More Baby Girl Gifts

 

One of the moms that used to work at the kiddie community center with me recently had a baby girl. This is her second daughter (and child, for that matter), the older daughter is eight years old. When the mom told me she was pregnant, she seemed a bit hesitant, but I assured her that my little brother and I are eight years apart and we are close and everything is great. The baby was born last month, so I thought it was time I get a gift together for her.

 

I started with the butterfly hat that I think is the cutest thing ever and made one a few months back for a different friend. This hat is seriously so fast to whip up and I absolutely adore it. I started with a yarn that I think is so pretty. I love the self-striping effect.

 



 

I find that everytime I make this hat, I use different yarns, so my gauge is a bit off. If this happens, just check out the links to the other sizes and adjust accordingly. Sometimes this means taking out a row or two, but it is so tiny to begin with that it really isn't too big of a problem. In the end, you will have a sweet little butterfly hat to adorn a sweet little girl's head.

 

 

Every time I go to the fabric store, I see this Nani Iro print and fall in love with it. The problem is that it is a gauze-type fabric and really practical for baby stuff, but not for too many other things. I fell in love with it again, but this time I bought it!

 



 

K is now two and a half, but I still bring a burp cloth of sorts every time we leave the house. In our world, these serve so many wonderful purposes - from cleaning spit up when K was a little guy, to drying up a water spill on a shirt, to cleaning a messy cheek or nose - burp cloths are my lifesaver. I told my mom this and she agreed, "Yeah, I carried burp cloths with me for years." I think I will be the same.

 

That being said, I have favorite burp cloths and ones I don't care for as much. My favorites have to do with size and texture. Some are stiffer than other cloudy, soft ones. Some are too big or too small, and a few are just perfect. This gauze is super soft, but paired with a soft, almost velour feeling terry cloth would be heaven on a little face.

 

 

I measured my favorite and then got to cutting. I had just enough of the fabrics to make six cloths. It seemed the most sense to make them factory-style, so I got to cutting and then pinning.

 

 

Next was sewing (right sides together), flipping, ironing and pinning again.

 



 

The final step was a top stitch and six little cloths were made!

 



 

The little hat and two of these burp cloths will make up a gift for the neighborhood friend. Another friend recently had a baby, so she will get a few of the cloths as well - but I'll leave that post for a week or two, since her other goodies aren't yet finished.

 

 

While I am super tempted to keep two for myself - I really love them - I think I'll divvy them up and spread the burp cloth love. Seriously though, how pretty is this print?!?!

 



Not-So-Celebratory Apple Pie

 

Yesterday was supposed to be an epic day. Instead it turned out pretty lame:

 

 Y gave a really big presentation that he practiced for weeks. He did a great job at the presentation Q&A session on Wednesday, so there was no doubt that he'd nail the presentation. Turns out that it could have gone better.

 

It is time to start thinking of preschools for K and there is a super popular one near us. It is really difficult to get in, simply because of the crazy amount of children in the area. At that particular school, if you can get your kid into pre-preschool (two mornings a week), then they are automatically put into the regular preschool (four full days and one half day a week). If you do not get into the pre-preschool, you have to line up days in advance to secure your spot. To get into pre-preschool, it is just an interview. Seemed easy. The interview was on Wednesday - I thought it went great! K played the whole time and had such fun; I understood and could carry on a conversation with the teacher. Alas, we found out on Thursday that there were 80 kids trying for 24 spots and he wasn't one of the lucky ones.

 

Also, last week I met a Mexican woman who lives in our neighborhood and she offered to take me to free Japanese lessons put on by the city next to ours. I asked if she thought I could take K along and she said that there is childcare. What?!?! We went to the lessons on Thursday morning and it was awesome. I'm not trying to sound boastful, but the teachers were hesitant to put me in the lessons due to my current ability being on the higher side, but I learned stuff during the lesson and know that I would learn more if I kept going. Also, K cried for about 30 seconds and then played for the next two hours! It went so well. Then the bad news came - the childcare is full, so we are on the waiting list. If someone quits lessons, we are in (we are first on the list), but until then, no Japanese lessons for me.

 

 

While this was meant to be a celebratory apple pie, it ended up being a pie in which to drown our sorrows (hehe!). My mom has made this apple pie for ages, and I love it. She told me just this morning that she doesn't care for apple pie, but since my dad loves it, she makes it. WHAT?!?!? I'm not sure what cookbook this pie came from, but this is the recipe I used.

