My Baking Adventures

I've decided to make a newwww blog! (I haven't made a new one in YEARRRS)

It will be solely dedicated to posting my baking adventures!
Subscribe please. =)
http://joanssweettooth.blogspot.com/

How to make Angry Bird Cupcakes!

My first attempt at fondant!

Pretty good, if I don't say so myself, hehe. ;)

Here's a run through of my baking process:

Step 1 - Make fondant a day or two ahead of time, wrapped tightly (thanks to CookDuke!)

• There are a lot of random ingredients, so buy them ahead of time! (i.e. glycerin)

Step 2 - Bake cupcakes! I made mine red velvet.  Then add a layer of frosting to the cupcakes for your fondant to stick to (cream cheese frosting for red velvet).  This will be your crumb coat layer, and keep the extra frosting to use as the GLUE for all of your fondant work!

Step 3 - Cut fondant into pieces to make the different colors using gel food coloring by kneading! (yay for years of ceramics!)
Also, do all the fondant work on a silicone mat -- I bought mine YEARS ago and never had a reason to use it, so I finally took off the wrapping and used it WELL. =)

• Main body colors: Red, light blue, yellow, green 
• for these, I made them about the size of a fat piece of pie.
• Other features: White (eyes, yellow bird's chest), lighter green (pig's nose), orange (all the beaks), pale orange (red bird's chest), brown (eyebrows and yellow bird's hair), pale orange/brown (yellow bird's eyebrows), orangey-pink (blue bird's eye bags)
• These features are much smaller, so a small piece of fondant will suffice (about the size of your palm)

-- Didn't take a picture - too messy.  I brought home a bunch of gloves from school to keep my hands from staining  through the kneading process.

Step 4 - Roll out the pieces of fondant 

• I bought a 101-piece cookie cutter set at Wal-Mart the other day for $10, and it had the perfect sized circle for the cupcakes!  But obviously, any biscuit cutter or circular fondant/cookie cutter will do. Maybe even a jar or tupperware lid!

Step 5 - Make the other features with the same colors - birds' hair, pig's ears, etc.

Step 6 - Start the smaller features - I don't have any special cutters, so I had to improvise to figure out the shapes. For everything else, I just molded by hand.

• For the eyeballs - I used the small circle inside the "6" cookie cutter
• Pig's nostrils - straw worked perfectly!
• Beaks - used the curve of the "Y" cutter, and then adjusted by hand

(the hills have eyes! don't they look freaky without pupils?)

Step 7 - pupils! - I didn't have black food coloring, or edible marker, so I really wasn't sure what to do, so it finally came to me! I melted some chocolate with a little bit of shortening (chocolate-dipping recipe) and then used a lollipop stick to draw in the pupils. =)

• I forgot to use the chocolate to color in the pig's ears! But by that time, I was too tired.

and TADAAA!

NOTE - keep a color picture of the angry birds nearby and always refer back to it for color and feature references.  I only have a black and white printer, so I had to use my phone, (obviously, it got really messy)

It took pretty much all day to bake and make all of this, but when my parents came home and saw them, it was worth the trouble.

I should have posted this, and baked that AFTER my midterms were over, but oh well! Too late nowww.

I'll post more baking adventures after I finish my midterms! haha =)

Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Done.

Post from Saturday, 20 May 2006

• i have been tagged by... dianaaaaaaaaaaaa
  *Rules of the Game:
  [1]. The tagged victim must come up with 10 different points of someone they find attractive
  

  [1]. 10 different points of someone i find attractive
  - has to make me laugh.. alot
  - christian, of course
  - smart, but not condescending
  - can be serious and honest when it comes down to it
  - devoted and faithful (not just to me, but to family, friends, God)
  - understanding and forgiving
  - masculine.. tooooo sensitive can be a turn off
  - caring and considerate.. able to express their appreciation for others
  - comfortable with others and himself (but not cocky. not insecure and awkward)
  - loves children and is good father material

Overcoming Homeostasis through Adaptation.

here's one of my favorite xanga entries -- from December 11, 2006.

so, i wrote this down lonnnnng time ago and ive been meaning to post it but hadnt gotten around to it, so.. here it is!

and okay. i do admit that this is one of the nerdiest xanga post titles ever, but .. bear with the biological terminology. i swear it will make some sense.

