Mupcake

Better late than never eh?

I worked today, then came home and worked some more, went to the gym, made and ate dinner and now here I am, finally able to sit down and blog!!

 

This will continue Mug Week!!

 

 

Today we are touching on the Mug Cupcake trend, I like this because well it's practical if you live by yourself, want a small treat, or there are only two of you and a dozen or more treats really doesn't suit you.

 

Kellie sent us her attempt at a Mug Cupcake.

 

The Original

http://www.justanordinarygirllife.blogspot.com/2012/05/cupcake.html?m=1

 

Looks delish,cute, and small but still decadent.

 

The Pinstrosity

 

 

 

Not quite the same huh?

 

Here is what she had to say about it:

 

"Tomorrow is my daughters first birthday so I baked cupcakes tonight for her party. Well I had a little batter left so I put it in a cup and tossed it in the microwave for three minutes...
I was happily icing cupcakes when I smelled smoke. I turned around and it was pouring out of the microwave! My kid was crying, cat was hissing at me, and smoke detectors throughout my entire apartment complex were buzzing!
I only filled the mug up about a fourth of the way... In hindsight I realize I should have only cooked it about one minute instead of three. And I definitely should have kept an eye on it.
I'm trying to get the smoke smell out of my house before my husband comes home from work haha! That'd be just a bit too embarrassing to tell!"

 

No worries Kellie, we have all been there :)

 

So what happened? Well first off I would suggest following the portions listed in the recipe of the original blog, I know we always think we can "I will just wing it.", or "What difference will it make?", but it DOES make a difference. If it didn't this site would not be needed/wanted haha

 

Another thing, Kellie should have done two minutes, maybe two and half and checked on it. The original says to do 2.5-3 minutes, but as a WARNING *All microwaves are different*. Keep this in mind, and keep an eye on this, I feel this is one of those foods that turns on you FAST!

 

As long as you are following the recipe directions, and keep an eye on it while it cooks I think there is a good chance this would work out well. I know some may find it inconvenient to watch it in the microwave while it cooks but seeing as most of us waste time on Pinterest, and throwing imaginary birds as pigs with hard hats on a daily basis I think we can manage haha.

 

Hope everyone had an awesome Wednesday Pinstrosipeeps!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Ombre' Cake Take Two!

Here we are in the throws of summer, and of course many of us are working our butts off to have that hot summer bod, but at the same time, many of us have some new found free time and will be baking our butts off this summer! Today we are talking about the later!

Jessica sent us her Pin Tale about her experience with Ombre' Cake, and her tips on how to make this a Pin Win!!

The Original

http://www.krissys-creations.com/2012/04/celebrating-my-1-year-blogiversary-with.html

The original pin is a fun Strawberry Cake that will surely be the life of any event!

Those colors just scream "I'm fancy!!!!" !

The Pin Win/Pin Tale

Her is Jessica's tale about her lovely Ombre' Cake!

"So I saw this pin and loved how simple and pretty the pink layers looked. It seemed simple enough and with enough wow factor to make it seem like I did a lot more work than actually done. Decided to recreate it myself as a present for Mother's Day to the ladies in my family.

Bought two boxes of basic white cake mix but discovered that the "white" cake mix when made into batter was more of a off yellow color. Wasn't fazed, thought that at worse I would have a very pretty Peach ombre cake.
Mixed up the entire two boxes with a few extra tablespoons of water (makes the cake moister, almost uncooked in the middle) and divided up into three bowls. Used red food coloring, 12 drops in the first bowl, 7 in the second and just 3 drops in the third.

I used cheap aluminum tins, round 8 inch cake pans from the local supermarket. To get the cakes out easier, I sprayed sheets of tinfoil with Pam and laid it around the edge of the cake tin so I could lift it out when it was ready.

When my first and darkest pink cake came out I was a little worried because it wasn't as dark as I had hoped for. The two lighter layers of the cake were very close in color and I was worried it wouldnt show as well. My first layer was more of a hot pink, the second a rose and the third barely pink. Next time I would definitely use a little more food coloring for the layers.

The cakes themselves came out bloated and with a weird brown baked layer on both sides, probably from my super old oven. Luckily, they were thick enough that I could shave off layers from both sides of the cake to make somewhat round cakes that were fairly even in thickness. Once I had trimmed them down I layered them without icing and used a bread knife to make the round shape even.

