Sweet: Our Best Cupcakes, Cookies, Candy and More Book Review

The cover on this book alone made me want to get it and what is better than yummy cupcakes, cookies and candy!!  I don't know anything so I signed up to get this book and it came in the mail in just a little bit. Sweet: Our Best Cupcakes, Cookies, Candy, and More by Editors of Food Network Magazine with it's great cover was calling to me so I picked it up knowing that I wouldn't have enough time to make anything from it for a little bit with the start of school coming quickly.

The beginning of the book starts with a table of contents with pictures.  It makes you know exactly what you are looking for because you are doing it with your eyes (or your stomach) instead of looking at the words.  It is an interesting trick to help you find the recipe that you are looking for quickly.  The pictures are amazing and have you wanting to eat the food off the page.  The beginning of some of the recipe have helpful tips like if you don't have buttermilk, use whole milk and yogurt or sour cream.  I never have buttermilk and probably won't head to the store to get it for one recipe so that is super helpful to know that I can make it anyway.  There are little tidbits at the beginning of each recipe to help you in some way with that recipe.

The table of contents is:

Cupcakes and Whoopie Pies
Cookies and Bars
Candy and Snacks
Pies and Crumbles
Fake-Out Cakes
Show-Off Cakes
Frozen Treats
Holiday Desserts

The only downside is that this only a recipe book and doesn't have any of the interesting discussions from the author because it is a group of articles and recipes put together by the editors.  It doesn't make it a bad cookbook only less interesting to read cover to cover.  Still with the great pictures, it will provide hours of entertainment even before you make it into the kitchen.  Some of the recipes a little too complicated for me to have on my list all the time because I am not regularly using the pastry bag or some of the more time consuming steps used in the recipes.  Other recipes are interesting and I might try the cupcake without the complicated frosting because my family doesn't like frosting as much as the cake.  There are some great ideas and places to start so here is hoping that I get to make one of the recipes soon.  The top of the list are chocolate chip cookies and brownies that I want to try first.  The ones that look yummy are the Apple Cider Doughnuts so I hope to make them sometime too!!!

**  I was provided this book from the publishers through Blogging for Books for my honest review.  All of the opinions here are my own.

It Had to Be You Book Review

I was super excited to have the second book in the series to start right after reading the first book.  I picked up It Had to Be You (Christiansen Family) by Susan May Warren right after finishing the other book.  It was as hard to put down as the first one so I finished it quickly making it the first book of September.  I hope that there is another book set to come out soon but I am sure that I am going to have to wait a little longer since I just got the third book on pre-release a little while ago!!!

This book followed Eden Christiansen who is the sister of Darek and Owen who has taken the sidelines in her own life to be a cheerleader for other people.  She spends most of her time looking after her younger brother, Owen, while he is starting his rookie year in the NHL.  Owen is acting out and Eden has turned her mothering into high gear trying to help him but it is only making Owen act out more.  At the same time, Eden is stuck in a job that she isn't happy with writing the obits for the paper.  She feels that writing about death is not really reporting.  She comes upon an unlikely friendship with Jace Jacobson, another NHL hockey player who has a bad reputation for violence in the game and with the women outside the game.  Eden learns about herself while searching for the family of a John Doe that they find in the hospital with Jace and you will never believe everything that happens in this book so you have to pick it up to believe it.

I really enjoyed this one because each book follows one of the Christiansen Family so you get to get a different view on every book.  This book just happened to follow one of the daughters so I thought that I could relate more to the situation that she got herself into because she gave up all of herself to help others in her family.  Although helping people is something great, there is a lot to be lost if it is the only thing that you do and never put yourself first.  She learns this the hard way but you will be amazed what comes out of it.  This was the third in the series that I read (even though it was the second book) and I really want to go back and read the one I read first again to see what I missed because I didn't know the characters.  Lucky for me that after finishing the book, there was the prequel "I Really Do Miss Your Smile" so I got a little more to read after finishing the book.  I can't wait for the next in the series to come out and I will be looking for it soon!!!  I hope that you check this out at your local library or bookstore and see what you think.

Thrifty Thursday: My Stockpile of Baking Supplies

Are you already thinking, How does a cupboard of baking supplies save money?  I shopped for my baking supplies through the holidays last year.

