measuring, mixing, and putting in the oven to wait. It always smells so good and the result is normally delicious. I was making some cupcakes for dessert for a spaghetti dinner at the grade school and was trying to use up the rest of the ingredients I had opened to make one more batch of cupcakes. I found a devils food cake mix and I had some canned pumpkin, condensed milk, a a bag of caramels, and a few pecans. I thought that sounded like a turtle candy so I begin dumping everything into the mixing bowl. Here is the recipe:

Caramel dipped Devil's food Cake Cupcake with pecan topping

-Devils food cake mix
-a small can of pumpkin
-1/2 cup oil
-1 egg

Mix cake mix, pumpkin, oil, and egg with mixer. If too thick add a little water to the pumpkin can and pour a little at a time into the mixture until it's at almost at cake consistency. It can be a little thicker than normal.

Fill cupcake liners and bake at 350 degrees for approx 20 to 23 minutes. Check with toothpick to make sure they are done. The pumpkin makes the cupcakes really moist and you can't taste the pumpkin flavor.

Caramel and Pecan Topping

-bag of caramel bits(or 24 whole caramels)
-1/4 cup of condensed milk
-1/4 cup pecan bits

Melt caramel and condensed milk in candy melter. You could also do this in a saucepan but the candy melter is easier when you dip. Let caramel melt completely before dipping.

Let cupcakes cool. Lay out some wax paper. Dip top of cupcakes in the melted caramel. Immediately place a handful of pecans on top of hot caramel. Let stand for about 5 minutes.

ENJOY!

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

My favorite dessert of all time is my mom's pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing. It is so good it screams come and eat me while I sleep. After I eat a piece it makes me want to run a mile so I can eat another piece(and I hate to run). This recipe is great during fall but I like to enjoy it all year round. Here's the recipe so you can make a pumpkin cake or cupcake:

Pumpkin Cake
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinammon
4 eggs, well beaten
1 cup oil
2 cups canned pumpkin
Mix Well. Bake at 350 degrees. For cake - bake for 1 1/2 hours. For cupcakes - bake for about 25 minutes, check at 20 minutes with toothpick.

Cream Cheese Icing
1 stick butter
8 oz cream cheese
1 lb box conf sugar (if you don't buy boxes like me is 3 3/4 cups of conf sugar)
1 tsp vanilla
Cream butter and cream cheese together. Beat in Conf Sugar. Add vanilla.

Let cake cool and frost. ENJOY!

To create swirly frosting on your cupcake buy a pack of cake decorator bags. Cut the end off about 1/2 inch up and fill with frosting. Squeeze frosting to the bottom of the bag and swirl onto cupcake starting on outside of cupcake and working inward. YUM.

Halloween Party Invitation - 2010

Each year I like to create a memorable halloween party invites for our annual Halloween party. The first year we had the party I found the Martha stewart fingers in the boxes and we did that. The next year I decided to try and come up with something on my own and ended up with a creepy box full of googly eyes(I have a link to these somewhere under the halloween catergory :) ) Last year me and my daughter created a creepy skeeleton tomb from a 16 oz bottle and was able to mail it in the bottle to the kids. The loved getting a bottle in the mail..LOL It costs me about $1.25 to mail each one. This year's invitation will be:

CROWS flying the invite to the kids.

I found crows at the dollar store.
I printed off the invitations
Rolled up the invite
Used the crows wire feet to hold the invite in place
and now I'm searching for a suitable container to mail them in.
Here they are waiting to fly off and deliver the invites. Ready...Set...Fly

This was the easiest invitation to put together so far. I think the kids will enjoy their messenger crows when they receive them in the mail.

Happy Halloween!

Felt Halloween Ornament - Werewolf

I created this felt werewolf halloween ornament for a swap at 2peas. He is created with grey felt, grey fur and black eyes. I made up the pattern myself and I think he turned out so cute...well as cute as a werewolf can be. The fur really makes him look like a werewolf. I started with gray felt in the shape of a werewolf head with ears. Then I sewed on a layer of gray fur along the top of the head. Then I stitched a piece of light gray felt cut in the shape of a U for the face. Then cut circles for the eyes, half circles for the eyelids, triangle for the nose, mouth shape, and teeth shape out of felt and then stitched them on with the machine. Last thing I did was sew on a hanger and some black bead eyes.

