smidgen

Here's just a smidgen of what we've been up to...

... picking more blackberries, making more preserves, torturing brother with hair barrettes, painting, & making dresses {involved dresses I might add}. I'm looking forward to reentering the world from my sweatshop sewing room.

Quick Announcement...

{for the locals}

Paul Colman will be performing free concert this Friday night {June 12th} at 6:30 pm at First Presbyterian Church and all are welcome. He is a Grammy Nominated Singer/Songwriter and formerly a guitarist for the Newsboys. Our small group has been instrumental in bringing him to Dothan and we're hoping for a great turn out! This is one of his songs you may know and one of my favorite renditions of it with his sweet daughters.

We had a delightful weekend... hope you did too! Be back soon!

From the test kitchen...

Hello from our test kitchen! I say "test kitchen" because not only do we "taste test" but we also "recipe test". There are probably at least 20 different ways to make petit fours but when I tell you we tried different methods... we seriously tried different methods, different sizes, different icings, & different cakes. What I shared yesterday is what I found to be the best method and what I found to have resulted in the tastiest cakes. Not only are they super cute but they also taste delicious. The cake is moist, light and fluffy and the whole cake melts in your mouth! However, when I was reading your comments {thanks!} I realized perhaps I should add a few more things based on your questions, comments, and suggestions!

Here are the rectangular ones:

1. This process is a process. You won't whip them up in an hour. I imagine you can tell that by the pictures. If you are impatient and don't care much for baking... I'd skip this one! :)
2. I think if I had it to do again I'd make the rectangular ones from a jelly roll pan. They were a little more dense, easier to coat and just as cute.
3. If you choose to decorate the tops I would do so the day you are going to serve them. I made mine on Wednesday and today the hearts and suns are starting to bleed onto the white icing.
4. You can't pick them up and dip them in the icing. They are moist and crumbly and you would have a giant mess. The top half would likely be left in your icing bowl. I know because I tried and failed.
5. I also thought about, but didn't buy a cake from the grocery store bakery. I know most of the cakes they decorate are shipped to them already baked & leveled. So, if the leveling and baking intimidates you and you just want to frost I would suggest you at least ask if they will sell you a white sheet cake with no frosting. They are likely to raise an eyebrow and think you're crazy but I imagine people have asked for crazier things before.
6. I did attempt to microwave a tub of frosting and pour it over. I have to say it wasn't too pretty. The icing "yellowed" and I couldn't get it to the consistency that I really wanted it. First it was too runny then it wasn't runny enough and when I finally got it a good consistency I poured it on it dried too thin and when I tasted it... it didn't compare.
7. I also didn't attempt CHOCOLATE... but maybe soon because that sounds really good too!

If y'all attempt the Petit Fours would you let me know how it goes and let me know if you have any additional tips...

In non-test kitchen news, Morgan finished VBS today and had an absolute blast!

I find such joy in seeing little children praise their Creator. I'm really not sure there is anything sweeter! Paige was too young to attend but I know she looks forward to joining in the fun next year.

Good-bye from rainy Alabama!

Petit Fours

In the past, many of you have asked if I make my own petit fours and up until Monday the answer would have been "no". Now I can confidently say "yes" and I figured y'all might want to make your own too. I've always been a fan of petit fours so long as they're not covered in fondant, which in my humble opinion tastes like molding clay. There's a local bakery that makes the most divine petit fours, perhaps you've seen them here before for birthdays, baby showers, and baptisms. I'm quite aware that most of y'all don't live here and what a shame that you can't run to the bakery and pick up a dozen {or two}. They melt in your mouth and they are so much better than any cupcake on the planet. Don't get me wrong, I love a cupcake, I just have a hard time eating them; you get all the icing first and by the time you get to the bottom you're out of icing. Not the case with these.

Here's what I started with {Justin tried to get me to follow the "instrucciones en espanol"}:

It can be baked in a 9x13 cake pan or a jelly roll pan {16 x 12 x 1}... but the results will vary by pan. The jelly roll pan yields about 30 short and rectangular petit fours.

Using a 9 x 13 cake pan will yield about 24 tall & square but potentially unlevel {which is apparently not a word} petit fours.

But nothing a little serrated knife can't even out.

So the option is yours: shorter & rectangular or taller & square. Do you want to hear my opinion on the two choices? Ok, good. The short and rectangular bake faster and are easier to coat as the icing doesn't have as far to run down the short sides {you'll see} but the square ones sure are pretty! So... the decision is yours to make.

I'm going to show you the process with the 9 x 13. After the cake cooled completely I cut an inch off around the edges.

After I cut the cake into squares and leveled {as pictured above} I placed the cake squares on a lovely little cooling rack and placed freezer paper below with the plastic-coated side up.

Then I made the icing.

The icing is a mixture of powdered sugar, heavy cream, milk, and clear vanilla extract. I also tried it with powdered sugar, whole milk, and clear vanilla and it worked great. The cream makes the frosting a little more opaque. You will want to alternate adding the powdered sugar and milk in the mixing bowl and add the vanilla towards the end. You're looking for this consistency...

I call it coatable yet drippy. If you're not sure if your consistency is good just try it on one petit four, it should run off the spatula in sheets like this.

If you are a perfectionist this is not a recipe for you. It is merely impossible to cover the entire petit four. You can get close but total coverage is not easily attained.

