A December to Remember

December was not the epitome of the Five Minute Momma mantra. I did way too much and made life hard on myself.

First was a new business venture I decided to take on December 4th. Duh. Everything went well but it was not good timing.

Second was the Work Holiday party which I was in charge of.

Third was Mia's Birthday party. Even though I had it catered and easy games already set up it still became a stress on my patience. Torrential rains ensued which meant that the 50+ people who attended were crowded into my house. Theme: Candyland

Fourth was a sleepover for Mia's Birthday.

Then I decided to do something really stupid. Instead of cookies and bars I made cupcakes. What's wrong with that? Nothing except I decided to make 6 different kinds. All of them were AMAZING but ... hello??? 6 kinds?

Then there was Christmas Eve with my family and 20 children.

Finally, Christmas dinner with Derek's family that was at our house.

That is where the 5 minute Mamma kicked in! I was so exhausted and getting sick so I decided to put "the mamma" smarts to work.

In my town we have a Dream Dinners. If you don't have one in your town you probably have something much like it. This is where you go to a kitchen where everything is already pre-chopped and laid out. You put it together with the ingredients you want in it and take it home with you to cook at your own time. It is so awesome! No shopping or chopping - and they clean up the mess!!

I put together the sausage and herb stuffing, garlic roasted mashed potatoes, brown sugar sweet potatoes, and biscuits. YUM!

Then I went to Honeybaked Ham and got a ham and a turkey. Came home and threw it all in the oven. Then took the Turkey and covered it with butter, Mustard, and brown sugar. It only needed to cook for 2 1/2 hours - just enough to warm it.

Put everything in chaffing dishes and made it a buffet! So delicious, so easy, and such a success!

In conclusion: My New Years Resolution is to calm down. We spent New Years with a steak, a cheesecake, and a bottle of champagne. Perfect.

Happy New Years to you!

Freeze It for Later

This is a tip that Wren sent in via www.thekitchen.com . This is a great tip for when you feel like making the family a batch of cupcakes for no reason - but don't want the temptation of two dozen cupcakes calling you!


http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/tips-techniques/3-ways-to-freeze-cupcake-batter-for-later-126022

Let Us Eat CAKE!

So I have had a couple of cupcake ideas wandering around in my head. It was Derek's Birthday this week so I decided to try them out on his family (God Help them!).

As you know I don't make cakes from scratch (too busy and not enough patience) so I make my own recipes up as I go. Here were my three experiments:

Raspberry Cheesecake Cupcake:

French Vanilla Cake Mix

Filling: 8 oz cream cheese, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp of Vanilla, 1 Tablespoon of Seedless Raspberry Jelly

Directions:

Make the Vanilla cake using box directions.
Drop 1 Tablespoon of batter in cup.
Drop 1 Tablespoon of Filling
Cover the top with a little spoon full of batter
Bake as directed. Ice with Cream Cheese Frosting (see recipe below).
Top with a fresh raspberry for garnish.

**Tip: These are really YUMMY if you refrigerate them before serving (think of cold cheesecake!)



Lemon Creme Cupcake


Mix 2 Vanilla boxes of cake mix with ONE small box of Lemon Pudding.

Cream Cheese Frosting: Use the cream cheese frosting recipe below and add lemon zest and lemon juice to flavor.

So CREAMY!

Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes

Devils Food cake mix
Add Cherry Pie filling from the can
1 tsp of Almond extract

For the icing: melt 1 c. sugar, 5 TB butter, 1/3 c. milk in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat, add 6 oz chocolate chips and let melt. Pour right over the cupcakes as soon as they are out of the oven - this is MESSY. I removed all the cupcakes from the cupcake pan and put them in a large disposable roaster pan.

Note: To make them a little fancier melt some DOLCI white chocolate in the microwave and sprinkle on top. Maybe even add a cherry!

Very Rich, Chocolaty Heaven!

Cream Cheese Icing:

1/2 cup of Butter (room temp)

8oz Cream Cheese (room temp)

2-3 cups of Powdered sugar

1 tsp of Vanilla extract

It's Always More Fun at the BAR...

..... Not that bar! But have you ever noticed that special occasions often take place at the Buffet? Brunch? Ice Cream Bar? Alcohol Bar....

Which is my new solution to Family Dinners. This weekend we had Derek's family over to celebrate his birthday. And there I was - exhausted by my week - and too tired to be the "amazing daughter in-law." So what did I do to create the celebratory environment in as little amount of time as possible? They made it themselves!

Well - almost... I put out the chaffing dishes full of steak, Beans, Rice, Guacamole, sour cream, salsa, tomatoes, lettuce, tortilla, and chicken taquitos (for good measure) and called it the "Burrito Bar!" Everybody loved the "do it yourself" dinner and I loved that I didn't have to serve!

No, of course I didn't cook! That's what the catering menu is for at the local Mexican Food restaurant! And that's what I call...

The FIVE MINUTE MOMMA!

I Don't Make Cakes from Scratch!

Yeah right. There is no way. Not when I come home from Atlanta on Monday and Leave for Las Vegas on Friday. Not with 2 soccer practices and a fundraiser that same week!

So - to earn Mommy points and not taste like it came from a box I use pudding in all of my recipes. Its so GOOD!


1. Take your favorite box cake x2 - you need to double the amount of cake mix.
2. Add the pudding flavor that makes sense
3. Follow box cake baking instructions

Example: Chocolate cake mix with chocolate pudding.

try it for yourself - 5 Minute MOMMA!

Honorable Mention

The local fair just took place in August and I decided that I would enter a cake into the decorating contest. First of all I have never even ENTERED the Home Arts building and here I am making a cake! Who am I? So I have LOVED the fondant cakes that I have been seeing in magazines, etc. and decided to try it for myself.

I have thought about taking classes here locally but don't have the patience so I decided to watch some YOUTUBE videos to figure out how to use Fondant. So, hours later and about $200 of fondant mistakes later I claimed SUCCESS!

Up close anyone can see the mistakes - but I didn't care! How fun!!!

My New Hobbie

So my new way to work off my stress and be creative outside of work is to bake. I have always loved baking - I have never been a good cook - but I love me some cake! So, I have been making fun desserts for the kids for a while now. I am the "Aunty" that makes the coolest Easter desserts, etc.
In June it was my niece (5) and nephew's (4) birthday. Because we have their birthday together we have to have a co-ed kind of theme. This year's theme was, of course, Toy Story 3.

I made their favorite cake (Funfetti) into the shape of a bed. As you can see here I only half know what I am doing - I am no professional cake decorator but I figure it out as I go. I decided to make the bed posts out of chocolate Rice Krispy treats. I froze them to make them a little harder and then just cut them out of the pan. Note: Use less butter than directed - otherwise the rice krispies get too soft and crumble on top of itself. (oh yes this happened once or twice!)
Next I made my favorite Chocolate Creamcheese cupcakes and turned them into the little Green Alien Guys (oh... the claw! We're not worthy!!!) Their little eyes are made out of white jelly beans with little black frosting gel to make the eyes and the mouth. I made the little ears and the antenna out of sour green licorice sticks. All of this can be found at your Neighborhood supermarket.



Finally, I wanted to make cookies to look like Jesse the Cowgirl's hat. I found a cool recipe on www.disney.com but, of course, did not have time to make cute cookies from scratch so I cheated and used Chips ahoy cookies. Kids loved them!


The results were two happy kids! I love 'em!