Used a whipped frosting made from cool whip, instant vanilla pudding and vanilla extract. Once I got the frosting on the first layer of cake it was easy as the thick frosting covered any holes and messes in the cakes. When I got the last layer on top, it looked surprisingly good! A few chunks of cake got torn but the frosting covered it up nicely.

Later at my mom's house, we cut into the cake and I was pleased to find that the inside looked amazing! I didn't think it would turn out that nice. Everyone enjoyed the taste and I would absolutely make this cake again! It was much easier than I thought. Next time I want to make the frosting on the outside a little more fancy to complement the ombre layers."

So there you have it, the key with these ombre' cakes is LOTS of food coloring. I will add that the single drop liqiud coloring can make things have a a strange taste if there is too much coloring in something. If you are going for strong vibrant colors I would suggest using a gel coloring. You can find these at a bake shop, Micheals or Hobby Lobby in the cake decorating section (perhaps even Wal-Mart? Don't quote me on that, but in the cake sections by the crafts? Walton brand I would guess).

Did anyone see the post we had a few months ago on this? The results were similar, and the fix is similar, you cna find that post here!

I LOVE ombre', I don't know how I got sucked into this trend but I can't get enough!

Anyone have any tips to make this an even greater success? Or have any tips on icing that will blow our minds?!

Share them below!!

Happy baking Pinstrosipeeps!!

Sprinkles...Too Much of Good Thing

I'm finished!!! I made it through the semester! Hallelluja! We made it out alive! I'm just as surprised as you are haha

 

Well here today we are talking about cake batter...and fudge...and sprinkles.

All in one.

I'll let you have a minute to pick your tongue up off the floor...

 

 

Ok are we all back together now? Good good, yes you heard me right, a Funfetti-Cakebatter-Fudge.

Boom.

Did I mention this recipe doesn't require a candy thermometer or even a stove.

I know, it literally can't get better than this...enough with the chit chat!

 Show me the goods woman!!

 

The Original

http://bakedfromabox.blogspot.ca/2012/07/cake-batter-fudge-10-minute-recipe.html

 

There you have it, Cake Batter Fudge!!

The original is from a ingenious site found here, that bakes with boxed cake mix. Now THAT is my kind of baking...check it out!

 

Now Vanessa sent us this Pinstrosity and let's see what happened!

 

The Pinstrosity

 

I think it looks like raw meat.

And that's exactly what Vanessa thought too...let's  hear it from her!

"When I first came across the blog post with the recipe, I thought I could easily bake this since there was no oven involved and there are really only four required ingredients (not including the optional extra sprinkles).  In my defense, I followed the recipe directions to a tee with the exception of just adding a 1/4 cup spoonful of butter instead of a broken up 1/2 stick of butter,  I should add that I used Funfetti cake mix instead of white cake mix as well but in reading the blog post comments, it worked out great for those who also used Funfetti mix.

 

Where I started to go wrong was when I read that she added extra sprinkles but did not give an exact amount used.  Since that was not disclosed, I thought I could kill two birds with one stone and throw in an entire container of Christmas sprinkles I had left over from our winter cookie decorating.  As soon as I started mixing the batter and the sprinkles I slowly saw my white batter turn into what I have coined "raw beef red".

 

The picture above is the finished product after sitting idle in my refrigerator after two hours.  It seems to taste great, the only exception is the texture is far from regular fudge considering the extra crisp the sprinkles have added.  My husband's first comment was "This is good but really crunchy".

 

Even though it lacked in the messy department, my friends will not let me forget about my spaghetti sauce, raw beef looking fudge, nor will they let me add sprinkles to anything anymore."

 

There you have it!! Do not be liberal with sprinkles, they are like glitter, and we all know what we said about that...

 

 

Happy Friday Pinstrosipeeps!!! I am off to a day of hair appointments and one of my best friends Graduations! It's a good day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



In A Jam

Occasionally we will find a diamond in the rough here on Pinstrosity. Lucky for me, today was one of those days! Kasia (pronounced ka-sha) found herself with some  a lot of strawberries!! Here is her story, complete with an experiment and her own conclusions! We love these kind of emails! She has put in the work and figured out how to tweak the pins she used to her own "taste" (pun intended).

