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Inspired by Butter with a Side of Bread to make pumpkin pretzels:

I love chocolate-covered pretzels (salty + sweet), and these were so cute! I used green Mike & Ikes instead of the original M&Ms.

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Inspired by Martha Stewart & Amy Sedaris, via Jill Dater, to award homemaking badges:

Last weekend, I taught my 12-year-old how to iron. We talked about the basics of how to operate an iron, check for fiber content on clothing, and select the proper setting. She practiced on a few different items, including a dress shirt.

On Wednesday, she earned her cooking badge by preparing a whole meal by herself. She found the recipe, added ingredients to our weekly shopping list, and did all the prepping and cooking. She also had to do most of the cleaning. I stayed out of the kitchen and only helped if she got really stuck and called me. Although we often have the girls help out in the kitchen, it's definitely a different experience (for everyone) having one of them actually running the show.

We kept the badges simple--just printed them out on paper, and then she added them to her journal. When I have a little more time, I'm going to design some similar ones for other life skills, including ones for my 6-year-old: tying shoes, operating the washer/dryer, sweeping, etc.

I found a shirt with a button that needs to be replaced, so I guess we'll be working on the sewing badge next! ;-)

A Little Loopsy

I came across some really cute Lalaloopsy cakes and was inspired to make one for my daughter's party. Many of them include really cute fondant buttons, but since none of us like fondant, I opted instead to make button cookies to decorate the cake. My older daughter helped! Since I don't have circle cutters, we just used different sizes of bottle caps--not as pretty, but they served just fine. I used the same cookie recipe that JaeBellz did, and the food dye was Wilton Icing Colors in rose, teal, and violet. This particular recipe holds its shape really well. Since the cookies didn't spread, we decided it was much easier to roll out the dough onto parchment paper, cut out the circles, and then pick up the scraps around them. The parchment paper then went directly onto a baking sheet to go into the oven. This saved having to transfer the cookies individually and risk messing them up. The cookies that weren't used for the cake were given out as part of the favor bags.

I had a lot of fun with the cake topper. Lalaloopsy packages have cute handles on the top, and of course I saved them because they looked too good to discard. I got a 4" round pressboard box and hot glued the handle to the top.

It doesn't matter if it's messy because no one will see that. (And in case you're curious, I was able to later dismantle it, peel off the hot glue, and save the handle intact). The box was covered with frosting, and then I added a couple of her mini dolls. Ta da!

My daughter had requested an ombre pink and white cake, and this one was made with 1 box of white cake mix and 1 box of strawberry cake mix. The bottom layer is strawberry, the top layer is white, and the middle layer was created by mixing the 2 together. If you're using a kitchen scale to make sure everything is even, it's about 600g of batter in each layer.

We also made a few mini cakes for the dolls out of Golden Oreos and decorated them with Candy Buttons. They sat on mini cupcake stands I had made for a previous party.

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Inspired by Two Peas & Their Pod, via Britni, to make red velvet crinkle cookies:

These are so delicious and just as easy! We've made similar cookies with lemon or strawberry flavors, and the latter would also have been great for Valentine's Day, but I already had a box of red velvet cake mix in the pantry and decided to use that.

You do have to be careful about two things if you cut out the heart shapes:

#1: If you cut while the cookies are still sitting on a warm cookie sheet like I did, be advised that your cookie cutter will start to get hot. I used a metal cookie cutter and it really transferred the heat! We have some Kevlar gloves that the kids use when they help out in the kitchen (to keep them from cutting themselves), and I ended up having to put those on.

#2: You'll end up with a plateful of scraps, and it will take a tremendous amount of willpower not to eat them all at one go!

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Inspired by Little Paper House, via Janet, to pack the girls a little treat in their lunchboxes:

These are Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies with little almond ears. The "dirt" is brownie bits. Happy Groundhog Day! I plan to watch Groundhog Day tonight. It's one of my favorite movies and I never tire of it!

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Inspired by Lisa Storms, via Heather Vo, to make marshmallow snowmen:


This is what we made for my daughter to bring to school on her snack day this month. I had intended to make little Fruit Roll-Up scarfs, and I thought we already had some in the pantry, but we didn't, so the snowmen had to do without.

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Can you stand one more food-related Christmas post? I was inspired by Kitchen Fun with My Three Sons, via Grace Ford Wuensche, to make Rudolph pancakes:


I used Hershey's Kisses for the eyes and the bottom of a strawberry for the nose. As much as they liked the snowman pancakes we made earlier this year, the kids thought these were even cuter!

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Inspired by Cookies & Cups, via Grace Wuensche, to make a Santa Party Mix:


The Santa hats are a little time consuming, but they're very easy to make. In fact, the hardest part was actually finding Bugles for the hats since my local stores don't seem to stock them a lot. I had to have a little extra help from an elf to locate them. For the snack mix, I used pretzels, Rice Chex, almonds, and Whoppers instead of the original recipe since we have to keep ours peanut-free. It would have been more colorful if we could have used M&Ms, but even the plain ones are processed with peanuts, so they're a no-no for us. I really miss Hershey's Kissables because they were a tasty and safe alternative to M&Ms, but they're no longer made. Regardless, the mix was a big hit!

