I Open at the Close

The end of the era, the end of my childhood. When I finished reading the seventh Harry Potter book, I really did feel like I had left a part of my childhood behind. I went to all of the midnight book release parties, read and re-read the books, listened to the audiobooks on cassette tape and then CD, when the movies started coming out I was always around the same age as the actors; essentially, I grew-up with Harry Potter. I was definitely part of the Harry Potter generation, and Harry Potter certainly left an indelible impact on my childhood. For the last Harry Potter movie midnight premiere, I had my friends over beforehand and we ate Sheppard's Pie and I made Butter Beer, and for dessert I made Golden Snitch Cake Pops!

The cake pops were not that hard to make, but did take a little bit of practice and trial and error. To make the wings, I made marshmallow fondant and tinted it yellow, and cut it out in the shape of the wings. Make sure to allow plenty of time for the wings to dry out and harden (at least 24 hrs!) before trying to attach them to the cake pops. To give them a more wing like texture, use a fluted fondant wheel and make ridges on the wings. We also dusted our wings with Wilton golden dusting powder to make them appear more gold. To make the cake pops,I used my Babycakes CakePop maker, which sort of functions like a waffle iron, but makes round balls instead of waffles. Then I stuck the cake on the sticks and dipped them into the melted yellow candy melts. After the cake pops were completely hardened (we let them harden overnight) we cut small slits into the sides of the pops and carefully inserted the wings into the slits. (Make extra wings because some WILL break!) Once you insert the wings, just be very careful in handling them, because they become very fragile.

Baby Jumper

Felix, my 16 month old cousin, sporting his new jumper. He was surprised that I was able to sew this for him!



For Christmas my parents gave me sewing lessons;however, I had to wait until summer to actually be able to take them. I grew up learning the basics of sewing, but recently started to want to learn more about sewing, especially about how to make clothes! I learned to hand sew when I was in first grade. My first grade teacher taught us all how to sew and while she would read to us during circle time we would all sew little gnomes or weave on the looms that were in the classroom. We still have some gnomes floating around my house! I don't exactly remember when I was taught to sew on a sewing machine but I am sure it was one of the times my mom was making us Halloween costumes or something like that.

So I finally had time to take sewing lessons this summer and this jumper was the first thing I made. It really was pretty simple to make, I was able to complete it in two classes, so a total of 4 hours. I think that the hardest part about sewing is reading the pattern, so taking the lessons really helped to better understand all of the tricky things in the pattern, plus the woman who taught the lessons was really knowledgeable and had a lot of great tips that are definitely not included in the instructions! I am excited that I can now say that I can sew clothes, but I am in no way an expert, there are still so many things to learn, and much practice needed!

Zucchini Bread

I don't have any pictures for this one, but I made this zucchini bread and a lot of people asked for the recipe so I figured I would go ahead and put it on here. The zucchini I used came from the garden at my aunt's work, American Funds, they had this "green initiative" and decided to start a company garden with the space on their campus and have been growing things throughout the year, most of which they use in their company cafeteria. The zucchini she gave to us was humongous, it was probably at least a foot and a half long, if not longer!

This recipe comes from my moms old Betty Crocker cookbook that she got when she was in college, its a little worn around the edges, but is definitely a go to cookbook for great recipes!

2/3 cup shortening
2 and 2/3 cup sugar
4 eggs
3 cups shredded zucchini
2/3 cup wayer
3 and 1/3 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
2/3 cup coarsely chopped nuts
2/3 cup raisins

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease only the bottoms of the loaf pans, I used 2, 9x5x3 inch ones. Mix shortening and sugar in a large bowl, then add in the eggs, zucchini and water. Next, add the flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, and vanilla, and blend together. Stir in the nuts and raisins and then divide evenly among the pans. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool on wire cooling racks and then remove from pans.

(this recipe can be used for pumpkin bread as well, just replace the zucchini for 1 can of pumpkin, 16 oz, and omit the vanilla and increase the baking time to 1 hours and 10 minutes.

[Gluten Free] Nutella Cupcakes

One of my friends at college can't eat gluten, so when I would make cupcakes or sweets, most of the time she wouldn't be able to eat them. Around Valentine's Day, this year, I found a blog that had a good variety of gluten free desserts. I found this recipe for Gluten Free Nutella Cupcakes and knew I had to try it! To say that my friends at college love Nutella would be an understatement, I think the love lies somewhere between an obsession and an addiction! But really, what's not to love about chocolately hazelnuty goodness? So I knew I had to try to out! And luckily this recipe only called for 2 different types of flour (many gluten free recipes have lengthy lists of ingredients to make up for the absences of wheat flour). So I set out for my neighborhood Whole Foods Market and got to baking!



