Bake Sales, Migraines and Volcanos

It's been a busy week and Caleb hasn't done much writing so I haven't done much writing.    He has spent almost every day outside playing with his friends from the neighborhood and so I haven't made him come in to work on his writing.  

Last week he played tennis every morning for an hour.    Actually, I think that they spent about half of their time playing a "baseball" game with their tennis rackets.   But he seemed to have fun.   Last Thursday I realized how lucky I am to  have an almost 3rd grader who is as mature and responsible as Caleb.   I had a migraine (I only get them once or twice a year and this one I think this one was weather related) and instead of going to the library and to the rummage sale after tennis when he got done playing I told him we were going home because I felt awful (I was just hoping not to have to stop to throw up on the way home since this migraine was making me nauseous too.)    Caleb didn't complain about the change in plans or the fact that he was going to have to watch Foster when we got home so that I could take a shower to try to get rid of the headache.    And Foster was crabby!    When I got downstairs after my long shower Foster was climbing on Caleb and whining and fussing and Caleb was just putting up with him.    Foster and I took a 2-hour nap together and when we woke up the headache was gone.   While we were napping Caleb didn't wake us and he fixed his own lunch (waffles) and didn't complain that he was bored or that we had changed our plans.   I am a lucky mom!     And I remembered how good he was that morning so I didn't get too frustrated when I had to go find his wallet for him in his room that afternoon.   He swore he put it on his red shelf in his room.   And he did, because that's where I found it.   In his defense he said "I put it on this shelf right here" and pointed to the shelf where he thought it should be.   It was on the shelf directly above that.    This seems to be a trend in my house of "Mom, where is ...?" or "Amy, where is.... ?"    But that's a subject for a different blog post.

Last weekend was also a big garage sale weekend in our neighborhood.   Earlier in the week I told Caleb he and his friends should do a bake sale in our driveway, especially since our house is on the corner where everyone comes and goes.    At 3:30 on Friday they decided that they wanted to do it, so I made them some chocolate chip cookies, some brownies, some oatmeal cookies and some blueberry muffins to sell.   (They also had some strawberry lemonade.)    By 4:30 there were 7 kids in our driveway yelling "bake sale!" to every passing car and pedestrian.    We made them quit at 5:30 (the garage sales all stopped at 5 pm)  and told them they could start again at 7:45 am the next morning.    In that hour they made more than $21 (each of them walked away with more than $3).   The next day sales started very slow (Caleb was on his own when I left at 8:45 am to go to the Y) but by 10 am things picked up and there were only 4 of them selling on Saturday.   They quit around 11:30 am, but not before they made more than $30.   Each of them got $7 and Mark had a $10 bill that he couldn't split between the 4 of them so he gave it to me to make change.   I told him I was keeping it to compensate a little for all of the ingredients that came from our pantry!

The bake sale was such a success for them that they wanted to do it again on Sunday.    I told them that they were limited to one each month, so they've decided that they'll do another one in July sometime.   Maybe I'll post it on Craigslist this time for them :)

We finally got to some fun "science" projects on Sunday afternoon.   All of Caleb's neighborhood friends were gone and Mark was golfing so Caleb was bored.  Since we have a "no electronics" rule on Sunday afternoons between lunch and dinner Caleb was really bored :)     I told him we could prep our volcano for when Mark got home and have our eruption.    On Friday prior to our bake sale extravaganza I had made the "volcano."   Using gelatin, a funnel, and some playdough I made the volcano.    I put the playdough in the bottom of the funnel and then filled the funnel with the gelatin to make our volcano.   I had enough gelatin leftover to make a "practice" volcano in the giant cupcake cop that I had in the cabinet.    The volcano and the practice volcano had been in the fridge since Friday.  