So from here I will turn it over to Kasia!

 

The Original(s)

http://www.eatingbirdfood.com/2012/05/easy-strawberry-chia-seed-jam/

 

Kasia used two pins, and experimented with both, check it out!

 

http://fooddoodles.com/2012/08/12/in-my-kitchen-this-week-3/

*Let me preface this post by saying that both of the above recipes worked wonderfully for the original bloggers, they liked the jam and shared the recipe on their respective sites. This is on Pinstrosity because someone tweaked the recipes of each of these and it didn't turn out how they were expecting.*

 

The Pinstrosity

 

"...To the meat of my submission... or should I say berries.

 

I love homemade jam. I love the sweet, I love the fresh, I love that it doesn't take too much time and that it tastes oh. so. delicious. Growing up I'd make homemade strawberry and raspberry freezer jam all the time, but when I moved to college the only time I'd get some is if I stole it from home. Now I'm clear across the country from my home and am severely craving fresh strawberry jam. 

 

One of the local grocery stores was selling strawberries for a $1. Yes, I kid you not, a whole pound of strawberries for $1. I bought 5 pounds. It was almost everything my husband could do to keep me from running to the baking goods aisle to find the pectin. Without even looking at the price, I grabbed one box and continued on my merry way excited for all the jam I was about to make. 

 

That night I got started, but come to find out I had WAY more strawberries than the box called for. As I thoroughly enjoyed a slice of bread smothered in fresh homemade strawberry jam I reviewed the receipt and found that the pectin I bought was $4.19 for 1.75 oz! I was trying to justify how delicious the jam was with how expensive it was to make. I was expecting it to be significantly less than store-bought jam, but it added up to be just about the same price...just millions better tasting.

 

I was telling a friend from church about it later and she got really excited as she explained her solution: to use chia seeds as the thickening agent in jam. I had never even heard of chia seeds before. She told me the recipe was simple: 1 cup of mashed berries, 1 tbsp of chia seeds, and sugar to taste. She said that as the chia seeds dissolved in liquid they make this jelly like stuff, with it being cheaper and easier than using pectin, and I should get the same results. So I looked it up.

 

There are a lot of slightly varying recipes but everyone said they loved how it tasted, that it was so much more healthy*, and that the seeds weren't even noticeable in the jam. So I concluded that I needed an experiment to test what everyone was saying.

*because you could sweeten it with artificial or natural sweeteners to taste, and you weren't using pectin--I don't know why pectin gets a bad rap, it is in every fruit, just found in more quantities in citrus pith and pulp...maybe it's because it gets processed? I don't know. Anyway.

 

I got about a 1/4 cup of chia seeds from the bulk foods section in the local grocery store (picked up some cheaper pectin for just in case) and went home to test them out. I followed these two recipes...kind of.  

 

Now before you say uh-oh and know where this is heading I'll explain my tweaks. 1. I just used strawberries, 2 I just used regular granulated sugar (because I like it, a lot, ok?) 3. I didn't add any water because I wanted the chia seeds to just soak up the strawberry juice. 

 

First, I added sugar to the berries so they would macerate. Pic 1

Then I added the chia seeds. Pic 2

Then I turned the heat on the one I was cooking and simmered it really low for about 10 minutes. (I read that chia seeds burn easily and I wanted to avoid that at all costs) 

I kept on comparing them and the cooked strawberry chia seed jam had gelled up nicely in 10 minutes, but the raw jam was still pretty watery after an hour. Pic 3 (cooked jam) Pic 4 (raw jam)

Then for taste test: 

I immediately realized I don't like cooked strawberry jam. I felt a lot of the flavor of the fresh strawberries disappeared. 

Also, the texture was like raspberry jam, meaning I was picking seeds out of my teeth for hours. 

This morning I tested the jams again. Both had continued to thicken, which was good for the raw jam, but the cooked jam was more like a paste. Both were still seedy so I guess they don't completely dissolve like I was told. 

