Fancy Nancy's Fancy Gear And My Little Sweeties

Look who's walking!! My little sweetie has ventured out and taken a few steps by herself, however she prefers to hold a helping hand before she will walk too far. She walked almost the length of this bridge with her big sissy helping.

I made these fun high chair and car seat covers for one sweet little girl last week. Her name is Nancy (isn't that the cutest name ever???) and Claire being a big fan of the books immediately called her Fancy Nancy. And what fancy little girl doesn't need some fancy covers for her gear? 

Here is a closeup of the car seat fabric. Isn't it the cutest little birdie in Paris fabric you have ever seen?

Nancy's mom introduced me to two new online fabric stores. Fabricworm and Super Buzzy both have adorable fabrics! I'm already thinking of projects that I need fabric for. I see some adorable summer dresses for my girls in the future. =)

Interested in getting custom covers for your little sweetie?? Email me for details!

 And just because I can't get enough of them here are a few more pictures of my girls from the weekend.

Carrot Cake

February is not a good diet month for me as Matt and Madeline's birthdays are both this month and then of course Valentines Day comes right in-between the two. As you can see I've made a lot of dessert. This year Matt asked for carrot cake. This was my first attempt to ever make carrot cake but it turned out quite well! It was moist and delicious! And since it has carrots in it can't it be considered kind of good for you? =)

Carrot Cake

Recipe from: Matt's Mom

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 cups oil
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp allspice (optional)
• 1/4 tsp cloves (optional)
• 3 cups grated raw carrots
• 1 cup chopped nuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Cream the sugar and oil together with a mixer until fluffy. Add the 4 eggs one at a time mixing well between each addition. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice and cloves and add to the mixture. Stir in 3 cups of grated raw carrots and 1 cup of chopped nuts. Pour batter into two floured and greased 9" round cake pans. Bake for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting. 

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
• 1-8 oz. package of cream cheese, at room temperature
• 4 cups powdered confectioners sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1-4 Tablespoons heavy whipping cream or milk
• 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Beat butter and cream cheese until fluffy. Add vanilla extract and powdered sugar and blend on low speed until combined. Increase to medium speed and beat until it begins to get fluffy. Slowly add the heavy cream a little bit at a time until desired consistency is met. (Don't add to much if you want it to stay fluffy when piping cupcakes). Beat until fluffy about 1 minute. Fold in nuts if desired. You may want to double this recipe if you like lots of frosting like we do.

Linking up with a few of these wonderful parties!

Red Velvet Cheesecake

Matt loves cheesecake, so when I saw this one on Pinterest I thought Valentines Day would be the perfect day to try it out! It's delicious! My favorite part is the chocolate ganache at the bottom! The only thing I did differently was to use a graham cracker crust instead of the chocolate. You can view the recipe for the graham cracker crust I used here.

Recipe by: Willow Bird Baking
Yield: 11-13 pieces

Crust Ingredients:
32 chocolate sandwich cookies, finely processed into crumbs
5 1/3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
Small pinch of salt

Ganache Ingredients:
3/4 cups heavy cream
10 oz. bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

Cake Ingredients:
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1 egg
1 tablespoon cocoa
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon white vinegar
1 ounce red food coloring

Filling Ingredients:
3 (8oz.) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large eggs

Decorative Toppings (optional):
2 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted
white chocolate for drizzling
strawberries

Directions:
Note on scheduling: This cake is easily separated into two days of preparation, and can be prepared ahead of time. On day one, prepare the red velvet cake, cool it and freeze it. On day two, prepare the cheesecake. You can then assemble and decorate right away, or leave this for day three.

Make the cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line the bottom and the sides of a 9" round cake pan with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides to make it easier to lift the cake out of the pan when it's done. Cream shortening, sugar and eggs. Make a paste of the cocoa and coloring and add to the shortening mixture. Add salt and vanilla. Add buttermilk alternately with flour, beginning and ending with flour. Mix vinegar and soda right before using and add to mixture by folding in. Pour batter into the cake pan and bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool completely, cover in wax paper and freeze for 30 minutes or until firm.