The instructions in the book said to use a pencil to put a hole in the funnel stopping a 1/2 inch from the bottom.   When we did this on the practice volcano it caused it to split.   For the "real" volcano I used a very sharp pencil and that seemed to help it not split as much.    It also said to use the funnel to fill the hole with baking soda.    This seemed to be an overly complicated way to fill the volcano so for the real one I just spooned it into the hole.    The instructions also said to use a baster filled with vinegar (with drops of red food coloring added) and put it into the side of the volcano.   I think we needed a smaller baster because this made the gelatin split too.   In spite of these challenges, the eruption was successful and the boys thought it was cool.   Caleb was also able to explain to Mark that "when you mix these two things together it causes a reaction"





Caleb's "Blast Lab" book also had instructions for making "milk planets" so we tried that experiment too.    We put a little bit of milk in the bottom of some containers and added a few drops of food coloring to each one.   Then we took a q-tip dipped in Dawn dish soap and just touched it on the surface of the milk and watched the colors swirl together.   My recommendation for doing this "experiement" is to only use 2 colors in each "planet" or you'll kind of end up with a gross looking mess.   Then again, since you're just going to dump them out at the end, maybe it doesn't matter :)

While Caleb writes ...

It's hot!   It is 95 degrees outside.   I'm not sure what the heat index is and I'm kind of scared to check.  Technically it's still spring out there so this is a little too early for it to be so hot.   I was really looking forward to being outside with the boys and this extreme heat is making it a little less pleasant, but we are still doing our best.   

Today was Caleb's 2nd day of his tennis camp at the high school.   I'm not sure that he's learning anything but he says that he is having fun.   Although by the time they were finishing today the kids kind of all looked like they were melting.   Foster and I use Caleb's time playing tennis to go for a walk.   This has two purposes --- first, it's a good opportunity for me to get some exercise and continue our routine of walking each morning (we used to walk Caleb to and from school every day) and second, it keeps Foster entertained.    I also get to explore the neighborhoods around the school where Caleb is playing.   Yesterday we walked east and today we walked north.

After tennis we ventured over to Krape Park where the MOPS were going to have a play date.   I wasn't sure if there would be any older kids there for Caleb to play with (or anyone there at all, actually) but he's really good with younger kids so we figured we'd give it a shot.    While we were there I got to see again what a good big brother Caleb is.   He didn't whine about playing in the little kids playground and he pushed Foster on the swings and did the teeter totter with him too.   Unfortunately my hope of finding a mom there with older kids (Caleb's age) with a preschooler didn't materialize.

When we came home I got lunch started and then Caleb watched Foster so I could take a shower.    I think that I could really get used to having Caleb at home!   A shower with no one whining or banging on the door on a weekday.  This must be what heaven is like :)

Our "school" plans were altered a bit today because Foster didn't take a nap until Caleb went with his friends to the movie at the library.   It did give me peace and quiet for a whole hour though.   If this trend keeps up I could definitely get used to summer.   However, I am a little nervous that just writing about it might ruin the whole thing so maybe I should delete this paragraph!    

So now Caleb is writing and it's almost 5 pm.   I told him we would do "school" stuff until Mark gets home and then we are headed to swim.   Once we got home from the movie he took 30 minutes to play outside some more with his friends from across the street and I'm a pretty firm believer that I'm not going to call him inside in June to do reading and writing (I will make him shut off the TV, compute, DS, and Wii for it though!)

But our abbreviated day means I don't have any cool projects to report on.    Tomorrow we'll hopefully build our bubble machine and start on our weather tracking sheet.    These days are going fast!   I hope I can still be enthusiastic at the end of July.

Soap Monsters

I started this blog when I became an official stay-at-home mom last fall to write about my experiences of trying to keep baking with a baby around all day.   I've continued to bake, but haven't been doing a very good job of taking pictures and writing about my experiences.   I'll keep working on that.

However, since this blog was started to write about my experiences of being a stay-at-home mom, I'm going to expand it to write about my experiences of having both boys at home with me this summer!

Today was our first official day of Caleb's summer vacation.   I've told him that each day we are home together we are going to do "school" as he calls it.   He needs to spend time reading, writing and doing other things.   He struggles with writing neatly, remembering to use punctuation and with his spelling, so I told him that he needs to spend 15 minutes each day writing.   Today he was writing a letter to his former 2nd grade teacher at Carrie Busey, Mrs. LeVanti.   He told me that I should be writing while he is writing instead of just sitting there watching him write.   So my plan is to blog about our summer experiences while he writes.

