Pumpkin Cupcakes with Rich Cream Cheese Frosting

Creative:

Pumpkin season is in full swing. And I love it! In fact, I love everything about this time of year! I recently came across this recipe from Cooking Classy for Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. Her photos were beautiful and I'm a fan of good-looking food. I feel that if the food looks good, it has a positive effect on those eating it...like maybe it tastes just as good! Works for me anyway :)

This blog was originally created as a means to show ways that the recipes and creations we do can serve and benefit others - the "compassionate" portion of the title. I feel I have not focused enough on that as of late so I am now making a change for the better! Each post will feature how the recipe (or whatever I'm displaying) helped another person or group. And if applicable, will also include why it makes me and/or others "happy". 

Compassionate:

On the last Saturday of September, we had our semi-annual General Women's Broadcast for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We always have refreshments after the broadcast so I signed up to bring cupcakes, naturally. I think they were a big hit!

Happy:

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf gave a great talk. I haven't re-read it yet, but the notes I took were based off of the things I found pertinent and important for me: 

He told the story of a young girl and her Great Aunt Rose. The takeaway message from the story is as follows: God created us to have joy. If we trust Him, He will help us to notice the good, bright, happy things. The best things in life take time and work. FAITH turned Great Aunt Rose's life around. Faith led to hope. Faith and hope give confidence that through the Savior, all things will be made right. You can hang your head and feel sorry for yourself, or have faith. Now is part of eternity. "Forever" is composed of "nows". Fill your life with meaningful things. Pure love of Christ is the heart of the gospel. When we love God, we want to serve Him.

I used Cooking Classy's exact recipe for the Pumpkin Cupcakes and they turned out perfect! I always worry about the consistency of the batter with pumpkin products, but these were great.

I did, however, modify a recipe from Our Best Bites for the Cream Cheese Frosting. This full recipe made more than enough for this batch of cupcakes. So you could either halve the recipe, or even make a second dessert that requires cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

• 2 (8-oz) pck. cream cheese, at almost room temperature
• 1/2 c. unsalted butter, at almost room temperature
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 c. powdered sugar

Instructions:

1. Whip cream cheese, butter, salt, and vanilla together until light and fluffy.
2. Add in the powdered sugar and whip until smooth and fully incorporated. Refrigerate any leftovers (or anything you've frosted that doesn't get eaten immediately).

These look just as beautiful as they taste. In fact, V-man actually put the finishing touches on by placing one candy pumpkin onto each individual cupcake. Nice job, bud!

DIY BYU Shirts/Onesies

Football season was in full swing when I realized that the kiddos didn't have any BYU shirts! That had to change. Since there is clearly no BYU merchandise being sold around here and I am too cheap and inpatient for online apparel, I decided to take a wack at a DIY project.

And I think they turned out darling :)

I started off by printing off a "Y" logo from the internet and cutting out fabric to match the shapes. I then sewed felt to the back of the circle part before zig-zag-stitching it onto the respective shirts. 

Then I zig-zag-stitched the Y on top of each circle and that was it! Done and done. 

They have a homemade look, but I think that makes them unique. After all, they are kid clothes - they're supposed to have that cutesie look, right?

Let's just say, V-man asked to wear his new Buy-U Tooder shirt two days in a row! 

They are now true zoobies in the making :) Mission accomplished. Go Cougs!

Fall Pumpkin-witches

E was in charge of treats for her lab meeting last week. She made these simple sandwich cookies and everyone marveled over them!

The filling is remarkable. Super fluffy, yet it holds its own inside the pumpkin spice cookie.

Click here for a printable recipe.

For the Cookies:

Ingredients:

• 1 box carrot or spice cake mix
• 1 15 oz. can pumpkin puree
• 1/2 c. oil

Mix together the ingredients and roll into tablespoon-sized balls. Place on cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 13 minutes or until they spring back when you touch them. Allow to cool completely before moving on to the filling step.

