Memorial Day

Whoopsies, I took a rather large break from blogging during my move. Now that things have settled down a bit, I am happy to report that all of my things (and Christine's) are in the new apartment. Minor setbacks: DirecTV claims my apartment faces the wrong way for their service even though my near neighbors have dishes; didn't have a microwave or stove top for the first weekend because the apartment peeps forgot to finish setting up my apartment; no Internet. Luckily, after moving in, we had loads of fun for Memorial Day weekend. Our friend Brian had a Memorial Day/ Mike's Going Away/ Danny and RV's Birthday Crawfish Boil. It was quite the celebration. Christine bought balloons for all the events and Brian made sure his house was red, white, and blue ready. I made dark chocolate cream cheese cupcakes (at Mike's request) and Oreo chunk chocolate chip cookies and enjoyed lots of crawfish! Here are some photos from our weekend:




And I'd like to say thanks to all in the military who are working hard to protect this country, yesterday, today, and tomorrow! Happy (belated) Memorial Day everyone!

Vacation Baking

In addition to making a stop at Georgetown Cupcake, I also did a bit of baking while I was home. My parents donated twice to my Great American Bake Sale, which earned them two sets of goodies. First I made these Cinnamon Bun Pie Pockets for breakfast on Saturday. They were ridiculously delicious. I think I ate about 4 of them just that morning. They’re definitely best warm but they save well. I got the recipe from Gimme Some Oven and pretty much followed it exactly. Here are some pics:




Here’s the recipe:

Cinnamon Bun Pie Pockets

Ingredients:
2 refrigerated 9-inch pie crusts
1 brick (8 oz.) softened cream cheese (I used 1/3 less fat cream cheese)
1/4c brown sugar, packed
1t. ground cinnamon (mounded 1/2t for filling, mounded 1/2t for topping)
1T sugar
2T butter, melted
1c powdered sugar
2T milk

Preheat oven to 350F.

Unroll both pie crusts and place onto a lightly floured surface (if you are using refrigerated dough they probably don’t need the flour). Using a 3″ round cookie cutter (I actually used the 3.5” Pampered Chef Cut-n-seal), cut rounds out of crust until all crust is used. You should get approximately 12 rounds per pie crust, re-rolling scraps if needed.

In a mixing bowl, mix the cream cheese, brown sugar and (1/2t.) cinnamon until well combined. Place half (12) of the rounds onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Using a small cookie scoop, scoop a heaping tablespoon of cream cheese mixture onto the centers of the 12 crusts. Lightly brush water around outer edges of the filled dough then place remaining rounds on top of filled rounds. Gently press edges to seal (I sealed with the Pampered chef Cut-n-seal).

Place sugar and (1/2t.) cinnamon into a small bowl and mix to combine. Brush tops of pies with melted butter then sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar mixture. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until tops of pies are golden brown. Once pies are cooled, whisk powdered sugar and cream until mixed well and a desired drizzling consistency. Drizzle over tops of pies. Serve warm.


Then, my mom had requested a mocha flavored treat so I made Espresso Fudge Cupcakes with Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing (Cupcake 1 from Ming Makes Cupcakes). The cupcakes were ok, I think next time I will just make my dark chocolate cupcakes and add espresso to them. The icing, however, was an amazing flavor combination. I love cream cheese icing, but I’ve never thought to make it chocolate. So delicious! I’ll be looking to put that icing on, well, anything in the future. Here is a pic:



Here is the recipe:

Espresso Fudge Cupcakes with Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients for cake:
1c flour
1/2c unsweetened cocoa
2t espresso
1/2t baking powder
1/2t baking soda
1/4t salt
1/2c butter
1c sugar
1 egg
3/4c milk
1/2c chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F.

Mix flour, cocoa, espresso, baking powder, baking soda, salt in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar on medium until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low and add vanilla and egg. Add milk and flour mixture alternating until all is mixed. Stir in chocolate chips. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes.