 

For the crust I mixed 420g of flour, a teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon of sugar in a big bowl. Then I added 280g of butter.

 

 

I don't have a pastry knife, so I just use my fingers to mix that up until there are little crumbs, no bigger than the size of peas. Then add cold water, little by little mixing it into the flour until the dough sticks together.

 

 

Separate the dough into two pieces, one slightly larger than the other. Wrap them up and pop them in the fridge. While those are cooling, you can prepare the filling.

 

 

We have pretty giant apples 'round these parts, so I grabbed three and got to peeling and chopping.

 

 

Put all of the chopped pieces into a big bowl, add 3/4 cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of flour, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and a dash of nutmeg. Mix all of that up as well as you can (this will probably depend on how big your bowl is). Next pull out the bigger of your two crust pieces, roll it out and pop it into a pie tin.

 

 

Then fill it with your spiced apples.

 

 

Roll out your second crust piece and put it on top and pinch up the sides so the pie is enclosed. Then cut something into the crust to let some air out. Since this cake was initially meant to be a celebratory pie for Y, I used a heart cookie cutter to place a heart in the middle.

 

 

 Then bake at 200C (400F) for 50 minutes. Cut a slice...

 



 

and eat! 

 

 

 And make your lame day just a little bit better ;)

Mini-Bread Surprises

 

On Tuesday morning one of K's friends came over to play. I almost always bake something up for play dates and this time was no different. I had given a few of last week's cupcakes to the same family, so I didn't want to do cupcakes or even cake again. I wasn't really in a cookie-type mood either, so I settled on bread. The bonus is that with my trusty bread-maker, making bread is super fast and easy!

 

I chose a "butter roll" dough and then divided it into 24 tiny 22-gram balls. Then I let them rise.

 

 

I wanted to make them a bit sweet/desserty by stuffing them with chocolate. But the more I thought about it, stuffing 24 dough balls of chocolate was not so exciting - with 24 of them, surely I could find a few other things in the kitchen to stuff them with. I found a variety of stuffing options, but settled on caramel chips and orange marmalade, along with the chocolate - eight of each.

 

 

I flattened each ball out a bit, stuck two squares of chocolate, a small palm full of caramel chips, or a dessert-spoon full of marmalade in the center of each circle, folded it up and put them in muffin tins seam side down.

 

Once they were baked, my plan was to put something on the top of each to distinguish which was which. I bought some chocolate pens - white, brown and pink - and figured it would work out perfectly! Brown for the chocolate ones, white for the caramel ones and pink with a dried cranberry for the orange marmalade ones. The only problem was keeping them separated after stuffing and during the baking. I knew that I would forget what position they were in as soon as I put them in the oven. Even if I wrote it down, I figured I would carelessly mess it up somehow. Then I saw the "washi tape" sitting on the counter. I have heaps of rolls, so picked three colors and put a tiny swatch on the ends of the cupcake tins. Genius!

 



 

Since there were eight of each flavor, I did a full tin of both chocolate and caramel, then two of either the chocolate or caramel, plus four orange in the final two tins. That sounds way more complicated than it was, I just can't work out how to write it coherently - sorry!! Then, I just used the tape to mark which ones were where. It worked out flawlessly!

 

As soon as the surfaces were all cooled, I marked each one and then took them out of the tins to finish cooling. For the chocolate and caramel, I did different shapes and a few faces to make them look extra cute.

 

 

Once you took a bite, you got a nice surprise!

 

T-Shirt Fail

 

A few months back, I had a total cookie fail. On Sunday, I had a T-Shirt fail. Total bummer. I have a shirt that I got a while back on a visit to my parents' house that I really love. The only problem is that it is a tad bit short for my tastes.

 

 

I used the shirt to make a pattern and then add a little strip to the bottom to add a bit of length and create a bit of a "bubble" effect.

 



 

I cut up the fabric and was all ready to get sewing.

 

 

Everything went really well. I did my little tissue paper trick to keep the seams straight.

 

 

It sewed up perfectly! The shirt was super fast as there are only two seams to sew to make the shirt, plus the bottom strip. I laid it next to the original and it looked just like it. I was so super excited to try it on.

