Whimsical Wednesday-Week 11

Ah Wednesday.  You torment me with your wishful thoughts of the weekend but the large amount of time left before Friday night.

You taunt me with the fact that I have yet to exercise this week and that I'm a huge slacker...yeah.  About that.

I've been super slacking on this healthy thing recently, it's bad, really bad.

I mean with all those cupcakes in my life there has to be some sort of balance, right?  Yeah, still figuring that out.

I found a whole bunch of great plans that you can do at home to help jump-start getting into shape.  Now I just need to do them!

There are a couple of other exciting nuggets in this spread as well.



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Very straight forward, do the designated workout each day (possibly in addition to something else).  Simple enough.



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If you really wanna work out, hit up this cardio circuit.  I'm tired just reading it!



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Again, straight forward, do it everyday.  Gosh it sounds so simple when you just say it.



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A simple little work out.  Can totally do that at home (my roomie might think I'm insane.)



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This is interesting.  It lets you off the hook 20 percent of the time!



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Again, you can do this at home, are you doing it yet?  I'm not (sadly).



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This is where I want my mind set to be.



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This website is great.  It really put weight loss into perspective, you should definitely check it out!



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Truth, plain and simple.



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I've done something like this before, now I just need to do it again!

Are you motivated yet?  Maybe tonight I'll go for a run...or maybe I'll just pound through a few more episodes of my guilty pleasure show..."Drop Dead Diva."  I guess I could do some squats while watching.

Love,

Keely

Cupcake Tuesday-Malted Chocolate

Have you ever had a whooper (the candy, not the burger)?  I really like whoppers, in moderation.



I also really like really enjoy a chocolate malt, oh my goodness yum.

Basically the theme here is that I really like malted chocolate flavor.  Malt is a flavor that is so easily added and it makes things taste so delicious!

These just plain chocolate cupcakes are spruced up a bit with the addition of a small amount of malt.

Malt is also added to the cream cheese frosting, it makes them smell like a milkshake.  Yum, just rethinking these cupcakes makes me so hungry!

Are you ready to get started?  This is going to be a painless experience, I promise!

Malted Chocolate Cupcakes

makes 24 cupcakes

2 sticks butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 tablespoons malted milk powder

vanilla

salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 1/2 cups flour

1 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 and line two cupcake pans.

In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to whip together the butter and sugar, this will take about two minutes.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating until well incorporated.

Add in the cocoa powder and the malted milk powder and mix until smooth.

Now add vanilla, salt, baking soda and baking powder.

Measure out your flour and your sour cream.  Add 1/3 of the flour and mix until just incorporated.  Add 1/2 of the sour cream and mix.  Once the sour cream is mixed in, add another 1/3 of the flour followed by the last of the sour cream and finally the last of the flour.

Scrape the sides of the bowls and give the batter one last mix.

Fill each cupcake liner about 2/3 of the way full and bake for 18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Remove from pan and allow to cool.

Malted Cream Cheese Frosting

2 blocks cream cheese

1 stick butter

1 tablespoon malted milk

3-4 cups powdered sugar

In a medium bowl add in the cream cheese and butter.  Whip using a mixer for about 2 minutes.

Add in the malted milk and continue to mix.  While the mixer is on slow start adding the powdered sugar about 1/2 cup at a time.

Continue to add the powdered sugar until the frosting has reach your desired texture, I prefer for mine to be just thick enough to pipe.

Once the cupcakes are cooled, pipe or spread the frosting on to the cupcakes.

Top with crushed whoppers if desired.

Enjoy!

Love,

Keely

 

Sunday School-Cinnamon Pancakes

Happy Sunday lovelies!

How was your week?  Were you up to anything exciting?

After a long week I always love a good Sunday brunch, these pancakes would be a wonderful addition to any brunch!



The are sweet and delicious and fluffy (thanks to some whipped egg whites).



They are a pretty extravagent breakfast that are super easy to make, which is always great!

recipe adapted from Erin Cooks

Cinnamon Swirl

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon

1/4 tsp. salt

4 tablespoons butter (at room temperature)

In a small bowl, mix together all ingredients.  Using a fork mash everything together until it smooths out, at first it doesn't seem possible but then it all comes together.  Set to the side

Pancakes

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

4 eggs, separated

1 cup milk

1 cup orange juice

4 tablespoons butter

In a medium bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.

In a small bowl, mix the egg yolks, milk, orange juice and butter.