For the Filling:

Ingredients:

• 1 box pudding mix (E used cheesecake flavor for this recipe)
• 1 c. milk
• 1 container whipped topping (lite or fat free is fine too)

Whisk the pudding and milk until the begins to thicken, then fold in the whipped topping. This can be made the night before and placed in the refrigerator if you'd like. Just be careful not to eat it all before you fill the cookies!

To make the pumpkin-witches, layer a cookie, filling, and a second cookie on top. Top with a sprinkling or two of powdered sugar for looks. They can be frozen as well.

We hope you enjoy these as much as the food science lab did!

Lightning McQueen Birthday Cake

Little V-man absolutely loves "Cars" the movie and all things Lightning McQueen. For his birthday this year, I took it upon myself to attempt to make fondant and put together a little McQueen cake.

I knew it was a success when I finished and V-man saw it and screamed "Lightning McQueen CAKE!" Those are always happy moments, as he was the biggest critic in this case.

I made a simple cake using my classic Chocolate Cake recipe. Then filled it and frosted it with Almond Buttercream Frosting prior to applying the fondant. This helped the fondant to seal into place and stay put.  

I used a recipe for Marshmallow Fondant that I found on allrecipes. One of the comments, however, mentioned using marshmallow cream instead of melting the marshmallows. That is what I ended up doing, leaving out the water in the recipe and adding the food-coloring into the marshmallow cream. After kneading it all together with shortening-coated hands and freezing for about 1/2 hour, the fondant was ready to use!

Since I'm not an avid cake-decorator (I prefer cupcakes), I totally just placed V-man's Lightning McQueen car on the top to make it authentic. That worked for us!

This is a REALLY easy cake decorating idea if you're just starting out with fondant. Try it out sometime!

Salted Caramel Apple Pie

I promised my family I'd post this incredible apple pie recipe that I put together this year. We had more than enough apples on our tree in the backyard, so I was all about apple recipes for quite a while.

Plus, I know when Fall is getting near when I start cooking with apples and cinnamon. Mmmmm mmm!

It feels good using fresh produce grown in the backyard. 

I put together three different recipes and made some tweaks to each one to make it my own. I actually attempted this pie two different times and made any necessary changes the second time. The result was...miraculous.

The crust I used is now my go-to pie crust recipe. It is from Williams Sonoma and I don't change anything from the written recipe. I definitely use the mixer version and use my kitchenaid. I've made this crust multiple times and it is always flaky and delicious! 

  

The topping is a crumble topping from The Pioneer Woman. Any recipe that she posts is going to be good, in my experience. I've used this crumb topping recipe a lot, but I fear that the full recipe is a little too much. I have three-quartered the recipe below since I think that's the perfect amount of topping.

E found the pie filling recipe, which I also altered a tad bit to make it absolutely divine. The first time I made it, I sprinkled 1/8 tsp or so of salt over top of the finished filling before adding the topping. However, the salt amount was perfect when I substituted salted butter for the unsalted butter in the caramel sauce.

I hope you enjoy this pie as much as we did! Finish it off with a dollop (or two) of vanilla ice cream and you have yourself something special.

Pie Crust:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups flour

• 1 Tbs. sugar

• 1/4 tsp. salt

• 8 Tbs. (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes

• 3 Tbs. very cold water

1. To make the dough in a stand mixer, fit the mixer with the flat beater, and stir together the flour, sugar and salt in the mixer bowl. Add the butter and toss with a fork to coat with the flour mixture. Mix on medium-low speed until the texture resembles coarse cornmeal, with the butter pieces no larger than small peas. Add the water and mix on low speed just until the dough pulls together.
2. Transfer the dough to a work surface, pat into a ball and flatten into a disk. (Although many dough recipes call for chilling the dough at this point, this dough should be rolled out immediately for the best results.) Lightly flour the work surface, then flatten the disk with 6 to 8 gentle taps of the rolling pin. Lift the dough and give it a quarter turn. Lightly dust the top of the dough or the rolling pin with flour as needed, then roll out into a round at least 12 inches in diameter and about 1/8 inch thick. Makes enough dough for one 9-inch single-crust pie or one 10-inch galette. 