The recipe I found came from a blog entitled Tartelette but I've reproduced it below as well. I also used a buttercream frosting instead of a cream cheese frosting.

1 stick + 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temp
1/3 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/4 Nutella
2 large eggs
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons superfine sweet rice flour
1/4 cup millet flour
1/4 corn starch
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
extra Nutella for filling cupcakes

Preheat the oven to 350F. Place muffin liners in tins. Beat the butter and sugar at medium speed until fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add the milk and Nutella, then add the eggs one at a time, incorporating after each addition. In a separate bowl combine the flours, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt and then add this to the dry mixture, mixing until smooth. Divide evenly among the 12 cupcake liners and bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool completely before frosting. For an added surprise, I injected the cupcakes with more Nutella once they were finished baking.

Buttercream Frosting

1 stick butter
1 pound powdered sugar (4 cups)
2-3 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl, add vanilla, then add milk one tablespoon at a time until desired consistency.

Fortune Cookie Cupcakes

I work at Forbidden City, a Chinese restaurant in Virginia Beach, so for our Holiday party I decided that I would make fortune cookie cupcakes! I made both chocolate and vanilla cupcakes and buttercream frosting which I tinted yellow.
To make the fondant you put 8 oz. of mini marshmallows and 2 tbps. water in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 1 minute and then stir. If there are still lumps you can put the marshmallows back in the microwave. After the marshmallows are smooth, add in 4 cups of powdered sugar a little at a time, then knead the fondant until it is the desired consistency, adding more powdered sugar as necessary. If you are just making one color, you can add the food coloring into the melted marshmallows before adding the powdered sugar, but if you want to make more than one color then wait until after you knead the fondant and the add the coloring.
I needed both brownish yellow and white, so I didn't dye the fondant until after the sugar was incorporated. Sometimes the fondant becomes difficult to work with so I usually dust the surface that I am working on with powdered sugar and corn starch, and make sure that the fondant doesn't get to warm. If it does, just stick it in the refrigerator for a little while to let it cool down a bit. I rolled the brown fondant out and then cut it into circles, which I then trifolded, then folded in half to make the half moon fortune cookie shape. For the white, I rolled it out and cut it into strips and then using a black food color pen, wrote messages on them, the tip was still pretty wide despite being "fine tip" so I had to keep the phrases pretty short.

Baby Clothes!

So when I found out that I was going to be finished with all of my exams in the first week of the exam period I was pretty excited. I then realized that I actually would have to stay until the very end of the exam period due to my position as an RA. So, to make the best use of my time (I had an entire week of no tests or classes!) I decided that I would make some crafts!



I made these clothes for my baby cousin Felix for Christmas. The first shirt is a felt Christmas tree with embroidered detailing which I adhered to the long sleeved onsie using an iron transfer and then reinforce that by sewing around the edges. I had to wait to sew it until I got home, since I don't have a sewing machine at school.



Here is a close up of the felt Christmas tree with the embroidered detailing. I am just starting to learn how to embroider. I found this website which has lots of really great videos and finally learned how to make french knots! Thats how I made all of the little ornaments. I am really excited to learn more about embroidery!



For this shirt I used freezer paper and an exacto knife to cut out a template for the shirt. The freezer paper is waxy on one side so when you iron it onto the shirt, it sticks so the fabric paint doesn't get underneath the template, but its not too sticky, so the transfer can be easily removed when you are finished painting! I made another shirt, but unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of it!


Here is a picture of Felix with his Christmas shirt on!

Almond Cupcakes with Raspberry Jam and White Chocolate Ganache

These cupcakes come with a story. So one day I was sitting in the kitchen and my mom was sitting in the computer room, my mom yells (and I am mean I really thought I was in trouble or something bad had happened) "Zoe!, come here RIGHT NOW!" so I run over, and she shows me these cupcakes on a food blog called foodporndaily.com, she says that we HAVE to make them! So here we are! They were quite delicious! Not quite as fluffy as I had anticipated, more like the density of angel food cake than a light cupcake, but the density balanced out the smoother flavors of the white chocolate ganache.
The inside is filled with homemade raspberry jam! It was so good! To fill the cupcakes you have to cut out little "pockets"out of the top to put the jam in and then replace it with the caps that were cut. The little pockets make for the perfect surprise when you bite into the cupcake! We had some left over that we ate with the homemade bread that my aunt had made earlier that day and the combination was simply divine! Making the jam was really easy! We didn't use any pectin or thickeners and it came out just great! It really got my mom and I thinking that it would be fun to make some jams next summer after our annual fruit pickings!!! I am so excited!