A Cupcake For My Mom

My mom can't eat a regular cupcake because of a gluten allergy. I have been work on a project of trying to work with gluten stuff for baking and I have learned that the best way is using a box mix. I never like using the but when it comes to working with gluten free stuff it is the easiest at home way to make them. We had a BBQ last weekend and I make one of my mom favorites favorite things into a cupcake. My mom loves Smores more than anything at a cook out. She always had the stuff to make them on hand all the time growing up as a kid and I even have the stuff to make them whenever I want. What I did was take a gluten free box mix and made it in to chocolate cupcakes and as soon as the came out of the oven I put a Hershey kiss right in the middle of the cupcake.

After I put the kiss in the middle I let them cool. This makes it so it has a nice soft middle and gives you that chocolate bite of a Smore. Then to fill in that hole I made with the Kiss I put gram cracker to fill in the hole. You can buy gluten free gram cracker at stores it depends on the stores around you. I forgot that gram crackers had gluten in them, so if you are making them for some who is gluten free make sure you get the gluten free ones. Oops sorry mom!

Then I top in with marshmallow fluff on top of it. I made a frosting out of a bottle of fluff a stick of butter and two cups of powdered sugar to put on top of the cupcake.

 I hope you enjoy a Smore made into a cupcake in a gluten free way. It can also be made in to a gluten cupcake as well I posted a chocolate cupcake recipe in my Calli cakecup and then use the gluten gram cracker.

-Half Pint :)

25 Things About Me!!

1.       My father showed me how to bake. My mom hates being in the kitchen, so my father did most of the cooking when I was growing up.

2.       I have weird eyes. They are blue with yellow around in the middle. It is almost like I was going to have green eyes but it never happened.

3.       I want to own all of the Revlon Lip Butters because they all have food names. I have nine as of right now.

4.       I love playing food games on my DS or on my phone. I even will download them to my computer to play them.

5.       My favorite time of year is fall and I love Halloween and I love my headless cupcake tee shirt.

6.       I have a thing for anything that is Tim Burton feel to it like Don’t Slave which is a computer game, Gloom that is a card game, and nothing Tim Burton makes I love.

7.       I wanted a red Kitchen Aid mixer since I started baking.

8.       My first baking job was for a dentist office.

9.       I will pay candles that smell like food any other candles I don’t like.

10.   I worked at a Cub Scout Day Camp for 8 years and I worked in the shooting sports area teaching BB guns, Archery, and Slingshots.   

11.   I am a nerd and I am okay with it.

12.   I know every word to all the song in Pitch Perfect.

13.   I am 5 feet tall and my brother is 6’7 ish.

14.   I will only eat one of something I make to make sure it taste good and then I don’t eat anymore.

15.   I spend hours looking at animal pictures and videos to make myself laugh if I am having a hard day.

16.   I put a lot of thought into a cupcake before I try a new favor and when I get stuck I call my dad and he helps me think things through.

17.   I have played hours of words with friends with my mom and I have only won once and I got help.

18.   I have re-watched every season of Hell’s Kitchen and I know everything and everyone in each season.

19.   I am getting married in October 12, 2013 and I didn’t pick my wedding date my dad did. He wanted me to get married on his birthday which is the 13^th but it is a Sunday during a school year, so we moved it to Saturday the 12^th.

20.   I have a tattoo of my dog’s paw prints on my back because I love her so much I wanted to have her with me no matter where I am.  (They are hers because my mom and I inked her paws like figure prints and I took it to a shop and had them tattooed on.)

21.   I don’t call my mom, mom I call her Lady, because my favorite show as a kid was Animaniacs and the little girl Cindy called her mom that and I have called my mom that ever since.

22.   I fall asleep when I hear the theme song from MASH, because my mom would rock me to sleep as a baby to the theme song and then I would go to bed.

23.   When I was three my favorite show was Tales from the Crypt and my parents would let me stay up and watch it before bed. That year I wanted to go as the Crypt Keeper for Halloween and my mom dressed as a cute skellington and tricked me into thinking I was the Crypt Keeper.

24.   I played Saxophone in middle and in high school.

25.   I love learning random facts to share with family and friend no matter how weird it is.   

Jannelle's Cupcake

My best friend Jannelle and I have our own them song and it sounds silly, but we love this peanut butter and jelly song. We worked at a day camp together for about two years and we would walk around singing this song all the time. Even now when I heard the song I think of her and how much we love that song and we both love PB and J’s a lot. This is a peanut butter cup cake with grape jelly in the middle with a grape jelly 

butter cream.

Peanut Butter Cupcake

½ cup butter                                        1 ½ cup flour

1 ½ brown sugar                                 ½ tsp salt

½ peanut butter                                   2 tsp baking powder

1 tps vanilla                                         2/3 cups milk

2 eggs beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degree. Add butter soften and sugar and cream together. Add peanut butter and mix till creamy. Add vanilla, eggs, and milk beat until combined. Add flour little by little. Bake 15 minutes.

