Chopped Jr Birthday Bash

Last weekend we threw my daughter a birthday party at the house. I tried to offer numerous other options and even attempted bribing her, but she wouldn't budge. She wanted a Chopped Birthday Party. I wondered about the state of my sanity while pulling it together and was really nervous at the thought of having 9 little girls over to my house for a Chopped competition, but to my surprise it went way better than I could have ever expected! The girls had an absolute blast and seeing them so excited made it all worth it!

I ordered the Invites, score sheets, banner and all of the cute printables here from Etsy

I also ordered kids plain aprons and some fabric markers so as the girls were arriving they could each decorate an apron to use while cooking. I was thinking instead of the usual bag of annoying noisemakers/stickers/candy that dyes their mouth green and gets left on the floor of your car after a party this was at least something they could keep and use at home too!

 We had the girls pick a number and then divided them into 3 teams of 3. I set up 3 small stations that they could cook and prep at and had a "pantry" table of extra ingredients they could use as well

The Pantry Table before it was raided is below

Afterwards it looked like a swarm of locusts had cleaned it out

For the entree round the secret ingredients were tomatoes, pizza dough and cheese (I had 5 types of cheese and they could pick the one they wanted)

I pre-cooked bacon and Italian sausage to give them some proteins to choose that didn't need to go on the stove and made sure I had a ton of veggies to choose from too.

For the most part I was really impressed with the final dishes. A few of the girls were worried and told me before we even started that they had never cooked anything before so my expectations weren't very high to begin with. 

Just in case you're wondering, yes that is a pizza surrounded by cool whip in the bottom shot. 

Yeah, it was rough...

They were so excited for the reveals! 

There was a lot of squealing...it was LOUD y'all

Team 1 hard at work

 So stinking cute!

 I loved seeing how intense they were as the clock was running and had a great time teaching them a little bit of knife skills for those that were interested

Hands Up! Round 1 is over!

 For the dessert round, I had a whole dessert bar in the middle of the table so that served as decoration and their stash to work with plus the pantry table for them to pick from. For their secret ingredients they had to use any flavor cupcake, sprinkles and their choice of icing.

There were sprinkles EVERYWHERE

Overall, it was a blast and I hope the kids had as much fun as Brianna did!

Little's Lunches 21

Happy Monday! We had a jam-packed week filled with fun, I hope you did as well!

We had family and friends in town visiting all week, a few BBQ's, a concert, a crawfish boil and even a tornado warning! Never a dull moment!
Here's what I packed in the lunchboxes this week:

Monday: Tortellini Pasta Salad, mushrooms and carrots with Ranch, flatbread and sunflower seeds with dried cranberries

Tuesday: Grilled Chicken Sandwich on a Whole Wheat bun, baby carrots and bell pepper slices and Bunny Grahams

Wednesday: My parents were in town (yay for free babysitters!) so they went and had lunch at school with the kids and then that night Louis and I got to go to the Dave Matthews Concert. It rained on and off the entire time, but we had a blast anyway

 Thursday: Ham, pita chips, pickles, bell peppers and carrots with cilantro ranch dip, coleslaw and prunes

 Friday: Broccoli salad, crackers, half of a puff pastry mini-letta swirl, sunflower seeds, applesauce, baby carrots and olives

On Saturday, we hosted the office crawfish boil for the 5th year in a row! We had a TON of food and I was exhausted on Sunday from all of it, but we had a great time! The day before, when I was doing the massive grocery run I somehow scratched my cornea in the middle of HEB and had to have my mom drive me straight to the eye doctor so I was a little frazzled and didn't get a ton of pictures of the food that day, but here's the rundown of what we served:

Beer, Wine, Margaritas, Iced Tea, Sodas and Juice Boxes

Boiled Crawfish with mushrooms, sausage, corn, potatoes and garlic

bacon wrapped jalapeno peppers stuffed with Cajun sausage

bacon wrapped jumbo shrimp stuffed with cream cheese and jalapeno

Homemade Salsa and guacamole with chips

Beer Cheese Spread with pita chips

Veggie Tray

Fruit Tray

Grilled Hot Dogs for the kids

Grilled Boudin and Alligator Sausage

Po Boys- Ham and Cheddar, Ham and Swiss and Italian Cold Cut

Crawfish Cupcakes

Chocolate Chip Toffee Bars

 WHEW!! I really felt like I bought out HEB and Costco but I think everyone enjoyed themselves!What is your go to dish to serve at parties? I'd love to hear it!

