Lemon Heaven

I love lemon!  I have searched and searched for the perfect lemon cupcake.  I FOUND IT!! This this is the best lemon cupcake I have ever tasted.  Its light and fluffy with just the right amount of lemon. 

Ingredients:
1 1/4 C. sugar
1 Tbls. baking powder
2 1/4 C. cake flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 c. oil
5 egg yolks
3/4 C. Water
2 tsp. Vanilla
1 C. egg whites (about 7 eggs)
1/2 tsp cream of tarter
1 can lemon filling

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Sift dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  Add oil, egg yolks, water, and vanilla and mix until smooth, then set aside.  In a separate, clean bowl with clean beaters, whip egg whites with cream of tarter until stiff. Pour batter over whipped whites, folding together until blended. Bake for 15-20 min. To test doneness, lightly press finger on the cake. It will spring back when done.

FROSTING:
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
juice from 1 lemon
In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Slowly mix ing the powdered sugar. Finally mix in the vanilla and lemon juice. Store in the refrigerator after use. 

ASSEMBLY:
After cupcakes have had time to cool. Remove a small area from the middle of the cupcake (this is where you will put the lemon filling). Add the lemon filling and frost with the lemon cream cheese frosting. ENJOY!!!

Cuppy Cakes!

I love everything that has to do with cupcakes. I love coming up with new recipes and new ways of decorating them. To me they are little edible works of art.

This cupcake is my interpretation of a snickers bar. It has a white cake base with a chocolate layer, on top of that is a caramel frosting, rolled in nuts with a drizzle of caramel and chocolate. They are heaven!!

Recipe:


Cake

Ingredients

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x9 inch pan or line a muffin pan with paper liners.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven. For cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

FOR THE FROSTING
16 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 lb. confectioners’ sugar
1½ tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup caramel sauce
Pinch of coarse salt
2 tbsp. heavy cream
To make the frosting, add the butter to the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat on medium-high speed 1 minute until smooth. Blend in the confectioners’ sugar until smooth, 1-2 minutes. Mix in the vanilla, caramel sauce and salt until incorporated. (Note: the caramel sauce should be just warm enough that it is workable, but not warm enough to melt the butter in the frosting.) Add the heavy cream and whip on high speed until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.

My Bestest Friends

These are my wonderful sisters Chelsie on the left and Natalie on the right. They are my best friends. I am so lucky to have sisters that I know will always be there for me. Yes me have our fights but at the end of the day, they are my family and we always have each others backs. They are the girls I know I can always talk to about anything. I love them so much and I am so lucky to have the relationship that I do with them.

Oh So True!

Men vs Women

PEOPLE NICKNAMES:
* If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah.
* If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla and Four-eyes. (note: Some men even call their wives "dude.")

EATING OUT:
* When the bill arrives, Mike , Dave and John will each throw in $20, even though it's only for $32.50. None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back.
* When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.

MONEY:
* A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
* A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need if it's on sale.

BATHROOMS:
* A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel ..
* The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.

ARGUMENTS:
* A woman has the last word in any argument.
* Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

FUTURE:
* A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
* A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

SUCCESS:
* A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
* A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

MARRIAGE:
* A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.
* A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, but she does.

DRESSING UP:
* A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the trash, answer the phone, read a book, and get the mail.
* A man might dress up for weddings and funerals.

NATURAL:
* Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.
* Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

OFFSPRING:
* Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.
* A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

A Day In The Life

As a stay at home mom, my days consist mostly of cooking, cleaning and changing stinky bums; however when we get time to play me and the girls enjoy going to the park, playing outside, and coming up with the next delicious cupcake recipe. Winter time is a hard time of the year for us because we enjoy being outside so much, but the cold snowy weather not so much! The girls get restless being cooped up in the house all day everyday during the winter, so I try to find fun things to do with them. Like play with play-doh, color pretty pictures, and sing and dance. Taylor's favorite song right now is "single ladies" by Beyonce. She is so silly, she dances and sings its hilarious. Tenlie even joins in on the action by crawling around in circles shaking her head back and forth. Oh I love my girls.

Christmas Time is here!

Christmas was so much fun this year, Taylor was so excited for Santa to come. The whole month of December every time Taylor would see something she liked on TV she would say I want that, oh I want that too, and that, and that, and that...... I am sure you get the picture. Anyways I started buying the stuff she said she wanted, but then the list kept getting longer and longer so I left the rest to Santa and the Grandparents lol.. Tenlie was more excited about all the wrapping paper on Christmas day. Which was somewhat expected. She was so cute. She just wanted to be in the middle of action. The girls were spoiled rotten. The day after Christmas my living room was completely filled with toys that I had no idea where to put. I felt like I lived in the middle Toys R Us. Don't get me wrong I am thankful for what we have but sometimes I feel like we have more stuff is storage than we actually have in the house. Its time for a new house with about 1000 more square feet. :)

Halloween 2011

Halloween was so much fun this year. Taylor loves fairies. Her favorite show is Tinkerbell: The great fairy rescue. So for Halloween this year she decided she wanted to be Rosetta off of Tinkerbell. I went looking for a Rosetta costume and actually found one at Walmart but couldn't get myself to pay $20 for it. So I decided to put my own spin on Rosetta and that is what Taylor wore. I personally think I turned out really cute. Tenlie was a teddy bear, which looked so cute on her. I got this costume last year on clearance, I only paid $0.25 for it. You cant beat that. Halloween was fun. We took the girl trick or treating, all the elderly people thought they were so cute. They always get handful's of candy because Taylor knows how to work it lol.. I cant wait until we get a bigger house and can start having Halloween and other holiday parties. I love throwing a good party :)