cute cupcake: butterfly

Pin It

Here's another cupcake for my weekly cupcake post. With the beautiful Spring weather we've been having, we've seen quite a few butterflies fluttering around our yard. This butterfly cupcake was incredibly easy to make using only a few easy to find candies. I took a prepared and frosted cupcake and added a sour gummy worm for the body, 4 candy-coated almonds for the wings, black gel icing colour dotted on with a toothpick for the eyes, and 2 chocolate sprinkles for the antennae. Couldn't be easier!



Pin It

cute cupcake: fly a kite

Pin It

Here's the next cute cupcake in my cute cupcake series. If you missed it last week, I'm going to be posting a new cupcake every week in a Spring/Summer theme for the next 3 months. I picked the kite cupcake today because of the beautiful Spring day we had today. Warm, gorgeous weather, perfect for flying a kite. All of my cupcakes will be simple to make. Here's how I made this cupcake:

What you'll need:

1 baked cupcake
white frosting
blue gel icing colour
4 different coloured starburst
black licorice lace

1. Take some blue gel icing colour and colour some white icing. Spread the blue icing on a baked cupcake.

2. Cut all four of your starburst candies and cut them into quarters. Use 1 quarter from each colour and arrange in a kite shape on your cupcake.

3. Cutt off a piece of your black licorice lace and place on your cupcake for the kite string.



Pin It

cute cupcakes: caterpillar

Pin It

I've recently gone a little "cupcake crazy" in my house and I have made about a million cupcakes. They aren't fancy cupcakes, just white cake mix and white icing, but the designs on top are something special. I will be sharing 1 cupcake once a week for the next 3 months. All these cupcakes will have either a Spring or Summer theme to them. They are easy to make, cute to look at, and delicious to eat. Can't beat that! With the gorgeous Spring weather we had here yesterday, I thought this cute little caterpillar would be the perfect cupcake to start off my cupcake series. Here's how I made it:

What you'll need:

1 prepared cupcake with white frosting
5 skittles
green taffy
2 chocolate sprinkles
black gel icing
toothpick
knife

1. Take your prepared cupcake and place 5 skittles on top for the caterpillar's body.
2. using your knife, cut 2 leaves out of your green taffy - you can also use your knife to make a line down the center of the leaf - don't cut through it! Place the leaves on the cupcake.
3. add 2 chocolate sprinkles for the caterpillar's antennae
4. dip your toothpick in black gel icing and dot on 2 eyes.



Pin It

got Easter eggs??

Pin It Who has a dozen or more colored Easter eggs? I do, I do. Not sure what to do with them besides make an overwhelming amount of egg salad sandwiches? Well, we made some egg salad sandwiches too, but we also made a few fun eggs for the kiddos. Just peel the colored shell off your egg and decorate with a few items you probably already have in your fridge. No word of a lie, my kiddos ate them right up. And that's saying a lot because Kirsten normally won't eat a hard-boiled egg. Check out these cuties:



Chickie egg mama - slice off a little bit from the bottom of the egg so it stands up. Using a knife, slice some feet, a beak, and some head feathers out of your carrot. The eyes are 2 sprinkles.



Chickie egg baby - I made this little cutie 2 years ago, but I'm showing him again because he's pretty adorable. Slice a hard-boiled egg in half. Slice a little off the bottom so the egg will sit flat on the plate. He has 2 sprinkle eyes and a sliced carrot nose.



Easter bunny egg - slice off a little bit from the bottom of the egg so it stands up. Using a knife, slice 2 feet, 2 ears, and a nose out of carrot. The whiskers are made out of thin celery slices and he has 2 sprinkle eyes.

Happy Easter everyone!

Pin It

a smoothie for my peeps

Pin It

Or should that be a peep for my smoothie, lol? I was making smoothies for the kids last weekend and decided to turn them a little Easter-ish. Nothing says Easter like peeps. I'm really not too much of a fun myself, but the kids think they're adorable and tasty. I mean they're not only cute, but it's a big sugar-coated marshmallow! I also added a huge dollop of whipped cream with some colourful rainbow sprinkles. Yum! Here's the smoothie recipe I made:

Ingredients:

1 cup strawberry yogurt
2 cups frozen strawberries
milk to desired consistency - about 1 cup
whipped cream
sprinkles
peeps

1. blend up the yogurt, frozen strawberries and milk until desired consistency is reached

2. pour into a cup/glass and garnish with some whipped cream, sprinkles and a peep

3. serve to your kiddos with a straw





Pin It

there's a worm in my apple!

