....is a Little Christmas.

Christmas this year was first in a new apartment and first in town in a long time. We decorated small but I LOVED every little bit.

....is Snowflake Sugar Cookies

The Cookies:
1 Cup Sugar
1 Egg
1 tsp Vanilla

3 Cups Flour
2 Tbsp Baking Powder


Cream Sugar and Butter, mix in Egg and Vanilla. Add Flour mixed with Baking Powder in 3-4 batches. Keep the dough in the fridge and roll it out in small batches. It gets sticky if you let it warm up.

1 Snowflake Cookie Cutter
Bake at 350 for 9-12 minutes.

4 Cups Powder Sugar
1/2 Cup Butter
5 Tbsp Heavy Cream
2 tsp Vanilla*

*don't add if you want pure white frosting, I wasn't thinking and my snowflake frosting came out a little brownish...

...is Pop's Birthday Cake, German Chocolate Cake

The Cake:
1pkg. (4 oz.) BAKER'S GERMAN'S Sweet Chocolate
1/2 cup water
4 eggs, separated
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup buttermilk

HEAT oven to 350°F.

COVER bottoms of 3 (9-inch) round pans with waxed paper; spray sides with cooking spray. Microwave chocolate and water in large microwaveable bowl on HIGH 1-1/2 to 2 min. or until chocolate is almost melted, stirring after 1 min. Stir until chocolate is completely melted.

BEAT egg whites in small bowl with mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form; set aside. Mix flour, baking soda and salt. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, 1 at a time, beating well after each. Blend in melted chocolate and vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk, beating until well blended after each addition.

ADD egg whites; stir gently until well blended. Pour into prepared pans.

BAKE 30 min. or until toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Immediately run small spatula around cakes in pans. Cool cakes in pans 15 min.; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Spread Coconut-Pecan Filling and Frosting between cake layers and onto top of cake.

The Frosting:
4 egg yolks
1 can (12 oz.) evaporated milk
1-1/2 tsp. vanilla
1-1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter or margarine
1 pkg. (7 oz.) BAKER'S ANGEL FLAKE Coconut (2-2/3 cups)
1-1/2 cups Slivered Almonds

BEAT egg yolks, milk and vanilla in large saucepan with whisk until well blended. Add sugar and butter; cook on medium heat 12 min. or until thickened and golden brown, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

ADD coconut and nuts; mix well. Cool to desired spreading consistency.

....is .325 Architect?

Can you be 32.5% architect? If there is such a thing, I'm one of them.

Tests Passed: 3!
Tests Remaining: 5....

....is Pechapple Crumble Pie

Per Little Brother's Request...

In the Pie:
3 Apples, Thinly Sliced
3 Peaches, Thinly Sliced
1 Pie Crust
2 Tbsp Flour
2 Tbsp Sugar
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 Pie Crust

In the Crumble:
1 Cup Oats
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Flour
1/2 Cup Butter
1 tsp Cinnamon

Line pie pan or 8x8 with pie crust. Combine sliced fruit and other ingredients in separate bowl and pour into crust. Top with crumble and bake for 30 minutes or until crumble looks nicely toasted.

The only picture I have of the pie:

...and t-rex attacks the pechapple crumble pie, he leaves no survivors.

....is a Testing Break

Time to become an architect, looks like my little blog is going to take a major hit until December. I have sold my soul to eight tests and a class with an intense study schedule. Ideally this will allow me to be licensed though it comes at the expense of any free time, so fingers crossed!.

Now if only I could fight off the urge to bake chocolate chip cookies.
Until later....

....is for the Love of the Game

This past weekend one of my darling friends (a college roommate) married a lovely southern boy from Georgia. They share an intense love for baseball. She is a San Francisco Giants fan and he's an Atlanta Braves fan. With that in mind I wanted to make them a special something to celebrate their love of the game and their love for each other.

Here's the inspiration for this project:

I took a few liberties on 'we met', 'we married' & 'we live'. And used prints of each of their team's stadium and a little love in the middle.

So there's more to these stadium's than the handful of games they attended at each. At AT&T Park, Will took Sarah on a behind the scenes tour where they were able to play catch in the infield. After throwing one wide, to make her run for it, she turned around to him on one knee over home plate.

And the Braves Stadium was the location of their GORGEOUS engagement photos.

The steps to make this present were pretty easy, I cropped the pictures and used Adobe Illustrator to write the words on the images before printing at my printer's top quality on some high gloss photo paper. 

I cut them out with an X-acto knife and stuck them to the backside of a floating frame with some double-stick tape.

I cleaned a few finger prints off the glass and set it all in place.

Lastly, I dated the back with their wedding day, signed it to the Mr. & Mrs. and added a little love.

The final product all set and ready to go!