Why is that important?  Because the sales for baking supplies are on sale then!!!  I got at least 10 bags of unbleached flour at Wegman's for $0.99 each which are normally much more expensive (especially not at Wegman's because they can be up to $4).  My mom bought me a few extra bags of Aldi's flour which I had in the wings for when my Wegman's flour is all gone.  I got brown sugar and white sugar for super cheap.

 When the Gold Medal flour went on sale at the grocery store, I got the bread flour which was on sale for the same price as the regular flour at between $1.50 to $2.00.  There are very rarely coupons for flour but I did have a few in the last few years which I used with rain checks for the flour at the price that I wanted to pay!!!  Normally these are $4 or more per bag so getting them more then half price was amazing.  I got all that I could pile in the cupboards and was super excited to see how many I would use.  Did you see in that picture that I only have 3 left (they are the yellow bags in the back)?? 

I use the stores of baking supplies all year to make bread and treats.  I store my sugar in the container on the left and the flour in the container on the right to use all the time.  There is a little section in the middle that I use for the Crisco sticks that I got for $0.19.  There is also a box of dry powder milk.  I also have another container of bread flour which is too tall so I keep it on the counter.

Can you believe that I have used over 12 bags of flour and 10 bags of bread flour already and it hasn't been a year??  I can't keep track of the sugar count because I got them every time they went on sale and the number went up and down a little more but I know I used a lot of them too!!  I might have a baking problem!!!

Why am I telling you this? Because the sales are starting soon for the holiday baking season so you can make your own baking stockpile.  It is a great time to stock up on a little bit of baking items to use through the year when they hit the rock bottom prices.  It will save lots of money because every time you pull out a bag of flour you already saved $3 because you don't have to pay the current shelf price.

Good luck and happy shopping!!!

Kids Wednesday: Learning Homonyms and Homophones

I had been thinking about how to work on homonyms for awhile. My son loves joke books but doesn't always get why they are funny when they use words that are homonyms or close to homonyms.  He is very literal and I thought that he would be amused with more detail into these funny words.  I found a neat list here and thought that I would download it and work on more information around it.

I went online to find a few books that would work to help us learn more about these fun words including the following:

How Much Can a Bare Bear Bear?: What Are Homonyms and Homophones? (Words Are Categorical) 

by Brian P. Cleary

Dear Deer: A Book of Homophones 

by Gene Barretta

Aunt Ant Leaves Through the Leaves 

by Nancy Coffelt

Eight Ate: A Feast of Homonym Riddles by Marvin Terban

We read the first book at least five times the first day that we got it out of the library.  There are so many fun books out there to read that teach kids about homophones and homonyms but I really recommend the bear bear bare book if you can find it.  We had a blast learning about them and it comes up in daily conversation now!!  It is always good to add a little early on a topic that you are going to learn more about when they get older.

Since I started this project to bring it into a discussion about jokes, I pulled out a joke book that I had as an activity which uses both homophones and homonyms in the jokes.  It helps the kids practice handwriting and lets them draw a picture on the page.  I figured that I could pick out a few and we would discuss whether there were words used that had different meanings or spellings that made the joke funny. You can download your own joke book here.  She had a part two before but it is no longer available but if part one turns out to be a hit, there is also a back to school version here.  My son enjoyed the jokes and even drew a picture for this one which was super funny!  It is going to be a great memory book when he is older.

In my searching to find the book that I downloaded a long time ago, I found this one.  I quickly downloaded excited about how well it worked into the lesson plans and included lots of new jokes.

Great idea for older activities is for them to write there own book or story with the list of words.  You can make a rough draft and then write it into a book with pictures to go even farther.  I hope that you have fun with homonyms and homophones too!  There is lots of learning to be done whether child or adult with these great words!

August Reading Review

I enjoyed my last month of summer reading with some new books and great authors.  Did you have a good month of reading?  I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did.

If you missed my review of the book, please click on the title and it will take you back to the original summary and review.  I hope that you add a few more books to your reading list and let me know which ones to add to mine!!!

