Bacon Cupcake Adventure...

To start things off I just have to say that the library is an amazing place.  I got a bacon cook book that has nothing but recipes with bacon in it (such as bacon bread pudding, bacon and tune bites, bacon cupcakes, etc.).  I was really excited to try the chocolate and maple bacon cupcakes out.  They were a success, except for the frosting.  You're probably thinking "bacon cupcakes, ew!" but that's not true.  They were a good mix of sweet and salty with some bitter sweet chocolate chunks and oats inside the cake.  To try them out, I took them to a bar for one of my friends birthday's and we handed them out.  Others were a little hesitant, especially with the big mess the frosting left behind, but they were open to the new idea.

Everything did really go great, but the frosting was melting pretty fast as I got it on the cupcakes.  It had been sitting in the fridge for a while and was hard enough to get on the first couple, but since it was so hot from all the baking and the cooking of the bacon in my tiny little kitchen, it went downhill pretty fast.  There's still some frosting with bacon on top inside of my fridge.  One day, it will get cleaned.  :P  Just goes to show; you really shouldn't judge a book by it's cover.

Bake Sale Adventure...

There is a bake sale going on at work today in honor of a man that passed recently.  So, being the forgetful me that I am, I didn't think about this until last night after I got off of work at 9pm.  Needless to say, I was up until about 2am making cake balls.  Here's what I learned:

Funfetti cake is really awesome, but it's kind of dry when it turns into a cake ball.  I think the same thing would happen if I used angel food cake.  It got a little crumbly, though it still tastes pretty good.  I also made sugar free cake balls for the first time with devil's food cake and chocolate frosting.  They turned out pretty good too, but I didn't coat them with anything.  I did find out that I had to use the whole can of frosting for them rather than using only 3/4.  It got a little messy on the hands, but it was a fun time.  Now I must make more for when I go to work later because everyone said that they wanted one but wouldn't be there at the right time to buy one.  Pictures of those will be up later!

The Next Adventure...

I'm hoping to make cake pops that look like turkeys later this month.  If not, they will be something else more Christmas related.  I thought about doing marshmallows dipped in candy coating to make them look like little snow men.  It sounds interesting, right?  And I hope to get a little farther ahead on my "nerd glasses" project.  That one is just candid pictures of people wearing huge nerd glasses to raise awareness for reading.  Most kids are too caught up in gadgets to read on their own anymore.  The only time it happens is when they're forced to for homework.  It's more fun and developing to read rather than to play video games.  It's also safer as some platforms can lead to seizures.  If you think it's a worthy cause, let me know!

Thanksgiving break adventure...

I'm so happy I don't have to worry about my online classes this week!  But...I'm still doing homework for them.  It's kind of sad.  Anyway, that's not what this is about.  This is about the amazing new trend my boyfriend and I have created.  Thanksgiving dinner at his grandparents house was full of sweets that my body shouldn't be able to handle, but it did.  I don't have a coffee maker so I jumped at the opportunity when I got some during pie time.  Then we headed out to Wal-Mart around 8:30 to watch Black Friday crazy people be crazy.  It's now our new tradition!  Why spend our hard earned money on stuff that's going to be on sale from now til Christmas anyway when we can watch other people do it and not have to look for an actual parking space?  Though we did go inside of Wal-Mart, we just drove past Target and other places, such as Best Buy (people with lawn chairs and snuggies galore!) the line curved around the parking lot and it was only 10:15.  I'm surprised there weren't any tents, actually.  If only I had taken my camera...it was a good time, something we'll definitely repeat.  And I think that others should do it too!  Especially if you don't have money to spend or if you're simply doing the buying online or waiting til a more reasonable time to get out there.  :)

Work, not so much an adventure...

I work two jobs, one at a hotel cleaning rooms and another at a place for brain injured people.  I'm told that I have a lot of patience to work at a place that serves people like that.  I don't really know, I just do it and like it depending on the situation.  But anyway, that's all I've been up to for the past week...and school.  I am supposed to be taking pictures tomorrow for a friend, but we'll see how that pans out.  I also have a project that I've started involving some really big nerd glasses.  The pictures are candids, shot in low light places with a regular camera flash for the majority of them.  But that's going to be the beauty of it all.  I'm really excited to show people though!  If I'm not back by turkey time, have a great one!

Photography Adventure in Illinois...

I went to Illinois this weekend to go shopping with my sister, mom, and grandma as well as to take some senior pictures.  The girl who was to take the pictures canceled the day I got down there (it's a two and a half hour drive) and I'm wondering if I should take them for her next time...?  I like the business, but I don't want to drive all the way down there next time and be told that she's not doing them.  Good for me, I was down there for more than one purpose this time.  She's a friend of my sisters so she talked to my sister about it instead of contacting me.  Lesson learned: if the person doesn't contact you themselves, then you probably shouldn't make any big plans on seeing them.

But, I did get some pictures in of my sister and her new boyfriend.  We went out to a park in Moline with a nice lake and we did some at my parents place.  The dogs got in the way a couple times, but it was fun nonetheless.  Until I got home.  I put the pictures on my moms computer, thinking it would be okay to use the card.  I took the card out properly and put it right back into the camera.  Then I drove home and went to show my own boyfriend how cute some of them were only to find that there was no image file data on the majority of the photos...it was a fun time.  So Mom had to send all of them to me via email (something I'm really hoping works out) and I have to try and edit them with my broken computer before resorting to use an online editing system (aka picnik).  Second lesson learned: when you take your cable to plug in the camera, use it instead of the card.