Add the liquid to the dry ingredients and whisk together.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs until they have formed stiff peaks.  The goal is for the whites to remain smooth and to not get "chunky" looking.

Add the egg whites to the rest of the batter and carefully fold in.  Do this by cutting through the middle of the whites and folding into the rest of the batter.  It will get nice and thick.



Grease a frying pan or a griddle and heat oven medium-high heat.  Add a swirl of the cinnamon filling and cook until the bubbles on top are popped or the edges turn golden brown.



Flip the pancakes and cook for another 2-3 minutes.  Remove from the pan and store in a warm place.



Cream Cheese Glaze

3 oz cream cheese

4 tablespoons butter

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

3 tablespoons milk

In a small bowl add the cream cheese and butter, mix together using a mixer.  Slowly add the powdered sugar and milk until the glaze reaches your desired consistency.

Spoon on top of the pancakes and enjoy!

Happy Sunday!

Love,

Keely

Thankfully Thrifted Thursday-Bar Cart

So for the past couple of weeks I've been talking about what I'm thankful for each week.  This week I would like to extend this post, so there will be two features!

First I'll show you one of my favorite, recently thrifted pieces and then I'll give a brief list of things that I am thankful for this week.

Sound fun?  That's what I thought!  Can I just say that I'm always thankful for thrift stores?  They are for sure my favorite!  I hardly ever go to "real" stores anymore :)  It's so great!

I found this bar cart (which I am SO unhealthily in love with) at an ARC here in Denver.  It wasn't a planned visit to the store, my friend and I had some time to kill at when my eyes caught this amazing piece I knew I had to buy it!  And then I saw the price tag of only $25 and it was practically in my car!

It fits so perfectly on this wall in my apartment that's right by the door, so it occasionally doubles as a key drop which is perfect!

It has a functional burner (we're not sure what exactly we're going to use it for, Hot Toddies? Gluewein? we'll figure it out I'm sure).  I think it's totally awesomely random!

The bottom is perfect for for alcohols, glasses, etc.  The top is great for various other accessories.  We have some tins that have matches, cards, tea, etc in them.

Overall this is one of the best thrift finds ever!  If you find one while you're out and about you should most definitely pick it up!  You will not regret it!.

So now you're wondering what I'm thankful for, yeah (that is of course besides my bar cart :)).  Here's this week's list.

I am thankful for the ability to be at camp taking care of amazing kids.

I am thankful for a community that supports me in my efforts to "change the world" (and of course I support them as well).

I am thankful for the summer, for the fun times that have come out of it.

I am thankful for the roof over my head.

I am thankful for the joy in my life.



Don't forget to link up what you're thankful for on A Complete Waste of Makeup!

Love,

Keely

Whimsical Wednesday-Week 10

Hi friends!

This week I'm going to be at a camp working with 7-11 year old kids, so if you notice a little lack on social networking in that would be why!

Anyway, I decide before camp to collect some great craft ideas that I could keep on me while at camp.

I'm not sure that all of this will work out the way I hope and there will be a lot of other crafts at camp, but it's nice to have a few ideas.  We'll see what happens!



These necklaces are so adorable, and look so easy as well!



Last year the kids were in love with lanyards, so these tutorials are great!



Aren't these friendship bracelets gorgeous!?!  I wish mine turned out like that!



Aw these are so sweet!  You could make them awesome for so many different reasons!



Ah a camp scavenger hunt!  How amazing!



We made a banner a bit like this for our room, I love banners!



This is so fun, not practical for my needs but this is such a fun project! Love!



Ah, finger puppets!  Who doesn't love finger puppets!

So there we have it.  Keep camp in your prayers this week, we're reasonably close to a fire and we need all the help we can get!

Love,

Keely

Cupcake Tuesday-Molasses Cupcakes

These cupcakes may seem strikingly similar to my post about Oatmeal Cream Pie Cupcakes, but they are not the same, just slightly similar.

Certain things happen when I decide to not go to grocery store to buy more ingredients.  Things get interesting when I make myself make-do with what I have.  I've recently moved and decided to do just this.  I had all the basics just nothing fancy.  I did have molasses, and I did have brown sugar so I went for it.

I took my base recipe and replaced some of the sugar with molasses and adding a touch more flour.  Easy as that.

Here we go.

Molasses Cupcakes

2 sticks butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup molasses

vanilla

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

salt

1 cup sour cream

Preheat the oven to 350.

