Simple Girl

Happy Halloween From Our Family to Yours! Even my husband joins in on the festivities! This year we found on our street Rapunzel, A Firefly,  A Housewife in Robe and Curlers, A Pirate of the Caribbean and a Very Impressive Captain Hook! I dressed up as a Pirate Wench, but, hey, somebody has to take the picture!

I love 2nd grade Bug Day because it offers me yet another opportunity to make - CUPCAKES!  These bug and butterfly cupcakes look impressive, yet are fairly easy to make. These two ideas, from the book  Hello, Cupcakes!  by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, start with a standard frosted cupcake and are topped with creatures made from candy melts and M&M's. Simply melt the candy melts in a gallon sized freezer ziploc bag, snip a quarter inch hole in one corner and pipe the chocolate on to parchment paper with a copy of the book's template underneath. For the monarch butterflies, fill in the outline with orange candy melts. Drag a toothpick through the still wet chocolate to create veins and swirls. Top with white non-pareils. To assemble, tuck the wings into a frosted cupcake and prop them up underneath with a chocolate candy melt.  Insert piped antennas.  Follow similar piping and tracing instructions for the bugs, and add M&M's for body parts...

It's become a tradition - an early doctor's appointment followed by a long lunch.   The restaurant of choice?   The American Girl Bistro, of course! It's a place where a girl can bring her bitty friends, drink out of bitty teacups, have a big or bitty lunch and.... Enjoy really good Birthday Cake Ice Cream! Playing hooky from kindergarten? Priceless.

How cute are these?   I got the idea for these Owl S'mores from Amy at  Living Locurto  and decided I just had to make them for the fourth and fifth grade Friday treat.   Of course, that involved making an entire flock of owls!  Not to worry, however, they are as easy as they look.  I found this free clip art owl and added it to "Wise Owl" tags. I printed the tags on orange cardstock, cut them to size, folded them over and simply stapled them to sandwich bags. WHOO will you surprise with this fun snack?

After an evening of piano lessons (fluorescent lights and black and white), the girls and I walked out of the Music Conservatory to this amazing sky drenched in color.  The brilliant horizon made us stop in awe and gasp with delight.  I grabbed my camera, which seems to permanently reside in my car, and took these shots across the vast parking lot.  Determined to get a better view, we jumped in the car and followed the sunset.  It beckoned us down a new path - away from our home and the familiar.  But alas, the sun alluded us and we watched as it slowly slipped away, just out of reach.  Our adventure ended with only warm memories, and these two brilliant photos.

The Name Cinnamon cupcakes topped with 7-minute frosting "kisses", these cupcakes are a play on the famous, crackly cookie of the same name.  The origin of the name "snickerdoodle" is unknown, but food historians have a few hypothesis.  Most believe the name to be of German origin.  Some believe the name to be derived from the German word, schneckennudeln , or "crinkly noodles".   "Schnecke" in German, however, means "snail".  According to an old book called Slumps, Grunts and Snickerdoodles:  What Colonial Americans Ate and Why , by Lila Perl, a "schnecke" was also a German name for a cinnamon pinwheel that resembled a snail.  At least it makes more sense than "crinkly noodle"! The Cake Since I am relatively new to the Martha Stewart Cupcake Club, this was my first foray into Cake Flour.   My first question was, "What is cake flour, exactly?"  According to my Barron's Food Lover's Companio...