When the Heart Cries
by Cindy Woodsmall 

When the Morning Comes

by Cindy Woodsmall

When the Soul Mends

by Cindy Woodsmall

Wicked Business
by Janet Evanovich

Storm Front
by Richard Castle

Treat Yourself
by Jennifer Steinhauer

A Grand Design
by Amber Stockton

Kindergarten: It Isn't What It Used to Be
by Susan Golant and Mitch Golant

Take A Chance On Me
by Susan May Warren

Books Read for 2014

January     8

February    9
March       6
April          6
May          8
June          13
July          10
August       9

Total Books 69

Menu Plan Monday 9/8

Monday- Rosemary Chicken with Potatoes
Tuesday- Buffalo Chicken Wraps with mac and cheese
Wednesday- Chicken Nuggets with homemade fries
Thursday- Homemade Pizza
Friday- Olive Oil Pasta with garlic bread
Saturday- Leftovers/Pork Carnitas with Saffron Rice and Corn Bread
Sunday- ???

We are going to have some family in town with the plans at the end of the week accommodating more people.  We weren't sure how many to plan for so I put some very flexible meals on the menu that we have all of the items in the house so we can make more or add side dishes if we need to.  I look forward to trying some new pork tacos that I have never made to use the pork that we have in the freezer.  I am also hoping that my husband loves it because he is super picky when it comes to tacos and pork.  We are leaving Sunday open because we don't know if we are still having guests but if they leave we will have leftovers and if they stay we might do take out or Turkey and Rice soup.  I hope that you have a yummy week planned too!!!

Chocolate Hazelnut Swirl Pound Cake with Jif Spread

I have made this basic yogurt pound cake a few times and I really enjoy it the next day after it has had time to set for awhile.  I enjoyed it with raspberry jelly more then strawberry because the flavor was more rich so I decided to try it with the Jif Chocolate Hazelnut Spread that I got at Harris Teeter.

I was excited to get a few during the last sale for $0.73 but this sale, I got six for free!!!  I was super excited so I started using those two that I was holding on to for a special occasion.  In case you have never had this before, it is like liquid spreadable chocolate with a great taste of hazelnuts.  It is good to eat on a spoon (which I did) or in a few of my favorite recipes:  Nutella Oat Breakfast Cookies and Nutella Chocolate Chip Brownies.  I gathered all of my ingredients and I was ready to go.

I put the butter and the sugar in the bowl to cream.

Then, I used the electric mixer to cream the butter and sugar.

I added the egg to the mix which always fluffs up the butter.

With the vanilla added, it is getting to be a lot more liquid.

I thought that it was starting to look like icing at this point.  What do you think?

Then come the dry ingredients.

Which are mixing alternately with the yogurt to get the final batter.

I spread half (or a little more than half) of the batter in the pan because the toppings tend to fall when cooking so best to have more of the bread below or else you end up with the topping stuck to the pan.

Then, spread the Jif Chocolate Spread across the top as evenly as you can but don't worry because it will spread out a little more when baking.

Add the additional batter to the top and spread to cover.  Try to make sure it gets edge to edge but as long as it gets over the chocolate, you are all set.

Bake in the oven for around 50 minute until it is done in the center.  I might have taken this one out a little early because it started to sink in the middle a little but it was still good even if it was a little undercooked on the bottom.

When you cut into the bread, you get a nice chocolate center to enjoy.

I hope that you try this recipe and see if it isn't a great treat by itself or with some whipped cream or berries on top.  We ate it all plain but I am sure that you will enjoy it too!!!

Chocolate Hazelnut Swirl Pound Cake

1/4 c. unsalted butter, softened

3/4 c. sugar

1 egg

1 egg white

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tsp. imitation lemon extract (or zest of 1 lemon), opt.

3/4 c. Greek yogurt (if you use lemon or vanilla yogurt you can leave out the extract)

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda 

1/8 tsp. salt

1/3 c. Jif Chocolate Hazelnut Spread or Nutella

  


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.  Add the egg, egg white, vanilla and lemon extract and mix until well blended.   Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Add dry ingredients and Greek yogurt alternately to the batter, starting and ending with dry and mix until just combined.

Spread a little more than half of the batter into a 9x5-inch loaf pan.  Top with chocolate spread, leaving a small border around the edge.  Do no swirl the spread.  Top with remaining batter and carefully spread out evenly.  Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool in pan 10 minutes, then invert to a wire rack and cool completely.

Make sure you check out the original recipe on Eat Cake for Dinner because she puts a glaze on hers that looks amazing with her strawberry bread!