Caramel Apple Filling:

Ingredients: 

1/2 cup salted butter

3 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 cup water

6-7 granny smith apples, peeled, cored, and sliced

1. Melt butter in a sauce pan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and water. Bring to a boil. Reduce temperature, and simmer for 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with sliced apples, mounded slightly. Top with the sugary caramel sauce.
3. Cover with a top crust, using whatever technique you feel comfortable with. I used the crumb topping. (See recipe below).
4. Bake 15 minutes at 425 degrees F. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F, and continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes.
5. Once finished baking, let sit out for at least 4 hours, preferably closer to 12 hours. This is a perfect pie to make the day before.

Crumb Topping:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup, plus 2 Tbsp. flour

9 Tbsp. butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup, plus 2 Tbsp. quick oats

pinch of salt

1. Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter, then add in brown sugar, oats, and a pinch of salt.

T-shirt Rag Quilt: BYU

A couple weeks ago I posted the machine-quilted t-shirt quilt I made for Shaner and V-man out of Shaner's old t-shirts. Well this week, I finished a new t-shirt quilt. I had this dream of making a machine-quilted "Y" (for BYU) out of all of my old blue and white/gray t-shirts. However, when I pulled them out of the old tupperware that the Madre had sent down to me, I realized that about 2/3 of the 56 necessary t-shirts were already prepped for a rag quilt! I decided it'd be much more convenient and time-efficient to just prep the other t-shirts and make a "Y" rag quilt.

And that's just what I did.

The "prep" stage that I keep speaking of is the cutting and filling of each shirt. Cut each one to 12 1/2 inches. I used an 8x7-shirt design to make a queen-sized quilt. After I drew it out on the computer, I knew just how many dark vs. light shirts were needed. 

After cutting the shirts to size, it is time to cut the flannel to the same size. Each square of flannel is then placed between the front and the back of each t-shirt square and they are sewn together with a large X (corner to corner seam on each square).

After each shirt is "prepped", it is time to lay them out in the design and order you want. I tried to keep shirts that were too similar further away from each other.

Gather up the shirts row by row and leave in separate piles. I had eight different piles at this point. Then sew together the seven t-shirts in each row, being sure to make the actual seam show on the FRONT of each shirt. I used a 5/8-inch seam. On each end (top and bottom of entire quilt and sides of each row), sew a 5/8-inch seem as well, even though no shirts are being connected there. After each row is complete, sew the tops of each new row to the bottom of the previous row until the entire quilt is sewn together and has ugly seam lines all over.

The back of the quilt should appear like this, with clean seams. 

Next comes the tedious but essential part of this project: trimming the seams. JoAnn sells short-nosed clippers meant specifically for this project. They cost a pretty penny, so I used a 40% off coupon for it and it was much more affordable. Trim each seam about 1/4-3/8-inches apart using the clippers. In addition, trim the outer edges (where I previously mentioned you needed to add a seam) in the same manner.

And the rag look is finally showing through.

After trimming the seams, there will be A LOT of thread and lint pieces from the trimmed edges. To remove that and to finish the rag look, simply wash the quilt on a light wash and then dry it. Because of the large amounts of lint, however, I dried it in four or five different 10-20 minute cycles, cleaning the lint out between each cycle. It worked like a charm!

Here is what the finished seams look like up close.

  

And here are the edges where you added the extra 5/8-inch seam.

And there you have it! Now V-man has a nice "Y"on his huge bed, and this quilt actually fits!

Strawberry-Vanilla Checkerboard Cake

Since Sissy was born, I haven't been able to keep up with the blog much. This post is from way back in April. In fact, it was our Easter dessert this year! It looks quite fancy, but it's really a simple process.