*fill middles with jelly any kind you like.

Jelly Butter Cream Frosting

1 cup unsalted butter

4 cups of powder sugar

½ cup of jelly

Mix butter and jelly till creamy then add sugar a cup at a time.

-Half Pint

What Happens Next

Like most Juniors in high school I picked out my dream college to go to. I couldn't wait to go and I applied as soon as I could and worked my hardest to do go in school and go to my dream college. At the beginning of my Senior year of high school my dad took me to visit the school. It was amazing I fell in love and didn't want to leave. I had gotten home after see the school and got a letter from them saying I didn't get in. I was heart broken and didn't know what to do next. I applied to other schools, but it was my dream college. I ended up going to the community college near my parents house. As many college kids they aren't always a hundred percent sure on what they want to do. I knew I wanted to work with food, but my family worked in education and I for the longest time thought I had to work in education as well. I finally told my parents I didn't want to be a teacher anymore and I wanted to one day open my own bakery and my parents didn't care what I did in life as long as I was happy. Now I am working to getting my dream and hopefully one day I can open my own shop.

Happy Birthday Brother!

This weekend will be my brother’s birthday and I made him a cupcake that he would enjoy. We may be 8 ½ years apart from each other but we get along very well. We have had some up and down in the years, but what siblings don’t. Even though we are both out of our parents’ house we still see each other a lot. We have and always will be close.

My brother and I after I graduated High School. 

The cupcake I make is a chocolate cupcake (the recipe can be found in my Calli cupcake post), inside is a chocolate mousse, with a chocolate ganache, and topped with candy bacon. When it comes to the chocolate mousse I wasn’t too happy with it. Finding one that works best of the skill level is best the one I was use took more time than I thought it would take. The chocolate ganache was simple.

Chocolate Ganache

8 ounces of semisweet chocolate (bar or chips)

½ cup heavy cream

Cook the chocolate and heavy cream in a double boiler over water till smooth and warm.

To make a homemade double boiler take a pot and fill with water and place a glass bowl on top of the pot, but don’t let it fall in the pot.

Candy Bacon

Cut bacon into pieces and put in sugar, then let it cook in a non-stick pan. Let it cook till it is brown. Be careful when working with sugar it gets hot very fast and can hurt if it touches the skin. I hope you enjoy this cupcake I know my brother will.

-Half Pint    

TBT!

My summers when I was a kid were always fun going to see my grandma. My dad and his family built a house from the ground up right across from a lake to go fishing in and down the road from a beach to go swim in. My father and I would spend hours fishing on the lake. One of my favorite memories is my dad and I had come home with a lot of fish. I think at the time I thought it was buckets full, but it wasn’t. When we had bought the fish back to the house my grandma and dad started to clean the fish I was too young at the time to clean the fish, but my brother wanted to help kill the fish before they would get clean. The fish would still be moving on the counter and my grandma would take the back of the knife and hit the fish in the head. My brother wanted to hit the fish in the head, but she wouldn’t and he drove her crazy that night. That night we had a lot of fish for dinner and ever since then I have loved fish. Getting right from the lake, knowing how to clean the fish, and learned how to make it in different ways and now whenever I eat fish or make it takes me back to when I would go up to my grandma’s house and spend time on the lake.

Monday!

My Monday was spent with one of my good friends, because she is on vacation this week. Her and her mom are members of a wine club by us and they go about once a month to go taste the different wines. I went wine tasting once right after I had turned 21 years old and had been wanting to go again. All three of us went wine tasting Monday afternoon. The tasting menu is made up of three whites and then three reds. I am more of a red wine drinker over white wine. Two of the three white wines were the best but the red wines were great I even bought a bottle of one of the wines that was the best one I enjoyed the most of that day.

 I don't know to much about wine but I am learning each time I drink it or use it. One way I found out how to put it in with baking. The fruit wines are a good replacement for water in a cake. Talking to my friends mom about how she took a raspberry wine and put it in a chocolate cake sounded amazing and now I want to try and make a cake with wine. It was a lot of fun going out wine tasting and spending time with people who love food it was a nice way to find new ways to make food and a great day spending it around wine and food.

-Half Pint

Calli Cake

                This week I am a cupcake that makes up the colors of my cat. It sound so weird but my cat looks like a chocolate cupcake with heath pieces in it. She is adorable and I have always wanted to make this cupcake and it is call the Calli Cake, because her name is Calli and it is a cupcake that was inspired by my cat.