Ingredients for icing:
1 brick (8oz) cream cheese (I used 1/3 less fat)
1t vanilla
4c powdered sugar
2T cocoa

Mix cream cheese and vanilla at medium speed until creamy. While beating, add sugar and cocoa gradually. Spread on cooled cupcakes.

Enjoy!

Gracie!

My parents recently adopted a new dog after an about 7 year hiatus from their last dog, Fergie. Their new dog is a beagle/ basset hound mix named Gracie. I finally got to meet her this weekend and I’m totally in love! What a cutie! She loves to snuggle and go for walks. She’s a nice medium sized dog too so it’s not a big deal to share the couch with her. Here she is hunting something in the leaves:



And here she is with me:


Huuuuuge stamp of approval :)

Georgetown Cupcakes

After the graduation we went to Bethesda and visited Georgetown Cupcakes as well as some other stores before having some celebratory dinner. I’ve been dying to try these cupcakes after they were written up in Real Simple magazine and I heard that the 2 sisters that started the store are getting their own show. I looked into shipping them but the shipping cost was almost equal to the cost of a dozen cupcakes. Here is our dozen (everyone picked 3):


I personally tried the chocolate lava(top left corner), peanut butter chip(bottom left corner), and red velvet(bottom right corner). The chocolate lava was beyond amazing with chocolate cake surrounding a chocolate syrup center and vanilla buttercream icing topped with more chocolate swirl. The peanut butter chip was also really good but I had to lose about half the icing in order to eat it. The red velvet, I must say, was somewhat dry but the icing was delicious. My sister raved about her lemon blossom (the missing cupcake in the picture) and my Mom really liked the chocolate hazelnut(second from the left on the bottom). I’m sure my Dad loved them all. Check em out!

My Lawyer Lady

Another big graduation celebration took place this weekend form my friend Lindsey of Law of Cupcakes. She just graduated from Widener Law School in Delaware and her amazing mother threw her a huge graduation party. As an added bonus to seeing and celebrating Lindsey, I got to see my most favorite fellow UMD Biochemistry alum, Ashmo. She lives in Boston now after having completed her Masters in Biochemistry at Wisconsin and I haven’t seen her in 3 whole years!!! Needless to say the party was amazing and I even had time to run to Sugarhill Subs and grab me a quick chicken cheese steak before I left New Jersey. I wish I had photographed the mountains of food that Lindsey and her mom had prepared, they did a beyond amazing job on the provisions. I was slacking on the pictures but here is one of Ashmo, myself, and Lindsey after the party:


Reunited! Love you ladies! Congratulations Lindsey, so proud of you!!! And good luck on the BAR exam in July!

Jesse's Graduation

I have about a million posts to write about this weekend, but I’ll start with Jesse’s graduation. Little sister graduated from college this weekend with a B.S. in Architecture! Wooot, go Jesse! The rents, g-rents, and I attended the ceremony on Friday for the School of Architecture and did the massive photo op afterwards. Here are some pics:
The fam:

Three generations of UMD Alums:

Sisters:

Grandparents with the grad:


Congratulations, Jesse! So proud to have another UMD grad in the family!

Etsy Summer Baby Shower 2010 Gifts!

I participated in the Etsy Summer Baby Shower 2010 as a donating shop. I offered up 4 gifts and was assigned 4 babies (3 moms- twins!). I got 2 boys and 2 girls. I wanted to use this opportunity to try out new designs as you saw in my previous post with the corduroy conductor hat. Here are the other things I came up with:
For the twins I made the teal corduroy conductor hat and a hot pink angel wings onesie:


For the 5 week old boy from Alaska I made a Mini Ears Hat which can be bought at my store and a Hanky-style Drool bib with his name on it:


For the 2 month old girl I made another bigger pink angel wings onesie:


You can check out the other gifts that Etsy stores are donating on the Etsy Baby Shower Flickr Group. I hope the mommies and babies enjoy their gifts, let me know what you think!