easy-peasy creamcheese icing

This is my standby creamcheese icing recipe.  It's from Canadian Living magazine.  I love the calculator for multiplying the recipe according to how many cupcakes you've got.

This is for 12 cupcakes.  I had extra leftover; I only needed 3/4 of the recipe.  I suppose it all depends on how much you love icing!

Ingredients:
1/4cup (50 mL) cream cheese, softened
1/4cup (50 mL) butter, softened
1/2 tsp (2 mL) vanilla
1-1/2cups (375 mL) icing sugar
 Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.  Transfer to piping tube.  Ice those cupcakes!  
 

Pumpkin spice

I love autumn.  Especially because I get to drink copious amounts of apple cider, be re-inspired to get out the knitting needles, and eat pumpkin treats. I cannot wait to carve a pumpkin, mostly so I can toast the seeds.

On a recent roadtrip to NY, we made numerous pit stops for Starbuck's pumpkin spice lattes.  I rarely buy Starbuck's pricey coffee, but am so glad I made a concession for this trip.  Delish! 

As I've still got pumpkin spice on the brain, I decided to whip up a batch of pumpkin cupcakes for a friend. I followed Martha's recipe.

It says it makes 18 cupcakes. I ended up with 23 regular-sized cupcakes and 6 mini's. This meant more to share!

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree (approx. 450ml) [or pumpkin pie filling]

Directions:
1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice; set aside.
2. In a large bowl [food processor], mix together, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and eggs. Add dry ingredients, and mix until smooth. Mix in pumpkin puree. [Batter go too big here so transfered to large bowl from food processor to mix in pumpkin].
3. Pour batter into muffin tins with cupcake liners [or greased muffin tin], filling each about halfway.
4. Bake at 350F until tops spring back when touched, and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pans once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.
5. Ice with creamcheese icing.  Sprinkle cinnamon on top.
6. Enjoy!

A few modifications:
- I used a food processor for mixing.
- I used salted butter.  Usually i omit salt if I do this, but forgot this time around.  Fortunately, the cupcakes didn't end up tasting overly salty.
- I used pumpkin pie filling instead of straight-up pumpkin.  This meant that extra sugar and spices were added to the cupcakes, but they still ended up tasting great!

These were easy to make and sooo delicious.  Even Agatha couldn't resist checking them out.  She didn't eat any but I'm sure she would be a lover of pumpkin spice, if we let her!

epitome of summer

Happy first of September!  It's hard to believe that autumn weather is just around the corner, particularly with the heat wave we're experiencing. 

A few weekends ago Mr. Owl (my night owl boyfriend, aka Mr. Kitchen-Crafty) and I spent an idyllic summer weekend visiting family and friends. It was a weekend filled to the brim with good food, wonderful company, and some craftiness too (hurray!).

The weekend schedule was as follows:

1. A long bus ride made fun with knitting and audiobooks (the local library is a great source of roadtrip fun).

Working on my Shalom cardigan.

2. Crepes with fresh blackberry jam and maple syrup.

(photo from weheartit)

3. Picking the last of Mr. Owl's mum's basil and making pesto! It's my favourite!  Honestly so simple to make.

dill beans love posing with pesto

4. Extreme croquet (crocket as it's been nicknamed) in the woods - trees, logs and rocks made for interesting obstacles.

Scared to look. Did I make the shot?

5. Visit to the beaver pond, which turned into one of my top canadian wildlife moments ever: baby beaver hanging out only a meter or two away, chewing on a log and sticking it's tongue out at us!  I only regret not having my camera with me, but I doubt that I would have had sense enough to actually use it. That beaver was mesmerizing!

(photo from weheartit)

6. Blackberry picking from a wild patch.  Now to decide what to make: jam, pie, juice...

(picture from weheartit)

7. Handmade body butter and body bars, which we named Baby Beaver Body Butter after our fabulous encounter.

Recipes for pesto and body butter and balm coming up!  Stay tuned!

Hope you're enjoying the final days of summer!

a birthday, some cupcakes, and sparklers ... oh my!

Fun birthday celebrations this weekend for a dear friend!  The party had a coffee theme, yum!  I contributed mocha coffee cupcakes that I made from this great recipe from Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski (found via the how to eat a cupcake blog). 

They were topped with this simple creamcheese icing (I substituted coffee for the vanilla).  These cupcakes are so moist and the chocolate-coffee combo is blissful!  These will definitely be made again in the near future.  Next time I would try a different icing as the creamcheese somewhat overpowered the coffee.

cupcakes cooling before frosting.

I couldn't resist modeling the cupcakes with my birdie salt & pepper shakers (from Urban Outfitters last December).  I love them so much!

Happy Birthday!

We enjoyed some more fireworks and a near-full moon...

...and played with sparklers too!

when the moon hits your eye...