Start with some room temperature butter and give it a nice beating with a mixer.  Add the sugar, molasses and vanilla and mix until fluffy.

Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until well incorporated.

In a small bowl add the flour and the baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Start by adding 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.  The add 1/2 cup of sour cream.  Add another third of the dry ingredients followed by the last half off the sour cream.  Finally, add in the last third of the dry ingredients  and mix until just incorporated.

Scrape down your sides to make sure everything is in there and give it all one last mix.

Using a 2 oz. ice cream scoop or spoons, scoop the cupcakes into two lined pans.

Bake for 18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool.

Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting

adapted from Joy The Baker

2 8 oz blocks room temperature cream cheese

1 stick butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

3-4 cups powdered sugar

In a medium bowl add the cream cheese and the butter and mix until slightly fluffy.  Add the brown sugar in and continue to mix until smooth.

Once the mixture has smoothed out slowly add in powdered sugar until the frosting has a stiff consistency, you want the frosting to be able to stand up.

Scoop the frosting into a piping bag (mine was fitted with a large, round tip).

Pipe onto cooled cupcakes and do not hesitate to enjoy!

Sunday School-Crepe Cake

It's Sunday!  Today is a day to sleep in (or go to church, but that is the beauty of my church meeting on Tuesday nights, I still get to sleep in on Sunday) have brunch, play outside, do some shopping, make a big dinner and have dessert.

It's the dessert part (and I guess if you stretch it the brunch part) that I'm aiming at here.

Sunday's are my favorite days.  I never really realized that until I started going to my Tuesday night church but it's such a great day!  I love to get creative on Sundays, spend time with people on Sundays

Have you ever heard of a crepe cake?  Well I saw some on Pinterest and it seemed easy enough so I decided to just go for it.  You just need crepes, and filling of choice (I used ganache, Nutella and salted caramel).  Here's what it looked like.



Ah, drippy, salted caramel.  I love you, oh so much!



Making crepes is way easier than people claim.  All you need is a pan and some butter and a batter, easy as pie (actually far EASIER than pie).



Simple, wonderful layers.

We're going to start with the ganache, and then the caramel, cause that's really the order things need to be done in.

Chocolate Ganache

3/4 cups chocolate chips

1/2 cup heavy cream

vanilla

Set up a double boiler and add in your chocolate chips and heavy cream.

Cook over medium heat and stir frequently until the chocolate is mostly melted.  When there are just a few chocolate chunks left, remove from the heat and continue to stir until completely smooth.  Add the vanilla.  Set aside and allow to cool.

Salted Caramel Sauce

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup water

1 tablespoon light corn syrup

1/2 cup room temperature heavy cream

vanilla

In a medium sauce pan briefly stir together the sugar, salt, water and corn syrup.  Bring to a boil over medium high heat.  Allow to boil for 8-10 minutes or until the liquid turns an amber color.  Keep an eye on this, you do not want it burn!

As soon as it turns a dark amber, remove from the heat.  Slowly add the room temperature cream, stirring constantly.  It will boil up, just keep stirring.

Once the mixture has come together, add a dash of vanilla and allow to cool.

Simple Crepes

adapted from She Knows

2 cup flour

4 eggs

1 cup water

1 cup milk

salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/4 cup melted butter

In a large bowl mix together all liquid ingredients (this everything but the flour).  Whisk together until the eggs are well incorporated.

Slowly add the flour and whisk until well incorporated.

(See that was easy).

Spray your non-stick pan and pre-heat it over medium-high heat.

Use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to scoop out the batter into the middle of the pan.  Swirl the pan around to spread out the crepe.  Allow to cook until the edges barely turn brown.

Use your thinnest spatula (or your awesome flipping talents...it's all in the wrist) to flip to the other side and cook for another minute or so.

Slide out of the pan and onto a plate.

This is where the fun starts.

To be totally honest the easiest way to build this is to do it while the crepes are cooking (finish one crepe, layer with ganache while another one is cooking, so on and so forth).  So let's do that.

Take that first crepe and spread some ganache on it.  Now keep cooking crepe number 2.  Slide that on top, spread on ganache (or caramel, or Nutella, you can decide on the ratios).  Nice work, just keep stacking!

Congrats you did it!  Now pour any left over caramel all over the top of that.  Nice work, add some extra sea salt for good measure and hazelnut whipped cream if you're feeling super adventurous.

Wow that looks amazing.  You enjoy that! You earned it!



Love,

Keely