Ideas for Cupcakes

Alright, I need your creativity and brains, friends! As much as I love to cook and it is almost like therapy for me, I am not really the best baker. Then again, I've never really got into trying it out or usually have had the best utensils to make baking easy and decorating look at least somewhat decent.

My 90 day mark is coming up at work, and I wanted to show my appreciation by making some insanely delicious cupcakes or even another dessert if y'all have a great idea to share. I'm willing to try anything!

So.... here are some ideas I saw on Cooking Light via Pinterest, and then I want you to comment and tell me if you like one of the ones below to do, or if you have a better recipe or link that you want me to check out!

So here we go! (Recipes are in the "via" links)

Amaretto Apple Streusel Cupcakes

via

Peanut Butter Chococolate Chip Cupcakes

via

Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes

via

Strawberry Filled Lemon Cupcakes

via

or more of a dessert like:

Gluten-Free Chewy Gooey Marshmallow Cookies with Mini Chips

via

Healthy Zuccini Brownies

via

Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

via

Sooooo what do y'all think!? I am linking up with Michelle for Pinterest Wednesday, cheating because it is Thursday, hehe, but these are all pins and I need y'alls opinion! I'm ready to try something new in the kitchen... cause who knows? I could be a good baker??? :-)





Birthday Month

Hey friends!

Wow!! What an insane month it has been so far! I feel like I honestly would take hours explaining to you why I haven't blogged in about 2+ weeks, so I figured I'd just post lots of pictures so you can see. :) In a nutshell, we've moved, had my birfday (yeahh 23!!)gotten lots of new house stuff, decorated for christmas (cept the tree - STILL!? I know!) family in town, etc etc! Not to mention work has been horrendously busy and stressful - but it is almost Christmas time which means it's slowing down, businesses are taking off work and going to their families for the holidays, and life gets more peaceful for me. :-) Did I mention my sister is in town for a week this week!? Best Christmas present ever! So let me stop blabbering so you can catch up on my life via pictures! Enjoy!

Notice the gorgeous Mrs. Ruthie Hart came to celebrate! We graduated HS together so have many of the same friends! :-)

XOXO

Sweet Tooth

This weekend was a pretty good mix of crazy busy and very relaxing... wait is that possible? lol Both Saturday and Sunday, I decided to go volunteer up at the Austin Convention Center where I just helped set up and organize some events they had going on.
At first when I got there I was hoping it'd be a gorgeous wedding or something - but the two events were a Fencing Tournement and a Comic Book Convention. My initial reaction was kinda "blah", but the fencing tourney was pretty neat and I walked around during the Comic Book part and it was awesome!!  I actually met a ton of stars from movies (we weren't allowed to take pics :(...) but here are some of the peeps I got to meet.. The main cast of ghost hunters...

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 The orginial Go Daddy girl... also the champion of Women's WWE Wrestling... Candice Michelle

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The woman who did the voice of Pocahontas - she looks just like her! She is also so sweet and very graceful. Irene Bedard

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 Carl Grimes from The Walking Dead

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 Kevin Sorbo who starred as Hercules and also was in Meet the Spartans! He also writes books!

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 Electra and Elise Avellan - The Grindhouse girls

The (grown up) cast of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!

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Daniel Logan from Star Wars

and rememer this kid from American History X??

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Edward Furlong... he isn't as cute anymore - but he was super nice! Here are some recap pictures taken by @Do512 on the Comic Con Event: CLICK HERE to SEE!  There were many others there too that I could go on for a while. Either way, it was a pretty cool experience and I felt good volunteering and helping out. They also had a kid's costume contest and so many crazy talented artist that were drawing comics right in front of my eyes - it's insane!
The other half of my weekend was spent on the couch - watching football. :) Scott had a guy's poker night last night at his buddy's house... so I spent a good few hours to myself... baking!
Not sure what got into me, but I wanted to make a TON of sweets! I had a wild sweet  tooth. Does that ever happen to you?
I baked everything. I pulled up Mrs. Ruthie's post she had over the weekend of no-bake granola bites, and made those... [you can find that recipe here]
 

I also used a lot of the ingredients from the granola bars plus a box of cake mix I hadn't used to make some muffins and cookies!