I am in love with homemade pizza. I have always loved pizza, but not with the same level of passion that I have for the pizza that Mr. kitchen-crafty has been making. He is on a quest to make the tastiest pizza he can, in the style of his beloved New York pizza, and I am along for the ride. And what a sweet ride it has been!

Apparently one trick to amazing pizza is to use a baking stone and to keep ingredients to a minimum, i.e. homemade tomato-basil sauce with cheese.  The little extra is crust stuffed with creamcheese!  I'm thinking goat-cheese stuffed crust would also be incredible.  Perhaps I can convince him that we need to work our way through the cheese alphabet.  Mmm...  

Edit: This site is a wonderful resource. It includes a recipe and detailed suggestions for how to improve your pizza.  Making good pizza involves experimentation and lots of trial and error, fortunately each trial is incredibly delicious!

p.s. Sorry for the crummy photo quality. We gobbled our way through the pizza faster than I could snap pictures of it.

canned goodness: dill beans

Until a few years ago, I ignorantly thought that dill pickles were made exclusively from cucumbers.  To my delight many other veggies taste incredible when pickled with dill.  Green beans, fiddleheads (baby ferns), and carrots are my personal favourites.

With dill growing on our deck and my boyfriend's mother's incredible generosity with her garden produce, it was the perfect opportunity for me to start dabbling in the pickling arts.

Pickling is not overly difficult.  Unless you're me and you have the penchant for: getting the wrong size mason jar lids, forgetting to ensure you have enough vinegar, forgetting to pick and add the dill until after the jars are sealed, or doing other such foolish things. 

The ingredients are simple and there are many recipes to be found online (I believe I followed this one).  And if you know an experienced pickler be sure to seek their advice.

After letting them stew for a week my dill beans were ready to taste... and success!  They turned out much better than I anticipated.  I'm inspired to head back to the garden/kitchen to try again!

What are your favourite fruits or veggies to preserve?  I'm on the lookout for more ideas!

Kitchen craftiness part 3

There has been a relentless stream of kitchen creativity happening this summer.  It all started with a simple batch of snickerdoodles and the need to cut grocery costs.  But it has developed into a fabulous adventure into the world of baked goods (we've entered Pastryland, a new take on the original). 

While I've been doing my part by making ever-so-simple snickerdoodles and bread (in a breadmachine I confess), my boyfriend has been upping the ante (as you can see from kitchen crafty posts one & two).

His treats this week were twofold: lemon meringue pie and banana cream pie!

If he continues at this rate, I'll have turned into a giant pastry (pie perhaps, or dare I say tart?) by summer's end.  No complaints here.

Summer bounty

Happy Canada Day and Independence Day!  Two fun ways to celebrate the beginning of July.  Any event that includes fireworks is at the top of my list.

Our recent roadtrip to Long Island for my boyfriend's family reunion was wonderful.  I adore his family; they are such welcoming and lovely people. The gorgeous weather and delicious eats made for a perfect weekend.

During our visit I got to stop by the Hamlet Organic Garden (HOG) to admire their harvest.

Tasty fruit...

...onions too...

...even kiwi! (although these were not fruiting at the time, apparently they are crazy delicious)...

...and highbush blueberries (yum!).

A clever and efficient way to wash produce: old bathtubs set up on stands.

And some exciting veggie news from closer to home (from our small deck garden in fact!)... our tomato plant has produced it's first fruit! It's tiny but oh so glorious.

Hope you're enjoying a lovely and fruitful start to summer too!

Dragons for dinner

My kitchen ninja boyfriend has crafted yet another delicious masterpiece.  A tasty veggie pot pie protected by dragons!  I had doubts about how well these dainty cookie cutters would work, but they exceeded my expectations.  Plus the resulting dragons not only made the pie look fancy, they taste good to boot.

Éclair de lune

Check out these sweet treats, made by my kitchen-crafty boyfriend.

Delish!

10 things

Following SouleMama's lead, here are 10 things that make me happy at this very moment:

1. The brand new veggie garden on our deck!
2. So much sunshine this week (in this typically foggy city) was lovely for bike riding.
3. Some much needed rain today to water my plant babies.
4. The library books on gardening that I picked up today (so excited about The Backyard Homestead edited by Carleen Madigan). I cannot wait to have a plot of earth to play with!
5. The surprise belated birthday present that arrived in the mail.
6. Upcoming visit with family in NY (hurray for alpacas, boat rides, and family fun!).
7. Almost finished knitted gift for the new addition to our extended family. Welcome baby boy!
8. Last weekend's homemade food: gnocchi, bread, cupcakes, & glory bowls.
9. Frisbee on Tuesdays.
10. The upcoming summer solstice! What are you planning to do to welcome the new season?

What 10 things make you happy today?