It's once again Valentines Day! A day that rolls around once a year which allows us to celebrate the love of our life. Although rooted in a tainted past of religion and martyred saints, it transformed in the 14th century through popularity to represent romantic love. In the 18th century England, it became an occasion where lovers exchange gifts as a romantic symbol. Today it has become as commercial as the next holiday, but you cannot escape the fun opportunity to shower your true loves with candy and flowers. We chose to celebrate with chocolate cupcakes, chocolate covered strawberries, and wonderful fresh flowers. I hope and pray this Valentine's Day that you get to celebrate with your true love and it finds you well!
Although our Mothers are near and dear to our hearts everyday, we have a special day set aside every year in May to celebrate them. As the long winters end and the smell of spring is in the air, we join together to honor the greatest women in our lives. Mothers deserve so much for are their hard work, dedication, and grace they show to the ones they love. For this reason we set up a few sweet items that any Mom would like to have for breakfast to let her know that she is truley favored and highly blessed on this special day. One of the most iconic ways to tell someone they are special are with fresh flowers! Fresh flowers are inexpensive and vastly accessible during this time of year. In addition to flowers, we set up some strawberry pancakes, cupcakes, and muffins. Garnished everything with fresh strawberrys and a few extra added touches. Last but not least we added in a little spot of tea. Tea will make any place setting feel distinguished and special. This is a wonderful opportunity to find out your Mother's favorite tea and suprise her with it on Mothers Day. We pray blessings on all dedicated Mothers and hope this inspires you and all Mothers out their on their wonderful day.
Hope everyone is having a joyous Easter Sunday thus far! We have attended Sunday School and are patiently waiting for the Sunday feast to finish cooking. The mix of aromas drifting from the kitchen are tantalizing to say the least. What is finished is our dessert table, which we are also patiently waiting for, or should I say, practicing patience for.
On the table we have fresh flowers signifying the bloom of spring. We also have the traditional Easter Bunnies and eggs to complement the arrangement. But one of the most important details hangs above our table and draws the least amount of attention to itself; a thorn of crowns. It was on this day many years ago that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ rose from the grave. It is this crown that we use in our home to represent the hope and renewal He gifted to us by sacrificing His life for ours. On this day I hope you and your family also remember the reason we celebrate Easter Sunday. Oh and don't worry, we have more cupcakes hidden on reserve ;)
I also put together this Easter basket cake to tie in the holiday theme further into our dessert. The cake was simply made; two 8 x 8 cakes stacked on top each other with chocolate icing, malt Easter eggs for topping, and Kit Kat bars positioned around the perimeter. SUPER easy and SUPER festive.
Hope you enjoyed our post and hope everyone's Easter Sunday is filled with hope and love.
Being of Irish decent, St. Patrick's Day is an unofficial holiday looked upon as a wonderful time in my house. It has been celebrated in the United States since the late 18th century, but what is the day all about? Well, that’s the best part. Saint Patrick was a 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. As legend would have it, Patrick was converted to Christianity and used the three-leaved shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to Irish pagans. He used a piece of nature as a training aid to instill the cause of God causing green to become synonymous with the day. It is said that he converted thousands to the cause of Christianity. The day eventually integrated into festivals, parades, eating, and the much consumption of Irish alcohol and liquor. You won’t find too much Irish spirits in our house but you will find us celebrating the way we like to - with tea and treats! Finding a lot a lot of green décor and some tea items sets me up for the day. I even had some fun with putting a green mustache on my tea cup. However you decide to celebrate your Saint Patrick’s Day, I hope the luck of the Irish is with you and please don’t forget the Christian faith it’s rooted in.
Lately I have been craving mint chocolate chip flavored things. I most likely owe my craving to the coming holiday, St. Patrick's Day. While Steak N' Shake's Mint Oreo Milkshake and Dairy Queen's Shamrock Blizzard have been supplying my need, I decided to try an at home recipe. I wanted to do something that was super kid friendly and simple. The result was 6 ingredients and only 3 steps - hope that is easy enough!