To begin with, I made two different cake batters: fresh strawberry (from The Kitchen McCabe) and vanilla (from The Baker Upstairs).  In fact, I used the same vanilla cake recipe that I used for my Vanilla Cream-filled Cupcakes with Fresh Strawberry Buttercream. I halved each cake batter recipe for this one.

Using a checkerboard cake pan set, first grease and flour each of the three pans. Place the strawberry and vanilla cake batters in the pan sections, alternating each. Then place the three pans in the oven and bake them at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool the cakes on a cooling rack until completely cool.

Once cooled, remov the cakes from the pans and place them on top of one another to make a three-tiered rectangular cake.

I topped these with my favorite whipped cream topping. All it takes is freshly-whipped cream, slightly sweetened with powdered sugar and vanilla, and a yogurt flavor of your choice. I chose to use strawberry. Once the cream is whipped and sweetened, fold in enough yogurt to give it a fresh fruit flavor. Then cover the cake with it! This whipped cream topping is also perfect for fruit dip if you have some leftover...or for eating plain.

I garnished with fresh strawberry halves as well.

I hope you get a chance to try this sometime! It's definitely a show-stopper when you have guests over.

Machine-Quilted T-shirt Quilt

Shaner's Ma brought over all of his old t-shirts from high school and I had no idea what to do with them. I basically decided that they would forever stay in their little storage box up in the attic, albeit it was neat for me to go through and see all the different activities he had done! But then I realized that, because they were all basically in the same color scheme, I could make a really neat quilt out of them for him (and Vince, since it would eventually end up on his bed).

I think it turned out quite fabulous, if I may say so.

I used a tutorial/layout I found here for measurement purposes on my twin-sized quilt. 

The first step was to prep the t-shirts for cutting. Cut up the sides and remove the sleeves so that you are only working with the front of the shirt. 

Then, place some stabilizer material on the back of the shirt. T-shirt material is super stretchy, so in order to make it a workable piece of fabric for this quilt, it needs to have an iron-on (or sew-on) stabilizing material. I just grabbed some iron-on from JoAnn. 

Using a square cutout of the size you want (I made my cutouts out of foam board), cut out the main portion of the t-shirt that you want displayed on the quilt. The pattern I used utilizes 16 1/2" total squares  (including the bordering fabric for each square). So according to the tutorial for a twin size, I cut four 6 1/2" squares (using the t-shirts with a small logo on the front corner), eleven 12 1/2" squares, and two 14 1/2" squares. 

One completed square.

Once all of the squares have been cut to size, I laid them out to see what design looked the best, trying to keep whites and blues/golds separated by at least one block.

The next step is to sew bordering fabric onto each t-shirt block. Luckily, I had some nice blue and white fabric laying around in my craft closet so I didn't have to purchase the border material. I cut out wide enough strips to allow for a total of 16 1/2" squares after being added. 

(Note: for the 6 1/2" t-shirt blocks, I did what the tutorial chart showed (see here) and cut out four extra 6 1/2" squares to make one 4-piece block. (See photo below.)

Above is the quilt prior to the final border and the quilt batting being added.

I did end up quilting my quilt with a machine and I think it turned out phenomenal. It was my first time using a real quilting machine and it actually wasn't too difficult! The lady who taught me (and let me use her machine) taught me the "puzzle" pattern, as it is one of the easier ones. It was perfect for this quilt. 

I used a light blue thread to quilt it so that it would stand out, but also blend in, you know?

The last step was just to add the binding.

Again, the finished product turned out pretty great. And it really didn't take too long to make, mostly because I was so excited to have it finished! Unfortunately, we didn't end up getting V-man a twin bed yet, so this quilt is too small for his queen. But fortunately, that means I can get rid of tons of MY old t-shirts and make a queen-sized quilt. I'm working on that one now, so pictures and instructions to follow!