Key Lime Cupcakes

March 15, 2018March 15, 20181 Comment

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?

Key Lime Cupcakes

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!

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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

Voila!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

xoxo, T&M

Valentine’s Cookies

February 8, 2018February 8, 20181 Comment

Likely you know Valentine’s Day is next week? Some people look forward to the holiday while others dread it. Many of you tout it as a Hallmark holiday. Regardless of your feelings, it is here to stay, so you might as well embrace it instead of being a curmudgeon (M will continue to be a curmudgeon about it).

For several years now T has hosted Friendsentine’s Dinner. It started almost a decade ago to make sure everyone felt included on Valentine’s day, much like it was back in elementary school. Really that’s the way it should be! Celebrate all the love in your life not just the romantic one. Typically, our group of friends goes to dinner at a new or “hot” restaurant around town. This year we are headed to Public School 214. Braden and I have been before and we love their bacon cheddar tater tots! T is super excited about dinner, and she always brings a treat with her for all the guests. She had been looking for a fun treat to attach to her Llama themed valentines and went with the recipe below!

Meanwhile, M is melting down upstairs because the valentines her kids picked can no longer get here in time for Valentines day. Amazon get it together! You are supposed to be the most amazing shopping center. I guess that’s what happens when every mom in America has that Prime membership.

So now we both need valentines and/or treats. SO dun dun dunnah! Enter these delicious Valentines Cookies. This is a recipe idea adapted from a Pinterest find. This sugar cookie recipe is the one T uses for Christmas cookies. It takes NO time to chill, which is amazing. and produces great dough for cookie cutting.

So here you go! For all of your Valentine’s needs next week. PSA…be careful. T ate the entire batch…by herself, which was NOT Weight Watchers friendly!

Valentines Day Cookies

1 C Unsalted butter, softened

1 C granulated sugar

1 Large egg, room temperature

1 tsp. Vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond extract

1/2 tsp Salt

2 tsp Baking Powder

3 C all purpose Flour

Pink Gel Food Coloring (or red or purple!)

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Using your mixer, beat the butter and sugar until combined. Mixture should be light and fluffy!

Step 2: Beat the egg, vanilla, and almond extract into the mixture. Be sure to scrape the sides if needed to ensure all ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. In a separate bowl combine the salt, baking powder, and flour.

Step 3: While mixing, gradually add your flour mixture a little bit at a time until flour is fully combined. (*I usually dump about 1/2 c. at a time)

Step 4: Gather your dough into a ball. Break off half of it and set aside in a bowl. Leave the other half in the mixer. Add your gel food coloring. YOU DON’T NEED MUCH. Add a few drops at a time and mix until fully combined. Add additional drops as needed to get your desired color. (Keep in mind that the final product will be slightly lighter than the color of the dough, so you might go a little darker than you think you need).

Step 5: Make alternating balls of dough on your work space. Once all the dough is out. Gently knead the balls together to mix the color. DO NOT OVER KNEAD! T definitely over kneaded and got more pink than swirl cookies.

Step 6: Line your cookie sheet with parchment paper. On your workspace roll out the dough to your desired thickness (1/4″ typically works the best). Cut out your shapes and place them on the tray.

Step 7: Bake for 6-8 minutes and enjoy!!! (M says how do you know if it’s 6 or 8 minutes? Well, that’s really hard to say because everyone’s oven cooks slightly differently. You can usually tell by the smell. But the cookie itself should looked cooked and not gooey. If you give the pan a little shake nothing should jiggle. T doesn’t like to wait for the edges to brown because it can detract from the cookie if you aren’t icing it. She advises you start checking at 6 minutes and take out when the cookies appear cooked through and are no longer shiny from the moisture in the batter.)

This was a great, super easy, recipe that produces absolutely stunning cookies. You don’t need to add anything to it but you could sprinkle with sugar crystals to give them a little oomph.

Happy Eating!

xoxo, T&M

P.S. did you know that if you store cookies with a piece of bread they stay fresher longer? Who knew!

P.P.S. You can even ADD bread to the cookie container once the cookies have gone a little hard and it will soften them right up. Amazing!

Gingerbread Houses

December 19, 2017December 20, 2017Leave a comment

We would have liked to post this weeks ago, but true to mom fashion, the holidays have been, well….chaotic. With an assortment of Christmas parties, Christmas programs, baking, shopping, school work, and adult work, it can be hard to fit it all in.

One tradition that many families try to squeeze in is the decorating of a gingerbread house. T loves the smell of freshly baked gingerbread in her home, but unfortunately hasn’t had the time to bake it. M has 5 kids and that would be a lot of houses to build. SO we decided to make our own spin on the gingerbread house (and by our own spin we mean we saw it on Pintrest and gave it a try!)

Graham Cracker “Gingerbread” Houses for the win!!!!!!!!!! These were SUPER easy, and took hardly any time at all. That is, of course, if you don’t count the clean up time. It took very little time and effort to get this set up though! T went to the store to buy the necessary elements, but she was profoundly disappointed in the lack of decorating materials this year. WHERE ARE THE GUMDROPS? WHERE ARE THE SNO CAPS?? So she was forced to improvise.

Need roof shingles? How about using some gum! Siding for your house? Wheaties do the trick! How about a beautiful walk way up to your front door? Give cereal a try! Most of the items T decorated with can be found in your home, but she did purchase things like: pull apart Twizzlers, Sweet tart balls, and candy canes.

Here is a list of your supplies:

Graham Crackers
Powdered Sugar (1 bag should produce enough for 3-4 houses)
2 egg whites per bag of powdered sugar used
1/8 C. of water
Zip lock bags
Decorating materials: cereal, gum drops, candy canes, twizzlers, jelly bellys, gum, white chocolate morsels, nerds, waffle cones (for a tree) just to name a few
Paper/plastic bowls and plates

First, you’ll want to go ahead and get all of your decorating supplies ready to go. We used little plastic cups to divide up the supplies. Then we used paper plates to build the houses on.

Second, break up those graham crackers the way you want them. We just broke our rectangles in half (bonus points for you if you can find the ones already in squares). Each house needs 6 squares. (Note: you can modify your design by leaving them as rectangles. You would need 4 rectangles and 2 squares. You can also use a knife to cut the graham cracker to a point on one side so there are not holes in the roof like ours)

Third, make the icing! Using a mixer combine your powdered sugar and egg whites together. If it is too thick, slowly add the 1/8 C of water to thin out the consistency. If you accidentally make your icing too runny just add more sugar to help thicken it back up. You want the icing to be thick, but workable. This particular icing will harden quickly once used, which is great for these houses!

Fourth, divide the icing among your zip lock bags. Seal the bags. Then cut a TINY hole in the corner of the bag. (For you pros feel free to use an icing bag and tip, but the zip lock bags work great for kids, and you can just throw them out when you are done.

Fifth, time to get building! You will want to use the icing to make a square on the plate, then stick your graham cracker pieces in the icing. Be sure to ice up the edges of each graham cracker piece so they are glued to the plate and to each other. The roof is attached with icing on 2 of the top edges of your square and then with icing on the edges that connect in a point. Let it sit for 2 minutes to harden.

NOW THE GOOD STUFF! Decorate your house however you like! M’s kids seem to prefer creating houses suffering from natural candy disasters. Other people, like T, prefer more symmetrical houses.