Since I've always had a very busy job during the summer months, I've never had a summer like this with Caleb.   I'm really excited to get to take him to tennis, golf, and diving lessons.   I'm excited to go to the libary, the pool and the park with both boys.   I'm even a little excited for the "I'm bored" conversations that we are going to have.

We've decided that we'll do "school" each afternoon while Foster takes a nap (well, hopefully he takes a nap!).   Today we had a good time looking through his "Blast Lab" book for some summer science experiments.   We did the first one today .... we made soap monsters.  

Do you know what happens when you put a bar of soap into the microwave?    It's actually really fun to watch!   And when you take it out and let it cool for a bit you can decorate it with eyes, nose, mouth, arms and legs and make it into your own soap monster.   

After we made the monster we talked about why soap does this when you heat it up in the microwave (the water inside the soap expands when it gets hot).   My very bright almost 3rd grader made the association on his own between this experiment with the soap and what happens to popcorn to make it pop.   He's so smart!   And he says he doesn't like science.    He even said that he had fun!   Here's hoping we can keep having fun all summer with our "school" time.

Substance or Style

At the beginning of February we were on a cruise.   The food on this trip was amazing and very plentiful.   On one night of the cruise there was a chocolate buffet at 10 pm.    We were lucky enough to get to go check out the chocolate, the sculptures and all of the gluttonous display before they actually opened it for all of the passengers.   Caleb probably took 50 pictures of the chocolate sculptures, the ice sculptures, and all of the food.   It was beautiful and appetizing!

While the display was breathtaking, the food was less than spectacular .... which was unusual for the food on this trip.    It made me start thinking a lot about what is more important and how to find a balance in the food that I made in substance over style.  

I would love to have my food and my displays and my pictures to be as beautiful as what they displayed for our chocolate buffet on the cruise, but I don't ever want the highlight of what I make to be looking at it instead of eating it.   

I was also thinking of this as Caleb informed me that Tuesday was Dr. Suess's birthday and we should have a birthday cake for him.   So on Tuesday I made a white cake and split the batter into four bowls and colored each bowl with a different color and swirled it together.   Rather than regular frosting on the cake I wanted to just have cool whip and strawberries on top of it.   I knew that we would like it more if the berries were chopped and mixed into the cool whip, however doing this made the frosting not very smooth and pretty, but it tasted delicious (unfortunately I forgot to take a picture so that I could show the rough looking icing on this cake).

This weekend I made cookies and bread to take to our new neighbors (that's right, I'm trying to win over new friends with food!) and here are a couple of pictures.   I'm hoping that I've made some progress in my stubstance vs. style battle.

Cranberry Swirl Bread

Lemon Gems





In Spite of the Blizzard

I'm still in the process of cleaning out the freezer, pantry and fridge so that we don't have to move things in a couple of weeks.   Today's dessert started as a plan to use up more of those things that were open in the fridge, pantry and freezer and turned into a very tropical dessert - in the face of the ice storm/blizzard here in central Illinois, we had a pina colada pie.

This fall I had made some pina colada bread that turned very very crumbly and was almost impossible to eat in slices, although it was very tasty.   Once I realized that we couldn't eat it, I took the bread and crumbled it on a baking sheet and baked at 200 degrees until it was dried out.   I used 1/2 of it for a crust for a pineapple cheesecake that day and put the other half into the fridge and have been looking for a reason to use it.    This afternoon I pulled it out and in the pantry found a box of coconut cream pudding, a half bag of pineapple in the freezer along with some cool whip and some cream cheese from the fridge.     Here's the recipe I made up for the pina colada pie ....

Crust:
2 1/2 C (approximately) of bread crumbs
3 T margarine

Melt the margarine and mix with the bread crumbs.   Spread into an 8-inch round pan and bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.   Cool.

You could use a graham cracker crust or any kind of cookie crumb crust here too.