 







 

I put it on and was so sad. The neckline is totally weird. It sticks up instead of laying flat against my shoulders and collarbone. You can kind of see what I mean in the first and last photos. Booo!!!! I really have no idea why this happened. The only thing I can think of is the difference in fabrics. The original is two-way stretch jersey and super thin, but the one I made is one-way stretch and a bit thicker. Could that alone make the neckline fall so strangely!? What a huge bummer!!!!

 

I still love the idea of the shirt, especially the back of it. I think the seams down the back are so cute. I'm a bit tempted to buy some new jersey and give it another go, but there are a million other projects I want to get done first. This shirt is getting booted to the end of the line again. Poor thing.

 

Anniversary Cake

 

Last Friday I blogged about cupcakes I made that were reminiscent of a wedding cake/cupcakes from last year. As I'd mentioned, I made a cake for my friends' first wedding anniversary. I wanted the cake to be similar to the original, just smaller, but it didn't end up nearly as pretty as the real one.

 



 

To be honest, I'm not at all surprised it wasn't as nice. I made about 4 practice cakes before the wedding and would pipe roses any chance I got.

 

 

This time, I just went for it. The original cake was three or four layers (is it awful that I don't remember?!?) of vanilla bean cake separated by lemon curd and all topped with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. Since this cake was smaller, I just did two layers.

 

 

This might be obvious, but in case it's not (it wasn't for me), lemon curd is not strong enough to hold up layers of cake. The curd ends up squishing out and you end up with a super thin layer instead of the nice thick one you probably want. To ensure this doesn't happen, first pipe a wall of buttercream around the outside.

 

 

Then fill it with the lemon curd.

 

 

The next step is to do a crumb coat. For the real cake, I then popped it in the fridge so this layer would get nice and hard. That way when piping the roses, if you end up making a mistake you can simply scrape off the rose and redo it without making a complete mess. This time around, I was tired and wanted to go to bed so I skipped the fridge and went straight to the flowers. 

 

 

Luckily it ended up okay. Not perfect, but okay. I knew it would likely be a mess once I got it all boxed up, so I decided to just cut myself some slack and go to sleep.

 

 

Happy 1st Anniversary you two!! I hope you had a lovely weekend together and enjoyed your cake!!!

 

Rose Cupcakes

 

One year ago today, I was going mental baking up a cake and cupcakes galore! I had the honor of baking one of my best friend's wedding cakes and while it was awesome, turns out I never want to do that again. I had stressed so much about getting it perfect that I had a stomachache for days. We finally arrived at the restaurant where the reception was held and my stomach was miraculously cured.

 

I promised my friends that on their one-year anniversary, I would make them a mini cake so they could celebrate by eating a good cake and not one that has been shoved in the back of the freezer for a year. 

 

I mixed up the batter and realized that I had tons of batter left over - cupcakes were in my future! As I was being all nostalgic, I did the cupcakes up the same way as I had done for the wedding - vanilla bean cake, lemon curd and vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream (the superior buttercream). 

 

I started with a vanilla bean cake recipe from Sweetapolita, because her recipes are always delicious. The cake batter is creamy and wonderful and has tiny vanilla bean specks throughout. So beautiful!!!

 

 

It bakes up flawlessly - I have never had an issue with the cupcakes overflowing. I HATE when that happens. The next step was to core the cuppies. Last year when I was doing these, I cored these bad boys with a spoon. It was fine, but this year thanks to a wonderful friend, I have a cupcake corer! Wowza did this make a big difference. I don't know how many times in your life you need to core a cupcake, but if it's more than once I would kind of recommend getting this. The cores come out so nice and even, and the cupcakes look so pretty.

 

 

That being said, this whole coring situation is jumping ahead a bit. While the cake is baking, I made the lemon curd - I love me some lemon curd!

 

 

I could eat lemon curd by the spoonful, and would by lying if I said I didn't sneak a spoonful or two before filling the cores.

 

 

Again, that whole filling bit is jumping ahead since the curd has to chill for a few hours. While it was chilling I made the Swiss meringue buttercream. I cooked the egg whites and sugar to 150F, even though the recipe says to 140F. That being said, I just looked online and saw that according to the Egg Safety Center, you should cook eggs to 160F. Whoops! I'm sure it's fine - my husband eats raw eggs on rice all the time and he's still alive.

 

 

Once the buttercream is finished, you are ready to assemble - core, fill and pipe.

 



 

Then eat!!