Pin It

Okay, so this may not be the most original idea for an April Fool's day prank (you've probably seen it a million times all over the internet), but we've all been under the weather here and originality is not my strong point right now. I'd rather be sleeping than brainstorming, lol. Regardless, this was a real winner with my kids. Not only do they already love apples, but getting a piece of candy in it was just the icing on the cake. They really weren't tricked with this cute gummy worm apple, but they did think it was hilarious and they want me to make it for the all.the.time now! This is beyond simple to make and an easy way to give your kiddos a special little trick/treat for April Fool's day today. All you have to do is poke a hole in an apple and stick a gummy worm inside. I also used my food safe markers to draw on some eyes. In my opinion, everything is always cuter with a little face on it! Happy April Fool's day everyone!

Idea from Family Fun

Pin It

rainbow cupcakes

Pin It

How about a little rainbow cupcake for St. Patrick's Day? I won't really call this a recipe because I used a boxed cake mix and a can of frosting, but it was a super simple treat to make for the kids. I tinted the frosting blue, used jelly belly jellybeans for the rainbow and gave it a whipped cream cloud. Easy, fun and delicious.

Pin It

shamrock smoothies

Pin It

This is the first post of many fun St. Patrick's day activities we've been up to in my house. Most people have heard of shamrock shakes, but I wanted to make the kids a yummy green smoothie. I just used whatever I had on hand at home and added just a wee bit of green food colouring to make it just a wee bit more green. The kids absolutely adored them - as did I. We all love smoothies in this house. Here is how you make them:



Ingredients:

3 bananas, sliced and frozen
3 kiwis, sliced
1 cup vanilla yogurt
milk to desired thickness
small bit of green food colouring (optional)
whipped cream
rainbow sprinkles

Directions:

1. place your frozen banana, kiwi, yogurt and milk in the blender and blend until smooth.
2. pour into cups and garnish with whipped cream clouds and rainbow sprinkles.



Pin It

the cutest muffins ever

Pin It

Kirsten loves bringing homemade muffins to school and I love making them for her because I know exactly what's in them. We have quite a few favourite recipes and these apple and cinnamon ones are definitely up there. In an effort to make the muffins in her bento boxes more cute (I have an obsession with making everything cute if you haven't realized that by now!), I came up with this idea. She had an adorable little animal muffin in her lunch box everyday for a week for her morning nutrition break. She was just delighted and wants me to make them again! I also love to make large batches of muffins and freeze them so I can always pop one out of the freezer and have some homemade goodies in her lunch. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of unsweetened applesauce
1 cup white sugar
1 slightly beaten egg
1/3 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Mix the applesauce, sugar, egg and butter together. Set aside. In a separate bowl, mix together baking soda, baking powder, salt and flour. Mix wet and dry ingredients all together. Pour into greased muffin tins or muffin liners, and bake in 350 degrees oven for approximately 20 minutes.

These are relatively healthy, moist and delicious. They are one of our favourites.

Here are my cute little animal creations. Most are made using chocolate melting wafers, icing eyes, and chocolate jimmies. Super easy. A little gel icing will help hold the decorations in place.





These monkey muffins were made using chocolate melting wafers for the ears, icing eyes and a sliced nilla wafer.





The cute little piggy muffins were made by cutting 2 pink melting wafers into triangles and sticking them in the top of the muffin. The piggy also has icing eyes and a pink melting wafer with chocolate jimmies for the nose.





The mouse muffins were made using white melting wafers for the ears, icing eyes, a heart sprinkle for the nose and chocolate jimmies for the whiskers.





This bear muffin is just a little bit different than the one I put in her lunch box last week. This one was chocolate melting wafer ears instead of fruit leather. He also has the red heart nose, chocolate jimmies for the mouth, and icing eyes.