 

So, to conclude my experiment: chia seeds work for thickening jam, if you don't cook the jam it will take longer to gel, you can choose how much sweetener to use instead of having to follow the directions for pectin, and if you don't mind having seeds stuck in your teeth, it is a more cost effective way to do it. But I think I'll stick to buying pectin. 

I think I'd rate it on a GCT scale of a 2, because it worked, but not to my preference or expectation. Either way, I have LOADS of strawberry jam to enjoy now."

 

So there you have it! Her experiment results! I am sure I have a bunch of Jam-ers out there, what's your input?! Let us know!

TGIF Pinstrosipeeps!!!

 

 

 

 

Egg Drop( It In Trash) Soup

Continuing with our theme of Eggs this week is this little doozy! Check it out!

There is a little hole in the wall Chinese restaurant in Albuquerque called Chin's Chinese that first introduced to my love affair with Asian food.

The first thing I had?

Egg Drop Soup.

I must have been five or so at the time, (this is the first I remember of Chin's at least), and my family and I went out to eat which was a treat.

They brought me a starter soup to tide us over while we ordered, and I looked at the interesting looking stuff in the bowl before me with curiosity and a growling stomach.

That one bowl was all it took to get me hooked.

What I wouldn't give for Chin's Egg Drop soup right now!

Well Catherine has a taste for Asian food as well and decided to make a meal out of it.

 

She had the rice, check, she had sweet and sour chicken, check.

But what about the soup?!

She turns to her trusty Pinterest account and the rest is infamous  Pinstrosity history.

 

The Original

http://www.mydailymoment.com/recipes/quick_egg_drop_soup.php

 

Looks delicious doesn't it?! And it just happens to be lunch time over here! Now I need Chinese stat!

But how did Catherine's turn out?!

 

The Pinstrosity

 

 

Looks less than appetizing yes?

 

Catherine explained to us that she followed the directions, minus the scallions which she doesn't like, and this was the result.

 

Her husband was brave enough to taste it, and said it tasted like it looked, in Catherine's words this was "Egg Drop Puke".

 

How can you avoid this happening to you?

Try a recipe that doesn't seem too good to be true. While I admit Egg Drop Soup is one of the more simpler recipes in the book, it shouldn't seem like a complete no brainer.

The recipe she used said to drop the whole egg in there and whip it with a  fork to give you the egg "shreds" that are normally very tasty.

 

According to several other recipes I found you should grab some of the egg on a fork and drop only small portions in at a time. The smaller pieces guarantee that the egg will cook right away assuming you have the boiling broth that is needed for this recipe.

 

Moral of the story here is that if it seems to good to be true, or just too easy, it probably is.

Isn't that how it goes for Pinterest though? Once you have learned this valuable lesson it makes life SO much easier.

One good recipe for Egg Drop Soup I found is on All Recipes Website. I LOVE this website and the reviews for this recipe are through the roof!

 

Happy Friday Pinstrosipeeps!

 

 

 

 



The Ever Elusive Perfect Cupcake

Why is it that we as humans are generally more interested in food if it's colorful?! Look at little kids for instance, they LOVE cupcakes, but if you brought out plain white, plain chocolate, and then this bad boy,

http://thefrugalgirls.com/2013/01/rainbow-cupcake-recipe.html

 

...the kids will ALWAYS choose the rainbow ones. Quite frankly I would pick the rainbow one too! Look at it! It's awesome!!!!

 

Well after what happened to our reader Carrie I think she will be sticking with plain cupcakes for a while. Check it out:

 

 

No bueno. When I first saw this picture I thought I was looking at fruity pebbles...not the case.

 

So what happened? From what Carries tells us this was a case of the overly full cupcake liner :( We have ALL been there...you don't want the cupcakes to sit below the top of the liner, but you also don't want over flow. How do you get the perfect amount in your liner?!

According to TLC Cupcake Wars "How to Make the Perfect Cupcake" which you can find here you shouldn't eyeball it when pouring in the batter. They suggest filling the liner between 1/2 and 1/3 full. Another idea is to do a test cupcake to make sure your whole batch doesn't turn out overly full, or not full enough.

