Can I come back to this question?
mmmmm watcha say
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The last…. of the school year
That has been our mantra for the past few days now. With school ending on Wednesday we were able to experience many “lasts” this weekend. Our last time shuffling (of course Sam won, for the 5th time now?), our last grocery/target trip, my last batch of cupcakes, our last service at fellowship downtown. Of course all of these things will continue next week (except the shuffling/flipping which will be on hiatus until approximately June 7th when we all return) but it just makes the end of school seem so much real when we think about the fact that the next time we do all of our regular activities it will be summer!
Anyway, this was a “last batch of cupcakes” for the school year and today will be the “last time I bring cupcakes to school” for this school year :) I chose carrot cake cupcakes because I found a recipe that looked delicious, and it is in honor of Moriah who will no longer actual live at the 136 after tomorrow, though it will still be her home :)
Here is the recipe if you would like to make some of these on your own! The frosting is not super sweet and I was kind of skeptical, but the combination of the frosting with the cupcake and pecans is really good.
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Seasons
A friend from the Woodlands came and visited me this week. The message this morning at church was about how friends are often in your life at a specific point/season and they are a way God provides you with encouragement and blessing. Kirsten was definitely that for me freshman year. (Thats not to say we aren’t still friends, but I think we both can agree we really helped each other stay sane that year!)
Anyway, it was fun to get to show her my life in Memphis now that both of us are in different seasons of our life! Of course her visit included some memphis BBQ, Bogies, Hueys, La Michoacana, and YoLo. We will have to hit up Muddy’s and Jerry’s next time… you can only eat so much in less than 48 hours! We also made sure to bike at Shelby Farms to counteract a little of that eating. Anyway, to continue with the food trend, I made some cookie dough cupcakes with nutella frosting. They are very rich but very delicious. Check out the recipe here.
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Girls Weekend
Girls weekend consisted of a new sweet and savory cupcake place, pad thai, a not so romantic or comedic romantic comedy, and some tiramisu cupcakes. Obviously the tiramisu cupcakes will be the highlight of this post.
Each component of the cupcake is really good on its own and came together really well to make a good cupcake. I am not sure if it is something that will be appreciated by non coffee lovers, but I don’t taste a super strong coffee taste. I am really loving all of the unique cupcake recipes on the blog where I found this recipe. Check out the recipe for the tiramisu cupcakes here. And be sure to look at some of her other recipes as well :)
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2 Halves make a Whole
That’s what we told ourselves after running the Rock n’ Roll Music Marathon in Nashville weekend. Surely we can say we have run a full marathon now… we just did it in 2 parts, 16 months apart. The half marathon itself was great and so much fun. Races are such an amazing atmosphere and everyone is so encouraging and in it together.
The pouring rain and cold before and after… one of the most miserable times of my life. I am so glad I did it though and am hoping to do St. Jude’s here in Memphis again this year.
Obviously returning to Memphis meant that there were cupcakes to be made! This week was a pretty simple recipe. I am a huge fan of Funfetti cupcakes and these seemed similar, except that you add in cake batter to the frosting! They are pretty good I must say, although their appearance may not be as “wow” inspiring as some of the previous creations. If you want to make them yourself check out the recipe here. If you are into baking, you should also take some time just to check out her whole website because I have found so many great cupcake recipes I want to make from it!
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Take 2
As busy as last Saturday way, this Saturday was lazy. So lazy in fact that grocery shopping and Target did NOT happen. (However a spontaneous trip to office max, led to Stein Mart and Home Depot as well.)
That meant that Sunday morning, when I was up early once again, I trekked off to Target to get the weekly stash… you know gummi bears, starburst, snickers, oreos, skittles, laffy taffy. Between the children at home and the children at school, candy is my major purchase each week at Target. Anyway I also found a cake storage carrier on sale (Have been wanting one for so long!) and bought what I needed to get started on my cupcakes since I usually start them right after church.
When I got home I was feeling very productive and washed my clothes, and my sheets, and swept all while my cupcakes were baking. Well, I should have been a little less productive and a little more watchful of my cupcakes because they burnt. One pan may have been salvageable, but I was so frustrated with them at that point that they all went in the trash.
After church and grocery shopping I had a renewed desire to make these cupcakes work. I found them and their chocolate counterparts last week and knew they would be ones that I would make soon. Check out the recipe here, and maybe be slightly jealous that you don’t work at Cornerstone Prep or live at the 136, the location of these rich cupcakes.
A side note about the recipe: I found the marshmallow filling to be way to much. You could have at least halved the recipe and it would have been plenty. I also wished I had put more filling in each one, but it still would have been way too much!
Also, if you wonder why these cupcakes look cuter than mine usually do, its because I did not decorate them. Sam continues to find ways to prove that he is far more artistically talented than I will ever be!
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Cupcake Mondays
Yesterday a couple girls that I work with told me that they look forward to cupcake monday because they know it is a magical day when there WILL be cupcakes in the office. I wasn’t aware this had become a common known fact, but since I enjoy making cupcakes on Sunday, and people enjoy eating cupcakes on Monday, it will continue.