                Chocolate Cupcake                                                    Whip Cream Frosting

2 cups of all-purpose flour                                          1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 ½ cups of sugar                                                         4 tablespoons of powder sugar

2/3 cups of Cocoa powder                                         2 teaspoons of vanilla

2 teaspoons baking powder                                      *add any favor with a tablespoons

½ teaspoons salt                                                          * mix till pecks form

1 teaspoon baking soda

2/3 cups shortening

2 eggs

2/3 cups milk

½ cup hot water

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

In a large mixer bowl stir together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. Add shortening, eggs, milk, water and vanilla. Beat on low speed with electric mixer for 1 minute. Spoon in dry ingredients and mix till all is mixed together. Fill the cup liners about half full bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

Enjoy

-Half Pint

TBT!

                Everyone talks about their favorite Holidays and what makes it their favorite. Mine has to be Christmas. My favorite part of Christmas was before the day a few weeks before. My mom makes homemade Chex mixes every year to give away as gifts. I always remember helping her make it. When I was too young to use the stove my mom would melt down the butter with species and some other things that go in to the sauce. As unboxed the different Chex, pretzels, and peanuts that make up the mix. Then but it into a big container and mix it together before the sauce went on top. Once the sauce was ready my mom would put it on top and mix it all together. As she mixed it together some would fall out of the container and we would eat it. The best ones were the rice Chex that were just cover in sauce. Once my mom mixed it up and we would bake it. It didn’t take very long to bake but once it was done baking you could smell it though the house and it was amazing and that smell meant that Christmas wasn’t too far away. Once it was cool my mom would have to hind it away, so no one would find it and eat it. My brother always knew where she would hind it. She gave up one year trying to hind it after a while, because we would eat before Christmas anyway. It is the only time we get it, so eat it till it is gone and get excited once my mom makes it again. Most kids say Christmas is their favorite Holiday, because of the gifts they get or the time off from school, but I loved it for the food and the time I got to spend helping my family make the food. It is something that I hope to one day share with my children and past on to them.

-Half Pint

Cupcake Friday!

This will be the first of many cupcake Fridays. The first cupcake I named this first one after my childhood best friend Anna Banana. Anna is my dog. She was always there for me when I need her and I was there for her when she needed someone to pet her. To go along with the banana theme I made a banana cupcake with mini chocolate chips in it, with a chocolate butter cream and a candied banana on top.

It is a simple banana cake recipe, I add the chocolate chips in mini ones because the normal size ones are to much for the cupcakes. Then I used a easy butter cream recipe that you can find on the back of the bag and add a 1/2 cup of Hershey coco power to the butter cream to make it chocolate. 

To candy bananas slice the banana in quarter sized pieces and than round them in granulated sugar. Than cook them in a non-stick pan till the turn golden and are ready to come off the pan. Be careful, because it is hot sugar that is around the banana and can give bad burns if the touch you. Once everything has cooled down than put everything together and you have an Anna Banana Cupcake! :)

I like making different cupcake favors for everyone in my life and I like to come up with them myself. Each one has a story behind why I picked the favors I did. Check in every Friday to see what cupcakes I come up with next.

-Half Pint   

The Journey Begins With Chocolate

I grew up in a family that spent a lot of time around food. Like most children I was up early on Saturday, but I didn't watch Saturday morning cartoons I was watching the Food Network with my father before I would have to go to my bowling league. My favorite show was about a man who would work with chocolate. He would make pieces of art out the melted chocolate and it was beautiful. At the point I knew that was something that I wanted to do. When you heard people on TV talk about that moment they just knew it was something they were meant to do it is kind of true.  As I got older the passion really came from watching my dad in the kitchen. Watching him cook and I would be right next to him helping out as much as I could and learning from him. My father was just a home cook who loved to make food for his family and I knew I would want to do the same.

I remember when my father started working with chocolate. I was at the age I could help and I did every step of the way.  He would melt down the chocolate in to a velvety texture; it looked like a bowl of soup that I wanted to drink. As we began filling the different molds with chocolate and start to add different filling like peanut butter, cherries, and mousse.  It was an art form it had to be just right for the chocolates to come out the perfect way. I also remember my father and I name our little chocolate business after my guinea pig. We called it Speedy’s Chocolate we didn't make any money, but that wasn't the point of it. It was something that made me fall more in love with chocolate making and the world of pastry.  

    -Half Pint :)

Me In A Nutshell!

Hi!

I am Half Pint of course that is not my real name it is Sara. I have been looking for away to get myself out on the internet for awhile now. First is this blog and maybe some YouTube-ing. I am 5 foot even and I am one of the shortest people I know who isn't a child. I got the nickname Half Pint when I was working at a Boy Scout day camp and I was the shortest one on staff, so that's how I got the name.

A little more about who I am. I am person who is into a lot of different things like beauty and fashion, shooting sports, working with kids, and gaming. Now none of these seem to go together very well and I understand that. That is why I named my blog Half Pint's World it is pretty much a walk though my life as it happens each week. Sometimes as in life it will get a little boring, but if you keep on following I will a sure you things will become very interesting; just wait till you meet my family and friends they are something else. Oh and my animals I have two cats with big personalities.

-Half Pint :)