Kneader's (knock-off) Raspberry Bread Pudding

 

I tried a new recipe yesterday.  It was a knock-off recipe for Kneader's Raspberry Bread Pudding.  It was yummy.  I used the recipe from The Sisters' Cafe blog here.  You can tell I cooked the vanilla cream sauce too long.  It doesn't resemble cream like it is supposed to--- it looks more like frosting (or toothpaste!).

So, a word of advice.... when making the vanilla cream sauce, when it says cook until thick, it doesn't really mean it.  I cooked it until it was about as thick as country gravy, so not all that thick.  It was the perfect consistency while still hot.  It was like pudding after it cooled down.  After being refrigerated, it resembled a really thick frosting.  Since it is pretty much made of cream and butter, it doesn't warm up well.  The butter separated after putting it in the microwave for 5 seconds on 20% power.  Even after trying to stir it back in, the good vanilla flavor was lost, and it tasted more like, well, butter.  So, I would say to just cook it until it barely begins to thicken up, say, when the cream is warmed up.  When the cream sauce is made properly, it tastes a lot like a good vanilla pudding, although thin and liquidy (I'm making up my own words again), and goes nicely with the warmed bread pudding. 

 

Another note--- I didn't have any stale bread, so I used fresh.  I didn't have apple juice, so I used Kodiak raspberry syrup in place of the sugar and apple juice that you stir into the raspberries for the filling.  After cooking, it was more like a raspberry cobbler than a bread pudding. 

 

Which was perfectly fine with me. :)

Alisa's Sugar Cookies

I am normally rather picky about which recipes I like.  Sugar cookies--- well let's just say that they are one thing that I am perhaps overly picky about.  I can't stand to eat most sugar cookies.  I do like the huge pink store bought Sugar Cookies with sprinkles.... and I like this recipe.  That's pretty much it.  My husband and a couple of my kids won't eat sugar cookies at all.  My oldest.... loves them.  And has been choosing sugar cookies (or a large sugar cookie) instead of a birthday cake for a few years now.  Here is my recipe- I got it from a big book titled "Cookies".  Not very helpful, but that recipe book is in storage right now, so I can't pull it out to find out who published the book. I even tried to do an online search, but do you know how many cookie cookbooks are out there?  When the first several search result pages didn't show it, I decided it would have to wait for when my stuff is out of storage.  So, here's the recipe that I use:

 

Sugar Cookies

2 cups Sugar                                                                   5 1/2 cups flour

1 cup sour cream                                                    2 tsp. baking powder

3 eggs                                                                         2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 cup butter                                                                      1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup shortening                                                  1 tsp. almond extract

1/4 tsp. salt                                                                                              

 

Combine the sugar, sour cream, eggs, butter, shortening, vanilla, and almond extract.  Mix until creamy.  Stir the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.  Slowly add to the first mixture.  Do it carefully so your mixer doesn't look like this after you're done!

 

  
Once mixed together, chill dough for 1-2 hours.  I used to just stick the bowl in the fridge with plastic wrap over the top.  But then I learned that it works so much better to divide the dough into 2 or 3 portions, then wrap in plastic wrap and place in the fridge to chill.  It chills it faster, and the dough doesn't dry out.  It also has the advantage of being less messy, and easier to add a fresh portion of dough each time you go to roll out the cookies. 


After the dough has chilled, roll one section out to 1/4 inch thickness onto a floured counter.  These will puff up while baking, so don't worry- they won't stay a flat 1/4"!  Cut them out using 3" cookie cutters.  You can use bigger cookie cutters- just cook them longer.  Or you can use smaller cookie cutters- just shorten the baking time.  Place the cookies on ungreased cookie sheets and bake at 350 degrees for 6-8 minutes.  You'll want to pull them out when the bottom edges are just barely starting to brown.  The tops of the cookies shouldn't be even remotely brown!  Let them rest on the cookie sheet for a couple minutes, then remove to a cooling rack. 

Sugar Cookie Frosting: mix 1/2 cup shortening (butter flavored tastes best), 1/2 cup butter, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1/2 tsp. almond extract, 4 cups powdered sugar, and 3-4 Tbs. milk.  Beat until really light and fluffy.  Divide into bowls and dye according to how you would like to decorate the cookies.  Wrap each cookie in plastic wrap or store in a tightly covered container with waxed paper in between each layer of cookies. 

Here is Kaili's large birthday cookie from last year.  I hope you like them, too! 

Chocolate Mint Cupcakes

I only added a little green tint to the frosting, so it might be a little hard to tell that it is mint frosting.  But, I found this recipe on Your Cup of Cake's website and tried it out.  It was good!  If you like the mint/chocolate combination--- this might be the recipe for you!  You can find it here.  And yes, she did make hers a whole lot more fancy!  :)

Pink and Green Flannel Tattered Baby Blanket

Yes, it is yet another tattered flannel baby blanket.  I love how apple green and pink look together.  I started this blanket at least a year ago, but then my sewing machine was having problems and I couldn't finish it.  When I tried to sew the rows together, the fabric in the seams was just too thick for the machine to handle.  So, when I got my new machine, I pulled it out and finished it!  And just in time for a little baby girl's arrival- perfect! 