This week I made cupcakes that had a swirl of nutella in the batter and then a nutella buttercream frosting on top. I switched it up and used cake flour instead of AP because that has seemed to create softer cupcakes in the past. Check out the recipe here. **Note** If you want to be able to pile the frosting up high like in the blog photo, you will need to make more icing. As you can tell from my picture the one batch only made enough for a small layering on my cupcakes.
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33 Days
We are down to just 33 school days until the end of the year. It is hard to believe that is the case and honestly I will be sad to see this group go. I may not have said that much last fall, but I can honestly say (so far) that the last quarter of teaching kindergarten is fabulous. More on that later… this is about cupcakes.
White chocolate truffle cupcakes were the cupcake for the week. I have had this recipe on pinterest for about a year now, but this new cupcake baking phase gave me a chance to try it. Julie and Sam are fans of white chocolate, and though it is not my favorite, even I really liked these cupcakes. I didn’t have double strength vanilla and I think that may have made them even more delicious.. The recipe is from pampered chef and you can check it out here.
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Cupcake o’ the Week
Thanks to a 3 day weekend (the last one of the year…) I had lots of time for both resting AND getting things done this weekend. Running on the greenline, watching A LOT of basketball (thanks Duke… so much for number 3 in the bracket competition!), shopping, and kitchen re-arranging were the main components of the weekend. Oh, and of course a trip to YoLo and La Michoacana. In addition to those things, I picked out a new cupcake recipe to try for this week. I really didn’t think that this would be one of my favorites because usually fruit flavored desserts would not be my first choice, but these were delicious. The frosting is really light and fluffy and I used this recipe for the vanilla bean paste that it called for. The cupcakes were slightly less dense than the past 2 that had a vanilla-esque base, which was part of why I liked them. The frosting was also incredibly light. The original recipe suggested Valentine’s Day… but I think they’re good on any old day. Check out the recipe here.
As soon as I started decorating (using a cookie press to pipe the icing) Sam decided that it looked fun and he wanted to try. The first attempts looked like worms, but one cupcake turned into 3 cupcakes, which turned into re-decorating half of the cupcakes and by the end I think his actually turned out better than mine!
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Back to Baking
By default I kind of lost my job as household baker this year. First of all, without MTR birthdays every few weeks I really had no reason to be making treats. Also, Julie has been making a new dessert every week and after school started it seemed like there was no time or no need for more sweets hanging around. However, a couple weeks ago I decided that I had been saving so many dessert recipes that it was time I start trying some of them.
I started with home-made samoas, which I have made before, and would make again. I didn’t buy any girl scout cookies this year, but i definitely got my fix with the homemade ones. Mine are no where near as pretty, but they tasted good! Check out the original recipe here.
Inspired by the coconutty chocolatey samoas I opted for something similar the next week, but in cupcake form. These cupcakes sounded just like an almond joy and I love the combination of white cake with chocolatey frosting. The frosting was definitely the highlight of these “almond joy” cupcakes, as I call them. The almond flavored cake was good too, but I am rarely 100% satisfied with from scratch cake…. light and fluffy box mixes are just so good! Check out the recipe for these delicious cupcakes here. Mine seemed to have far more frosting and coconut…
Lastly in my baking spree (more to come after this weekend) I decided to go with banana pudding cupcakes. Though it would not be my first choice of dessert, both Moriah and Sam love it and I always like cupcakes that are designed after other things (laffy taffy cupcakes anyone?). Again, this was another recipe where the frosting was the star on top of average cupcakes, in my opinion. They were fun to make and turned out looking slightly better than expected (we all know I am the baker NOT the decorater!). Check out the recipe here is you want to try them.
Stay tuned for the next recipe, photo, and possibly some funny stories about things that 5 year olds say and do. (Eating half a crayon and then claiming “I’m fittin’ to be sick” is just one example from yesterday….)
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Life in Memphis
“I think this is my favorite thing since being in Memphis” I finally said two nights ago. That is because after our Friday Flipping Food Finding Fun Festivities (which took us to Kooky Canuck) we decided to FINALLY go to “the Mexican popsicle place” AKA La Michoacana.
I had really only heard about their popsicles until about two weeks ago when Preston let me in on the secret of their delicious ice cream that is not expensive. I literally think I got a pint of ice cream for $3 (yes I could probably do this at the grocery store… but never out at an ice cream place!)
As soon as we walked in the man said you want to try corn and gave us a sample. I did in fact want to try corn because I had just heard about it that morning while reading a blog. It did NOT taste like corn, but was kind of just a sweet creamy ice cream. I then proceeded to try Mexican Cake, 7 layer bar, and strawberry cheesecake. I chose 7 Layer bar and then watched as the tried as hard as possible to put as much ice cream into a medium styrofoam cup. I can’t possibly imagine getting a large unless you are sharing or want to save it for the entire rest of the week! (To be completely honest I should not have consumed an entire medium….. two nights in a row…).
So Saturday rolled around and dinner plans were soon cancelled when we decided that we should use our Huey’s gift cards that were generously given to us at Cornerstone. After enjoying dinner it was again decided that we visit La Michoacana. This time I tried coffee and then ended up picking cookies and cream. It tasted like ice cream cake (a sweet mixture of vanilla and frosting) with chunks of cookie mixed in. SO GOOD. Again, I finished all of it. YoLo, I still love you….. but I may have found a new favorite.
Eating, Baking, Teaching. It's my life. Follow along if you're interested.
