This is the future home for

hallowed grounds
COFFEE-TEA-BAKERY

The paperwork is a lot of work, the owners of this building are working with us so nicely...and we are excited about getting our things moved in, once we get "our things" LOL...the process of opening shop is quite huge.

So, off to the bank, the plumber and the landlords...keep us in your prayers!

Hallowed Grounds

There it is the name of our new Coffee-Tea-Bake House...

hallowed grounds

So this a formal announcement. We are in the baby stages of our new business! YIPPEE!! Our vision is a Coffee-Tea-Bake House where the Parson's Wife (me) will be able to change the world one cupcake at a time! We celebrated by taking these Pink Champagne Cupcakes to the local bank (who is working very hard on our behalf!) and for some friends who visited last night for a Home and Garden Party...man I wish you could smell these...they were so moist and the buttercream was so rich! I always feel like I need to have the naked cupcakes showcased as well, they are a beauty in themselves!

I also am trying out Picassa 2...and trying those great tools that it offers...this blurring was on purpose, not an error in my photography- THIS TIME at least! LOL

Chocolate Butter Minis with Peanut Butter Icing and Milk Chocolate Curls

Today I played around with my new Hobart 20 qt mixer and convection oven! Made a wonderful buttery chocolate cupcake with a sweet topping of peanut butter icing and little milk chocolate curls. Picture perfect...and hopefully tummy perfect! I SO tried to get one of my favorite pictures behind the cupcake trio, the grandpa praying over his crusty bread and meager bowl of soup...can you see him back there? Doesn't it just make you think? Think about being so very thankful for your very basics. Pondering now on the wonderful Easter blessing of Grace. I thought today's devotion said so much.


And I thought I would put out a picture of the "undressed" cupcake! wink...and the guy who got it done, Hobart!



Last week I thought it would be fun to combine a pound-cake recipe from a "Friendship Cake" starter that a sweet gal from church shared with me, and cheesecake. So here is a cake made up with a cheesecake layer and the friendship cake on top, it was lovely! (Okay, true confessions, I placed the starter in my crock pot that was on the counter, and about midnight I smelled a plastic odor! Yup, you got it my crock was switched on low! Moral of the story? Don't store things in a plugged-in crock pot!)

Bread Baking in the easiest form!

Check out this basic bread recipe, no kneading, no special ingredients, just the basic water, flour, yeast and salt...and well, time. That is the wonder that God gives to us, feeding us with bread, not only THE BREAD of LIFE, but yummy crusty bread like this!

Molding Sugar for Easter

This is a simple and inexpensive traditional Easter project that you can do in an afternoon. The WOW effect is certainly big with this project! So, with pictures and instructions, I hope you will give it a try with your family! God Bless this Holy Week for your families!

Molded Sugar Ingredients:

2 cups sugar
1 Tbs. water
1 Tbs. meringue powder (optional, hardens end product better, but not required)

Mix the above ingredients and cover while not using.

Pat into a mold (a plastic egg mold would be fine, or any chocolate molds), pressing firmly with your hand. Level the back with an offset spatula and invert onto a sheet tray.

Bake for 20 minutes in a 200 degree oven.

Remove from heat, the outer shell of the sugar will be hard. Using a spoon scrape out the inside of the egg to hollow it out, this sugar will still be soft. (Reuse this for other sugar molding projects by re-wetting) Be careful, the egg can crack! Make extra for breakage and crumble up the broken pieces for re-use.

You may paint some of your dried pieces using food color thinned in clear almond or vanilla flavoring.















I printed out butterflies on edible rice paper with my cake printer, if you do not have a cake printer you may still make these butterflies with rice paper and the coloring as you did with painting your dried pieces of sugar. I think this was demonstrated on Martha's show this week.

To finish the egg, attach with royal icing (see blog about cookies for recipe) and nestle the egg into some Fondant for stability. Decorate with icing flowers and Enjoy!

tHE aBsoLUte mOSt IncREdible ChoCOlate GhiRaRdeLLi TowNeCoOkiEs EVeR!!!

Chocolate Ghirardelli Towne Cookies

2 Cups Butter Flavored Crisco
1 Cup White Sugar
2 Cups Brown Sugar
4 Eggs, room temp.
2 teaspoons each: vanilla, baking soda and salt
4 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour
12 oz. Ghirardelli Chocolate Chunks or Chips

Cream sugars with Crisco until light in color and "fluffy" in texture. Add eggs and vanilla. Add soda and salt. Add flour. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes.

(Thanks to Sandy, my favorite cookie gal for getting me started with a version of this exceptional recipe!)

Really, once you use this recipe, you will use it every single time! This makes about 5 dozen cookies, so you can bake up a batch and flash-freeze the other half to bake later. Enjoy!

The snow is incredible today! This is the biggest snowstorm we have had all winter, and we are on "spring break" teeheehee, who would have thought it!? The kids are outside on and off snowboarding and Christopher has been having a ball using his new BB gun (weird confirmation gift eh?)

That's a Yooper thing- eh? LOL

So, let it snow, let it snow let it snow, and I'm off for some corn for poppin'....

Confirmation Sunday (Palm Sunday)

Christopher is Confirmed! We had a wonderful Sunday Morning Worship Service this Palm Sunday, I am so thankful to "Pastor"...wink, he is sorta special to me! I am also thankful to the congregation members, especially "the sisters" who prepared all the palm branches for the children to begin service with.




Cookies and Cakes and Candy Bars... OH MY! They were fun table decorations for the Banquet that followed church service. 100 Cross Cookies with Fondant Icing and Royal Icing flowers, Cakes with Butter Cream, Deep Chocolate and French Vanilla...Hershey Candy Bars with custom Wrappers. What a Grand Day!

Mike Mulligan Quilt Square for Five in a Row

Most people know that I adore Five in a Row Unit Studies, which of course is a sad case, since my youngest is 11 years old now! I am part of a Yahoo Group Quilt exchange, and we each have a quilt square from FIAR Volume 1 that we have chosen, we make a square and mail them to a kind homeschooling mommy, who doesn't really have the time, but has all the heart... and then she takes the 19 squares and sends them out to all of us. The square I embroidered for Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel was such a fun project.

I can't wait to see my set of squares, you gals rock!