Pink Ballet Cupcake Birthday Cake

This is a cake I made awhile back for one of my daughters...I wanted to keep it simple, so I made it a pull-apart cupcake-cake, and it was definitely easier that way.  The roses, swirls, and zig-zags are white chocolate, melted and poured into molds.  Then some pink frosting, and a mini ballet slipper bought from the discount dance supply store to top it off!  It looked pretty cute, but someone who knew how to decorate and frost cakes better could make it even cuter!

Linking up to Domestic Tuesdays at True Femininity;

and Tuesdays at the Table, Tasty Tuesday,

Peaches on a Cloud Muffins

A few years ago, I entered these fresh peach and cream cheese muffins into a cupcakes and muffins contest at my local fair.  They were inspired by these berry cheesecake muffins from Taste of Home.  I experimented several times to get just the right moisture and flavor for some winning muffins, then took them warm to the fair.  My hard work paid off, and I won first place in the muffin category, and best overall in four cupcake and muffin categories!
This is an original recipe of mine, so if you re-post this, please credit me!

Ingredients:
1/3 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
¼ tsp. almond extract
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon peach gelatin powder
1/3 cup milk
¾ cup peeled, chopped fresh peaches

FILLING:
1 package cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
¼ teaspoon almond extract
¾ cup peeled, chopped fresh peaches

STREUSEL TOPPING:
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

Directions:
In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add almond and vanilla extracts. Combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and peach gelatin powder; add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. Gently fold in the chopped peaches. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups one-third full.
    For filling, in a small mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar, egg and almond extract until smooth. Fold in the chopped peaches. Place a tablespoonful on top of each muffin. For topping, combine the flour, sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl; cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over muffin batter.
    Bake at 375° for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks. Best served warm.
Yield: 18 muffins

Linking up to All the Small Stuff- Tuesdays at the Table.
Sugar Bananas! Sweets This Week 
A Southern Fairytale- Mouthwatering Mondays 
Sweetology Tea Party Tuesday 
Balancing Beauty & Bedlam-Tasty Tuesday Parade of Foods 
Blessed with Grace-Tempt My Tummy Tuesday 

Light and Fluffy - Lemon Cream Pie

This was a creative concoction that I came up with for the sole purpose of using up a jar of lemon curd I bought at Trader Joe's.I don't have an actual recipe, so I'll just tell you how I put this creamy pie (it was declared heavenly by a neighbor I shared it with) together.

Ingredients:
1 graham cracker crust
1 pint whipping cream
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
2 3 oz. boxes lemon pudding
1 1/2 cup cold milk
1 jar lemon curd

Whip the whipping cream until stiff, set aside.  Beat cream cheese and powdered sugar until smooth.  Fold in 1 cup of whipped cream.  Pour into pie shell.  Beat milk and 1 box of lemon pudding together on medium for two minutes. Pour over cream cheese filling.  Beat lemon curd and 1 box of lemon pudding together for three minutes, until smooth.  Fold in 1/2 to 1 cup of whipped cream. Pour over pudding mixture on pie. Top with remaining whipped cream.  Chill for four hours, or until firm.  Note: The whipped cream can be changed out for Cool Whip.

Linking up to Tasty Tuesdays @ Beauty & Bedlam and Tuesdays at the Table @ All the Small Stuff

Honey Scones for Tea Time or Anytime!

My mom brought her Tea Time magazine with her on our recent family get-together, and in it I found a recipe for honey scones.  They are a little bit like biscuits, but a little crispier, sweeter, and more buttery.  Delicious! They are not lasting long, as we are all gobbling them up quickly! Put a dab of butter or jam on them, mmmmmm......

They are also very quick to make.  Mine probably would be taller, but with three little ones always needing something, these didn't make it into the oven right away.

Here's the recipe:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup cold unsalted butter, diced
1/4 cup cold cream cheese, diced
3 tablespoons honey
1 cup whipped cream, plus another spoonful or two to glaze the top of the scones
Sugar to sprinkle the top of scones

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
Mix dry ingredients; cut in butter and cream cheese, until mixture is in course crumbs.
In a separate bowl, whisk honey and cream together.
Add cream mixture to dry ingredients; stir until it is a moist dough.
Turn onto a lightly floured surface; roll dough to 1/2 inch or 3/4 thickness.
Place scones 2 inches apart on baking sheet; glaze with cream, sprinkle with sugar.
Bake about 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

A Butterfly Birthday Cake

We recently had a small birthday party for my youngest, and my children's favorite thing is to pick the kind of cake that they want me to make.  A butterfly cake was the choice for my little one, and after searching butterfly cake pictures on Google, here is what I came up with...

That is made from one 9" round cake, cut in half, with a little notch taken out of each half. M&M's are the candy decorating the top and sides, along with large gumdrops, and decorating crystal sprinkles. Some inspiration was found at the M& M ideas page, and Bake, Decorate, Celebrate.  I had to get ready after I made that one, so I asked my husband to decorate the other however he wanted.  Here is his decorated cake....

Isn't that neat?  The kids liked his as much as mine, but both were greatly enjoyed!

12 New Things - Flaky, Fluffy Biscuits!

Here's my September update for the 12 New Things Challenge that I joined up with. For those who haven't heard about it yet, Sarah Mae at Like a Warm Cup of Coffee started this to encourage herself and others to learn new skills. For August, I started doll quilts for my daughters.  I have now finished one of them.... 

I still have to finish the second with my older daughter, but since we are doing it together, it takes longer. Here is the link for the original 12 new things post.

And here is a link to August's post about the doll quilts. 

And now, onto September's New Thing....I decided to go with making flaky biscuits for the first time.  I used the recipe and instructions that I found here.  And it worked! They were tasty, and flaky, and fluffy.  The only thing I would change next time would be to add a bit of butter flavoring, and to keep them a little taller when I roll them.  By the way, I didn't use the food processor as the recipe states, but just hand mixed it.  We had these the first night, hot and buttered, along with beef stew.  The next morning, before we headed off to the local mountains to pick apples, we had them with an apple topping and caramel sauce I made.  Mmmm, what a breakfast!

Check back in with me next month, and I might have started or completed my next skill: A fall dress....The pattern and fabric are in the picture below. 

Thanks for stopping by to see what I've been up to!  Visit Sarah Mae's latest 12 Things post, and everyone else linking up here.

Delicious Fresh Pumpkin Pie

Well, even though I had wanted to make tomato preserves, and pumpkin whoopie pies yesterday, I was unable to! We have a gas leak, so the utility company shut off our gas, and of course we have a gas stove...it won't be repaired until Wednesday night! No hot showers or doing a hot sinkful of dishes either! Good thing is, the weather is hot enough anyways. Also, I had already done my bread baking and pie making on Sunday. If you want a great homemade pumpkin pie recipe from a real pumpkin, here it is: Mrs. Siggs Fresh Pumpkin Pie.  This recipe made a moist and flavorful pie...I prebaked my crust a little bit, to keep it from getting soggy, and I added a pinch more spice than called for. My pumpkin was stewed, and once I pureed the pumpkin and once I didn't.  It was a bit better when pureed.  Everybody requested seconds! :-)

Mmmm...muffins!

I decided on the pumpkin cream cheese muffins that I found here: http://www.bakedperfection.com/2008/10/pumpkin-cream-cheese-muffins.html  They are delicious!!

I've linked up to Tasty Tuesday Parade of Foods on Beauty & Bedlam, as well as Tuesdays at the Table at All The Small Stuff. 

And linking up to