Make the cheesecake: To make the crust, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9" springform pan and place it on a baking sheet. Combine the chocolate cookie crumbs, melted butter and salt in a small bowl. Toss with a fork to moisten all the crumbs. Press into a thin layer covering the bottom and sides of the springform pan (at least 3 inches up the sides).

Bring the cream to a simmer in a medium saucepan. Place the chocolate in a medium bowl. Once the cream reaches a simmer, pour the cream over the chocolate and let stand 1-2 minutes. Whisk in small circles until a smooth ganache has formed. Pour 1 cup of the ganache over the bottom of the crust. Freeze until the ganache layer is firm, about 30 minutes.  Reserve the remaining ganache; cover and let stand at room temperature for later decorating.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and position a rack in the middle of the oven. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese and sugar on medium-high speed until well blended. Beat in the flour. Add in the vanilla and beat until well incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between each addition.

Pour the filling over the cold ganache in the crust. Place the springform pan on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until the top is lightly browned, puffed and cracked at the edges and the center moves only very slightly when the pan is lightly shaken, about 1 hour. Transfer to a wire cooling rack. Cool at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. Transfer to the refrigerator and let cool at least 3 hours, until completely chilled and set.

Assemble Topping: Whip room temperature ganache to create a fluffy texture perfect for piping. In a separate bowl, mix together cream cheese, butter and confectionars' sugar to make a small amount of cream cheese frosting for decorating.


Assemble the cheesecake: Wrap a warm towel around the outside of the springform pan to help loosen the crust from the sides. Carefully remove the springform. Transfer the cake to a serving platter. Here, you can schmear some ganache on the cheesecake to help the red velvet cake adhere. Decorate top of cake with drizzled white chocolate, piped cream cheese frosting, whipped ganache and strawberries.

Linking up with a few of these wonderful parties.

Claire's Valentines: Marshmallow Pops

The marshmallow pops I made for Maddy's party were a huge hit with the kiddos. And since they were so easy to make, I decided to make them for Claire's classmates for Valentines Day this year. 

You will need:

• Bag of marshmallows
• Popsicle sticks
• Baking chocolate
• Food coloring (optional)
• Sprinkles
• M&M's
• Small clear treat bags
• Ribbon

First, insert the sticks into the center of all your marshmallows.

Melt your chocolate. I put mine into a microwave safe bowl and microwaved it a few seconds at a time stirring in between. Follow the specific melting instructions for the kind you have. I used both white and milk chocolate. You can add food coloring to the white chocolate after it's melted if you'd like making it easy to coordinate these with any color scheme.  Dip your marshmallow in the the chocolate about half way and twirl it around to let the extra chocolate drip off. While the chocolate is still wet add your M&M's and sprinkles.

Then set them in cups to dry making sure they don't touch each other.

After they dried I wrapped them each with a clear plastic treat bag and tied them with a ribbon.

Claire picked out her own Valentines and we inserted the popsicle stick into the slits on the side.

There you have it! Super easy, not expensive and a little different than your average Valentine!


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little owl first birthday party

You're probably tired by now of all the posts about my baby girl since that's what I've been writing about the past few days. Don't worry, it's almost over. =) Here is a look at the little party we had for her. We just had family come over but since there are 5 cousins total now it seemed like a good crowd.

For her birthday outfit, I made the owl appliqué and sewed it onto her shirt. I made the tutu several months ago. You can view the tutorial here.

Her smash cake topper I made by ruffling the ribbon and attaching it to the paper straws with hot glue.

The owl plates are from Target's dollar section and you can get the paper straws here.

Pink lemonade.

Marshmallow pops.

The only photo I got of her in her birthday hat before she ripped it off.

Owl printables can be found here. The cupcake liners (which I also used for the popcorn cups) can be found here.

Kiddie trail mix.

Pom pom tutorial can be found here.

 Pink popcorn for the big kids.

Maddy's favorite gift! The only thing she would have liked more is an iPhone. Needless to say this one year old did not get one. =)

Why didn't someone think to put a towel under her chair?

Pinwheels. You can view the tutorial for these here.

And when dinner is over the dessert table works double duty as a play fort!

I'll be posting tutorials for some of the projects I worked on for her party over the next few days so stay tuned!

Linking up with a few of these parties. Check them out!