Meringue Mushrooms

I found this recipe and couldn't wait to try it. Little frivolous confections that look like something else, I was all over it. The recipe is great and easy to follow so I won't bore you with step by step details. This will mostly be a slideshow of my little pretties.

But first lets talk about cream of tartar. It was the only ingredient I didn't have in my kitchen so I looked it up on ochef.com and it's actually pretty interesting. Something about grapes and Iran 7000 years ago. Here read it for yourself. 

So I set out to buy some. The little spice jar was $5.49!!!!!! After walking around the baking isle indignantly I let the allure of making these mushrooms outweigh my greater sensability. It turns out that $5+ bucks was a fair price because the recipe only called for 1/4 tsp.

This bottle should last me the rest of my life (assuming of course there isn't a zombie apocalypse).

Moving on...

Here they are, and they were super easy (if not labor intensive) to make. I do have a few tips if you are going to try.

First when making the bases err on the side of wider (especially at the base).Sounds simple I know but you will thank me later.

Also it is a good exercise in letting go of control. I tried to get a uniform set of caps to bases but in the end its the odd shaped weird ones that look most like mushrooms.

Oh and have fun, I did.

<3 Ruth

Champagne Cake

I have a confession. I love to make an impressive dessert, but sometimes its just so hard. Things like cakes and pastry crust are best left to the professionals like Betty Crocker and Pillsbury. I have made an art out of making a mix cake a masterpiece. So when it was time to bring dessert to our family New Years Eve party I whipped up this Champagne Cake.

The players:

Box of white cake, can of frosting, 2 pints of blackberries (they were on sale any sexy fruit will do), and cheap champagne.

First I made sauce out of one of the pints of blackberries. I added 1 cup of water and 1/2 cup of sugar and let it simmer on medium. The trick with fruit sauces I find is to let the fruit flavor come out so I don't add vanilla or leamon, I just leave it be. To tell you the truth I took a shower.

Then I made the cake following the instructions on the box but replacing the water with champagne.

Another confession, I am terrified of turning cakes out. I always mess it up. When I was in the store staring at my box of cake mix I had a realization. If I'm trusting my cake to a professional why am I greasing my own pans like a dork? So bought Bakers Joy. It's a pray greaser with flour. Verdict- two thumbs up. Will never grease my own pans again.

After about half an hour the sauce was don but looked like this:

 So I hit it with a potato mashe a couple of time to make it more saucy looking.

 My plan was to have a ring of berry-ness in the middle of the cake so I poured half of the batter in then poured in the sauce. The sauce ended up sinking to the bottom of the pan making a berry coatin o the top of the cake.

And what to do with the rest of the champagne? Make a mimosa. In my defense neither the champagne or the juice was refrigerated thats why there are Ice cubes. I wasn't raised in a barn I swear.

 If I had planned things better (and waited to have my mimosa) I would have saved a couple spoonfuls of the sauce to put in the icing. But hindsight is 20/20 right? Instead I melted the icing to give it a drizzling consistency and mashed a couple of the garnishing blackberries to give it color and added a generous splash of champagne for good measure. .

Look at that beauty out of the oven.

I topped it with blackberries and methodically drizzled the champagne icing over it and ta-da! It tasted unreal good. You should make one of these right now.

<3 Ruth

Spice cabinet gets some attention

I had big plans of baking tons this holiday. That didn't really happen but I did get around to cleaning up this atrocity.

 Oh and I wanted to show you a trick that I use more often that I thought I would. I taped a conversion chart to the inside door and that way when a recipe calls for 2/3 cup of a fluid that comes in a can of ounces I can figure it out without finding a book and getting flour on my laptop.

Ahh thats better. Now to tackle my sewing room.

Look what I got for Christmas!

I am blessed to be married to a man who knows me more completely than I realize sometimes. My Christmas present tis year is another example of that.

Its an antique sewing machine! There is a serial number and I went online to find out it was made in 1902. 

The machine is in working order except for this rubber piece for winding the bobbin which is shrunken (because its 110 years old) and doesn't reach the wheel to wind the bobbin. But we fixed that.

This is the bobbin casing.

A wood panel in the base opens to store extra feet and such.

And look at this crazy bobbin.

My favorite part is this plate on the side.

Isn't she pretty!

And check out how Mr. Maker fixed it so I can wind a bobbin. It's a lego wheel.

It almost works and I'm pretty sure I'm doing something wrong. I was reading about these machines and one site say that they virtually never breakdown. And all the mechanisms are moving smoothly. It sort of sews but the needle isn't catching the bobbin thread. It's skipping stitches. In a normal machine this could be caused by a bent needle (even when the needle doesn't look bent). But I changed the needle twice, but the needles I changed to were in the machine and could potentially be very old. So I'll keep trying and let you know when I get her sewing like I know she can! 

<3 Ruth

Holiday Pomanders

In my defense I have been crazy busy creating, jut not blogging. I have pictures of most of the things I was working on and I plan on getting them all up today. This is the first.

So Mr. Maker is a 4th grade teacher (cute right?). Every year since we have been married I have made gifts for him to give to the other teachers and cafeteria ladies and janitors etc. Every year we come up with a give that i simple enough to make about 30 of in reasonable time, holiday-ish but not religiously specific, and not expensive. The first year we made  a standard size gingerbread man in a bag with several mini ones (get it -gingerbread teachers), and the next year we made chocolate red chili truffles, this year I didn't want to make a food thing so we made pomanders. Fun if not a little labor intensive, but totally worth it.

Here are the players:

bag of clementines, pretty ribbons, cloves (I found mine in the bulk section of Whole Foods and they werent expensive), and a well used hot glue gun 

Glue ribbon around an orange. I also glued hanging ribbons.

Depending on your orange you may want to pre poke holes with a thumb tack where your cloves will go. I didn't get a good picture of this.

Them put cloves in the holes and you are done.

I spent about $8 on oranges, $6 on cloves and probably another 5 on ribbon. $19 for 30 teacher gifts not bad if I do say so myself, and they smell AMAZING!

Now I saw a tutorial for pomander that involved baking and one that used some sort of preservative. You don't need to do anything. Keep them in a cool dry place and they will smell up a space as they dry out. 

Enjoy making your pomanders and message me if you have questions.

<3 Ruth