Minion Cupcakes

If you remember, back in August I made a blog post about why I love the movie, Despicable Me. Before the second movie came out in July I recalled seeing a web image of cupcakes made to look like the minions. A quick Google Image search came up with several sites and it looked like each one made them the same way.
Here are how ours turned out:

This one was mine

This one was A's

This one was my mom's

And this one belonged to K

They were very easy to make and fun to decorate. Here are the instructions in case you want to bake some of your own:

1. Bake cupcakes and frost them. (We used chocolate cupcakes but probably yellow would have been better. I also used blue cupcake liners and frosting to look like their overalls.)

2. Cut a Twinkie or similar treat in half and stick it to the center of your cupcake. (When we made ours Twinkies weren't back on the shelves yet so we used Little Debbie Cloud Cakes.)

3. Using black gel icing, draw on a mouth and the black part of their goggles. You can also add eyelashes if you minion happens to be a girl, like K's :)

4. Stick a white Smartie on the goggle outline and add a drop of black gel icing for the eye.

5. Stick chocolate sprinkles in the top for hair.

And that's it. Fun to make and a sugar overload to eat. Yum! Oh, and speaking of sugar overload...

Until next time,
J :)

Recipe: Slow Cooker Applesauce

Oh my, this applesauce is SO good and the best part is, there's no sugar added! According to the website where I got this recipe, My Whole Food Life, "Slow cooking the apples allows for the natural sugars to come out. Plus, adding spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla makes the dish seem sweet without having to add any sugar."

10 apples peeled, cored and cubed
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 heaping tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup water

Throw everything in the slow cooker. Cook on high for the first hour, stirring occasionally. Then turn to low and cook for another 6 hours or so. The longer you cook it, the better. We like ours chunky but if you like it smoother you can blend it at the end. That’s it, and your house will smell amazing too!

Recipe: Slow Cooker Apple Crisp

As you may recall we recently went apple picking so I have lots and lots of apples to use in various recipes. The first three recipes I feature here are going to be utilizing a slow cooker because it's just so simple to toss all of the ingredients in and forget it the rest of the day.

This first recipe came from the website, Repeat Crafter Me. It's a great site that my sister-in-law introduced me to when she made our family matching owl hats last Christmas.

This apple crisp was easy to make, very tasty, and reheats well. My only complaint with it is that it uses a lot of butter. However, if you are looking for a hands-off, no fuss recipe, this is it.

6 apples peeled and sliced thin
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup quick oats
2 tsp cinnamon
2/3 cup softened butter

Place the sliced apples inside the slow cooker. Mix the remaining ingredients together and put on top of the apples (do not stir). Cover and cook on LOW about 6 hours.

I served ours with vanilla ice cream which I highly recommend.

Enjoy! - J

Apple Picking

A few weekends pack we went apple picking at our favorite orchard. It was the first time for little E and it's been a few years since we actually picked apples with K (we go every year but usually we just buy a bag of pre-picked apples and just pick pumpkins out of the patch.) It was a really fabulous time and both girls enjoyed themselves immensely.

Our bushel before we picked our apples.

It's great having Daddy to reach the perfect apples way up high.

K found the perfect apple.

E was definitely enjoying her apple as well.

A family photo on the tractor after filling our bushel.

Our beautiful bushel of Gala and McIntosh apples.

K pony-back riding.

The gift barn had these super cool resin steam punk pumpkins.
K thought this one looked like Larry from VeggieTales.

Now that we have all of these apples, I'll be sharing some apple recipes I find online and share whether they're hits or misses.

Have a great night! - J