Sweet and salty pretzel bites

So it's been forever, really forever. And I don't know if I can actually even count this as a post... But here goes.

It's my daughter's birthday next weekend. That is two years in a row that we will be away with friends for her birthday, which means she gets a party, when normally she wouldn't. But it also means I buy her a cake, not make her one. I feel guilty, like a bad mom... Stupid I know. At first I thought of making one and dragging it for 6 hours in a car, across the boarder... Then I thought that was just stupid. So I made these instead.

A friend of mine saw these on a blog somewhere, and made them for Easter, so I can't even take credit for coming up with this super awesome super simple idea. But I want to pass it along anyways.

Preheat your oven. It's supposed to be to about 200-250. I didn't know and did it at 350. Which worked fine too.

Lay out mini pretzels on a baking sheet. ( I lined it with parchment for easy clean up)

Top them with different colour Candy Melts.

Pop them in the oven and keep an eye on them, when the candy melts start to melt pull it out of the oven. This only took about 90 seconds at 350. You'll see they will get shiny.

Top with a Smartie, or M&M, or maybe just sprinkles. Wait until they firm up.

Keep them in a cool place in a sealed container. They last forever. I'm going to package them in little bags for take home treats. :)

Healthy cookie make over

So one of my favourite cookies to make for the kids, and the adults are these Healthi-er Cookies that I shared the recipe for a while ago.  The are made with whole wheat, ground flax seeds, oatmeal and cranberries. Healthy right?

Well the other day I made a bunch with the kiddos before bed and let them decorate with a box of mini Smarties left over from Halloween. Just wanted to share what came out of that! Plus please notice how absolutely exhausted they look, but yet they still inhaled the cookies.

After we made the batter ( that's 4 kids fighting to stand on the stool... ) Then the 3 oldest got a mini box of smarties to decorate 4 cookies, which they could eat 1 tonight. 

Isa, my thoughtful one, put 2 on each so that they would all be the same.

Inaya, I ain't no fool, put as many as she could on one cookie b/c she knew she was only allowed one cookie tonight. 

 Zayan, marches to the beat of his own band, did random scattering of smarties and then ate the rest. 

They turned out great!

Make some memories!

Kim's Favorite Things

So I'm home from work today... not feeling so hot. Then as I'm sitting here sick, I realize that I am equally sick of looking at the pile of laundry that is to be done, the supper that is to be made, and the bills that are to be paid. So I sucked it up and did all that.... now how can I call in sick for the next job that kids in in about 1 1/2 hrs when I have to go pick up my 4 little monkeys? Not going to happen... So I made cookies to make me feel better now... and them feel happy later. Happy kids = Happy mom. :) One of my favourite things.

Another of my favourite things is book stores... in particular the cook book section (big surprise I know) I am an addict. The other day I opened my email to see a post from my favourite Cake Pop Queen Bakerella. In her Give Books post I noticed that one of the books she is promoting is from my absolute favourite baker. Elinor Klivans. I don't have the cupcake one, so I can't vouch for that. But if it is anything like the her other books it must be great. ( I have 4 of her baking books)

What I am sharing with you is my favourite baking books. Well some of my favs, I can't tell you all my secrets :).

That being said if you are looking for a gift for the baker on your list here are my recommendations.  BUT if you are on a budget, I have a better idea. Just buy it for yourself, and bake for your family and friends :) And if you can only have one this is the one you must have :

You know its an over used book when the inside looks like this:

(Sorry I can't rotate the pics.. I've tried, and I give up)

And if I'm sharing I wanted to tell you about this one. I bought it over 10 years ago. It is falling apart at the seams, it is used at least once a week. The first half is Indian recipes and the second half is Thai. Oh my. Another must have.

What? you can't see through all the tears in it? Oh here you go:

The inside looks just as warn as the outside. 

This one however you'll have to find on line. I bought it off a discount rack, and they don't have it in where!