Teacher Appreciation Week Ideas

For teacher appreciation week I did 3 things:

1.) Brought the teachers lunch from Olive Garden(printed the menu and told them to pick out what they wanted, called it in and picked it up and delivered it to school during lunch). They loved this BTW

2.) Participated in a two peas swap to create an awesome teacher charm bracelet. They were wearing this when I went in to deliver lunch. They seemed to love this as well

3.) I created them a nameplate for their desk. It was so easy and it finally gave me an excuse to use the scrabble tile holders that I have been accumulating with buying all the scrabble games at yard sales for the actual tiles to make charms.

It's so easy...Here's what you need:

1.) Scrabble Tile Holder

2.) Scrabble Tiles

3.) Hot Glue or any other adhesive

You can customize the tile holder however you please. I didn't paint mine because I liked them in the wood finish but get creative as your heart desires. I just spelled out the teacher's name on the tile holder to make sure the spacing looked right and hot glued in place. For one of them I took a small drill and drilled a hole in top to stick 1/2 of a skewer down in the hole. I hot glued it as well and added a ribbon and jolee sticker. At this point you can customize however you want and have fun with it. I told you it was easy.

I hope you enjoy these ideas. Thanks to all the teachers out there!

Mini Easter Egg Earings

I went to Hobby Lobby yesterday and they had a pack of 24 mini easter eggs for 34 cents so I picked a bag up. Last night my 7 year old daughter had the "I'm bored" syndrome so I pulled the eggs out. I had been working on charms so all my jewelry stuff was laying on the dining room table so we came up with these mini easter egg earings that she could give to her teacher's for Easter. Here is how we did it:

Mini Easter Eggs

E6000 Glue

Earring findings

jump ring

and the long finding with the loop on the top(sorry not sure what that's called)

1.) unscrew all the the eggs

2.) glue around the rims of the bottom and press the top on it and let them dry(at this point you could poke a hole in the top of the egg and put the long finding down in the hole and curl it so it can't come out)

3.) poke a hole on top of the egg, you can use a drill or a ice pick like I did since I didn't want to run out and get the drill.

4.) place a dab of glue on the hole you made and place the long finding down in it.

5.) Let that part dry very well before going on to the next step

6.) Place a jump ring and an earing finding on the loop of the long finding and your ready to wear you new mini egg earings.

I plan on making a matching necklace and wearing mine to the Easter Egg Hunt and the Easter craft day at school. I hope you enjoy this fun and easy Boredom Buster craft.

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School Snack Idea for St. Patrick's Day

I've been scouring the internet trying to come up with a snack idea for my daughter's class for St. Patrick's Day. Last night, since I couldn't fall asleep an idea popped in my head (maybe Lucky the Leprechaun placed it in my mind...hehe) So here's the idea and it's so easy you still have time to make it for your favorite class.

To make you will need:

Lucky Charms Cereal

Lucky Coins(one for each student)

Bags to package the Cereal

Here is the note that Lucky will leave me in the morning on my counter top:

Dear ___________ Mom,

I know you worked hard on your snack but since this is Saint Patrick's Day I hope you will do a little leprechaun a big favor. I have left some snacks for your daughter's class on your counter top in the kitchen. I hope you will read the story I have left and delivery these snacks to Ms. ________'s class for me today instead of your snacks.

Thanks and happy St. Patty's Day,

Lucky the Leprechaun

Then I will attach the story to the box that hold the treats. Ms. _______ will read the following story to the children before handing out the snacks.

Every March Lucky the Leprechaun watches all the First grade classes in the world. He watches to see which classes pay the most attention, do their homework every night, and try hard to do their very best. On the Eve of Saint Patrick's Day Lucky packages up bags of his favorite snack, Lucky Charms, for the top ten well behaved classes. After he packages the snacks he delivers them to the parent that has snack day scheduled on Saint Patrick's Day so they can take to the top ten classes. In one set of snacks there are lucky coins hidden in the snacks. These special coins are located in the classroom that Lucky felt was the very best behaved. If you are receiving this snack that means Lucky thought you were one of the top ten First grade classes in the world. While eating your snack be very careful because you may have a Lucky coin hidden within it. If you do find a lucky coin give yourself a big pat on the back because that means you are Lucky's very special class for St. Patrick's Day 2010.

ENJOY and Happy St. Patrick's Day. Once I get these packaged I'll try and remember to post a picture.

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Valentine

This is so us....

Here is what I gave my hubby for Valentine's day!