things i've made recently that are delicious

S'mores cupcakes

St. Patrick's Day cupcakes

Pretty awesome chocolate cake for my brother's birthday

butterfinger cupcakes

I used this recipe. They were yummy, but next time I'll probably omit the caramel filling. It made for super sticky cupcakes. I made them for a double birthday party at the Webb's. They were pretty yummy!

life lately

So, not much has been happening.

Baby has been growing like a weed. I'm excited to take her to the doctor next week and see how much she's grown. She's a pro at eating Cheerios and other small finger foods. She is also a pro at pulling herself up to stand at the couch or coffee table or crib...or anything else within her reach. She is also the most independent baby. She always wants to be on the ground crawling around instead of being held. If we try to hold her, she pushes away until we put her down. When she plays with her toys on the ground and I get down and try to play with her, she pushes me away. She just wants to be by herself. She's so silly. I also went and bought some teeny tiny ponytails so that I could do this:

So cute!

Mr. Webb has been busy with three 12-hour work days on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. Then he stays busy the rest of the week with school, school, school.

I have been busy taking care of my very active baby. This month I also started taking a cake decorating class. I've been to two sessions and have two left. I have already learned so much, and I'm excited to learn even more. I filled, iced and decorated my first cake last night. It didn't look perfect, but it's better than anything I've been able to do before! Hopefully my next one looks better and I'll feel good about posting a picture. :)

I'll leave with with a few more baby pictures and some Valentine cupcakes.

cinnamon swirl cupcakes

These cupcakes turned out very pretty, and very yummy. I made them for my dad to take to work for a meeting.

You can find the recipe here. And you should probably make them. They're delicious!

They were also very photogenic, which is why there are so many pictures! :)

christmas cupcakes - take two

I made these cupcakes for our Webb family Christmas Eve party. They were super simple, but very pretty (I think). :)

christmas cupcakes - take one

I made these Christmas tree cupcakes for a Christmas party I had with my friends. They turned out really cute, but those trees broke like crazy. I made 3 times as many as I needed, and I still had to put some broken ones on my cupcakes because they were just so fragile! Here is a picture of my Christmas tree graveyard, and then my cupcakes.

chocolate orange cupcakes

My sister-in-law requested these for her birthday cupcakes. I was at a loss on how to invent them myself, so I took the easy route.

First, get a chocolate cake mix and two chocolate oranges (I got one dark and one milk chocolate). Prepare your cake mix according to package directions. Take 1/2-ish of one of your chocolate oranges and chop it into little pieces. Stir those pieces into your cake mix, and bake them.

While they are cooling, make some orange chocolate ganache. Ganache is super easy, and super delicious.

In a double boiler (which, to me, is a silver bowl placed over a pot of simmering water), melt 4 oz of your chocolate orange (I don't remember how many ounces a whole orange is, but I know that Mr. Webb and I just ate a couple slices and called the rest good). Stir in a 1/2 cup of heavy cream. Stir until the ganache looks nice a smooth. Then dip your cupcakes in the ganache. Let cool, and then enjoy!

caramel apple cupcakes

Yesterday we celebrated my nephew's birthday. He turned 7 at the end of October (hence the '7' candle).

I usually let people choose what kind of cupcakes they want for their birthday, but this little guy wasn't very picky. He said he didn't care what kind he had. So, I made caramel apple cupcakes.

I've been wanting to try these cupcakes for a few months now, so I was happy for an excuse to finally make them! Plus, I pretty much made them up on my own! I'm more than a little bit proud of that fact.

Would you like to make them? Because it's incredibly easy!

First, mix up a white cake mix according to the package directions. Then add in some toffee bits (I used Heath brand).

Peel and finely dice 2 or 3 green apples, toss them in some cinnamon and sugar, and add them to the cake mix as well. I used 2 regular sized apples and one small one, but I probably could have just used the 2 regular ones. It was a lot of apples!

Fill your cupcake wrappers about 1/2 way full, and bake at 350 until done (I almost never time my cupcakes).