Do not attempt to ice these if you don't have a cooling rack for the icing to run through, otherwise you will have a giant mess. Occasionally I would scrape the icing off the paper and pour it back over the petit fours. Be prepared to waste a lot of icing and be okay with that. Scraping the paper and pouring the wasted icing back over is helpful but really a lot of icing gets dribbled down... in fact, probably half or more.

Once they are dry {about 30+ minutes} you can decorate them. Are you a cake decorator? I am not... I tried so many fun little decorations and they looked more like a 4-year old did it. I stuck to suns and hearts they're more my caliber. While I decorated the petit fours Morgan decorated graham crackers.

If you're going to decorate the petit fours I would use a butter cream frosting... but after all that work you can also use a can of white frosting from the baking aisle and tint it with food coloring.

These are great for birthday parties {especially for kids!}, bridal and baby showers... or for a summer day. I made 4 dozen on Monday and took them to the Rescue Mission with me, along with ALL OF THIS STUFF that many kind readers contributed, thank you, thank you, thank you! Y'all are the best!

One last thing, if your husband happens to come home while you're making these he will more than likely eat one that isn't dry, dribble icing across the kitchen before he finds himself over the kitchen sink. After he inhales it he will sing your praises, which makes cleaning up after him much easier.

Click here* for a printable version of the entire recipe.

More tips on the petit fours posted a day later... CLICK here for more info.

*I'm still in search of a document hosting site that I love. If any of you aren't happy with the site hosting the recipe or if you don't find it user friendly please let me know!

Last night

Last night we headed up to the ball park to watch daddy play softball. I've mentioned before that I ♥ church softball and I must confess that's not 100% true. I should clarify that I only love church softball when I can go... I don't love it so much when it takes Justin away for a late double header and leaves me to tackle the hardest hours of the day completely solo. Well last night wasn't a double header, the game was scheduled for 7:30... so we went... all of us. As we were walking out the door I insisted that the girls let me take their pictures. They were fresh from the tub and I could hardly resist.

Since they're my kids let me take a second and tell you that these 2 little girls love each other so well. They play so well together and genuinely care about each other. They also rat each other out 10x a day but for the most part they're loving and kind. I love this picture of them.

When we got to the parking lot of the ball park we ran into Justin's mom. The kids call her "Gi-Gi" and she couldn't resist a little lovin' from her boy.

The wind was blowing hard and it was warm outside... warm wind reminds me of California. Warm winds & happy cows.

Another added bonus of going to church softball games...

It only takes a matter of minutes to pawn the little ones off and for a short while I am only responsible for myself.

I've been running a test kitchen all week... a fun recipe is coming soon! But for now I'm off to bed... but before I go:

Guess what?

I have 7 beautiful jars of blackberry preserves sitting on my counter.

We're going back on Saturday to pick more, I think we'll try a cobbler next... or maybe not, these preserves are mighty tasty!

Good night!

Garden Recipe: Summer Squash Casserole

Every summer we seem to grow loads and loads of squash and zucchini. I love to sautee them in with a little butter and salt and pepper but this is another wonderful way to serve them that I think you will enjoy.

It is made with homemade croutons.

And lots of cheese.

We had it when Shireen and Russell were here a few weeks ago and they both loved it and deemed it "blog worthy"!

CLICK ON THIS LINK to print the recipe.

More garden recipes coming soon...

Our Weekend

As I sit here tonight my eyes are heavy {and my hip is sore where I ran into my counter top full speed ahead today} and I'm thinking "If I could just blog in my sleep I'd update every night and I would never get behind."

Here it is Tuesday eve and I've yet to update on our wonderful weekend and my mind is already occupied with the next post and the one after that. If you could just read my mind we'd be set.

I'll probably be short on words tonight. I've been experimenting in the kitchen all day and it was a lot of fun but wore me smack out. What I was doing in the kitchen is for a post to come so stay tuned.

On Saturday:

Early Saturday morning "Acorn-eater" helped me with my watering.

After I fished the dirt out of his mouth we had short stacks of silverdollar sized strawberry pancakes....!

My recipe is easy...

Then Justin loaded the kids up {and I stayed home with JM because if he misses his nap he goes from JM to Hornet} and drove them down to his parents property with more friends to pick...

And pick they did...

My friend Jill manned the camera and did an AWESOME job {especially with no instructions}! This is her husband Tim picking her some good berries...

And this is their son, William, with a "good one"...

They brought home over 5 quarts...

Jill and I talked about what we wanted to do with them. The guys wanted cobbler... we want jam. With jam the "blackberry" keeps on giving, a cobbler would be gobbled up in one night, jars of jam would last much longer! The berries are still in my frige so if I want jam I'll be back in the kitchen tomorrow or Wednesday for sure.

I didn't ask if they picked these but if our jam makes us act funny and we can't stop eating it we'll know why...

By the pictures she took, it looks like William was really excited about his finds...

They said they didn't even get one mosquito bite, I feel quite confident that if I had been there that I would have brought them in by the thousands...

After they picked all they could {which I've been informed they didn't even get 1/2} they all loaded up and headed this way for a very healthy lunch...

And followed their nutritious meal with swimming, wiffle ball, and ice cream.

Sunday brought:

Roses in the early morning. I planted my rose bushes last summer and really don't know what I'm doing. I feed, water, prune, and mulch them but some have lost their leaves and look like they're close to dying... any rose gardeners out there?

After chuch Sunday was spent much like our day on Saturday... lots of food, wiffle ball, swimming and ice cream.

That's all I have the energy for tonight. My post got deleted when I finished it and I had to start all over... argh! That will really make you mad... especially when you're super tired! Be back soon!