This Turkey Takes the Cake

My kid's school threw their Fall Fair this past weekend, and I signed up to donate cakes and cupcakes for the cakewalk booth. I think they came out super cute and my kids were very excited to turn them in! 

 We made 2 dozen cupcakes and 2 turkey cakes 

For the turkey cakes I used this mix I was given on my trip to NYC. It's two separate mixes that were the perfect amount for my Wilton bowl pan! The cakes came out moist yet sturdy enough to work with so I had no problem with it falling apart as I tried to ice it. If you love red velvet cake, you'll love this fall inspired version!

I used mini marshmallows for the eyes and drew on them with a food safe marker. For the beak and waddle I raided the kid's Halloween candy and molded starbursts  after heating them in the microwave for a couple seconds.

For the feathered body, all you need to do is make rows of large dots of icing out of a piping bag and then press your spatula or spoon in the middle of the drop of icing and drag it down so it flattens it slightly. I'm sorry I didn't get a pic of that step, but I promise it's super easy! 

The weather was awful, but the kids had fun through the freezing cold drizzle! 

And, we were lucky enough to win two of the class raffle baskets!!

 One basket full of board games and the Yeti cooler, which Louis is over the moon excited about

All packed up and ready to go!

 



From boredom to Biscoff Buttercream

Do you still have any Girl Scout cookies lying around? 

Every year those little temptresses come around with their wagon of cookies and if you are anything like me you just can't say no. Especially to new cookies. This year the new flavor was "Shout Outs" and the description was a buttery caramel crisp cookie. Well, when I read that I instantly thought of Biscoff cookies and spread that I'm seeing pop up all over foodie blogs everywhere. And then I just had to get them. The problem was, after I ripped open the box and dug in, I was a bit dissapointed.

They were just meh.
Boring.

Not great, but not horrible either.
It felt like they needed something

So I dipped them in Nutella- that was good

Then I dipped them in Biscoff- that was even better

Then I made a deliciously dark chocolate cupcake, whipped up a Biscoff Buttercream icing and shoved one of those cookies in the top- that was heavenly

 

It's just what the cookie needed 

Absolutely perfect!

Biscoff Buttercream

5 Tablespoons room temperature butter

1 cup powdered sugar

1 cup Biscoff spread

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

4 Tablespoons heavy cream

Place all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer. With the paddle attachment, combine the ingredients on low speed until just combined and then raise speed to medium and whip until fluffy and fully incorporated. Pipe onto cake layers, cupcakes or spoon in your mouth. No judgement here.

It's never a bad time for a cupcake

Things have been crazy around here, as I'm sure it has been for everyone with Christmas right around the corner. Unfortunately I haven't had the time to blog as often as I'd like but I just wanted to share something sweet that I made recently

These sunny and bright cupcakes were made for a sweet family friend of ours to celebrate her birthday. Almond cake with Almond Cream Cheese Icing
a deliciously simple combo!

At the Drive In

 I was asked to make cupcakes for a 65th wedding anniversary recently and I had so much fun creating treats for this event!

The party was being held at a drive in movie theater so we went with "popcorn topped" cupcakes

I was so pleased with the way these came out, I hope the happy couple enjoyed them!

