Apple Cupcakes

One of the teachers appreciation gifts I made were these apple cupcakes. I know I have posted this recipe before here, but this time, I thought I would post pictures of each step.

Bake your favorite cupcakes. I chose white cake so that it would resemble an apple when bitten.

Take mini donuts and

Slice them in half.

Prepare your frosting with red paste coloring. I tried regular food coloring as well as red gel coloring, but nothing makes it more red than using paste. I use Wilton's brand.





Prepare your candy.

I pulled the chocolate tootsie roll and cut it in half. In the end, it looks like a golf T. The apple tootsie roll was flattened with a rolling pin and then cut into a leaf shape.

Take your cooled cupcake

and frost

add half of your donut

and refrost, covering the donut

Take red sugar sprinkles

Sprinkle the red sugar over the frosting

Decorate your cupcake with the stem and leaf, and voila, you've made an apple cupcake.

Now you are ready to make a bunch more

For a nice touch, add a basket.

For easier transport, wrap in cellophane bags and deliver.

Love.

Teacher Appreciation Week!

Don't forget this week is teacher appreciation week!

I made this basket last year with some printouts I found online. I had planned on giving gifts each day, but I was called last minute to travel for work. My hubby is pretty forgetful so even with reminders, getting the right gifts to the right teachers on the right day is not likely to happen. Therefore, I ended up putting everything in one basket.

Teachers have one of the hardest jobs so showing appreciation is the very least I can do.

Kitchen Cabinets Installed

My cabinets are stained, sealed and in place!!!!!

Love.

In goes a few hidden treasures.

Now, I just need to add hinges to the doors and my island cabinet is complete. Total price for the wood is $60. The stain was another $60 (yeah, it was expensive to color match what we currently had, but worth every penny). We do have ample supply of stain should I decide to go building crazy. Until then, I think my kitchen is complete. I'm just so elated at what could be created with a few pieces of wood, a table saw, and my dad at my side...best gift ever.

Fried Bananas

One of my all time favorite desserts is none other than fried bananas. I practically grew up on it. It's not that healthy so I don't make it that often, but what do you do when you have ripe bananas? You gotta make your favorite dish or the bananas simply go to waste, right? Just thinking about how it melts in my mouth, makes it worth the extra calories.

Fried Bananas

Vegetable Oil
Ice Water
Ripe Bananas
Tempura Mix
Sugar


Start out by heating some oil on high.

Partially fill a bowl with ice water (about a 1/4th filled). The ice is supposed to make the batter a tad more crispy.

Add enough tempura mix to make the batter the consistency of pancake mix. I used the tempura mix I normally use to make shrimp tempura.

Then, add about a tsp of sugar to the mix. Half the banana both length and width wise and add to batter.

Spoon the battered banana into hot oil.

Brown the bananas on both sides until crisp.

Dry on paper and serve hot.

Serve it simply as is...the way I like it.

Or add a little powder sugar like the French...

Or indulge a little by adding some melted chocolate. Either way, it is absolutely delicious and worth every bite.

Coconut Bread

Whenever my dad comes to visit, he always picks up some Vietnamese Coconut Bread at the Asian market. He simply loves anything with coconut in it as do I. Therefore, when I found this recipe for coconut bread on one of my favorite blogs, I knew I had to try it.

I was scared at first because I made my last dozen loaves using my trusted and well-loved bread-maker. Making bread from scratch brought me back to middle school when I made my first loaf of french bread. It looked absolutely beautiful. Did you notice what I said? I said, "it looked beautiful." It was hardly tasty. It was so hard, I could have used it as baseball bat. With that said, this recipe turned out fab-u-lous.

Coconut Bread
1/2 C. canola oil
1/2 C. unsweetened coconut cream (or coconut milk)
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
1 1/4 C. flour
3/4 C. sugar
1/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1/2 C sweetened flaked coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease one 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 loaf pan

In a small bowl, whisk canola oil, coconut cream, eggs, and vanilla extract until blended.

In large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and flaked coconut and mix well.

Add wet ingredients from small bowl, and mix just until combined

Do not overmix.

Pour batter into prepared pan, and bake 45 minutes to 1 hour, until golden brown on top and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool on baking rack

I took mine out of the pan after 10 minutes.

When completely cooled, cut into slices. Store in airtight container.

I love the sweet crispy crust. Yummy! This loaf didn't last long. I'm ready to bake another one!

Dollar Blinds

I can't resist clearance stickers. I saw these shades at Lowe's the other day.

I've been meaning to replace our window coverings in our garage. Since, it is the garage, I really don't want to spend an arm and a leg. Looking at the price, it's not that great of a deal, right?

That's not the price though. Look at my receipt.

For my three shades, I paid only $3.00! That's $1 a shade!!! The best part is that they'll cut the shades to fit my window for me. Now, that is a bargain that is too good to resist!