Ice Cream Sundae Cake Pop Adventure...

These turned out great!  They were fairly easy, though a little messy since you don't get rid of the excess coating and you have to use your finger to get the stick out.  I found one problem with the sprinkles because they didn't stick as easily as I would have liked, even after I just dipped the ball.  I also used red hots instead of red peanut M&M's.  It's a lot easier than picking out all of the red ones and it mixed in with the chocolate/strawberry flavor really well (I used strawberry cake and frosting).  Next time I might try using chocolate cake but I really liked that the cake matched the coating so it really did look like ice cream.  :)

Thanks for reading, Brittany ^_^

Cedar Falls Adventure...

I went searching for more variety in my candy coating/sprinkles for cake pops or other baking needs and boy did I find the mother load...of sprinkles at least.  Not only sprinkles, but candies like chocolate covered espresso beans and caramel candy corn.  It's on Main Street in Cedar Falls, Iowa and the place is called Sweet Basil Market.  There was so much sprinkles, it was ridiculous.  Why haven't I looked here before?  I even thought it would be expensive, but it's really not.  There were dinosaur sprinkles, teddy bear sprinkles, silver jimmies, sanding sugar in every color you could imagine, even breast cancer sprinkles.  I think I've fallen in love.  If you live in the Cedar Falls/Waterloo area, go there!  It's a great place that smells really good too.  And if you don't live near it, Cedar Falls is a fun place to go with some interesting things to see.  I work at the Clarion Inn and it's even a good hotel with two pools (indoor and outside), a game area (pool, ping pong, and video games), and a restaurant attached with a great breakfast line-up.

Thanks for reading, Brittany ^_^

White Russian Cupcake Adventure...

I can't get the picture to come up on the url link in my images (and my computer with the original got rained on, still works but it takes so much longer to get going than it already did) so I'll just put the link in here: http://angel-luvr01.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d41jvqp

I was kind of sad to discover that in order to make White Russian Cupcakes, the best way to go is to do it with a box mix.  I love doing things from scratch, but when the recipe calls for box mixes, I feel like that's the way to go since you never know what could go wrong with your own recipe.  I didn't use real Kahlua in mine so I suppose that might be why they were a little soggy in the first place (I used what my boyfriend calls "cheap mans Kahlua").  Be careful if you ever try these!  They get pretty sticky and sometimes the Kahlua ends up on the counter more than you'd expect.  Use a baking sheet or paper towels underneath (they don't tell you this when you read the recipe).  These cupcakes actually went on an adventure with me when my friends and I went camping.  I thought there was going to be more space in the coolers...I was wrong.  They melted pretty bad and, though they were still tasty, it was a gooey mess.  The whipped frosting that you make yourself goes bad within about less than an hour, even in the car.  If you ever take these things somewhere, bring your own cooler.  My lesson has been learned.

I found the recipe in an old library book, but if anyone is interested in knowing how to make these scrumptious delights, I will give you the recipe so you can have fun making it yourself!  Just save the Kahlua for the cupcakes guys. ;)

Skeleton Cake Pop Adventure...

I did a pretty good job with them, but it was a little rough.  I've only done cake balls before, and those don't need to be a certain size unless you're looking to make a ton.  The skeleton pops on the other hand, needed to be a lot smaller than I first tried making them.  On top of that, I had used white cake rather than darker cake and when you use lighter colors, you have to kind of get rid of the top and bottom of the cake unless you want some brown spots in there.  It certainly took a while to get the whole thing white again without taking too much cake out.  I ended up using two boxes instead of just one since I had to take quite a bit off the top.  My advice to others would be, use a darker cake if this is your first time and if the pop moves out of the stick when you dip it in the candy coating, make the others smaller until you can find the perfect size. 

Another thing is: edible markers are a little hard to work with (or at least mine were) so be careful when you use them.  I used black and red for my skeletons, but the red worked much better than the black.  I tried using them at different times, like when the candy coating was still a little warm and after it had hardened.  The perfect time is right in between that and it's kind of hard to get down.  I bought my markers from Wal-Mart (that's the other thing) so I would say get some really good quality markers for this.  It might cost a little more, but it's definitely worth it.

When I made the cake pops, rather than using styrofoam, I used a cardboard display from Wal-Mart.  It worked well and I can use it again the next time I make them.  I'm still experimenting with candy coatings, but I don't particularly like Wilton's.  The next ones I get will probably be from Hobby Lobby (they have more of a variety than Wal-Mart anyway) and I think I'll dabble in the edible paint instead of using the markers.  There will be a blog about how that goes too.

Thanks for reading, Brittany

New spot, old-ish blog

Hello everyone!  I'm totally prepared to blog about my wonderful adventures as an amateur photographer, college student, makeup artist (mostly for my photography stuff), adventurous baker, and nail artist.  I hope I do this well enough to gain some followers as there will probably be tips, not only for yourselves but also so I remember too...cause I'll always remember I put it on the internet but I won't actually write it down anywhere.  Anyway, can't wait to see what happens!  Thanks for looking, I hope you'll follow me more closely soon. ^_^