Month: March 2018

Key Lime Cupcakes

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St. Patrick’s day is a mere two days away! You have probably noticed the shelves lined with Green, prepared for a day of debauchery, made plans for the Lower Greenville Parade (if you are a Dallas Resident), or maybe you just don’t care!

No matter how you feel about St. Patrick’s Day, this is a recipe that you can enjoy. If you are pro St. Patrick’s day use the green food coloring. If you are anti this Irish holiday you can omit that and you will get a white cupcake with just tiny green flakes.

T & M are allegedly a small percent Irish, so we MUST celebrate since it’s in our blood. What this likely means is that T will celebrate and M will pretend this holiday doesn’t exist.

As a parent, St. Patrick’s day is an interesting holiday because it covers two pretty big extremes. You have the children’s version involving leprechauns, pots of gold, and lucky charms and then you very quickly jump to the green beer shenanigans. There really isn’t much in between.

On the kids side, T remembers her mom taking them in the car to chase the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There wasn’t always a rainbow on St. Patrick’s day but we would go anytime we saw one. The kids would yell at her to “TURN RIGHT HERE!” “No! It’s getting away from us go faster!” Unfortunately, we never found that pot of gold, but there is always tomorrow.

On the adult side, green beer is disgusting. SO replace that with some delicious green key lime cupcakes that you can share with the whole family! We also added some lucky charms on top to really get in the spirit. Do you have any St. Patrick’s day traditions for the whole family you can share with us?

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  • 4 1/2 C. Cake Flour
  • 2 Tbsp. Baking Powder
  • 3/4 tsp. Salt
  • 1 1/2 C Milk
  • 1 Tbsp. Vanilla Extract
  • 1 C + 2 Tbsp. Unsalted Butter, Softened
  • 2 1/4 C. Sugar
  • 7 Large Egg Whites
  • 5 Limes or 9 Key Limes

For the buttercream

  • 2 sticks Unsalted Butter, softened
  • 1 Bag Powdered Sugar
  • 1/2 Tbsp. Vanilla
  • 2 Limes

Optional: green food coloring, lucky charms!

This recipe took about an hour to complete including icing and made 24 cupcakes.

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line your baking tins with the muffin cups.

Step 2: In a medium bowl whisk together the Cake Flour, Baking Powder, and Salt. In a separate bowl or measuring cup combine the Milk and Vanilla.

Step 3: Drop the butter into your mixer bowl. Beat on a high speed until the butter is creamy. Then slowly add in the sugar and continue to beat until the butter and sugar is combined and looks light and fluffy!

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Step 4: During this next step you are going to add your wet and dry ingredients one after the other. First add 1/3 of your flour mixture, then 1/2 of your milk mixture, 1/3 of your flour, 1/2 of your milk, and the last 1/3 of flour. Be sure to fully combine the ingredients into the batter before adding the next amount.

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Step 5: Zest three of your limes and drop the zest into your batter. Cut all 5 limes in half and squeeze the juice into your batter. Beat until combined. Remove this bowl from the mixer stand. (If you want your cupcakes to be green add green food coloring during this stage. The more drops you add the darker it will get).

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Step 6: Drop your 7 egg whites into a clean bowl. Using the whisk attachment for your mixer beat the egg whites until they are light and fluffy. If you stick a toothpick in and pull it out a stiff peak should form. If so you know you are done. You will then gently FOLD these egg whites into your batter. To fold egg whites into the batter you don’t stir. You use your spatula to pull the batter from the bottom and flip it over the batter on top. Continue doing this until the egg whites are fully combined with the batter.

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Step 7: pour batter into cups and fill about 3/4 of the way. Then bake in the oven for approximately 20 minutes. You can tell they are done when the rims are golden brown and there is no jiggling in the center of the cupcake. Take out and let cool completely.

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Step 8: While your cupcakes are baking you can make your buttercream. Add the two sticks of butter to the mixer and beat until creamy. Add about half of the powdered sugar along with the vanilla and juice from two limes. Beat until combined. Continue adding powdered sugar until you reach your desired thickness. Ideally, you want a thick icing that is still easy enough to spread with a knife.

Step 9: Add food coloring if desired and beat until combined. When you are ready to go put the icing in a piping bag, a zip lock bag with the corner cut, or just leave to ice with a knife.

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Step 10: After the cupcakes have COMPLETELY cooled you can ice them and add your lucky charms!

