Cheese cake and cupcakes

This is a cheese cake with a sour cream mixture on top... I can't wait to try this. I made this from Kelly's dad's mother's recipe. I hope I did it justice.


The cupcakes are white cake, from scratch, and the frosting is a butter cream with Kahlua, dark chocolate and coffee. These are a few of Kelly's dad's favorite flavors, hope he likes them. Probably the best thing about the cake is that it only makes a dozen cupcakes instead of the usual two dozen, so I'll probably be adapting this recipe a lot.

The dough for the focaccia is still resting. I'll knead it one last time and prep for baking about 45 minutes before Kelly, Steve, and Kelly's dad are due to arrive. The hubby's making pasta and sauce from scratch for the evening meal. Should be good. I think we have enough veggies on hand to make a simple salad to round out the dinner.

The bar is built... mostly

This was what we started off with. It worked, but we knew we could do better.



We purchased stock cabinets, upper cabinets since the depth of the area wasn't deep enough to accommodate a standard cabinet, and here's Jordan the cat inspecting our progress:

We managed to get it level, but heck it we'll ever get it squared with walls that aren't plumb! As long as the booze stays on the shelf I'm happy.


The booze in need of a proper home.


Ta-da! A more or less proper home. Someday, money permitting, we want to clad the top in copper! But for now, it does the trick.

We've finally done it, built a place to house all our booze. Woo hoo, let's have a party.

Bourbon Brownies & Strawberry Cupakes with Tequila Frosting

Yesterday I made Bourbon brownies and strawberry cupcakes with Tequila frosting. The brownines were wonderful, I can't wait to make more. The strawberry cupcakes were good, but I was bummed that the 7-minute frosting I made didn't turn out quite as intended. It tasted just fine, but didn't set up properly. No worries, I topped of the cupcakes with some lemon cookies and a Lemon Drop and everything was fine, see:

No TV - Day 18

Things are going well. Now I don't even miss TV or even think about it. I thought I'd do a lot more baking, but have been busy with other endeavors. I've been reading more, spending time with friends, and making cards. Tonight Kelly and I plan to make lemon cupcakes. I'll post pictures later.

Bitburger Beer Cupcakes

These wonderful cupcakes were indeed made with Bitburger Beer. The frosting was butter cream with malt. They weren't sweet nor bitter, but just right. And they were a huge hit at the Post Office.

Too Tired

I'm too tired to bake cupcakes?! I find this very distressing, but it's probably a good thing as I'd just eat them - which is the last thing I need right now. Rest would probably do me some good. Of course now that I've challenged myself to NO TV, all I want to do is veg out and watch TV, but I'm going to grab the Kindle and read instead.