Recipe:
Ingredients
- 1 mix of Betty Crocker Sugar Cookies
- 1 stick of softened butter
- 1 cup of dark chocolate morsels (or more if you're a chocolate lover;)
- 1 egg
- food coloring
- 1 teaspoon of pure peppermint extract
Directions
- Mix together all ingredients. We added a lot of green gel food coloring and a little bit of yellow gel food coloring to make the cookies a lime green rather than a forest green.
- Form dough into spoon-sized balls spaced evenly apart (our recipe made 18 cookies).
- Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
Additional Comments
- If you're unsure on the peppermint flavoring, start with 1/2 teaspoon.
My brother and I also filmed a baking tutorial. He was HILARIOUS as a French chef, check it out!
Today I am sharing a recipe for Cherry Pies. Since Valentine's Day is tomorrow, I made them heart shaped so they would look like Valentines. As far as pies go, this was pretty simple as everything was premade. However, if you like to make your own pie crust or pie filling, please feel free to change up the recipe!
Recipe:
Ingredients
- 1 can of cherry pie filling (or flavor that suits you)
- 1 box of premade pie crusts, I picked up a 9" 2 pack
- sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons milk
- a heart shaped cookie cutter
Directions
- Mix together milk and egg. Set aside.
- Unroll pie crust (make sure you set the pie crust out 20 minutes prior to baking) and cut out heart shapes. Place bottom pieces on a greased baking sheet. Go around their edges with the egg-milk mixture.
- Depending on the size of your hearts, place 1-2 spoonful sized portions of cheery pie filling in the middle of the hearts. Sprinkle a spoonful of sugar over the pie filling.
- Take the top heart shaped crust pieces and cut out a design in the middle of them. I cut out a heart shape to go with the Valentine's Day theme. Then place the crusts on the tops of the bottom crust that has the pie filling. Take a fork and smash the outer edges together to seal the top crust to the bottom crust. Then go around the edges with the egg-milk mixture. Optional: sprinkle sugar on the top of the pie.
- Finally, place the pie in the oven at 350 degrees for 15-25 minutes depending on the size of your pies. Mine were kind of bigger, so they were in the oven for 24 minutes.
- Allow to cool and serve with ice cream.
Additional Comments
- I couldn't find a heart cookie cutter, so I actually used a small Valentine's Day chocolate tin. This made the pie larger than I wanted, but worked exceptionally well!
- Because the pies were larger than expected, the recipe only made 5 pies and I had to piece together the bottom crusts with scrap pieces.
Today is IHOP's National Pancake Day! To celebrate this awesome holiday I whipped up some heart shaped pancakes. To dress them up, I sliced some strawberries and sprinkled on some sugar. Comment below what your favorite kind of pancakes are!
Hope everyone has been doing well! With Valentine's Day approaching I thought I would share some cute Valentine's Day treats. Today's treat is a Red Velvet Cake Cheeseball. This recipe is super simple to throw together, I hope you enjoy!
Recipe:
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 package of cream cheese (room temperature)
- 1/2 stick of butter (room temperature)
- 3/4 cup of red velvet box cake
- 1 package of vanilla wafers, graham crackers, etc. for dipping
- 1 bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips
Directions
- Mix together butter and cream cheese until blended. Add in brown sugar until it is mixed in well. Finally add the red velvet cake mixture in. Beat until the mixture is blended into a nice red color.
- Place the mixture on a serving platter and shape into a ball, heart, or whatever you want the cheeseball to look like. Then cover the cheeseball with the chocolate chips.
- Finally, allow the cheeseball to cool for an hour or two in the fridge.
- To serve, set out the cheeseball, extra chocolate chips, and something to dip into the cheeseball (vanilla wafers, chocolate graham crackers, etc.).
Additional Comments
- Should be refrigerated before and after serving.
