It's a giveaway!!!!!!

AND NOW...............

It's time....to announce the WINNER!!!:) for a giveaway!!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congratulations Sauda Brown on winning 2 WHOLE DOZEN D'Lish Cupcakes:) and a mini photo session with R. Watson Photography!!!!! 

Winner was chosen using the Rafflecopter widget which randomly selects a contestants entry through Random.Org

Thank you to all that participated!!!!!!!

 

Enter to win a chance for a FREE 30 minute mini photo session with (click the link and like if you're not already a fan) R. Watson Photography and 2 dozen Cupcakes from (click the link and like if you are not already a fan) D'Lish Cupcakes Ky!

To enter all you have to do is like both Facebook pages and then inbox your email address to either page and we will enter you for the drawing!

If you are already a fan, still inbox us your email address to be entered*

Contest ends 10-26-12 at 12:01 AM EST and the winner will be notified by email!
*Contest is only open to residents of the Greater Louisville, Ky area. Contestants MUST BE A FAN OF BOTH PAGES TO GET A CHANCE TO WIN. Entrants that have not liked both pages will be disqualified!!!

This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. We hereby release Facebook of any liability. Winner(s) will be contacted by email 48 hours after the giveaway ends. If you have any additional questions - feel free to send us an email!
Contest is only valid for residents of Louisville, KY.
Prize redemption for R. Watson Photography can be scheduled by the prize winner with R. Watson Photography no later than November 3, 2012. Prize includes a Cd with 10 edited photos. Up to 5 people for the mini session at 1 set location.
Prize redemption time for D'Lish Cupcakes Ky can be scheduled by the prize winner with D'Lish Cupcakes Ky no later than November 16, 2012.
Cupcakes containing alcohol are excluded from the offer. Cupcakes are not available for free delivery. Only 1 cupcake flavor per dozen.

My new official logo!

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of working with graphic artist, Kyle Gordon on creating my new logo. I absolutely love it, and I hope you do too!

Fun In The Sun With R. Watson Photography!

 

Earlier this summer, one of my dearest, nearest friends, Renee, took some awesome photos of my daughter.  Renee is one of the most amazing women that I have met in my life! She is a very loving, creative, and funny person. She has 3 absolutely gorgeous children, and an awesome husband! Little does she know, but she inspires me to be a better mom and a more creative person all of the time. I love it! I truly appreciate our friendship and I am looking forward to working with her again on something very fun very soon. If you are in the Louisville, Ky metro area and you are looking to capture some moments through photos, check her out!  I love her work! Thank God for talented friends!!

Vanilla Cupcakes

Chocolate Covered S'mores Apple

I've tried different things before that were s'mores-esq like a s'mores cupcakes and also a graham cracker with cream cheese dipped in coating chocolate, both turned out well. This time I wanted to try a candy apple.

As with most of my food experiments, it all started with a sale at the grocery store on some large and beautiful Granny Smith apples. I didn't know what I had planned for them until I happened to look at Instagram one day and it seemed as though every person that I followed was making s'mores. Then the light bulb went off.

These were actually alot easier than I anticipated. I have made several different kinds of coated apples with caramel, and sometimes working with getting the caramel just the way I liked it seemed to be a chore. To fix that problem, I decided I would just dip the apple in chocolate. The results were amazing!

I didn't eat the apple because as I have stated before, I am dieting, so I gave it to my cousin who said it was very good. By the looks of it, I believed her.

These are super easy to make and all you need are a few ingredients.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup chocolate chips (I used Ghiradelli semi sweet)

(do not use coating chocolate for covering the apple as it will not adhere to the apple when it is cut)

4 graham cracker sheets rough chopped and slightly crushed

1 cup mini marshmallows

1 large Granny Smith apple rinsed and dried

1 wooden stick or lollipop stick large enough to support the weight of your apple

Directions

Remove the apple stem and stick your stick into the center of the apple down through the core being careful not to go through to the bottom.