Make some magical toffee sauce. No, it actually is magical. You have to plan ahead to make this. It takes 8 hours. I started mine on Saturday night before I went to bed.

Take a can of sweetened condensed milk, and take the wrapper off. Put it in a crock pot and cover it with water. Cook it on low for 8 hours, turn off the crock pot, and let it sit until the water and can cool to room temperature. Open the can and be amazed! It turns into a delicious dulce de leche tasting sauce (I've never had dulce de leche, but Mr. Webb said that's what it tasted like).

You can make it on the stove, and it takes only 3-4 hours, but I've heard stories about cans exploding...so I went the safe route with the slow cooker.

After they are completely cooled, top with your magical toffee sauce, drizzle with melted chocolate, sprinkle with more toffee pieces, and stick a popsicle stick in (I used mini popsicle sticks).

For birthdays, I've started making regular sized cupcakes, but then I make a jumbo one for the birthday person and put it in a cute glass goblet that I bought at the thrift store for 50 cents.

The little nephews especially enjoy that I do this!

Mr. Webb and I sampled one before we went to the party. We were just making sure they tasted good, honest!

chocolate cupcakes with chocolate mousse filling

pinterest

Yes, I am dedicating an entire post to Pinterest. If you don't know what Pinterest is, I'll sum it up in one word. Awesome. Pinterest.com has nothing less than inspired me. It's basically a website where you can 'pin' things from any website to different boards. I think of it like having online bulletin boards. For instance, I have a board for recipes, one for crafts, and even one dedicated to cakes and cupcakes. All in all, I have 12 boards.

You can also follow other boards. So if someone has a lot of pins that you like, you can follow that board. The only thing I don't like about Pinterest, is that once in awhile, the website will just decide for you that you should follow someone. Then you have to go and unfollow all of their boards. But other than that, I have loved Pinterest.

Here are some of the things that Pinterest has inspired me to do:

1. Remember my last post, how I took 3 month baby pictures and had the letters above my baby's head? Got that idea from Pinterest.

2. Made THIS brilliant idea. Turn a 12-pack soda box into canned food storage? Although I found out AFTER I made it, that it doesn't fit normal sized cans. I wasn't aware that Campbell's soup cans were smaller than other cans. So that project didn't work out for me.

3. Made THIS no-sew jacket/wrap.

4. Made a bunch of THESE little bows, tied by using a fork.

5. Made Cinnamon Honey Butter. Delicious.

6. Made THIS pasta dish. Basically like carbonara, but instead of putting the egg with the cream sauce, you fry it and stick it up top. It was pretty much delicious.

7. Made THIS egg in a bell pepper slice. I made it for Mr. Webb for breakfast, and he rather enjoyed it. I didn't flip my egg though. I just cooked it a low heat for a long time.

8. Reorganized my cupcake wrappers. Luckily, I already had a container that worked wonderfully! Here are my before and after pictures of my cupcake supplies. See how much my container was overflowing before?

9. Made this paper star. I can't decide if I like it or not.

10. Used a weekly meal planner, and planned about a month's worth of meals.

So, in a nutshell, you should go join Pinterest. Because it rocks. :)

baby pictures and a cake

Here is my baby at 6 weeks old!

She helped her uncle play Chronology...

And hung out with her Aunt

And now she is 7 weeks old! And soooo happy!

She is so beautiful!

And she's getting really good at tummy time.

In other news, I made this cake, which I think looks like it should start talking and be on Sesame Street...

valentine cupcakes 2

This past weekend I had my second ever cupcake job. My visiting teaching partner hired me to make her daughter's birthday cake and cupcakes. I was a little bit nervous, because I'm not really a cake person, but I think both the cake and the cupcakes turned out way better than I could have hoped for! They were beautiful and delicious! My mom saved me with her heart shaped cake pan, and the cake was very cooperative and came out of the pan perfectly! Here are a whole bunch of pictures! I took a lot, because they looked so good. :)