Surprise party!

My husband decided he wanted to give his mother a surprise party for her 60th birthday....the ONLY problem was he only gave me 2 weeks notice and one of those weeks we were out of town WITH HER! I really only had 3 days to pull this off and put it together. Here are a few pictures I chose to share:

Close up of the label on the chocolate bingo cards I made

The chocolate bingo cards I made as favors for my mother in laws casino theme party

The flowers I put together for the tables

The very yummy cake I commissioned my brother to make

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

When hubby and I finally decided to host a super bowl party, I went on the prowl for an awesome cupcake to serve! I wanted something that was "manly" and GOOD! I found a few recipes online and settled on this one from Annie's Eats. I love the cake and the ganache but the frosting is VERY sweet and I just do not like the grainy texture. I did NOT use as much Bailey's as it called for in the frosting. I did add a bit more powdered sugar and about 4 more tablespoons of butter. I also added a few tablespoons of milk and just a splash of vanilla. I'm "happy" with the frosting but next time will use my Grandmother's recipe and substitute the almond for the Bailey's.

The cupcakes out of the oven

Ganache filling

Cupcakes filled w/the ganache

Final product!

The Line Up (so far)

Okay, we are going to have our second annual Super Bowl party. I made some things last year that were hits and some not so hits. So I will bring back what worked and try out some new things this year to see if they will be hits. Here is the line up for the menu:
Potato Skins

Lil Smokies in BBQ Sauce

Guacamole and Chips

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

Velveeta Queso Dip and Chips

Deviled Eggs and Olives

Hogs in a Sleeping Bag

Fried Ravioli

Okay, now I am hungry. By the way, the pictures above are not mine, they are images from the internet that I am borrowing until I can post pictures from my actual party.

Valentine's

I was searching for a Valentine's idea that was simple that I could make for my son's daycare class. I came across this....
I set out to find all the materials and had better luck than I thought! I already had the glue so I purchased 2 bags of the Valentine's Tootsie Pops, 1 package of card stock at Michael's, 2 packages of the google eyes at Michael's and the felt heart stickers I found in the dollar section at Target. This whole project is under $20 and I think its better than any of the pre-fabricated Valentine's sold in the boxes. I was looking at the Star Wars ones for my son then decided these would be better!

I started by loading my printer with the color card stock and printing the pattern from the above website. I then cut the all out and I did NOT take my time to make them perfect, I think they have more character this way. The guides provided for the slits for the sucker stick are a bit small so I cut mine a bit longer and then secured the sucker with a small piece of tape to prevent it from sliding out or turning. I then decorated the butterflies with the stickers and then inserted the suckers then glued on the eyes. Finished product, what do you think?

Banana Bread (Muffins)

I had a few bananas that I carted around with me this weekend for snacks and we never ate them. Well because they were in the heat, they started to brown. Rather than throw them away, I decided to make banana bread with them. Here is the recipe I found HERE:

Banana Bread Recipe
Ingredients;
3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Note; instead of baking a loaf, I put it into cupcake liners and made muffins. These only need to bake about 30-35 minutes, NOT an hour. And I only used 3 bananas, not 4.

Cookies/Brownies in a JAR!

A long time ago a girlfriend and I saw these and the Internet was no where near as big as it is today....so we had NO idea what we were doing and could not just "Google" it. So we set out to "do it ourselves" and ended up making huge messes and broken jars. To this day I still do not know if anyone ever made the cookies or just kept the jar for looks.

A few years ago I was at my local cake supply store and found a recipe book for "Cookies in a jar" and since it was only a few buck, I picked one up. Clearly it was done by one of the ladies that worked there or someone she knew and they decided to sell it for her....anyway, I forgot I had it till I came upon it a few weeks ago! SCORE! I remembered my Mom saying that I had some jars left over at her place and she brought them to me and there were eight jars. Hubby grabbed three bags of plain red/green M&M's from the store and off I went making jars for co-workers and my son's teachers. I managed to get four jars of cookies from three bags of M&M's then I was stumped for the fifth jar... I found in the back of the book a recipe for Brownies in a Jar and I did not have enough of the nuts so I substituted with the remaining M&M's and so the brownies will have walnuts and M&M's, YUM!

You use quart size jars and the book says "wide mouth" but I did not have those so I used what I had and everything fit. You layer the ingredients in order and then make your tags and you are done!

Cookies in a Jar

1 1/4 C granulated sugar

1 1/4 C plain M&M's

2 C flour mixed with 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp baking soda

layer in jar in order

attach tag that says the following

1-Empty jar of cookie mix into large mixing bowl

Use your hands to thoroughly blend mix

2-Add; 1 stick of butter, 1 egg and 1 tsp vanilla

3-Mix until completely blended, you will need too finish mixing with your hands

4-Shape into balls the size of walnuts, place 2" apart on sprayed baking sheets

5-Bake at 375 for 12-14 minutes until edges are lightly browned. Cool 5 minutes on baking sheets then remove cookies to racks to finish cooling.

Makes 1 1/2 dozen

Brownies in a Jar

2 1/4 C sugar

2/3 C cocoa powder

3/4 C chopped nuts

1 1/4 C flower mixed with

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp salt

Layer in jar in order

Attach tag that says the following

1-Empty jar of brownie mix into large mixing bowl.

Use your hands to thoroughly blend mix.

2-Add: 1 1/2 sticks butter or margarine melted

4 eggs, lightly beaten

3-Mix until completely blended

4-Spread batter in a sprayed 9"x13" baking pan

5-Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Cool completely in pan. Cut into 2" squares.

Makes 2 dozen

Creepy Finger Cookies

A girl at work made these last year and hers were so good I took a picture of one with my phone and sent it to my husband and he actually thought I broke one of MY nails! I remembered she made these and asked her for her recipe so I could make some for my Halloween party this Friday. Here is how they turned out! Not bad for my first attempt. Next time I will use half the salt and make them much thinner because they rise. I may also use the raspberry jam instead of the red piping gel.

Creep Witches' Fingers

Yield: 5 dozen

1 cup butter (softened)

1 cup powdered sugar

1 egg

1tsp almond extract

1tsp vanilla

2 2/3 cups flour

1tsp baking powder

1tsp salt (I'd use 1/2 instead)

3/4 cup almonds sliced

1 tube red decorator gel or raspberry jam

In bowl, beat together butter, sugar, egg, almond extract and vanilla. Beat in flour, baking soda, and salt. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes. Working with one quarter of the dough at a time and keeping remainder refrigerated, roll heaping teaspoon full of dough into finger shape for each cookie. Press almond firmly into 1 end for nail. Squeeze in center to create knuckle shape. Using paring knife, make slashes in several places to form knuckle.

Place on lightly greased baking sheets; bake in 325 degree oven for 20-25 minutes or until pale golden. Let cool for 3 minutes. Lift up almond, squeeze red decorator gel onto nail bed and pres almonds back in place, so gel oozes out from underneath. You can also make slashes in the finger and fill them with "blood."