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Inspired to make Halloween-themed snacks:


The jack-o-lantern mandarin oranges were inspired by Melissa Haworth, and the candy corn cookies were from a Land O Lakes recipe, via Juli McGuire.

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Inspired by Shutterbean, via Heather, to make salted caramel popcorn and pretzel bars:


These are dangerously good. I love the juxtapositioning of salty and sweet, and it's hard to stop nibbling. It's a very good thing that I only made half a batch or else I'd be in real trouble. Shutterbean adapted the recipe from Martha Stewart by adding almonds, and I really liked the extra taste and texture. She also had the idea of adding cayenne, which I definitely would have done if I didn't have to share these with the kids!

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Inspired by Gourmet Mom on the Go, via Tracey McBride, to make Rice Krispie treat apples:


I found it easier to make the "apples" in 2 batches instead of trying to shape them all at once because they cooled too quickly. We used pretzel sticks for the stems instead of Tootsie Rolls, since that's what we had on hand, and we omitted the "leaves." The accompanying Apple Jacks worms were inspired by One Charming Party, via Grace.

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Inspired by Real Mom Kitchen, via Janet, to make parmesan knots:


These look fancy, but they were so easy that the girls made them themselves. We used olive oil instead of canola and omitted oregano and parsley.

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Inspired by Gourmet Mom on the Go, via Jane Wang, to make edible "crayons":


It was our turn to bring in snacks for my daughter's elementary school class, and I thought that was a good excuse to make something I've had on my Pinterest board for awhile. These were made with pretzel rods and tinted white chocolate. The particular brand of pretzel rods we used were short enough that we didn't have to break them in two. Actually, the pretzels were little short for the crayon labels, but I just printed out the labels at 85% size, and it worked out great.

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Inspired by What's New, Cupcake?, via Asianmommy and KC, to make Chinese food cupcakes:


Usually, my cupcakes end up looking pretty flat, but I lowered the oven temperature, as per Kelly Neil's recommendation (via Julie Crawford), and I managed to get a pretty decent dome top on them. The decorating directions in the book were really clear and easy to follow. We had a lot of fun making--and eating--these! We even folded a little takeout box based on instructions from Flotsam and Origami Jetsam (we just made them a little shorter). From past experience with other cupcakes decorated with candies, we knew that it's best to eat these on the same day they're made. After they sit around awhile, the candies used on the icing get all mushy and unattractive. Luckily, we had neighbors to help us finish them off!

If you'd like to make your own, check out the YouTube video the book publisher generously posted! There are several other cupcake videos on that YouTube channel too.

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Inspired by 17 and Baking and Clockwork Lemon to make a Lemon Pull-Apart Lemon Coffee Cake:


This was more labor-intensive than the things I usually tackle, but it was well worth it!

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Inspired by Cream Puffs in Venice, via Cirilia Rose, to make Nutella meringues:


This is actually my third batch. They are so simple--especially if you have a stand mixer--that you almost have to find an excuse to not make them.

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Inspired by Not Quite Nigella, via One Plaid Aunt, to make bacon jam:


One of my friends introduced me to the concept of bacon jam when she told me about the one made by Skillet Street Food. She knew I'd love it, but unfortunately, this was right after I had decided to switch to organic, so I reluctantly held off. When a bacon jam recipe showed on my Pinterest feed and I realized I could try making my own using whatever bacon I chose, I was all over it!

This is sooo yummy! As a bonus, my house smells heavenly. The best way I can describe it is that it tastes like bits of barbecue. I used to really like the Jack Daniels grill items at TGI Friday's. They give you a little container of extra sauce on the side--thick and chunky and sweet but savory. I *loved* that stuff, and it tasted nothing like the Jack Daniels barbecue sauce I tried buying at the store. It's been awhile since I've had it, so maybe my memory is faulty, but this bacon jam tastes a lot like it to me. I'm not gonna lie: the jam looks weird and kind of unappetizing. But it tastes so good just on some bread. I think it'd be really yummy on a burger too.

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Inspired by Shelly Kaldunski's book Ice Pops to make Meyer Lemon Cream popsicles:


These were so simple: lemons, sweetened condensed milk, heavy cream, and a pinch of salt. They are soooo good! I was so tempted to get one of those Zoku gadgets, but in a rare moment of self-restraint, I decided to just get a simple popsicle mold instead, and it works just great. We had tried some strawberry shortcake popsicles when we first got the molds. They were okay, but I'm thinking of remaking those using a sweetened condensed milk + heavy cream base like this one.

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Inspired by The Girl Who Ate Everything, via One Plaid Aunt, to make Orange Creamsicle Cookies.


I am a fan of Orange Creamsicles, and I am a fan of desserts that taste like other desserts, so yeah, I really liked this! It's a great way to kick off our summer.

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Inspired by Taylor Takes a Taste, via Heather Vo, to make funnel cakes:


Sorry about the half-eaten state. They went fast. The original are mini and really cute. I didn't have cookie cutters to maintain the shape, and the opening in the squeeze bottle I used was probably too big to keep them that petite anyway, so mine were bigger and not so attractive, but they weren't bad for a first try.