Update...

Ok...so can I just restate the fact the when starbucks starts making a bakery treat its a trend?
( In case you missed it.. I talked about this yesterday...Here!

because you know what happened today?
I went to Starbucks... I haven't been in forever!

They had new mini treats... guess what they were???

Red Velvet Whoppie Pies

Salted Caramel Chocolate Square

Mini Cupcakes

Cake Pops ( SO popular...thank-you Bakerella. )

YES Starbucks now sells cake pops...can you believe it? I couldn't.

They also had a lemon square ( lemon curd was tres popular this winter )
and the mini vanilla bean scones ( scones are sooo up and coming )  ( I know they had these in the USA but not in Canada I don't think...or not in Chilliwack at least! )

I can't even explain to you the feeling I got when I saw those little treats... I almost laughed out loud.

I Love Pillow Talk

Today I noticed that almost all of my posts have been given the Tag Label, `Ramblings`.

Last night my husband said it was good that I had a blog so I could say things I wanted to say on here rather then talk his ear off when he come home from work.

I then procedded to talk his ear off till midnight while he lay in bed trying to fall asleep... I can`t help it. The words flow better when I am laying down.

I <3 Pillow Talk

Thats what Gary calls it.

He doesn't love it.

All the Rage

Cupcakes are all the rage these days.

There is  little cupcake bakeries popping up on every corner. 

Even Starbucks has a selection of "fresh" cupcakes topped with an overly generous amount of sickeningly sweet Butter cream icing. 

And we all know that the trend is official once Starbucks jumps on the bandwagon. 

And of course there are other popular things that it seems "everyone" is making. Like smoothies, and macaroons, and salted chocolate/caramel anything, and anything with nutella, and red velvet everything. Don't get me wrong, I am not bashing the many bloggers who are making these things. I love to make them all too! I am totally just stating an observation that I have recently made. Its kinda fun actually to make these things and experiment along with the rest of the baking blog world. Not that I have actually made any of those things and posted them. Though I did make Nutella Chip Cookies which were delish! Did I post about them? I don't remember. Next time I make them I will :) They were so yummy. But let me tell you, making your own chocolate chips out of nutella...not an quick and easy thing to do. 

Anyways...this whole thing about trends actually has nothing to do with what I am going to post about...except that maybe giant cupcakes are becoming a bit of a trend. 

Wait...you have heard of this right? Making a huge, jumbo cupcake? In the olden days...people used to use a round glass pyrex bowl and a round equally sized cake pan and put them together to make a big cake that, when iced, looks like a huge cupcake. 

Well times have changed and now...Wilton (and I am sure many other companies) have come up with a much simpler way to pull this fun cake off...

Its the Jumbo Cupcake Pan

Now to the point of the post...

A friend of a friend contacted me a weekish ago asking if I could make one for her sons first brithday. Of course I said YES! 

I received a pan for a wedding present and have seriously been waiting for the perfect occasion to whip out a giant cupcake! I baked a trial version tonight (there is nothing worse then saying yes when you are actually not sure if you can pull it off) and it turned out great!!! I am going to experiential with icing the top tomorrow afternoon. I am thinking either a light blue or green tinted buttercream with maybe a darker strip of colour swirled throughout. ( I learnt a fun and easy technique at a cupcake decorating class a while ago!) Anyways. It should be fun! 

Has anyone else ever made a Giant Cupcake Cake? Any tips? 

PS. We are home from mexico. We got home at 3:00 AM. It is def time for bed. We are super super tanned and had an awesome time! Maybe I will post a picture or two later :) Sleep now.

Delay

Ok so we have been greatly delayed for our mexico flight. We were supposed to leave at 10:10 this morning ( aprox 2 hours ago) but we will not leave till 6 pm tonight. Blah! Oh well.
Thank goodness the airport is about 25 minutes max from our house! I almost didnt want to come home because  the house is so tidy! ( well the floors need to be cleaned but i also didnt want to come home because I would feel like I had to do that too.) Well I am home now and I have yet to vacuum or sweep :) . It will be an eventful evening. Gary plans on sleeping. I will read a book.


In all this spare time I think I will share with you a yummy cheese biscuit recipe.

For a wedding shower my sisters and cousins and b)est friend threw for me...they pulled out all the stops including asking each guest to bring their favorite recipe. This was great! I have tones of yummy dinner ideas and I have actually almost all used!
A good friend gave me this recipe for her famous Buttermilk Cheese Biscuits so we will call them:
Carmen's Buttermilk Cheese Biscuits!
I have actually made them a lot of times most recently I have been baking them for my Grandma to sell at her store (The Yellow Barn Country Produce) and they are super yummy especially with soup.

