Queen Elsa Cape

My daughter had received a beautiful blue pagent dress as a gift for her birthday. It was intended to be like Queen Elsa's from the movie Frozen. I found some light blue gloves on ebay and her Cinderella dress up shoes seemed to be a good match too. A cape was the only thing missing.

I knew the dress was coming and having seen the movie a few times, I had given the cape some thought. I have made dress-up capes before, but Elsa's cape is different. It flows from the upper back rather than from the neck. 

Perusing google images helped me think more about possibilities. Because the cape wasn't going to be attached to the dress, I started thinking of it in terms of of a pinafore or vest.  Looking at the Elsa doll's cape helped too. 

We found some pretty fabric at JoAnns and I estimated I would need one yard. The fabric was 58" wide. First I cut off about 6" of the 58" width. The remaining fabric was about 36"x 54". The 36" x 6" piece was just right to go around my petite four year old's shoulders.  I folded it in half and pinned it around her. The larger 54" by 36" piece I draped around her and decided to make pleats in the back and a curve under her arms.  I also cut a curve removing one corner and did the same for the other lower edge corner. After marking everything, I used a lighter to carefully melt all the edges. 

First I sewed the pleats onto the wrong side of the 6" wide piece for the length I had marked. Then I ironed the 6" in half and tuned under the raw edge opposite the edge I had sewn the pleats onto.  The next step was to sew the turned under edge down enclosing the pleats, forming the armholes and finishing the short ends.  Finally I tried it on her again and figured out the placement for the velcro. I ended up cutting it down a bit and hot glueing a snowflake shape onto the right side. 

Mini Anniversary Cake

My in-laws are celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary today and I wanted to do something to help celebrate.  I thought a mini cake might be fun to make.

I looked through recipes and settled on this "Best White Cake Recipe."  The recipe was easy to follow and made a nice batter.  For my three mini springform pans,  I made up half a recipe.  I had a decent amount of batter leftover and filled 7 square mini cupcakes too.  The mini springforms required almost the full amount of time suggested in the recipe.  I started checking at 15 minutes, but it needed about 25.  

After baking the cakes, I cooled them briefly, then put them in the freezer on a wire rack.  My goal was to trim down one layer to be smaller than the bottom layer.  The edges did get a bit crunchy as one recipe reviewer mentioned, but it seemed ok.  There wasn't any crunchiness on the mini cupcakes.

I used the buttercream recipe at the same site. The directions were very specific and seemed to make up a nice buttercream.  It probably helped also that I cut up the butter in small pieces to allow it to warm to room temperature quickly.  I only had 6/8 of a stick left, so I cut this recipe basically in half as well.  

A little research told me that pearls are one symbol for the 30th anniversary.  I still had some pearls leftover from our Frozen themed cupcakes.  It seemed to work out for a quick cake, but certainly not my best decorating.

It was nice to find I still have some cute bakery boxes that fortunately fit the tiered mini cake perfectly.  We dropped off the cake and a card as a little anniversary surprise.

With the leftovers we sampled the cakes.  One tester felt that it is too sweet, everyone else felt it is a fine white/yellow cake.

Aunt Gracie's Bread

The recipe for Aunt Gracie's bread has been in my little recipe box for many years, but I had never tried it. The recipe has a lot of variability.  I think that discouraged me from trying initially. I didn't want to make the wrong decision.

Finally, I looked around at other similar recipes.  It is simply a sweet bread with cardamon seeds. 

From the suggestions, this is what I chose.

3 cups of milk

1 package if yeast dissolved in 1/4 cup of warm water

3 TB of butter

2 eggs

1 1/4 cup of sugar

1 rounded TB of salt

1 tsp of cardamon seeds

9 cups of flour

Heat milk, add sugar, salt and butter.  Stir until dissolves. When lukewarm, add dissolved yeast. 

Add 3 cups of four and eggs, stir well. 

Add 3 cups of flour and stir well. 

Add last 3 cups of flour, one at a time mixing until flour is well blended. Add cardamon seed with last cup of flour. Knead until non sticky but shiny. Let rise two hours or until double in size. Punch down and shape into four braided loaves.  Loaves can be placed on baking sheets or in loaf pans. Let rise 2-2 1/2 hours covered with a towel until doubled. Bake 350 degrees for 30 minutes. 

I made four loaves.  Each had four strands for a four strand braid. Two went into glass loaf pans and two on a cookie sheet. They tasted great and just like my parents remembered. 

Ice Cream Cake

While make your own ice cream sundaes are nice for friends, I wanted to have a cake ready for our upcoming family celebration of all the kids' birthdays.  My son has already requested a pumpkin pie, we have the Frozen cupcakes in the freezer, and just needed one more thing.

I have made mini ice cream cakes before, but never a big cake.  Part of the reason was I didn't have a springform pan.  But now I do and it was very easy to put together.

First I started with crushed chocolate wafer cookies and added magic shell.  I placed enough to cover the bottom of the springform pan and pressed the crushed cookies down.  The pan went into the freezer while I waited for the chocolate ice cream to melt.  As it was softening, I decided to mix it together with my standing mixer.  This allowed the melted parts to be incorporated with the ice cream and made it easier to spread.

I spread the first layer onto the crushed cookie and sent it back to the freezer.






The next step was more crushed cookie mixture, more freezer time, and finally the softened vanilla layer.  Again I used the standing mixer to prepare the ice cream.

