September 30, 2007 at 10:07 am (Recipe)
Mmmmmm… I just love when the weather begins getting cooler in the mornings and a batch of scrumptous bread pudding is baking in the oven… the wonderful smells are just intoxicating… This recipe is my own special recipe and it has some very unique ingredients to pack a powerful punch on the tastebuds area!
Ingredients:
1/2 loaf French Bread, cut into 1 inch squares (about 4.5 cups)
1/2 loaf Challah Bread, cut into 1 inch squares (about 4-5 cups)
1 quart milk
1/2 cup sour cream
3 eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups sugar
2 Tbsp vanilla
1 cup baking raisins, for added taste soak raisins overnight in rum
1/4 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 Tbsp salted butter, sliced up a bit
Directions:
- Preheat over to 350° F.
- Spray 9×13 glass baking pan with non stick spray
- Place butter in baking pan and place baking pan in oven to melt butter.
- Soak the bread in milk in a large mixing bowl. Crush with hands until well mixed and all the milk is absorbed.
- Add the sour cream to the bread mixture.
- Add 1 cup of the sugar to the bread mixture.
- In a separate bowl, beat eggs, 1 cup sugar, vanilla and spices together. Gently stir into the bread mixture.
- Gently stir the raisins into the bread mixture.
- Take the 9×13 glass baking pan out of the oven. The butter should be melted. Using a silicone pastry brush, coat the sides of the pan and the bottom of the pan with the butter.
- Pour the bread mix into the bottom of the 9×3 glass baking pan. bake for 35-45 minutes, until set. The pudding is done when the edges start getting a bit brown and pull away from the edge of the pan. You can also pour this into individual ramikins if need be.
- Let cool a bit and serve with vanilla sauce. I use Dr. Oetker’s Vanilla Sauce Mix with a little bit of rum (to taste) in the sauce… You can also serve this with a rum sauce… or both!
Makes:
8-10 Servings
Enjoy!
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scrapbooking, card making, rubber stamping, paper crafts, handmade gifts, home business, highland park, creativity
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September 24, 2007 at 1:26 am (Digital Scrapbooking)
So what does a teenager find cool or should I say kewl? Well my daughter who’s 13 is running for Student Council President… so she asked me for help (imagine that…) and boy did I have fun with Paint Shop Pro version 9! Here’s the before and after pictures…
Before After
Before After
My daughter needed posters with these after pictures on it… so how did I do it?
I used Paint Shop Pro’s freehand tool to cut out the image and then I used the eraser tool
and I set the eraser size to 15 and I simply erased the background around the band
members. I then cropped my daughter and using the paste transparent image, I pasted
Nicole in front of the band. I used the adjust to sharpen and then soften edges a bit and
voila… For the magazine cover I actually cheated a bit. I did the main picture in Paintshop
Pro but then I pasted it into Microsoft Powerpoint and I used Microsoft Powerpoint to
type up the text… I set Powerpoint’s page orientation to portrait… now my daughter has
flyers she can hand out and I have a really neat scrapbook page! For the fonts… see my article on fonts to learn how to download fonts and what the cool font sites are…
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scrapbooking, card making, rubber stamping, paper crafts, handmade gifts, home business, highland park, creativity
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September 23, 2007 at 9:13 am (Money Saving Tips & Tricks)
Our blender pens are the best and with a lot of use, the blender pens can become empty! Instead of buying new blender pens - refill your blender pens with this nifty blender pen refill recipe…
Blender Pen Refill Recipe#1
- 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons glycerin*
- 5 tablespoons distilled water
- 1 teaspoon rubbing alcohol
Put the ingredients in a small jar and just let my tips soak up the liquid for about half an hour. Then turn and soak the other side.*Note: You can find glycerin in the cake decorating aisle of your craft store.
Blender Pen Ideas:
- To make markers out of a blender pen, just put 3-4 drops of the reinker on the lid of your pad, then dip the blender pen into the drops….the pen will “suck up” the ink. Scribble on a piece of scratch paper to find out if the color is deep enough…you may have to repeat the process to get the true color of the ink. Then used your hole punch to cut out a little circle and used a glue dot to adhere it to the end of the cap, so you always know what color you are grabbing!This works out well because a whole package of blender pens has 6 tips, and there are 6 in colors.
- Swipe the blender pen on the watercolor crayons and then color your stamped image.
- Using watercolor pencils, color the stamped image onto paper and then take your blender pen and blend the colors on the stamped image.
- Squish your ink pad cover so that it picks up color from your ink pad, then take the blender pen and soak the tip in the ink on the ink pad cover.