In a large bowl toss together your graham cracker pieces and crumbs, marshmallows, and 1/2 cup of chocolate chips by hand and set this aside.

Place the remaining 1 cup of chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl and melt them until smooth. DO NOT OVER HEAT!!!

Holding the apple by the stick, take a spoon and evenly apply the melted chocolate onto the apple. I left about 1/8 of the apple uncovered at the top.

After the chocolate has been applied scoop your mixture of grahams, chips, and marshmallows into your hand and press them onto the melted chocolate until it is covered.

*If you really want to be fancy, take some melted coating chocolate or chocolate bark and place it in a small plastic piping bag/ Cut a small hole at the end and decoratively drizzle chocolate all over your apple.  

To slice the apple, run a large cutting knife under hot water until the blade is heated. Dry the blade and slice your apple...or just bite into it.:)

Enjoy!!

Chocolate Covered Faux-nuts with Sprinkles

I have been asked about 1,999,999 times to make doughnuts. Seriously, I’m not exaggerating. My daughter loves chocolate covered doughnuts and every since she saw Paul Dean make some doughnuts on her show I have been asked, no, begged several different times to make them. Each time resulted in me making something else, and that is pretty much the case for this time too.

We were able to agree on chocolate covered cinnamon rolls as these are some of her favorites. To make it more doughnut-esq, we just cut holes out of the centers and covered them with sprinkles.I used this recipe for cinnamon rolls that I found on Allrecipes.com a while ago. This is my 3rd time making ½ of a recipe and they are probably some of the best cinnamon rolls that I have ever had. The recipe involves a box, or in my case a ½ of a box, of yellow cake mix. Normally I do not use cake mix for anything but chess squares, but I gave it a try and I absolutely love them and so does my daughter!

For the chocolate glaze, I used this recipe from WeWorkForCheese.com. It is simple and absolutely scrumptious. I think my daughter licked most of the chocolate from the spoon. The only difference in this recipe is that I used Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa instead of just regular unsweetened.

Instead of making the rolls in a crowded pan I placed them on parchment lined baking sheet so that they would get a brown crust all the way around like a doughnut would. After they cooled I dipped them in the glaze, cut the centers out and then sprinkled them. Using a circle cutter, we cut the centers out before dipping just so the sprinkles would only adhere to the outside of the faux-nut.

After everything was done, my daughter was absolutely thrilled at how her faux-nuts turned out and hasn’t asked me, so far, to make any more doughnuts. Let’s see how long this lasts. :)

Chocolate Covered Oreos

Finally made these after looking at the wrappers and chocolate and mustering up the motivation. They're just the right amount of sweet, and the wrong amount of fat!:)
I'll post instructions later.

Dark Chocolate Blood Orange Brownies with Red Cherries

A couple of weeks ago I had a rare Saturday off work and it just so happened to be absolutely beautiful outdoors! I decided to take full advantage of this and go to a local Farmers market in my neighborhood in search for some really great watermelon. Unfortunately, I was unable to find much fresh produce that I desired or needed but I did happen upon Primo Oils, a vendor that sells gourmet olive oils and vinegars. They had me at "peach white balsamic". :)

After tasting some very interesting flavors such as chocolate balsamic, I ended up getting the peach white balsamic and a blood orange olive oil. While I wasn't able to score any great watermelon or berries, I had some new ingredients to experiment with so I was pretty happy about that!

Fast forward to today. Let’s just say that I haven't had much luck with fruit in my area these past couple weeks. My local Kroger had red cherries on sale for $2.99/pound so of course, me being the cherry-holic that I am, took full advantage of this. I tasted one from the bunch that I picked, however once I got them home and tasted others I was thoroughly disappointed. What do you with a $9 bag of subpar red cherries? You make dark chocolate blood orange brownies and add them into the batter, of course! Did I mention that I am dieting and cannot eat these brownies? Yeah, I know.