Middle Layer
Coconut cream pudding - cook and serve

Mix pudding as directed and cool

Top Layer
4 oz. cream cheese (softened)
4 oz. cool whip
10 to 20 chunks of pineapple
1/2 C powdered sugar

Put the pineapple in a food processor and chop.    Beat pineapple, cream cheese and powdered sugar until well blended.   Fold in the cool whip. 

Spread the pudding onto the cooled crust and cool for about an hour and then put the cream cheese/pineapple layer on top.

Reviews from our house:
Mark thought it was good and had his piece and 1/2 of Caleb's.   He said for a guy that doesn't like for pineapple to be the dominate taste he liked this dessert very much.

Caleb said it was good but didn't eat very much

I thought that the top layer overwhelmed the pudding layer so next time I would probably use a large box of pudding (I used the small size) and only add 1/8 to 1/4 C of powdered sugar to the top layer.   I think that the cool whip and pineapple would give it enough flavor without the additional sugar.   However, it was fun to eat something so tropical on such an icy night!

Operation "Clean Out the Pantry" in full swing

One month from today we will be unpacking boxes at our new house in Freeport.   In the meantime, we are working on cleaning out the pantry, fridge and freezer so that we aren't moving too many boxes of food and we aren't throwing things away before we go.   The trick to this is that we have a lot of items in both pantry and freezer for dessert making which is fun for me but not so healthy to have sitting around on the kitchen counter.   So I've needed to time my dessert making for days when I can distribute the leftovers to various locations soon after.  I'm also trying to continue making the new recipes from my cookie cookbook (see post from 12/2/2010).

The first dessert from this week's round were the Frosted Cherry Nut Bars that I made on Tuesday.   I had some maraschino cherries that I needed to use that were in the fridge (leftover from the Cherry Coconut Bars that I made the previous week.  Since I only had half of the cherries needed I made a half batch and put them in an 8x8 pan instead of a 15x10 pan.    I think that the consensus on these were that the best part was the icing.   I thought that the bars turned out a little dry and too much like cake.   Caleb thought that they would be better without chocolate (I'm not sure he's actually my son!)  

Frosted Cherry Nut Bars (as I made them)
1/4 C butter
1/4 C sugar
1/4 C brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 t vanilla extract
1 C flour
3/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/2 C milk
1/2 C pecans
1/2 C quartered maraschino cherries
1/2 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugars.   Add egg and vanilla.   Mix in baking powder and salt.    Add flour to creamed mixture alternately with milk.   Stir in nuts, cherries and chocolate chips.   Spread into a greased 8x8 pan and bake at 325 for 15 to 20 minutes.  

Frosting
2 T butter
1 T milk
1/2 t vanilla extract
1 C powdered sugar

In a saucepan melt butter until golden brown.   Add milk and vanilla and remove from heat.   Beat in powdered sugar until smooth and spread over warm bars.   Cool and then cut.

The leftovers here went to the Tennis Center on Wednesday when Caleb had his class.

On Thursday I discovered a half bag of toffee pieces that needed to be used and I still have more chocolate chips to use as well as dried cranberries so Thursday I mixed up a batch of Toffee Cranberry Crisps.   I had previously made this recipe in December of 2008 (with no notes in my book so I'm not sure what I though of them at that time).    I modified this a bit because this recipe called for them to be shaped into rolls and placed in the fridge for a couple of hours and then cut into slices.   I also had some bran that needed to be used but not enough oatmeal so I substituted bran for some of the oatmeal and used whole wheat flour and regular flour in the recipe.    Caleb also doesn't like dried cranberries, so I mixed up the batch and then baked 2 dozen of them and then added the cranberries to the rest.  Here is the recipe I used for these:

Toffee Cranberry Crisps
1 C butter
3/4 C sugar
3/4 C brown sugar
1 egg
1 t vanilla extract
1 C flour
1/2 C whole wheat flour
1 1/4 C quick-cooking oats
1/4 C bran
1 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/2 C dried cranberries
1 C miniature semisweet chocolate chips
1 C toffee bits

Cream butter and sguars.   Beat in egg and vanilla.   Add baking soda and salt and then mix in flours.   Stir in oats and bran, chocolate chips and toffee bits.   Shape into balls and bake at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes.   After you've made a couple dozen cranberry free cookies add the cranberries and bake the rest as you did the first.   (You could also just add 1 C cranberries from the beginning).