As for rainbow cupcakes, I would suggest doing a spoonful (like your everyday average spoon) of each, ROY G. BP ( I had to accommodate for the recipe) that is 6 spoonfuls, which I think should get you just about between the 1/3 and 1/2 full point in your cupcake liner. Seeing as I don't have any cupcake mix around the house, I can't test it out...darn. :( You might even try a spoon and half for each. TLC did mention that depending on the recipe you are using your batter will expand differently. As a precaution I would stick with a trial cupcake and go from there.

 

Did I mention how much I love these?! These should definitely be at my next birthday bash...but they are almost to pretty to eat! Almost ;)

 

Happy Friday Pinstrosipeeps!

 

 



Crummy Cookie Cake

It's Wednesday! And March is halfway over already! Where has it gone! I feel like I do this every month, "Oh it's almost the 15th, what the heck! Where has the month gone?!" Anyone else do this?!

 

It drives me batty! I feel like I have all the time in the world to get things done and before you know it it's Christmas again. *le sigh*

I do want to let you all know how sad it makes me how busy I am that I  can only post on Wednesday, Friday and the occasional Monday. This going back to school stuff is busy! But I am grateful for my time to come back and write to you all!

Cue readers..."Enough of the chit chat lady, show us some Pinstrosities!!"

With no further ado, here is Meredith's Birthday disaster that she managed to salvage!

 

The Original

http://lifeloveandsugar.com/2013/02/10/chocolate-chip-cookie-cake/

 

It's things like this that make dieting making healthy choices hard. This looks AMAZING!!!

Darn you delicious sugar and chocolate!!!! *shakes fist in the air*

 

Meredith makes a mean chocolate chip cookie (a classic at everyone's home I would assume), and her Hubby's birthday was coming up. She decided to make her chocolate-chip-cookie-loving-man a cookie cake for his birthday! However she kind of forgot about her plans till last minute...

 

The Pinstrosity

 

Bummer :(

So what happened?! Meredith tells her tale here:

 

"Last week was my husband's birthday... and ... we already had all of the ingredients to make the cake!  The instructions seemed straightforward and I couldn't wait to make it.

 Except that I did wait.

I forgot all about the fact that I needed to make the cake until his actual birthday. Which was fine, the recipe said it only cooks for 18-20 minutes so I thought I was good.

Until I got home late from work.

 Then I got in a hurry.

Then the Pinstrosity happened.

 Everything went well until I got to the step that says "remove from over and let cool for a couple minutes on the cookie sheet, then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely". I was in a hurry, so I rushed the "couple minutes" to 5. But of course the cookie cake was not cool and it totally. fell. apart.

I started to tear up and realized, well, there's always Pinstrosity.

Seriously, the thought of you guys helped me fight through the tears and keep pressing forward.

*Meredith we are glad you kept going!!! That's what we are here for! It happens to everyone and don't get down on yourself! You rock!!*

 And by pressing I mean I picked up the pieces of cookie cake that had fall all over the counter, placed them back in a cake shape, and pressed/smooshed them down until it looked like a cake shape again.

 Then I made the icing and covered it up as best I could. After adding some sprinkles and candles it looked halfway like a cake.

 It tasted fabulous!

I had planned just to pipe the icing around the edges like in the picture but because the cake fell apart I had to spread it over the entire cake.

The result was tasty, but terrible looking!

At least I got a laugh out of it! The good news was that everyone that tried it thought the cake TASTED delicious, and I guess that is the most important part!"

 

Meredith we are glad that you kept going and served that yummy cake! You will never forget this birthday, and neither will your husband! I am sure he was so happy that you thought to do all of that for him! Here is her "after" picture!

 

 

From what I can see, she went all out! I see presents, sprinkles, cards, cake, icing, candles, and from the looks of it a balloon string!

You put a lot of love into this and I think that is what is most important and endearing!

And I think you did an awesome job repairing the cake! It looks yummy to me!

 

As for how to make this not happen next time.

One word.

Patience.

I have SO been there, this last year we went to a friends place for Thanksgiving and I made a Gluten Free cake for her grandmother (Chips whole family is gluten free so we have some experience with gluten free cooking/baking) and it took EVERYTHING that I had to not ice that baby the second it came out of the oven! I just wanted it to look pretty! Not to mention how much I love decorating cakes. And can I just say that just because you love doing something-decorating cakes- doesn't mean you should, case in point can be found here.