Here is the recipe!

Carmen's Buttermilk Cheese Biscuits

1 3/4 cup Flour
2 tablespoons Sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/3 cup Butter (Cold)
1 cup Buttermilk
1 cup Grated Cheddar Cheese

1. Mix together all the dry ingredients.
2. Cut in Butter with a pastry blender or a food processor until pea sized.
3. Stir in Cheese.
4. Stir in Buttermilk until moistened
5. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface about 10 times and pat into a 9" circle. Cut into 8 pieces and separate.
6. Bake on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet  at 450 degrees F. for 12-15 minutes until light brown.

Yum! Make these for dinner with soup! Or just eat them warm with butter! 

Mexico

My dear dear husband and I are off to a sunny destination in T-minus 13 hours.
The house is a disaster. The bags are less then packed. I am writing a blog post. The said husband told me to write something funny on my blog.
He then said to write about him because he is very very funny.

He is sitting at the kitchen table across from me wearing the swim shorts he needs to pack.

We are also watching the rain man while we pack..or while I pack is more like it.

I need to do the dishes.

Seeds

For about 3.5 seconds I thought about posting a deep and thoughtful post about seed and how they are like idea that get planted in your mind and then they grow...

And then I decided not to. Mostly because what I really want to talk about is the fact that I planted seeds!

I planted tomatoes...I know its a terrible idea to try and grow tomatoes from seed...apparently its quite difficult. But me being the gifted and incredibly knowledgeable vegetable grower that I am, I am sure I can handle it. Not. I can barely keep full grown tomato plants alive long enough to provide me with a tasty tomato. Last summer I barely managed! This summer I promise to be different. I will nurture my green thumb and water my plants faithfully and not over water them either! ( my sister, the horticultural expert in this house, says that more people kill plants from over water then under watering... now you know)

I also planted cucumbers, basil (picture below)  My  grandma says basil needs to be warm. Today I put the little mug on the heat register. I think it was happy.

This was a bit ago...now the little seeds have sprouted and are waving their tiny leaves in the air. Maybe I will take a new picture. 

This is the container with the tomatoes and cucumbers in it. T is for the first 4 egg cups. They have an orange heirloom tomato breed in them. I had to obviously pick the un-genetically altered brands because well...I like a challenge apparently. Now I am sure you can practically get drought resistant, blight resistant tomatoes...cheaters. 

C is obviously for the cucumber cups and the B is for beefsteak heirloom tomatoes. By the way...the cucumbers and one of the beefsteak tomato plants have sprouted. I replanted the rest of the seeds...they were MIA. 

Oh yeah and obviously the top picture is a yellow pepper.

Have I mentioned I have no idea what I am doing? 

Anyways, I hope they live. I want to grow veggies. 

I tried to grow pumpkins and zuchinni last year...the kid who mowed the lawn at Gary's cut off the flowers haphazardly and so no flowers = no pumpkins or zuchinni

It was sad. I wanted to fire him. But hes 10...and didn't know better. And then I would have to mow the lawn and we have a push mower. This year I will build a little fence. 

Direction

SO I have not posted in forever!
Sorry!

I have been filling my life with all sorts of really good things and as a result spending less time in the kitchen and less time eating!
I needed to seriously evaluate my baking plan before both Gary and I ended up on "The Biggest Loser" , also I have found that I did not enjoy baking when I had to hurry to get it done while it was light out or take a million pictures. So what I think I will do now, is when I make things, I will take a finished product picture and maybe a couple of procedure pictures but not stress too much. I love to bake and cook and I really want to enjoy it!

I also have been trying to make the most of my days  by
 a) spending less time reading other food blogs ( i can easily spend 4 hours reading recipes...my husband couldn't believe it)
b) cleaning my house
c) making better and healthier suppers
d) going to the gym lots
e) writing to-do lists and actually doing them. I have a propensity to write HUGE long lists and not complete a single thing off of it for days
f) trying to make friends

Anyways, the blog has taken a back seat. I am going to try and get back to blogging a bit more starting now, but I am going to change a few things like posting less, and not worrying so much about readership and more about just writing and talking and being me! For some reason when I first started I had the mentality that this was my job and I needed to be successful and grow to be huge and win blog awards. It was silly, but I think I am back on my feet!

:) Marie