Apple Season!
I always liked apple picking as a kid and I missed it when we moved away. And now we're back and live in fruit country. AND my family has apple trees in their yard. How cool is that! So one night we all went over and picked apples.
Another favourite of mine growing up was apple crisp. It was always a staple dessert for holidays in our house. So when Thanksgiving rolled around I volunteered to make dessert and Apple Crisp was on the menu!
There are SO many versions and ways to make apple crisp. Or crumble if you prefer. The Apple part is mostly the same, but the topping is the part that differs. Small chunks vs large, oats or no oats. It's a little daunting. I wanted a recipe that would be tasty, easy, and portable since we were traveling for our turkey dinner. Then I came across this recipe from Rock Recipes and really liked the way she laid out all the tips to make the perfect apple crisp.
For my recipe I used Granny Smith apples. They're my go-to apples for the majority of baking (and eating actually). The tart taste balances out the sweet of most desserts and they hold their shape very well during the baking process.
The recipe came together easily. All I did was cover it well and bake it when it was time for desert. You really want to pat down and smooch the topping into the apples, but don't. Doing as recommended and leaving them in chunks like you see below really makes the topping crispy!
It was so tasty that I didn't get a picture after baking but before eating. So I guess it went over well with the family! This recipe and method was a definite win!
Happy Baking!!
I'm not a girly girl really, but occasionally I like to get my frilly on. And I've tried hard not to pink-wash my daughter as best as I can, making sure she has lots of blues and greens and yellows in her room and wardrobe. It's a hard fight since she's the only girl granddaughter right now. But for her birthday I decided 'what the heck' and made her a tutu.
Yup. A pink full frilly tutu just for her birthday.
It's awesome!
The tutorial found here from The Pinning Momma is fairly simple to follow and is a no sew version. This was the best for me, since a) I can barely sew and b) I don't have a sewing machine. It just required a few stitches to connect the elastic, but you could easily tie them together if you lack needle and thread or like me are prone to poking yourself. A lot.
I picked three colours: white, light pink, and a darker pink. Yah, I know I don't like too much pink, but she only turns one once, right? The best thing about this is you can make it in any colour combo you want. And changing how I layered the tulle changed the colour for each section giving it a really neat effect.
Getting the number of wraps around the cardboard was a tiny bit tricky because I kept loosing count. I found it helpful to make a small pencil mark on the 'top' of the cardboard to help keep track of when I made a full rotation of the tulle.
Below is a quick video I took to show what a full rotation looks like. From start to finish that's counted as one wrap around.
The whole project maybe took a little over an hour from start to finish because I had to layer all the different colours. If you're doing one colour, it should take less time.
The tutu looked great and had a nice fullness to it and held up well for the party. It can definitely be used again. And I even had someone ask to make them an adult sized one :)
The project cost about $15 total, the tulle was on sale. You can jazz it up as well by adding ribbon or a bow at the back if you'd want something a little flashier or fun.
Overall, a super simple DIY project!
It's birthday season in our house! Birthday #1 went off without a hitch, but the chalkboard sadly never recovered and will probably need to be repainted.
On to Birthday #2!
My son is turning 5 and had requested a Spiderman birthday. Easy enough! This time instead of cupcakes, I chose a traditional cake since it's a smaller crowd. When it comes to cakes I tend to half-cheat. The cake comes from a box but the icing I make myself from an awesome recipe I got from a cake decorator friend of mine. I've used it for years and it hasn't failed yet.
I searched all over Pinterest for inspiration for the cake. I wanted to do blue instead of red, and would need a very smooth surface for the decorating. Now I could have gone off and used fondant. However a) I've never used fondant before and b) most people I talk to really dislike the taste or texture of fondant. And I really didn't want to venture into an entirely new icing medium without a little practice.
I had come across this method a while ago when looking for icing techniques for my baby girls birthday. I searched around a little more and found that the method was very similar across the board and the effect was lovely. I won't include a link since there are lots of tutorials and videos.
So I thought "what the heck". If it didn't work, I'd have a bumpy spiderman cake!
I baked two 9" round cakes and made a double batch of buttercream icing. I iced between the cakes, lopped off the top to make it flatter, and did a crumb coat. Then I used almost an entire container of blue food colouring to get the right 'Spiderman blue'. Next time I'd use the gels.
When using buttercream you need to make sure it's at the right temperature to manipulate. Too hot and it'll melt, too cold and it won't spread. Keep this in mind.
Sorry - no in progress pics. Between the icing and the food colouring, my hands and kitchen looked like I beat up a Smurf.
After my crumb coat had set in the fridge, I did a rough icing around the cake. Use more icing then you think you'll need, you can always work it off later. I used a metal icing spatula to get the cake covered.
Now for the smooth finish.
Keep very hot water and a clean paper towel near by your cake and icing bowl. The method I tried worked mostly like this:
- Run spatula under hot water for about 10 seconds (until metal becomes hot)
- Quickly wipe with clean paper towel to remove water
- Sweep the spatula over the icing. No need to push or dig the icing, your just smoothing it out, not pushing it around.
- Scrape excess icing off the spatula onto the bowl
- Repeat and continue working around your cake
It's a LOT of steps and extra work, and I found I had to reheat my spatula for every pass on the cake (I had to redo the spot on the right in the pic above) or it would mess it up. So keep your hot water tap running. But I think it turned out pretty well for the first time and it definitely worth the extra work if you want a smooth finish on your cake but don't want to use fondant.
There is an additional step where you use a Viva paper towel and smooth the icing even further which I skipped. Because it HAS to be this specific brand and no other, and I had just bought a bunch of our regular kind, I passed on this step. But if I really wanted the 'fondant finish', I'd plan ahead and get some.
I'm pretty impressed with myself and this method.
With the amount of work aside, this is a definite win!