Christmas is finally here! I hope everyone is having a very Merry Christmas! Just a note to everyone about the hope that was sent to us through our Savior Jesus Christ. He is definitely the reason for this day we gather with family. I pray each and everyone makes a place for this hope in their heart. There was no room for Him when He was born on this day may years ago. So remember, by allowing room for Him in your life can give Him the opportunity to express Himself to you and those around you for today and many days ahead.
It is undoubtedly the most exciting time of year! It’s when every child has that certain glimmer in their eyes and one thing on their mind: what to put on the ole list to Santa Clause! Every child has that image in their mind of that jolly old soul who will bring them goodies and fill their stockings with treats. So why not take this enchanted Christmas theme and turn it into a lovely tea time to spend with your child. With just a few Christmas items you have laying around you could make up perfect tablescape that would make a perfect lifetime memory and tradition. While serving tea you could tell Christmas story’s and write out a letter to send to Santa. What an inviting time you would have! Cupcakes and cookies would be a wonderful thing to serve and that’s the exact treat Santa would love. If your child does not like tea, no problem, just serve whatever they like in a teacup. It’s the memories that counts and believe me drinking anything out of a tea cup makes it more fun.
I found this very inexpensive Santa teapot at TJMaxx but you could use any teapot you have laying around the house. I placed a tree ornament around a plain white teacup and it really made it pop with Christmas. I just gathered up a few items I already have lying out to decorate for Christmas and made a wonderful display to have a good holiday time. I hope this inspires you to want to have a childlike time for Santa inspired tea.
This week we will be putting a post up everyday until Christmas. Today I thought we'd kick off the week's holiday posts with a history of poinsettias. Poinsettias are traditionally used around Christmas time and are known for their red and green color. Poinsettias were brought to the United States in 1825 by Joel Roberts Poinsett (which is from whom their name derives from), and were brought to Mexico from Egypt! In Mexico they are known as Flor de Noche Buena, which translates to Christmas Eve Flower. Poinsettia were not associated with Christmas until the 16th century when the legend of a young girl too poor to present a present for the celebration of Jesus' birthday placed weeds in front of the church alter, as instructed by an angel. The weeds sprouted to resemble the poinsettia we know today. The star-shaped leaf pattern of the poinsettia is also said to symbolize the Star of Bethlehem, and the red color represents the blood sacrifice through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, further tying it in to Christmas traditions.
A couple lesser known facts about the poinsettia includes that the poinsettia is toxic. Although the poinsettia's toxin is only mild, if the toxins get inside an eye cavity the eye will temporarily go blind. Another fact is that the poinsettias are different colors throughout the seasonal year.
Today is an exciting day because we get a announce our very first giveaway on our blog! The first item in the giveaway is a box of Clover Valley 100% Natural Green Tea. The second item in the giveaway is a brown teapot we picked up in Amish Country antique shopping. The final item is my favorite, a Alfred Meakin Fair Winds teacup and saucer made in Staffordshire, England. The print on the teacup is brown and shows an 1830 New York Harbor.
There are three steps to entering the giveaway:
1. Subscribe to our email updates on the side bar.
2. Share this post on Facebook.
3. Comment on ANY post on our blog (we can see all the comments). To comment, the blog will ask you to log in with an account. If you do not have an account, select Anonymous and type your name after your comment. An example will be commented on this post by me. Every comment will be counted as an entry as long as 1 and 2 are completed, so comment as many times as you like!
Entries will be accepted now through 12:00 PM December 24, 2015. The winner will be chosen randomly and we will contact and announce the winner on Christmas Eve. If you have any trouble please contact myself or my mother!