 

Anyway I think we can all take away two awesome things from this:

1. Wait for that cookie cake to cool or it will CRUMBLE.

And in case you just can't wait...

2. Almost anything can be fixed if you use enough icing. ;)

 

Happy Wednesday Pinstrosipeeps!

Stay tuned for Marquette's post tomorrow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Scrub a Dub Dub

Happy Wednesday!

 

This week is my spring break so I have been doing lots of spring cleaning! Last night we dominated Gypsy's room, that's the hedgehog, it's really our spare room but she lives there so it's hers too ;) That room has been nasty since Christmas! Ah! Embarrassing! I wish I had taken a picture so you can see what a feat that was! But alas, that would be the ultimate embarrassment letting everyone see how awful I let that room get! It's like that one drawer in your kitchen that collects everything from spare change, nuts and bolts, broken pencils, old coupons, random keys to things you don't own anymore to mouse traps. Yes that drawer. Well I have a whole room like that. But at least it is organized chaos now right?! Right?!

 

Anyway I was thinking about how Pinterest is full of those pins about the new green cleaners, and while I just finished cleaning my whole house yesterday with regular cleaning agents (Comet, Windex, Clorox etc.) I wondered if they worked well? I am not opposed to "green cleaners", I just happened to have the others on hand.

Has anyone tried them out?! What worked? What didn't work? Was anything more trouble than it was worth?!

Let us know and we can do a post about it! Send us your stories and pictures here!

 

Let us know, I would go around testing them all but I didn't think about it till this morning after my house is already spic and span, so now I have nothing left to scrub...who knew it could be a bummer to wake up to a clean house?!

 

So all this cleaning had me going through our emails and I came upon two entries that were fails from the same original pin. Let's check it out!

 

The Original

 

http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2011/09/my-kitchen-miracle-cleaner-part-deux.html

 

 

This blog is full of good ideas and fun posts, it's definitely worth stopping by if you have a minute to spare.

This pin is about how you can use the "miracle cleaner" of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda to clean just about anything...

Let's see how it did for our readers yeah?

 

The Pinstrosities

 

From Andrea

 

From Becci

 

 

So what happened?! Clearly it worked for the original blogger, but not so much here.

 

My thoughts:

For one, the original blogger stated that she had a really hard time getting her edges clean with this concoction. From what I see of the first Pinstrosity that is what is having the most issues, and that would explain a little bit of what happened with Becci. However their results aren't nearly as great as the original bloggers.

 

The other thing that comes to mind is that perhaps the finish on the pan and type of pan these ladies were trying to salvage was much different that Jill's (the original blogger).

Another thing to consider is that maybe you could use a toothbrush or a rough textured scrubby to help you out with this. Sometimes elbow grease just isn't enough. I am sure Jill used a sponge on hers, but perhaps hers wasn't quite as baked on as our two unlucky ladies.

 

One thing to think about before you go scrubbing the living daylights out of your pans is that if you scrub too much you can sacrifice the integrity of your pans finish. Becci noticed that after her scrubbing endeavor she had stripped her pan of it's non-stick surface. This makes the pan not as great to use now.

I can say that for most things you can use tin foil on your pan for easy clean up and it will save your pan from a fate like the last two pictures. Sometimes though you are in a hurry and forget tin foil, or you are out, or hubby is making dinner and doesn't realize...life happens is what I am saying. So for all you ladies who have new pans, I would suggest using tin foil, protect your pans!

  For all of you who have older pans which have been beaten to death loved and cherished by food and ovens over the years, I would say give this a good pin to try out but if you are scrubbing hard and it isn't budging it might be time to retire said pan and move on.

 

One more thing I just thought is to perhaps try out a patch on the pan, put the mixture on a small spot and let it sit for five minutes then come back and see how it does with a  little scrub. If it works you have a go! If it doesn't save yourself some time and energy and move on.

 

Does anyone have any other "miracle cleaners" that you have used that you could recommend?!

 

I hope everyone is having a great week!

Stay tuned for Marquette's post tomorrow!

Happy Wednesday Pinstrosipeeps!

 

 

 

 



Waffle Iron Brownies

Who doesn't love a good brownie?! I LOVE brownies. Is anyone starting to notice that I love just about everything? It's a blessing and a curse...