After eating a few of these the rest went to work with Mark as he traveled north so they didn't get photographed.

Finally, tonight I found some white chocolate chips and dried apricots so I finished these off (less to pack up!!) and made Apricot Almond Blondies, but since I substituted pecans for the almonds (because that was what was in the freezer) I guess I need to just change the name to Apricot Blondies!

Apricot Blondies
1/2 C margarine, softened
1/2 C brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 t vanilla extract
1 C flour
1/3 C whole wheat flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1 C vanilla chips
1/2 C pecans
1/2 C chopped dried apricots

Cream butter and sguar.   Beat in egg and vanilla.    Add baking soda and salt.   Mix in flours.    Stir in vanilla chips, pecans and chopped dried apricots.   Bake at 350 for 7 to 9 minutes and remove to wire racks to cool. 

Reviews from here - I am a big fan of cookies with vanilla chips in them, but the apricots are a little too chewy for me to be a big fan.   Mark likes them because they are bite-sized (so he says) but Caleb hasn't tried them yet.

So far these don't have a home besides my kitchen counter, but I'm sure they'll be accompanying us to our football watching with friends tomorrow!

There are still plenty of dessert baking items in my pantry and freezer and am looking for ways to use more chocolate chips, pecans, cranberries, butter, margarine, sugar, flour and other random pantry and freezer items.   Stay tuned ....

From the brink of disaster ....

Today I am wondering if I need to re-title my blog.   I think this might need to be called "Salvaging Dessert" or "How to Hide Your Dessert Mistakes."

For Christmas Caleb got me a "Big Top Cupcake Pan."   Yes, it is what it sounds like - a pan that lets you make a giant cupcake.   It also has a piece that you can put onto the top of the bottom section of the pan which will let you put a filling into the cake.   I'd describe it more, but if you can't picture it and don't know what I'm talking about you can check out their website .... https://www.bigtopcupcake.com/?MID=626698

Anyway, Caleb has been asking me to make one since he gave it to me on Christmas so today I decided to make one.   According to the instructions you should be able to make one with just one cake mix, so I decided that I would make one with a white cake mix, fill it with chocolate pudding and then frost it with a homemade whipped frosing.    So I mixed up the white cake mix and filled the bottom pan and the top pan, and placed them into the oven to "bake as directed".    After about 20 or 25 minutes I checked on them and as the directions indicated it appeared that the top part had finished baking even though the bottom part was not yet done.   I put a toothpick in it and it came out clean so I took it out of the oven.   So far, so good.

After another 15 or 20 minutes I checked on the bottom part, put a toothpick in it, found it was done and took it out of the oven.    While I was waiting for this part to cool I thought I should get the top part out of the pan onto a wire rack to cool.   When I turned it over to dump it out it came out of the pan beautifully, however, the top part (which had been the bottom of the pan) was still completely runny.   It was as if I had created a "cake bowl" with cake soup in it.   Very tasty, but there was no way that I was going to be able to put it on top of the bottom part of the cupcake.    So into the trash it went.

Since I didn't have another white cake mix I had to figure out how to salvage this giant cupcake and my son's image of his mother as dessert-maker.   I decided that I would change the plan and have a white bottom half and chocolate top half as I had a chocolate cake mix in the pantry.   However, I knew that there was no way that I needed the entire cake mix just for the top of this cupcake and I hated the idea of throwing away cake mix or cake batter.   This led to the next step in the salvaging dessert plan.   I measured the cake mix (there are 3 cups of cake mix in a box) and used just 2/3 of the cake mix, with just 2/3 of the eggs, oil and water called for.   I poured it into the top part of the cupcake pan and put it in the oven to bake -- this time with the oven set at 325 instead of 350 so that it could hopefully cook all the way through this time.  