HOMEOSTASIS - the body's tendency to maintain a stable, constant condition

homeostasis is basically what keeps our bodies functioning properly. it's what keeps our blood from boiling over when a fever attacks. it's what takes away the drowsiness of the night as we study for midterms and finals. it's even what makes the extreme urge to poo temporarily disappear when there is no toilet to be found.

however, homeostasis is one of my worst enemies. you might be thinking, "what in the world is joan talking about! we probably would have died and fallen apart with every bacterial infection, every measly paper cut, knee scrape, even a surge of great emotion." but no, i understand the absolute necessity for it in the physical sense, but what i speak of isbeyond the physical sense.

so many times, as Christians, we desire something greater. a stronger bond with God. our hearts and minds know and long for it, but we can't seem to pull our bodies in line with our broken hearts.

we see the solution, we want it, we strive for it, and though it may last a day, a week, maybe even a couple of months, soon, homeostasis takes its effect as it always seems to do. it makes us want to revert back to normalcy. our bodies naturally want to go back to a regular, uninterrupted life of sin.

we always hear it, "read the word. pray constantly. keep building your faith." and the list goes on. in response to it, we often respond with nods and attitudes of repentance.. or anger.. or unfortunately, indifference.

it sounds simple enough: read, pray, believe... but why is it so hard? i blame the homeostasis within each and every one of us for our forgetfulness, for our apathy, our lack of devotion. our bodies desperately want to keep sinning. we've been doing it our whole lives and nature tells us it's okay. we crave it. we take pleasure in it. not sinning just isn't as fun, so, we do it. thus, we fail God.

so this is where adaptation comes into play.
ADAPTATION- a process where organisms evolve over a period of time by natural selection, increasing long term success.

i believe that the reason why we constantly fall back into our regular lifestyles is because we try to fight homeostasis as our only enemy. what we forget is that we must first deal with adaptation. Once adaptation takes place, our old homeostasis levels elevate to new heights where we can more successfully live life for God.

we are sinners by nature and we always will be. if we try to adapt and improve on our own, we will always burn out, falling prey to homeostasis over and over again. but there is hope. jesus gives us grace. he gives us the hope of genuine adaptation. he mercifully gives us a chance to escape our vicious, corrupted cycles of homeostasis. we can overcome homeostasis through the adaptation that only God can grant when we earnestly seek him.

so instead of constantly trying to change what we do (homeostasis), we must change our hearts, our mindsets (adaptation) and soon homeostasis falls in line. and of course that sounds just as hard, if not more, but God is always there to guide... just ask for help

Jeremiah 29:10-14

This what the Lord says: 'When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.

For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

I will be found by you,' declares the Lord, 'and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,' declares the Lord, 'and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.'

Parenthood on Parenting

Mom (Sarah Braverman, Lauren Graham):

Do you ever worry so much about something bad happening to me that you stomped out my fire by accident?

Grandma (Camille Braverman):

We all try to protect our kids. It's what we do, then they grow up and we can't protect them anymore.

And you'd save yourself a lot of grief if you'd accept that fact. I mean, we can be there for them, but you can't protect them. I think it's one of the toughest things about being a parent.

Sarah Braverman to her daughter, Amber:

When you have kids, if you have kids, there's something you should know --very confusing thing that they don't tell you.

You see so much of yourself in them, you see your ironic take on the world, you see your smile, your walk, your sense of humor, whatever..

And you think they're you.

But they're not you.

And they shouldn't have all of your baggage, your fear, and your insecurity, and your life experience and that's not fair, they have their own.

New Mantra for 2011

My new year's motto for 2010 was "Nothing tastes as good as skinny." Yes, it was a great motivational tool, but after a while, things did taste better than skinny, so as you can suspect, the value of that statement faded with time.

But thank to my rimz, I have found my new and improved mantra for 2011:

"Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat."

Much more realistic, practical, and healthy.

This is the year!