Found this new amazing "easy frosting"- which... don't hate: I am artistically challenged and can't ever do frosting right! So this works for me!! LOL


I even made some already pre mixed cookies our friend Matt brought over...

 
See!? I told you I had a crazy sweet tooth.... jeeeeez! :) 
This weekend I also spent some good QT with my little boo...

 He's gettin' SOO big right?? Aww but he will always be a baby to me!! 
Hope everyone is enjoyin' their Monday! ALSO - Don't forget! If you have a facebook, please click on the link below and go vote for me! I am trying to win my mama a dining room table and all YOU have to do is "like" my picture on their site. She deserves it so much! :) Thank you to those who have voted already I love y'all!!

VOTE HERE!

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

My first fall recipe! Woohoo! This is actually one of the easiest fall recipes you can do as I got the two main ingredients from Julie's page over at Peanut Butter Fingers. You can see her recipe here, she did two-ingredient Pumpkin Spice Cookies. I tweaked it to make it more of my own so what did I do? Add chocolate chips, duh! :) 

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

Ingredients: Yields about 25 cookies

1 box regular or spice cake mix

1 can pumpkin

1 12oz bag chocolate chips

3 eggs

1 stick butter

1 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pictured but not used: Brown Sugar (didn't need)

Directions:

1. Preheat Oven to 350*

2. Combine cake mix, butter, 3 eggs, and pumpkin til smooth

3. Add in chocolate chips, vanilla extract, and spices

4. Use spoon or ice cream scoop to scoop about 1 in cookies two inches apart on a non-stick cookie sheet

5. Bake for 15-20 minutes, let cool for 5

6. Try not to eat it all in one sitting :-)

7. Don't decorate like I did... lol!

So... This is my proof that I have [no] artistic ability. Next time I'm gettin' candy-stick on pumpkins! Haha!!
Note - I only did this to 9 poor cookies.

Real scary lookin' right??? :P

This recipe was so easy to make, and absolutely delicious! What "sparked" this fall recipe in me was when I read beautiful Ashley's (From La Luce!) blog post about giving, and I decided to make a big ol batch of cookies for my small sales floor where I work! It felt great to do something for others, and I hope by reading this you decide to get up and do something for someone you know or don't know, and pass it along! Here is a verse she had at the bottom of her post that I thought was uh-mazing!

Ask yourself what you would want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them, for this is the Law... Matthew 7:12 (MSG)

Thank you Ashley for your sweet post, and if you haven't made these delicious cookies before, you better! ;-) 

Cake Mix Cookies

Yesterday and today have been crazy! I had a flat on labor day (no big deal) and thought I was soooo lucky for getting away with a $10 fix... well I knew I was too quick to start bragging because my starter went out when I was at the grocery store last night at 830p! :( BOOOO!


 I've spent all day today price quoting all these crazy companies wanting me to pay a fortune for a $110 part! Anyway, finally negotiated to a fair price of $220 for diagnostics and everything - which is great considering the first company was pricing me over $400! Ridiculous, no?? 


Well that's my venting for the day. I have to admit I was feeling overwhelmed and stressed that my car was out of commission last night because it's a key essential item of my life - but then I felt REALLY guilty about all of it because of knowing all these families that have lost their homes, cars, pets, livestock, the list could go ON due to all the fires in Central, TX. (Bastrop, Leander, pretty much everywhere surrounding Austin). I felt so bad for being so selfish, and I do understand it's okay to be stressed, so I prayed about it (my thoughts and prayers are with all firefighters, families, friends who were effected by this disaster and/or had to evacuate) and I listened to some good music, watched some funny tv shows and house hunters (love it), and relaxed to start feeling better.... 


and seriously, who could be stressed or feel bad when you see this little angel...

It's too cute, he LOVES pig toys and football toys, (but pigs more!)

I also made some of these:

Cake Mix Cookies

Ingredients:
1 box of your favorite cake mix
1 egg
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup water

I got this recipe from Courtney over at Sweet Tooth Sweet Life - and IT WAS DELICIOUS! Not to mention easy, did you see that short ingredient list? Ahh yes... and check out these easy peasy directions, yo!


Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350*
2. Mix all ingredients in a bowl until dough forms
3. Take spoonfuls and roll into balls and place about two inches apart on a non stick baking sheet
4. Bake for about 10-12 minutes
5. Let cool, decorate with favorite icing and enjoy! 


Easy right?? 

As you can see, I have a muffin pan in there... why you may ask? I had extra dough and made three small muffins! They're in the back though... lol they came out good! Who doesn't love chocolate for breakfast? Hehe

These cookies were so incredibly delicious and you'll find me making them a lot more with fun extra added ingredients! They are soft gooey cookies with so much delicious flavor - and you can tell the devils chocolate was just what i needed to turn my frown upside down! :) Now I'm off to go on a little jog with Huxley to burn all these cals! Hope everyone enjoys the rest of this short week!


AND I leave you with... Huxley's demon eyes! :) hehe so creepy and cute!

Oreo Balls

I am so sorry I've been away a few days, but I'd be more than happy to explain why! lol Monday I was just chit-chattin' with my manager and also friend, Katrina, about my career path and what I'd like to do... (for those that don't know I work at Dell in Consumer Sales) And we were talking about business and making the next move. I had attempted to move into a more social media role, and when I didn't get it due to a technicality, my mom (gotta love moms!) kept saying, "Everything happens for a reason"... maybe God has something better lined up for you. 


So I was bummed but I moved on and have been doing extremely well in what my tasks are, and I came back from lunch Monday and she had already set up a one on one in a department called Small Business (where we handle accounts for small start-up businesses and manage small churches and non-profit org sales). I was kind of shocked finding out that there was an immediate opening and my interview was on Friday. 


What!?!


So... I've been taking some business server product training classes daily at 7am, then mentoring any free time I have in my workday, and preparing for a one week transition and interviewing (so excited!) so.... sorry I've been a little distant in blog world but.... WISH ME LUCK! hehe my mom was so right!


Anywho, I still have so many things to tell you guys! My best friend Justin's birthday was on Sunday, so we got together Saturday for a little surprise birthday get together. Nothing huge, but the oreo balls I made - were definitely huge lol. Oreo is his favorite cookie so I thought it'd be a perfect idea and something to whip up in only about an hour-two. AND - they were soooo good!

Oreo Balls

Technically the recipe called it: White Chocolate Oreo Cream Cheese Balls. - I think mine sums it up better ;) 


Ingredients:
12oz  baker's white chocolate baking squares (you can also use small white chocolate chips-or any other melting chocolate) 
1 package of oreos
8oz of cream cheese


Directions:
1. Crush oreos with blender until powder like
2. Then hand blend the oreo powder with cream cheese

This mixer is SO amazing! It has attachments for proccessing, blending, mixing. LOVE

3. Roll the oreos and cream cheese into balls (smaller than mine for higher yeild lol) and place them on a baking sheet and put in freezer until solid - 20-30 min is fine


4. Melt the white chocolate over stove or microwave and dip the balls into it as evenly as you can, then chill until set

5. Draw or decorate if you want to - but get better utensils than I had. I thought I had the bright decorating but it was the gel - The taste is what mattered! lol!

Alright.. let's just say I was never good at art. Ever. I still blame it on the gel!! :)

This was a fun and quick recipe to make on his birthday night! Did I mention they are heavenly? So delish! Make them :)


I'll leave you all with a few fun little highlights from his birthday.

The Homemade Banana and Pecan ice cream my best friend Ashley and Jenny made for the Austin Ice Cream Festival - so so good!

See? I AM good at writing! LOL - Jenny baked him a delicious cake!

My boo and Ashley lighting the candles!

Everyone laughing because Justin blew all the wax off the candles and onto poor Ashley's arm LOL

Ashley and Justin are having a baby, so a cowboy's #1 dad jersey was perfect :) Aww

Us ladies just hoverin' around the cute birthday boy! Even Dottee came hehe!

In my defense~ I had worked all day and hadn't showered and been drinkin' BUT I was ready for the cam! lol :P