And lastly, an adorable little owl muffin. This owl muffin was made using chocolate melting wafers cut into triangles for the ears, an orange melting wafer cut into a triangle for the nose and 2 white melting wafers with a chocolate dot for the eyes.

muffin recipe from Cat Can Cook



Pin It

hugs and kisses cupcakes

Pin It

Good ol' Martha strikes again. Doesn't Martha just have the best ideas? I stumbled across these babies on Martha's website and just loved the idea of them (she calls them X's and O's cupcakes). I just made a boxed cupcake mix, used store bought icing and stuck some cinnamon heart candies on top of them in X's and O's. Couldn't be easier. What a cute Valentine's treat.

tic tac toe anyone?



Idea from Martha Stewart

Pin It

makin' cookies for Santa

Pin It Yesterday the kiddos and I made a huge batch of sugar cookies. We picked out all our favourite Christmas cookie cutters, all our favourite decorations and the kiddies had a blast decorating their cookies. We probably decorated cookies for at least a couple hours. Kirsten really enjoyed herself, but Cam lost interest after about half an hour. Mom had to step in and help finish decorating the cookies. Here's some pics and the recipe we used. * Please ignore the less than stellar photos - it gets dark here at about 4:00 and I had to use my speedlight which I obviously have not quite mastered yet, lol. I love natural light photography and hate my speedlight! Or maybe my speedlight hates me!*





The end result - do you think they liked the icing eyes, lol!



And a couple of mine:



And here's the recipe we used - it was really easy and tasty and made a HUGE amount of cookies:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1.In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
2.Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
3.Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Recipe from allrecipes.com



Pin It

snowman hot chocolate

Pin It

Want to make your kid's hot chocolate special and cute in about a minute? Make them some snowman hot chocolate! Just make your hot chocolate as you normally would, throw some whipped cream on top, throw in a candy cane (they dissolve in the hot chocolate and make it taste minty, yum!) and toss some food marker decorated marshmallows on top. So adorable and really quick and easy. I made the both of the kids one of these on the weekend and they went crazy for them. I think we'll be having these all Winter long!





Pin It

smoothies 101

Pin It

I absolutely love serving smoothies to my kiddos. They're fresh, fast and nutritious. I serve them often at home and am now enjoying sending them to school with Kirsten. Smoothies are so versatile, you can literally make so many different varieties. I make huge batches on the weekends and then freeze them in my awesome freezer jam jars. It's a perfect serving size for my kids. I take them out of the freezer in the morning and stick them in Kirsten's lunch box for a delicious defrosted smoothie by lunch.

Smoothies are so simple to make and require nothing but a good quality blender to make them. Smoothies are the ultimate healthy snack for kids because they are high in fiber, low in fat, and packed with vitamins and antioxidants.

Lots of people make smoothies using ice cubes, but as long as you use frozen fruit or yogurt, you don't need to. If you're using all fresh fruit, then the ice cubes are a must. I generally use all frozen fruit, yogurt (not frozen) and a liquid like milk or juice. Frozen fruit blends best when they are sliced into smaller pieces. To do this I slice up the fruit ahead of time and freeze them in freezer bags. That way when I want some, I just grab a freezer bag and I have frozen fruit that is the perfect size for blending.

You can also add other things to smoothies like wheat germ, flax seed, honey as a natural sweetener, cinnamon, vanilla extract, protein powders etc. You can really add so many different things. Experimenting is fun.



Some of you aren't going to like this, but I don't use any exact measurements when I make my smoothies. That's actually one of the great things about smoothies - you don't need to measure. Just throw your ingredients in the blender and blend it up. If it's too thick, add more liquid or if it's too liquidy, add more thickener (like frozen fruits or yogurt). Blend till you get your perfect consistency.

All the smoothies I make are fruit smoothies and they are generally very simple. They all have no more than 4 ingredients. I like simple. These are tasty, delicious and blend up in just seconds.