 Half of the cupcakes were Almond Cake with Almond Cream Cheese Frosting and the other half was Mint Chocolate (one of my favorites)

 The "popcorn" topper is not actually what you think it is

It's mini marshmallows cut with sharp scissors and then lightly sprayed with Wilton's color mist

They aren't hard to make just extremely time consuming, but after it was all finished I thought it was really hard to tell that it wasn't actual popcorn

A Whopper of a Cupcake

Meet my new obsession:

 Chocolate cake with a malted chocolate frosting

Luckily I made these and brought them to a fund raising event for a friend and they were all eaten......none to take home and taunt me the next day just begging to be eaten

as I was eating these I was already thinking what else I could do with this awesome frosting;

like sandwich it in between two chocolate whoopie pies and then roll the edges in crushed whoppers

sounds sinfully good right?!

I'll have to wait and try that out when I have somewhere to bring them to share

Here's what we are eating this week:

Monday: Pepperoni Calzones with Roasted Tomato Soup

Wednesday: Chicken and Andouille Sausage Jambalaya with Green Salad

Banana Bread Cookies

Friday: Beer and Paprika Beef Stew with Rice

Better Late Than Never

Sometimes life is just crazy

busy, hectic and at a fast pace, and as a mom to two kids and a new pup you can feel a bit manic at times.

After rushing out the door yesterday morning to get my son to VBS on time and get our very sick puppy to an emergency vet visit (one of three I made yesterday) I had to do a double check: they are dressed, their teeth are brushed, I fed them and no one was forgotten at home (I've never done this, but it's always been a fear of mine) 

For me, this was success!

I know all of you can relate to this- and when life gets like that, unfortunately the fun stuff sometimes gets neglected- like my blog

so I'm taking a moment to share some things that I've made and just never got around to posting

Mini Lemon cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting for a baby shower- the little boy these cupcakes were made to celebrate has already been born and is completely precious by the way

 These I made for another baby shower for a little boy that was born two weeks ago and who is also extremely adorable; Herb and Parmesan Pull Apart Bread and Chocolate Cherry Cream Cheese Cake Truffles

and lastly a cake with my favorite color combo: pink and brown

Chocolate Cake and Buttercream with hand made and painted fondant flowers

Cupcake Bouquet

 

 Today was Marshall's last day of school and I wanted to make something to bring his teachers to say thanks for all the hard work they put into this school year. I've seen cookie bouquets before, and recently I saw a cupcake bouquet in a metal pail. I thought it might be cuter in a flower pot and went with pink icing piped like hydrangeas. Michael's has a ton of cute flower pots to choose from now!

 

 Fill them with Styrofoam, stick toothpicks into it to secure the cupcakes, and place tissue paper around your flower cupcakes to fill in the gaps. 

 

White Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

One of the many things I love about spring is the abundance of berries available at stores and farmer's markets. Raspberries are one of my favorite things and combining them with chocolate just seems natural. While raspberry and dark chocolate is usually my first pick, recently I saw a recipe for white chocolate cake and thought how perfect they would be paired with raspberry. 

The White Chocolate Cake recipe is here

I baked it in cupcake liners, allowed them to cool and then filled the center with raspberry preserves. I topped them with a White chocolate Buttercream icing that was a delicious mistake. I went to make vanilla buttercream icing and had no heavy cream. What I did have was my white chocolate flavored coffee creamer, and it was an awesome substitute! I am already looking forward to checking out what other coffee creamer flavors I could use for icings........Irish cream, Amaretto or Caramel Cream anyone?

White Chocolate Buttercream

10 Tbsp room temperature un-salted butter

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 c powdered sugar

pinch of salt

2 tbsp white chocolate flavored coffee creamer

In the bowl of a stand mixer beat butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add vanilla, sugar and salt and whip on medium speed until combined. Slowly drizzle coffee creamer into the mix and continue to beat on medium to medium high speed until fully incorporated, light and fluffy.

On the menu for this week:

Monday: Root Beer Glazed Shredded Pork with Mac and Cheese

Wednesday: Pizza Soup with Parmesan Pull Apart Rolls- pepperoni and Italian sausage with mushrooms and peppers in an Italian tomato broth

Friday: Chicken Marsala Pasta- Chicken, Mushroom and Sausage Pasta in a creamy Parmesan Marsala sauce