Sweet & Sparklie Christmas Kitchen

Well, here it is... the end of my Christmas Home Tour! I saved the kitchen for last and I hope you have fun visiting. My kitchen has a "Christmas Sweets" theme going on here. It all started with the chandy a couple of years ago. I didn't have a tree to display my cake/cupcake ornaments near the kitchen, so I hung them on the little chandy above the sink! I love them up there. As my collection grew, I ran out of space on the chandy, so I "borrowed" the idea hanging them in the window from the fabulous Elyse. I wrapped a tension rod with ribbon and hung my ornies on pink polka dot ribbon with clips. It was the perfect solution, and I love the added sparkle in my kitchen!

The aqua and pink pastry/ice cream decorations fit naturally into the color scheme of my kitchen. I even found some candy canes in pastel colors. The gingerbread man sink sponge came from HomeGoods. I think he adds to the whimsy going on in here.

I have this spice rack of sprinkles and the straw canister out all year. I just change the colors and sprinkles out to match the current season. I served milk with paper straws last weekend when I baked a chocolate cake and my family loved them. It was nostalgic for the adults, and fun and new for the younger family members!

I love sprinkles... and have a pretty extensive, obsessive collection. I don't display them all at once. I would really love to have the space to do that like Saucy. Her sprinkle shelves are something that legends are made of. Seriously.

If you turn around from the sink in my tiny kitchen, this is what you see. I don't decorate for Christmas much over here except for the towels and vintage apron hanging on the oven door.

I love this new addition to my Christmas towels. It was one of the amazing gifts I received for my birthday from my dear friend Lisa. (I'm saving the rest of the gift for another post and I can't wait to share it with you!) I love the stitching on this adorable towel. It had me at the rickrack and pom pom trim! I grew up calling pom pom trim "dingle berries"... do any of you call them that? Just curious.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little tour of my little Christmas kitchen. My kitchen is small, but it's perfect for me... especially when decorated with sparklie sweets!

Hugs,

Well, Zippity Aye and Heido Ho...

Today is my birthday! So in honor of this fabulous day, I thought I'd make you some cakepops! I saw these on Bakerella's blog probably more than a year ago, and I've always wanted to try making them. By the way, Bakerella has come out with a cookbook focused on these fun little morsels. It looks like a good one, and it's on my wishlist!

I wish that I could actually send these to all of you. I've been preparing these goodies to give to some friends that I'm spending the day with~ a great excuse to use my new colorful baker's twine! Yeah! I love baker's twine, and it comes in so many fun colors now.

This is what they look like in the inside. I took a bite of that one piece... I couldn't help myself! It's okay though 'cuz it's my birthday.

All wrapped and ready for gifting! I hope that they will like them...

I made a chocolate covered version also... as you can see, one of these things is not like the others! (Can you hear that Sesame Street tune in your head?) Apparently, it helps to get the cake/frosting/chocolate proportions correct, or this will happen!

Yummmmmm!!! I hope you are all having a fun, fall weekend... I'm off to go celebrate now!

Hugs,

Halloween Yummy Time

I always get into the baking mood around Halloween. I have my favorite things that I like to bake for Halloween, but this year I went a different direction after seeing these adorable candy corn cupcakes on a few blogs. This is my version~

I decided to bake these to bring along to a Halloween party tonight. I don't like to show up for a Halloween party empty handed. Besides, I needed to make up for the fact that my costume was, uhm... just a hat.

This is a better snap of the actual cupcake. It was difficult to get a really good shot that showed the colors of the cupcake. I just tweeked a box mix to make it yummier (add sour cream), and then split the batter. I mixed in orange coloring to one bowl, and yellow to the other. Next, you fill the bottom of the white paper cupcake cup with about a tablespoon of yellow batter. Add about a tablespoon of orange batter on top. Bake and cool. I frosted the cupcakes with a mock whip cream frosting, but you can use whatever white frosting you prefer. It just needs to be white, to carry on the yellow-orange-white look of a candy corn. Garnish cupcake frosting with a candy corn and... viola! You've got a cute, simple Harvest/Halloween cupcake! (I have fallen in love with these gummy candy corns from Target, so that's what I used.)

Last weekend I brought these simple, yummy oatmeal cookies to a Halloween party. The recipe is no big secret~ it's printed on the inside of the lid on the Quaker Oats box. They're called "Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies". They are soft and chewy, just the way I like them. I added craisins, raisins, and golden raisins to this batch. I love walnuts in them also, but left them out for this party batch.

Just a little show n' tell here... no photo styling here folks. I've totally enjoyed having these pumpkin trees in my kitchen window. I found them at Trader Joe's and I love, love, love them! I sorted through all the bouquets in the store to find the perfect batch. I like when they have a few green "pumpkins" on them.

Well, I've got to get going. I hope that you have a wonderful Halloween weekend~ stay safe and have fun!!

Hugs,