Well even more than I love brownies, I love brownie batter. I get that from my mom, and when we go over for dinner she is sure to save some batter in a bowl for me. Go Louise!

 Is it totally unhealthy for me to eat with the raw egg? Probably. 

Meh, I'll risk it. 

Here is a pin that I hadn't seen before (gasp!) that Kelsey sent to us about her brownie mishap. Check it out!

The Original

 

http://www.chow.com/food-news/54485/common-appliances-uncommon-uses/

This article is about uncommon uses for common household items. I dig it! They even have their very own brownie recipe that you can find here!

The Pinstrosity

Here is Kelsey's not so yummy finished product...

Fail.

Bummer dude.

Now I am not sure if Kelsey used their recipe or her own, however I can say that this just isn't appetizing at all!

Seeing as the original website tried their recipe out with their waffle iron I would suggest sticking with that! It has been tried and true! Also it says to not grease the pan, but I would probably go ahead and give it a hit of Pam just to be on the safe side. Now I haven't tested this out and if you try that and it turns out disastrous please don't come knocking down my door with pitch forks, I gave you warning! 

I haven't tested this!

Anyone want to try this out for me?! I will give you a metaphorical shiny nickle ( that's an honor in my family!).

I do know that waffles have a hard time if they aren't greased beforehand so that's why I would go with the assumption that grease would help. However we all know where assuming gets us. *sigh*

Another thing that might have happened is that they were using two different types of waffle irons. I know that different products cook at different times and temperatures so that may have had something to do with it.

Kelsey I would suggest sticking with the oven until you get it figured out though. 

Anyone have any awesome tips for her? Help a sister out!!

 This girl says she LOVES brownies. 

Wanna start a club Kelsey?! 

Happy Friday Pinstrosipeeps!

 

Ombre` Cake!!

Are you sick of the ombre` trend? We get SO many emails about this trend I literally can't not talk about it (double negative schouble negative).

Apparently I am not, because I just did nude ombre` nails on myself last night!

Here Sonia tried the ombre` cake that we have all been seeing all over Pinterest. She decided to make this cute little treat for her coworkers for Valentine's and as a bonus she could show off her mad skills!

Check it out!

The Original

http://www.eddieross.com/eddie_ross/2012/02/pink-ombre-cake.html

Fun right?! And such a fancy frosting job too! This fun sight Eddie Ross , which I immediately thought of as "Martha Stewart-esque", is actually quite Martha-esque. He used to be one of the head designers for Martha Stewart Magazine, and is now on his own with several returning articles in different magazines around the country. Also I didn't even realize it till now, but I just a read an article about him in Country Living! I LOVE Country Living magazine. Like really, love! Anyone else with me?! Anyway we will leave the biography for another time yes? The cake!

I love this cake, it just screams "EAT ME!!"!

Here is Sonia's take on it...

The Pinstrosity

Here is her story:

"...I can say in my own defense that I never looked at any of the instructions. In fact, I just went out and bought 3 white box cakes and 4 cans of vanilla frosting, and thought "what the heck, can't be that hard".

So away I went with the first box/layer of my cake. I just squeezed the heck out of the little tube of hot pink gel food coloring until I had a nice shade of dark pink. Baked it as instructed on the back of the box. I wish I would have taken a picture of the first layer coming out of the pan. My first failure of the day. The dang thing stuck around some of the sides leaving my bottom layer weak from the get go. I figured I would just use some of that icing to "glue" those pieces back together.

For the next box/layer, I squeezed about half of the gel color into the cake. Looked a lot lighter and what I thought was a good in between pink shade. This layer came out great! Didn't stick at all as I made sure to spray the non stick spray on every square centimeter of the pan this time twice.

Now for the final box/layer I squeezed that tube of gel color again. Only the color of the last cake looked very similar to the second cake. So I squeezed what I had left in that little tube and tried to get a different shade of pink. The cake turned out great with no sticking at all.

So, I began my layers.

Spreading that icing nice and thick using what I had to glue back together the pieces of cake/layer one and in between and on top of the cake.

Now here is the epic fail of the entire project.

The dang thing was so heavy and that first layer that I had so easily glued back together just wouldn't hold up. And so the leaning tower of Ombre` began to lean to the right.