For the record on the menu tonight from this book: Vegetarian spring rolls, Lime-Cilantro-Coconut chicken, and Stir fried green veggies. Mmmm. 

Oh and for dessert thank Elinor Klivans, Snickerdoodles. (this post is from a project I participated in last year)

Enjoy! Off to wrap my spring rolls before I go get my monkeys!

Monkey Party!

Keeping the writing short and sweet, I'm back at work and exhausted... actually wondering how I can form a coherent sentence :)

So it is my beautiful niece turned one today! My sister in law decided she wanted a monkey theme. I immediately thought of one of my BFFs over at Just me prints who whipped up the oh so cute invitations and these Oh so Very VERY cute decorations. I made the cake. When everything was combined, can I tell you it was such a great party.

So first let's start with the monkey cake, then I'll show you everything put together.

First comes the head and body

 And the little mouth part

 Smile nose and mouth (this is the point where I thought, wow this will actually look like a monkey!)

 Add some ears, legs and a belly.

 Throw on some arms.

Don't forget the bow!

At this point I'll take a small pause to tell you that I dropped my monkey... her mind and body survived, but her arms and legs died a horrible death. She was fixed, better I think, you'll see it on the finished cake. 

Now here is some of the decorations done by Just me prints. 

 How cute!

 Candy bar for the take home treats.

 Take out boxes that we got to fill... Only my kids ended up somehow with 3 boxes each.. hmmm

And here we go, the final cake

I have to say I was so happy with how it, and the whole party came out. 

Wanna know the best part of the whole party.... This:

Bisou! Bisou! 

Rainbow Cake

So the trial was done, you can check it out here. I made a traditional 6 layer all the colour of the rainbow cake. I found it WAY too sweet. Anyways, so here is the modified version. Four layers, more girlie-ish colours.

So here is a quick run threw of the cake.

I started with a bunch of colour fondant.

Rolled it all out, and cut an obscene amount of flowers, varying sizes and colours.

I coloured the 4 layers, pink, purple, turquoise, and green. Use the gel colours, they will be much brighter.
Layered it with some yummy butter cream.

Cover the whole cake with butter cream.

Rolled on some white fondant, then started putting on the flowers. (In the order of the rainbow of course... Thank you cat in the hat for the song that is drilled in my brain!

Here is the birthday girl and her cake!

And my daughter waiting to tear into that cake!

And a couple of shots of inside.

 I used this *white cake* recipe, and a regular butter cream recipe.

Butter Cream:
1 cup butter
4 cups sifted icing sugar
big splash of vanilla
pinch of salt
3-4 tbsp heavy cream

Cream butter and sugar, splash of vanilla and pinch of salt. Add heavy cream slowly tablespoon by tablespoon until you get the consistency you're looking for.

Enjoy!

Rainbow cake trial run

One of our good friends daughter is turning 6 in a couple of weeks, and I volunteered to make the cake. I love to bake, but actually never take the time to actually decorate much. Plus I REALLY wanted to make this rainbow cake that I saw here. So I won't post the recipe you can check out the link for that. The cake is good, but a bit sweet. And I got lazy so I just used 2 cans of good old Betty Crocker. (that wasn't enough to cover the 6 layers, plus coat it) So that icing made the cake WAY too sweet.

So here we go... this is what my afternoon looked like.

 Made the batter and separated it in 6 bowls (or Tupperware as my dishwasher was full of my bowls.:( )Got my monkeys to help mix the colours. 

Dye them with Gel food colouring. It turns out really good. 

Bake them off in batches (since I only had 2 pans this took a little longer.)

Stack them all up layered with vanilla icing, cover and voila! Now this is with 2 cans of Betty Crocker, and clearly it wasn't enough. So keep that in mind. Plus it was so sweet, so if you are using the store stuff, I say maybe don't do 6 layers. 


OHHH you want to see what it looked like inside??? Ok so this is a rough draft, but here you go:

I'll post the final product some time in the next couple of weeks.