I mixed up the whipped frosting and then took out about a cup of this frosting and mixed it with the remaining cake batter and used this as the filling instead of the chocolate pudding.  The filling was delicious.   Unfortunately the temperature of my kitchen appliances got the better of me again in my frosting.   The frosting recipe calls for margarine and shortening to be mixed together.   I needed to soften the margarine and my super powerful microwave melted most of it.   I mixed the shortening and margarine for a bit and then put them in the freezer for a few minutes, but should have done it a little bit longer to keep the frosting cooler.   It tasted delicious but was a bit to soft and runny for frosting the side of the cake.

Lessons learned .... the cake, however, was delicious and requests have been made by Caleb for another one soon!  

Reviews from the family ....
Mark and I loved the frosting, but Caleb was not a fan.   Caleb, however, really liked the cake parts and loved the filling (even after we told him it was made from the same ingredients as the frosting.)

Whipped Frosting Recipe:

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup skim milk
• 1/2 cup butter-flavor shortening
• 1/2 cup margarine
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a small saucepan, mix milk into flour gradually to prevent lumps. Cook, stirring constantly over low heat until thick. Remove from heat and stir until cooled.
2. In mixer bowl, combine shortening and slightly softened (not melted!) margarine, beat 4 minutes. Add sugar; beat 4 minutes. Add cooled paste and vanilla and beat well.

A New Kitchen

We've moved to a temporary home until the end of February.   It's a home with a much smaller kitchen and so I had to make some decisions while packing up about what items needed to go into storage.   I kept only a couple of cookie sheets and a couple of mixing bowls and send the rest to storage.   I also sent my springform pans, my bundt pans, my mini loaf pans, my mini muffin tins and a few other specialty pans to storage.   I think I might miss them.

In the meantime, I have a lot of ingredients for cookies and cakes and other desserts that I need to use rather than moving them again.    So my goal is to continue working my way through the cookie book making new recipes (and some old ones) while using up ingredients in my freezer and pantry so I don't have to move them.   On Sunday I decided we needed some cookies, but I didn't have any eggs.    I did have peanut butter and chocolate chips and found a recipe for Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies that only called for peanut butter, sugar, evaporated milk, cornstarch and chocolate chips.    But when I went to bake them the first ones started to brown after only being in the oven for about 8 minutes (the recipe said to bake them for 12 to 15 mintues) but when I took them out they were still kind of gooey.    I turned the temp down on the oven (it had been set at 350) and tried again.   This time I left them in for 10 minutes, but then they were crispy on the outside but gooey in the middle.   I think this is how they are supposed to be, but they don't look pretty at all so I didn't take any pictures.    However, Mark swears they are delicious.

Today I went to the kitchen againdetermined to have better success than on Sunday.   (After all, today I had eggs!).    I started with Cherry Coconut Bars because I had maraschino cherries and coconut that I would like to use rather than moving.     I thought things were going fine, until I took them out of the oven after the recommended time and they were dark brown on top -- not quite burnt but not very pretty at all.   Grrr!    Oh well, I sprinkled some powdered sugar on top of them to camoflauge the dark brown tops and they seemed to taste pretty good.    And lesson learned -- the oven temperature is hotter than the dial says that it is.   

So for my next attempt I had a 1/2 bag of caramels that I needed to use so I found a recipe for chocolate caramel cookies and even though it said to bake them at 350 I turned the oven down to 325.   The cookies turned out beautiful until it was time to melt the chocolate chips for the chocolate portion of the cookie.   And that is when I discovered that the microwave here is hotter than my old microwave too.    Know what happens when you try to melt chocolate chips but get them too hot -- they kind of turn into a play dough type substance (tasty, but not spreadable with a knife).   Since Foster isn't old enough to play with an edible play dough, I decided to use it anyway on top of the coookies.   So on top of the shortbread cookies I placed a caramel and then used my fingers to shape the chocolate topping on the cookies.   Again, not pretty, but tasty, although I think the chocolate overwhelms the caramel in this cookie so I'll need to tweak this recipe for the future.  

So now I know that both the microwave and oven are hotter than I expected.   Hopefully my next attempt at dessert will turn out better -- and prettier so that I can post pictures!