We had quite the laugh at how ugly the dang thing turned out. I decided there was no way I was taking this ugly leaning mess to work and show my co-workers what an epic fail I had made for them. So my sweet husband decided he would give it a taste. This is when I realized my Ombre` cake was really just 3 layers of pink cake two of which were the exact shade of pink! Ugh. At least he thought it tasted great. "

So what happened? Well unfortunately for Sonia, this one has not instructions. This recipe is just one of those picture projects. I know some of us do ok with those, but others don't. Everyone has a different learning style, and when a recipe is involved I think it always turns out better if it is written word for word.

Now the Eddie Ross cake has 6 layers. One the one hand that would be easier to tell a subtle difference in colors from top to bottom, however on the other hand it would be difficult to make slight changes in food coloring amount for the batters!

On the original pin, he has the varying different shades of pink batter, bakes them, lets them cool completely and then shaves the top and bottom off all the cakes to 1. Make them thinner for layering. and 2. Make them have even flat surfaces for easier frosting. I don't think Sonia did this which may have contributed to her leaning tower of ombre`.

Another thing, if her first layer came out pretty awful like she said, she may have been able to salvage it by making it the top layer instead, and shaving off what makes it uneven. Once it's frosted no one would notice. The ombre` would then just start with dark at the top and light at the bottom. Just a small deviation.

To make her ombre` come out more apparent she may need to really make the first layer dark pink. The middle layer a medium pink like she had, and the last layer just a slight hue of pink. All though I really don't think her cake colors came out bad at all (I think it looks nice!), her leaning cake is a problem. I did a layer cake for Thanksgiving, and it definitely takes some practice to get those layers to sit even!

As for Eddie Ross's frosting job, he makes it looks super easy, anyone want to test it out and let us know how it goes?!

http://www.eddieross.com/eddie_ross/

http://www.eddieross.com/eddie_ross/

http://www.eddieross.com/eddie_ross/

Anyone have any luck with the Ombre` Cake?! Let us know!

Happy Wednesday Pinstrosipeeps!



Healthy Chocolate Cookies?!

What's better than chocolate? Nothing. Really nothing, and if you disagree with me (which some of you may...) well than I suppose that is ok too. But I am a admittant chocohaulic. 

They should really have Chocohaulics annonymous meetings...we could do that combined with a Pinterest annonymous meetings, and just a party out of it? Who's with me? I would bring treats! ;)

Well all this started in my brain because of what Mandy sent us, she and her family are trying to be more healthy but added their own twist to it, check it out!

The Pindifferent

http://www.lafujimama.com/2012/09/blueberry-yogurt-cookies/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LaFujiMama+%28La+Fuji+Mama%29

The Original

"My family and I have all been trying to be a little healthier. But it's been hard. We all have a massive sweet tooth and keeping any delicious gooey goodness out of the house has been difficult. But with our wedding coming up in less than 3 months I've buckled down and the whole family has sacrificed. I'm constantly scouring Pinterest for healthy ideas that don't involve protein shakes or plain grilled chicken. *blah* So when I came across this amazing looking recipe using Greek yogurt instead of butter and shortening,I jumped on it. 
I made ONE simple change,
 as the rest of my family is a bunch of big babies and doesn't like blueberries. 

My fix: I just used chocolate chips instead. 

I also used it as a mother/daughter moment and had my oldest daughter 
helping measure,pour and stir.
 And even tried to incorporate math by asking how many 1/4 cups goes in a cup, etc. 

Right away I could tell the texture was off but I had no idea what to do to fix it, 

as I've never baked with yogurt before. So I just dropped it on my pan and prayed
 for a miracle. 

Ten minutes on the nose and I pulled out this delightful batch."

Mandy pulled off a healthy chocolate miracle! I'm not sure if I am allowed to use healthy
 and chocolate in the sentence together, but why not eh?

I know she thinks they may not look pretty like the first ones, but they look like cookies,
 and gosh darn it, that's good enough for me! I may even have to try this! They look delicious!

So Pindifferent, what do we think? Yea or nay? I'm not sure if I love it yet, 
but I don't dislike it either, 

what's the vote Pinstrosipeeps?!

Hope you all had a wonderful Friday!