We tried a couple stabilized whipped cream methods with no luck.  In the morning I tried one more time with gelatin.  I used cold water and gelatin, then used the microwave to dissolve it further in very small bursts.  It cooled as I whipped the cream.

After adding the gelatin, the whipped cream looked different for me, but tasted ok.  I placed it in the fridge while I took the cake out of the springform ring.  After releasing the ring, I took a spatula warmed in hot water and gently cut around the cake edge.

I could probably use any kind of whipped cream to cover the cake as it freezes almost immediately.  I wanted the use the stabilized whipped cream to pipe on the cake and it seemed to work pretty well.  Once I got going on the frosting, I did return it to the freezer between steps, but generally worked quickly.  I had to let the cake thaw a little in order to press the m&m's into the cake.  I wish I had spaced the m&m's a bit better, I'll know for next time.

I had enough whipped cream frosting to cover the cake with a thin layer and color some purple and decorate.  There's a bit of white saved for any cake mishaps too.

To preserve this cake for a week in the freezer, I needed some sort of box.  The base of my cake holder is too big to fit in my freezer.  What I ended up doing was placing the cake on a 10" cake board.  Then I put two pieces of aluminum foil spread out on a dinner plate.  I placed the cake on the plate, then put the cake holder cover on top.  The cover just fit over the bottom plate edge.  Then I took the excess foil and wrapped it over the cover edges.  Hopefully that will be protected well in the freezer until the party!

Frozen Cupcakes

When I asked what my younger daughter would like to do for her fourth birthday, she requested chocolate cupcakes.  After some more suggestions we also opted for a couple visits to the children's museum with a friend and her sister.

I used my favorite devil's cake mix and added an egg white, almost a cup of plain Greek yogurt, and a cup of cooled decaf coffee.  I filled up 12 cupcakes and saw I had less than half of the mixture left and filled some mini cupcakes too.  I used paper liners.  This mix really bakes up high and I could have filled the cupcakes much less, perhaps closer to half full.  Though they seem ok this way too.

We have certainly been enjoying the movie Frozen and the soundtrack and decided to go with a nice Frozen blue for the frosting.  I used a cream cheese frosting (8 oz low fat cream cheese, 1 stick butter, 1TB milk, 1 tsp vanilla, 3-4 cups powdered sugar) and added a small amount of sky blue gel.  The frosting didn't hold the swirls as well as I hoped.  The white pearls were a nice find at Wegmans.

These cupcakes we had on her birthday, the rest are in the freezer for our upcoming family party.

Birthday girl with her "4" shirt

10 year old birthday party

We decided on another small group party at home for my daughter's 10th birthday party.

On the agenda was to play in a photo booth, eat pizza, make lip balm, watch a movie, and make ice cream sundaes.

First we set up the photo booth.  I used a small part of a room and hung a rope with small pvc tubing over it.  On the tubing we hung crepe paper and paper decorations.  I did end up placing an old navy curtain behind the crepe paper for better coverage.  We had a table of hats, glasses, and boas for dressing up.  My camera was on a tripod and my husband set up a photobooth software on his computer and connected the camera.  The kids could then see each other on the laptop screen and it counted down for a series of four pictures.  They had the option to print right away and see their pictures again.  It was lots of fun!  All the five guests and my two girls could all fit in the frame for group shots too.  Another thing we had was two mini chalk boards for writing messages in the pictures.  They were also used in some shots.

Testing out the photo booth - sisters

The next activity was making lip balm.  I had given the process a lot of thought and wanted to make sure the girls could be active participants.  Finally I found this small glass pots at Hobby Lobby on sale for $1 each and thought they would work perfectly in my fondue pot.  It worked well.  Each girl measured out 1 tsp of coconut oil, 1/2 tsp of shea butter, and 1 tsp of grated beeswax.  I had a 1/2 tsp and 1/4tsp spoons so that they just needed two of each thing.  Some had more heaping teaspoons than others. For a couple girls they didn't have enough and needed to add another one or two more scoops of everything.

We tried labeling the pots with rubber bands, but they popped off in the heat.

After the first three ingredients had melted well, I had unsweetened cocoa, beet root powder, peppermint oil, and flavoring oils (cotton candy, pink lemonade, and cherry).  The girls mixed different things together after pouring the warm liquid into their little tins.  We used 1/8 tsp of the powders and 5 drops of the oils.  Each girl ended up with two small tins of different balms.  We also decorated the lids with Sharpies.

The girls went off to watch their movie and I cleaned up the lip balm area to prepare for ice cream sundaes.  My daughter prefers ice cream to cake and loved the idea of making their own sundaes.  We had done this activity for my son's birthday before and it seems to always be a hit.  I provide small bowls of different requested toppings and of course whipped cream.  While the kids really seemed to overdo their sundaes, I was happy to see they didn't eat it all!

The happy birthday girl

Blueberry Muffins

We thought we would make up some blueberry muffins and sought out a recipe.  I found one I liked, though I might enjoy tweaking it a little.  On its own, it's pretty good.  Certainly better the second day and very moist. There is no oil, just Greek yogurt, banana, and an egg.

For the flours I used 1.5 cup wheat flour and 1 cup of all purpose flour.  I didn't measure the bananas and used 2 medium bananas and frozen blueberries.

This recipe yielded 24 mini muffins.  I baked them at 325 degrees for 14 minutes.

My first tester said, blah. There is a hint of banana, but not as much as our banana muffins.  The blueberries seemed a bit sour and the muffin itself is not very sweet.  After a day, the muffins taste much sweeter and got much better reviews.  Our playgroup friends liked them too!