- Get a tiny dollop of pastel chalk onto the end of the Blender Pen. Color in the stamped image. The color will be bolder where you started than where you finished. (Note: This works well with Stamping on Tiles… makes a softer look than the Sharpie Markers…make sure you seal with Clear Acrylic sealer spray if used as a decoration or bake 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes if using tiles as a coaster)
- Color stamped image on cardstock with pastel chalks and then swipe blender pen of the colored image for a really soft look.
Remember:
Don’t forget that you can use a blender pen for many colors… after your are done coloring with a color, run your blender pen on a piece of scrap cardstock till it is clear again (no color) and then you are ready to color with the next color!
I just love my blender pens! Also to save your tips, do not press hard… If you have to press hard, you are not picking up enough color or your blender pen is dry…
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Tags:
scrapbooking, card making, rubber stamping, paper crafts, handmade gifts, home business, highland park, creativity
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September 16, 2007 at 11:15 am (Recipe)
Oh Yum… I love cupcakes - I am sooo addicted to them… they cook quickly and are sooo easy to eat and not to mention the taste and texture is terrific…
Every weekend you can always find a new delicious batch
of cupcakes on my dinner table… I just love on baking
cupcakes early in the morning and filling our house with wonderful smells… Here’s a new cupcake recipe I dabbled with… I got a huge thumbs up from some very very finicky teenagers … these are simply divine… they are miniature coffee cakes with a little surprise in the middle - chocolate chips! These are really simple to make and pack a big bang on the taste buds…!
Surprise Crumbles Recipe
Serves: About 15 (if you don’t eat the batter!:))
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Ingredients:
Cupcake Batter:
3 c. Bisquick Baking Mix (yes and it is devine!)
2 large eggs
1 c. chocolate chips, ghirardelli 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips
1 c. sugar, extra fine
1 1/2 c. sour cream, breakstone’s
1/4 c. butter, softened
1 1/2 tsp. madagascar bourbon pure vanilla or mexican vanilla
Streusel:
1/4 c. brown sugar, packed
1/4 c. nuts, chopped (Optional…I omitted but you can use hazelnuts or pecans)
1 tsp. cinnamon
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
2. With mixer mix 1 minute: Bisquick, eggs, sugar, sour cream, butter.
3. With mixer mix vanilla for 1 more minute.
4. Pour 1/3 batter into paper lined cupcake pan.
5. Sprinkle with 1/2 Streusel mixture, then 1/2 chocolate chips.
6. Pour 1/3 batter on top of the Streusel/chocolate chips. (this will come to the top of the cup cake liner… don’t worry… the cupcake will have a small overhang after baking…)
7. Sprinkle with remaining Streusel.
8. Place a dollop of batter on each cupcake. (this is to secure a pick if you want to stamp a cute image on cardstock and attach to a toothpick…)
9. Bake 10-20 minutes at 350 degrees fahrenheit until a knife comes clean when inserted into cupcake. Don’t overbake these…
10. Cool 10 minutes before removing from pan.
Tips:
- I use a very special cupcake liner - it’s by Hoffmaster - the 4.5″ x 2″ fluted baking cups. These cupcake liners peel off the cupcake nicely - especially for this recipe where the cake is very tender and delicate…
- I also use a very special vanilla in all my baking - either madagascar bourbon pure vanilla or mexican vanilla by Nielsen-Massey. Williams-Sonoma carries this brand name…
- I used ghirardelli 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips instead of milk chocolate or semi sweet because of the brown sugar the chips sit on top of. I didn’t want this cupcake to be too sweet… just enough flavor to wallop a punch… here’s a great place to find great chocolate… it’s Nonnie Waller’s… and here’s my next favorite woodhouse chocolate! Oh…. one more… and they also sell coffee Fauchon Chocolates - France and don’t forget the yummy sweet sloops chocolates from Harbor Sweets…mmmm!
- Present your cupcakes on a special homemade stand… here’s a great tutorial for how to make your own stand …. and don’t forget to use Stampin’ Up! papers to make your stand! Cake Journal.com Homemade Cupcake Stand Tutorial…
- As a beautiful idea… on the top tier of the stand instead of putting
cupcakes… put a small arrangement of flowers in a sterling silver or crystal container… use Stampin’ Up!’s designer originals ribbons to decorate the silver or crystal container… see the pin cake box blog for more ideas and a picture of this…
- Place beautiful paper doilies on each tier… you can get the doilies and the cardboard cake rounds from Kitchenworks.com or from the Royal Store .com.
- Here’s a great place for more cupcake recipes: Howtoeatacupcake.com
Enjoy! These cupcakes disappear quickly!
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Tags:
scrapbooking, card making, rubber stamping, paper crafts, handmade gifts, home business, highland park, creativity
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September 16, 2007 at 8:18 am (::Stampaloooza Contests!)
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