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Voila!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

xoxo, T&M

Kids Birthday Party Gifts

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With Bode’s 1st birthday right around the corner. T has had many questions surrounding birthday parties, gifts, etc. This is likely going to lead to several posts, but we decided to start with the birthday party gifts. Or as M likes to say……….

Stuff, Stuff, and More Stuff.

M: I’m sure you have figured out by now that I am generally a party pooper.  This is pervasive in all aspects of my life.  Probably comes (in part) from the fact that I am pretty much exhausted all the time and, yet, always adding more to my schedule.  In any event, here is another area in which I could be perceived as a party pooper – birthday party presents.

T: For somebody who consistently tells me I am from the “grouchy family” M can sure be Oscar the Grouch.

M: *eye roll* This post isn’t mean to be about family birthday presents –  we are talking about presents at a birthday party.  I have often been at Target looking for a reasonable gift for a child I do not know at all (and do not know the parents either).  I’ve gone to birthday parties with my child only to see 40 – no joke – birthday presents for the 2 or 3 year old.  Seriously, who wants that much stuff?????  Even when they are 5 and in school, do you really want your child to get so many new things at once?  Do you want that stuff in your house?

M: So what should you do? We have dealt with this in a few different ways.  First of all, we don’t have birthday parties until they are in school and actually KNOW some of their friends.  Even when one daughter turned 4, we had one special friend go to one special place with us.  It was much more meaningful and fun.

T: I feel like most of my birthday parties were limited in the number of guests invited. But now it is so common to invite the kids entire class to the party: a) that’s a lot of gifts and b) what do you buy for a kid your kid doesn’t know or play with often. At that point you end up having to buy something totally random and hope for the best. I know it shouldn’t be about the gift but the thought, but that’s part of the problem. There is NO thought going into these gifts.

M: Exactly! For us, we often give the kids a choice of a big birthday party with lots of friends and no gifts or a smaller party with close friends and gifts are acceptable.  Once they have good friends, buying gifts makes a lot more sense.  Your child has an idea of what their friends like or want and they WANT to give them something that’s picked just for them.  I will sometimes “bribe” my kid with an extra gift from us (the parents) in exchange for a bunch of gifts from friends (when they want a bigger party).

T: Lately I have seen a lot of parties where the kids donate the toys or ask for donations to something in particular. That may be more of the parents forcing that issue but it’s a great lesson for the kids! In the alternative, prior to a birthday you could ask your kids to find toys that they no longer play with to donate. For instance, if your kid is turning 7 they have to find 7 things they no longer play with that can be donated.

M: We have definitely gone this route. We have had parties where people bring a book to be donated to a charity – and, of course, the donation is optional because I don’t want people to stress out before our parties.

T: I think that’s a great alternative

M: Here is another problem with so many gifts, thank-you notes. We are thank-you note writers.  (OK, so I am and I force my children to be because I believe in holding on to some semblance of etiquette, though I know it’s waning.)

T: Me too!

M: Either my kids dictate the note to me and I write, or they painstakingly write the note themselves.  We are not doing those pre-printed ones either.  To me, if someone spent their money on a gift for me or my child, the least we can do is acknowledge it in writing.*

(*footnote – I have a child who is the world’s worst speller and I do allow him to type his thank you notes.)

T: For me I would expect Bode to hand write them, but honestly I would just be happy they got sent no matter what form they were in. Birthday parties, presents, and thank you notes are overwhelming to think about! I want Bode to have that fun experience and get the chance to open presents and stuff like that. But I also just think it’s a lot and I’m worried that it hurts people’s feelings who want to do something nice.

M: Hmmm….I have never worried about people’s feelings getting hurt because I say no gifts. In fact, some people bring a gift anyway and I’m totally fine with that. (Though my kids HAVE complained when they have to write a thank you note after saying no gifts!) I personally love unexpected gifts from people and love to give unexpected gifts – especially when you find that perfect gift or you lift someone’s spirits with something small.  I just think the gift giving at parties can be meaningless and excessive which isn’t good for the gift-giver or gift-receiver.

T: And it’s not to say that they can’t give a gift if they want to, you’re really just asking them not to feel obligated true?

M: Haha i mean when I say no gifts I mean no gifts ;). But true, I would never make my kid turn down a gift because I had written no gifts on the invitation.