Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Chocolate Cherry Muffins


No special occassion for the baking. My husband left for a month overseas so I wanted to console myself with something delicious. This is a recipe my mom used to make. I remember hers being oversized, stuffed with chocolate and deliciously cherry. I made mine a bit smaller and just as delicious.

Chocolate Cherry Muffins
*You can add more chocolate or cherries depending on your taste

2 c. flour
1/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 c. milk chocolate chips
1 c. maraschino cherries (chopped in quarters)
3/4 c. milk
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1 egg
2 tbsp. maraschino cherry juice

Preheat oven to 375. Mix all dry ingredients together including the chocolate chips and cherry pieces. You want to coat the chocolate and cherries in the flour mixture so they evenly disperse in the batter. In a separate bowl mix the wet ingredients: milk, vegetable oil, egg, and cherry juice. Combine wet and dry ingredients and stir to combine. Pour evenly in 24 cupcake liners and bake 18-20 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Early Independance Day



After spending another month away, my husband was supposed to be home for the rest of the summer. A necessary and long awaited break that we were counting on to spend some quality time together. As we've come to expect in the military, plans change. Now, after spending roughly a total of a month home in this present year of 2009, and just getting back this month, my husband will be sent out again come next week.

Seems a little depressing to know that in the past year and the beginning of this year, a total of 19 months, I've only spent 3.5 months with my husband. It doesn't seem quite fair that you dedicate your life to the country and it repays you by never allowing you to spend time with what means the most to you, your family.

While all of this may sound depressing; we are able to look positively on the situation. We know that one day this will all pay off and that there are only a few years left until we're finished. One day we'll look back on this time as just a small portion of our existence together. And hopefully we'll be able to laugh.

Until that day, we are in preparations for the next underway and to commemorate our countries birthday we decided to have a little BBQ this past weekend. Less on the commemorating and the more on the ingestion of libations as we were sorry for their impending underway this week. Nonetheless, I made some celebratory cupcakes.

Happy Birthday, America.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

I've Been Described as Cool, Awesome, Hot, Video Games, The Hottest and Real Real Hot....

I was cleaning up my photo collection and comprising some photos of things I've created and baked in the past when I came across this wondrous beauty. One of the most gratifying creations I'd ever made; this cake of Strongbad was for my sisters birthday quite a few years ago. If you aren't familiar with the awesomeness that is Strongbad and all Homestarrunner creations please visit Homestarrunner.com for all its coolness.

I believe I will attempt a new cake with possibly more character creations from the Homestar series. Hopefully it will be full of much more awesomeness than this one....