One of these days I will manage to use up all of the rest of my flannel!  I think at that point I may switch to exclusively making quilts.  They are just too much fun to make!  (And they don't clog up the machine with all the little flannel fuzzies (kind of like flannel dust)!   

April Fools' Day Cupcakes

This is a fun thing to do for April Fools' Day--- TV dinner cupcakes!  I found the idea in the book Hello, Cupcake, and thought they were fun.  All are cupcakes--- the top left is supposed to be corn on the cob, the top middle are peas and carrots, the top right is mashed potatoes (LOVE how that one  looks!), the bottom left and middle are supposed to look like chicken drumsticks, and the bottom right-- a cupcake.  We had the scouts make these, and we just bought the cupcake liners that come in the foil tray and baked the cupcakes in advance.  The boys had lots of fun making them and were excited to take them home to their families. 

Stenciled Frames with Vinyl Sayings

Things have been a little.....shall we say busy????.... around here lately, so I'm sorry I haven't been as consistent with posting.  I am trying, but there might (will) be gaps for the next month or two.  But then I should be getting right back into finishing off my unfinished projects and using up my "stash".

 

I haven't even started yet, and I'm already off on a tangent.  In my old age (ha, ha!), I sometimes forget the correct spelling of words, which is actually mortifying for me.  I have never had a hard time remembering how to spell!  Until I had kids, that is.  Recently I have found myself looking up words like- is it stenciled and canceled?  Or stencilled and cancelled?  Without any real luck on my part because all I have been able to discover is that stenciled and canceled are the American way of spelling those words, while the British way is stencilled and cancelled.   The concept of spelling things differently doesn't really bother me.  For example, I would never spell "favor" as "favour", "honor" as "honour", or "color" as "colour", but I have no problem with someone else (say in Great Britain) spelling them that way (although it does seem pretentious if an American spells it that way, but not pretentious at all if they are from GB.  Go figure.)  But when it comes to conjugating a verb, it just seems strange to me that the spelling would be different.  I am dorky enough to have done a tiny bit of research on it.  On the internet.  And we all know we can trust everything on the internet (another ha, ha!), so take what I say with a grain of salt.  (BTW- how did that expression come about?)  According to the internet, and the technical rules of the English language, it would be cancelled and stencilled.  I already forgot why.  But, in America, those words are exceptions to the rule.  I also forgot why.  Awfully strange and confusing, if you ask me! 

 

Ok, so back to the subject.  A couple of years ago, I was looking for a gift that I could make.  I saw an ad for a frame at Shopko (or somewhere like that) that looked cute.  I thought that I could make one that would look similar.  This was what I came up with. 

A couple of weeks ago, I knew that I needed a few more gifts, and happened to come across this picture.  I thought it could make a nice gift again.  It took a while to find my damask stencil, but I did.  When I looked at the stencil, I thought that it wasn't quite the right shape, but then remembered that when I stenciled (I'm an American!) the first frame, I chose a small section and repeated it to get the shape on the frame that I wanted. 

This time I chose to change the saying because this speaks to me right now.  When I hear it, it brings to my mind images of my children when they were younger.  As happy as I am to be done with those particular challenges (of having little munchkins running around), I have found that there are new challenges always ahead.  Some days I miss having little ones.  Some days I am so happy to have my kids be a little older (like when we went to NYC and saw Wicked, and ALL my family enjoyed it.  There was no stress of trying to keep little ones happy and quiet- they loved the performance!) Then again, sometimes I just want to reach right into a picture of my little cuties when they were still so little and be able to give them a huge hug and a kiss.  To feel their little tiny arms reach around me.  But then each night or morning I have the chance to give my now big kids a huge hug, and I get to tell them that I love them.  That I am proud of who they have become.  What an amazing thing, to be a Mom. 

And, duh.  I forgot to take a picture of the new frames.  Lame-O.  I unwrapped one of the gifts to take a picture.  Shhhh.  Don't tell. 

If you are looking for a new idea to freshen up your painted flat frames, try stenciling them!  If the stencil isn't the right shape, look at it to see if you can just use part of it, or repeat part of it to make it work.  I held a piece of paper over my stencil to mask what I didn't want to stencil.  Then repeated one little part of the stencil on both sides to get the shape I wanted.  Think outside the box!  I love that the stenciling changes the flat frame so much.  It adds a lot. 

St. Patrick's Day Home Decor

I enjoy having apothecary jars.  It is fun to have them out and to change the contents up every month or so.  I don't often have holiday treats in them, but when I do, my kids have been pretty good about not eating them if I promise them they can have it after the holiday.  They did really well with these.... until Dad started sneaking the gold chocolate coins.  Then it was a panicked free for all.  So funny.  I loved the combination of the gold and the green.  I found the green gumball mix at Orson Gygi's in Salt Lake, but you can also buy them online from various sources.