After scouring many recipes I finally decided on using this recipe from Sweet Pea's Kitchen and I only made minor adjustments and one major one. The biggest change was adding the blood orange evoo in place of the vegetable oil. The minor changes were that I omitted almond extract because I didn't want it to conflict with the orange evoo, and  I omitted espresso powder because the Special Dark adds enough depth on its own. I used just a little more cocoa powder than the 1/3 cup in the original recipe.
 I also decided last minute to add chocolate ganache on top...as if they were not sinful enough! :) lol!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Hershey Special Dark cocoa powder

1/2 cup boiling water

2 ounces semi sweet Ghirardelli chocolate chopped into small pieces

4 Tablespoons melted butter

1/2 cup blood orange evoo

2 large eggs

2 egg yolks

1 tsp. vanilla bean paste

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp. salt

1/2 cup semi sweet Ghirardelli chocolate chips

2 cups fresh red cherries pitted and chopped 

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Grease a 9 x 13 metal or glass pan with oil or butter.

3. In a large mixing bowl whisk together the cocoa powder and boiling water until it is smooth. Make sure the water is still hot because the heat will be used to melt the chopped chocolate.

4. Add the chopped chocolate and stir into the cocoa until it is completely melted and smooth.

5. Add in butter, oil, eggs, egg yolks and vanilla paste and whisk all ingredients in until it is well combined leaving no traces of egg or yolks.

6. Add sugar and whisk in until it is equally distributed and fully incorporated to your batter.

7. Stir in flour completely using a rubber spatula and be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl when necessary.

8. Fold in chopped cherries.

9. Pour batter into your baking pan and place in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the center is no longer runny when a toothpick is inserted.

10. Let cool for about 2 hours

Banana Applesauce Pancakes

Ingredients
Makes about 15 pancakes

•1 and 1/2 cups of unsweetened cinnamon applesauce (recipe follows or use your favorite brand)
•1 cup self rising flour
•1 cup Bisquick
•2 eggs
•2 ripe bananas mashed
•1 cup unsweetened almond milk (or whatever milk you use)
•1 tablespoon of Madagascar bourbon vanilla extract
*Optional 1/2 cup of chopped pecans or walnuts

Cinnamon applesauce
•1 medium Granny Smith apple
•1 medium Golden Delicious apple
•2 tablespoons of brown sugar
•2 tablespoons of cinnamon


Cooking Instructions

Cinnamon applesauce
Peel and core both apples. Place them in a food processor with 1/3 cup of water and process until it looks pulpy, like applesauce. Place processed apples in a small sauce pan with brown sugar and cinnamon and cook on medium heat until it starts to bubble. Stir often to mix the brown sugar and cinnamon in completely.
Remove from heat and let cool.
*This should make about 1 1/2- 2 cups



Pancakes
Preheat your skillet to medium heat, I use a cast iron skillet and about 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil. Place eggs in a blender until light and frothy. I use a blender for my eggs because I want to get as much air into the eggs as possible. Pour blended eggs into a mixing bowl. Add mashed bananas, vanilla, and cinnamon applesauce. Mix well until all ingredients are incorporated. I use my stand mixer with my paddle attachment for this.

Add the Bisquick, self rising flour, and milk to the banana mixture and mix together until all ingredients are fully incorporated. This can be done by hand or with your stand mixer if you prefer.
Batter will be runny.

Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup, place batter into hot skillet. Once you start to see bubbles sprinkle a little pecans onto your pancake. Once more bubbles start to appear and the pancake starts to slightly rise you can flip it. DO NOT SMASH THE PANCAKE WITH THE SPATULA!!!! This only makes it taste more dense. Cook until the other side is brown and done. Serve while hot.

My logo!!

Fondant Cupcake Toppers

I finally was able to make some cupcake toppers that I was actually proud of! Normally I purchase them from various vendors but I figured, "hey I can do this! So..I did it:)
The theme was Selena Gomez Wizards of Waverly Place. The decor wasn't quite what I expected because it was really girly with flowers and paisley, and I was expecting wands, wizard hats, etc. Needless to say, I was thrilled that it was super girly.
This is what I came up with based in the decor and other things I've seen on google.