This is generally the guideline I follow when I make my fruit smoothie:

• 2-3 cups of frozen fruit

• 1 to 1-1/2 cups of liquid

• 1 cup yogurt


Here's the very simple way I make mine:

1) grab your blender

2) throw in some frozen fruit

3) add in some yogurt

4) add your liquid

5) put on the lid and blend it up. I usually have to stir it a couple times in between blending. If too liquidy add more fruit or yogurt, if too thick add more liquid. So easy!

6) then either serve them fresh right away or pour into freezer safe containers and freeze for a later date. The freezer containers are awesome because they stack and lock in the freezer to save space.



Here are some of our favourite smoothie recipes in our house:

blueberry pomegranate smoothie

frozen blueberries
blueberry yogurt
pomegranate juice

chocolate strawberry smoothie

frozen strawberries
strawberry yogurt
chocolate milk
squirt of chocolate syrup (yummy but optional)

blueberry, cherry, apple smoothie

frozen blueberries
cherry yogurt
apple juice

peanut butter cup (not good for peanut free schools, but yummy for home)

frozen banana
peanut butter
chocolate milk
squirt of chocolate syrup (yummy but optional)

peaches and cream

frozen peaches
vanilla yogurt
milk

chocolate raspberry smoothie

frozen raspberries
raspberry yogurt
chocolate milk
squirt of chocolate syrup (yummy but optional)

strawberry smoothie

frozen strawberries
strawberry yogurt
milk

strawberry banana smoothie

frozen strawberries
frozen banana
strawberry yogurt
orange juice

creamsicle smoothie

frozen banana
vanilla yogurt
orange juice

mixed berry smoothie

frozen mixed berries
any berry flavour of yogurt
milk



Have fun making smoothies!



Pin It

mini pumpkin pies

Pin It

Yummy, yummy, yummy. I just love pumpkin pie. I had some leftover pie crust and pumpkin from making my pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving and I wanted to use it up. I didn't want to make big pies again, so I had an idea to make mini pumpkin pies, or pumpkin tarts. These were delish. James liked them even better than my original pumpkin pies because there is more crust to pie ratio, lol. These were really easy to make and I'll definitely be making them again. Of course, I had to cute-ify them somehow to I used my mini halloween/fall cookie cutters and cut shapes out of my remaining dough and put the shapes on top of the pie. Super cute!



Here's the recipes I used:

You could use some frozen pie crusts (2) and let them defrost. Once defrosted, roll them out and cut your circles out from them. If you like homemade crust, I like this recipe:

Ingredients:

5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 lb tenderflake lard
1 egg, stirred slightly
1 tablespoon vinegar
7/8 cup cold water

Directions:

1. Stir the flour and salt together.
2. Cut in the lard with a pastry blender or 2 knives until the shortening is in pea size pieces.
3. In a measuring cup, combine the egg and vinegar.
4. Add enough cold water to make one cup.
5. Stir the liquid into the flour mixture, adding just enough to make the dough cling together.
6. Stir the water in with a wooden spoon until mixed thoroughly, then gather the dough into a ball, and separate into 6 portions.
7. Cover and refrigerate for one hour, you can chill overnight, covered, providing you leave it at room temp for 15 mins before rolling.
8. Lightly flour surface and roll dough out into circles. Using a 4" circle cutter, cut circles out of your dough and place in a greased muffin tin.
9. Using the remaining dough, roll it out and cut cute shapes out of it. These shapes will be placed on top of your mini pies once the filling is in.

For the pie filling:

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1/2 can (28 oz/796 mL) E.D.SMITH® PURE PUMPKIN
1 cup (250 mL) packed brown sugar
1 tsp (5 mL) ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp (2 mL) ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp (1 mL) ground ginger
1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt
3/4 cup (175 mL) evaporated milk

Directions:

1. Beat eggs lightly in medium bowl. Add E.D.SMITH® PURE PUMPKIN, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and salt - stir until well combined. Blend in milk. Pour filling into your mini pie shells in your muffin tin. Place your cute cut outs on top. Bake at 425ºF (220ºC) for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350ºF (180ºC) and continue baking 15-20 minutes longer or until knife inserted in centre comes out clean.



Recipe for pie crust from Tenderflake
Recipe for pie filling from E.D.Smith



Pin It