Run, run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man! - Nursery rhyme
As I was researching different spices to put in my gingerbread cupcake recipe, I stumbled upon some really cool facts about gingerbread! Ginger root was first used in China, from there it spread and was used medicinally to help prevent the plague in the Black Death. It can still be used medicinally today for nausea and stomach aches. Gingerbread is also a good preservative for other foods such as meats. Gingerbread was said to be first baked in the 11th century in England. However, in the 1600s Nuremberg, Germany was named the Gingerbread Capital of the World. Bakers have been recorded baking gingerbread as early as 1296 in Germany. In fact, only master bakers and skilled workers were allowed to create their versions of gingerbread in the 17th century there.
Elizabeth I of England is credited with the idea of gingerbread men. She asked for the gingerbread to be shaped in likeness of some of her important visitors. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the world’s largest gingerbread man was created in Oslo, Norway, on November 9, 2009. The gingerbread man weighed a little over 1,435 pounds.
The history of gingerbread houses are a little more sketchy. The Brothers Grimm are thought to be the originator of the gingerbread house because of their story, Hansel and Gretel. However, others disagree, stating that the gingerbread house was the inspiration for their story. Both Hansel and Gretel and gingerbread houses became popular during the same time period, so it is hard to determine which came first. The Guinness World Record was broken for the largest gingerbread house in 2013, in Texas. The gingerbread house was a 2,520-square-foot edible-walled house and it was estimated to have over a 35.8 million calorie value. They needed 2,925 pounds of brown sugar, 1,800 pounds of butter, 7,200 eggs and 7,200 pounds of general purpose flour. Now that's a lot of ingredients!
Hope you enjoyed reading! And don't forget, next time you are feeling a little sick to your stomach, eat a gingerbread man! ;)
Recipe:
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 and 1/2 cup flour
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 3 cups of powdered sugar
- 1 package of cream cheese (room temperature)
- 1 stick of butter (room temperature for icing)
- 1 1/2 cups of butter (room temperature for cake)
- 1 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract (cake)
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (icing)
- 1/4 teaspoon of ground clove
- 1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon (cake)
- 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon (icing)
- 2 tablespoons of ground ginger
- 1/4 cup of sour cream
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 3 tablespoons molasses
- gingerbread cookie mix with packaged icing and ingredients to make them
Directions
- Mix and roll out cookie dough. Cut out shapes and bake as directed on the package. When finished baking, trace icing around their edges and set aside.
- While the cookies are baking, mix flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl. Set aside.
- In another bowl, mix brown sugar, granulated sugar, and butter to a cream. Add in molasses and stir until it in blended into the mixture. Next mix in the eggs one at a time. Then add in the sour cream and vanilla extract until blended. Finally, take the flour-spice mixture and stir in a little at a time until everything is in one bowl.
- Fill the cupcake tin a little under halfway full because the batter expands a lot! Bake the cupcakes at 350*F for 20-25 minutes.
- While the cupcakes are baking, mix cream cheese, butter, cinnamon, and vanilla extract together to start the icing. Then add in the powdered sugar a little at a time.
- To finish the cupcakes, place the cinnamon icing on top and plunge a cookie into the center.
Additional Comments
- Since they have cream cheese icing, they should be stored in a refrigerated area. This will allow the icing to become firm and cool.
- If needed, place the cupcakes in the fridge to allow the icing to firm before placing the cookies on top.
I made a video tutorial with my brother on these cupcakes as well. Check it out:)
As you may have noticed, we did not post anything last week. Cooking, cleaning, and family time took precedence over blogging. But have no fear, we will be having a giveaway this month to make up for it so be sure to check back each week for the details on how to enter. I hope everyone had a grand time over Thanksgiving with their loved ones! Here is a look at out table scape and dessert we presented.
With the start of December, also starts my hot chocolate obsession. I have already started off every morning this week with a cup to wake me up as I am not a coffee drinker. But today, I wanted to have a nice mug full after my meal. My brother also insisted I make him a cup so I reached for these cute little mugs I got from the Dollar General for $1 each. To make our hot chocolate, we used the Swiss Miss brand, and added in whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and cocoa powder. Finally we added in some candy cane spoons!
