Spring Fever and Piping Practice

Unseasonably warm temperatures have me thinking about spring flowers. 
Yes, spring fever has struck and I succombed to it by making floral cupcakes for the Ladies Tea and Luncheon at church. Spring fever isn't the only reason I made these cupcakes. 

I have been wanting to practice piping buttercream flowers with my new petal tips. 
I did find that piping the flowers individually on a flower nail was time consuming. However, I believe that the end results were worth the amount of time spent piping each purple bloom onto a square of parchment paper on top of a flower nail. What do you think? 
I also piped the daisy/aster blooms indiviually. 

Purple flowers - 104 tip and a 3 tip for the yellow centers
White flowers - 102 tip and a 5 tip for the centers
Green ruffles on the cupcakes - 104 tip
Yellow drop flowers - 224 tip

The Cupcakes
Lemon and strawberry are the two flavors I chose to use in these cupcakes. I purchased a box of each flavor at the local grocery store. After mixing the cake batters, I put about 2 Tbsp. of yellow lemon cake batter in each cupcake liner. Next, I topped the lemon cake batter with pink, strawberry cake batter. A swirled "S" with a butter knife created marbled cupcakes that are pink and yellow. 

I made 2 dozen cupcakes and used the left over batter to make 1-9 inch layer cake. After cooling the layer cake, I wrapped it in plastic wrap and it is in the refrigerator freezer compartment waiting for me to torte it, or slice it crosswise, and to fill/frost with buttercream frosting.

Baked Italian Pasta Skillet

Yield: 4-6 servings         Time: about 40-50 minutes

Ingredients

• 8 ounces of small shell pasta
• 1/2 pound ground chuck
• 1/2 pound whole hog, mild pork sausage
• 1/2 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1  - 4 ounce can mushrooms, drained
• 1 - 24 ounce can meat spaghetti sauce
• 1 - 10.5 ounce can cream of mushroom soup
• 1/8 cup water
• 1 cup shredded Colby jack cheese, slightly packed
• 1 Tablespoon Parmesan Romano cheese
• 1 ounce, or about 18 thin slices of pepperoni

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F or 175 degrees C
• Fill a 2 to 2.5 quart sauce pan about three-quarters full of water and bring to a boil. Do not add salt.

• While you're waiting for the water to boil, chunk up and brown the ground chuck, pork sausage, and dried Italian seasoning in a 12 inch, oven safe skillet.

• Sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon of Italian seasoning over the meat and mix it with a spatula as the meat browns.
• Place the browned meat into a colander that is sitting on top of another dish, or paper towels to drain off any excess fat.

• When your pot of water begins to boil, pour in shell pasta, and cook until al dente, about 7 - 8 minutes. Let the pot of water come back to a simmer after adding the pasta, but don't boil it. 
• While the pasta cooks, rinse your oven proof skillet briefly with hot water to remove excess fat.
• Next, combine the spaghetti sauce, mushroom soup, drained mushrooms, water, teaspoon of brown sugar, and 1/4 tsp. of dried Italian seasoning in the skillet.

• Add the browned meat.
• Drain the al dente pasta and stir it into the skillet of meat sauce.

• Slice pepperoni slices into quarters and sprinkle over the top of the pasta mixture.
• Next, sprinkle the cup of shredded cheese over the top of the pasta
• Finally, sprinkle the Parmesan Romano cheese over the top of the shredded cheese.
• Bake in preheated oven until the cheese is melted and bubbly, about 20 - 25 minutes.

Enjoy eating some almost homemade happiness on a plate!

My Cooking Hasn't Been Fancy

Since the beginning of January 2017 I haven't been posting much because I really haven't been cooking as much. 
Working 40 plus hours and winter weather has kept me viewing Netflix, or DVR recordings of cooking shows more than I have been in the kitchen.
Dinner - Deli Chicken
Twice a week, dinner has been fried chicken from the store deli, rotisserie chicken from the store deli, and canned veggies. Not real exciting fare.
Pasta, Pasta, Pasta
Next has been a lot of pasta with homemade white sauces. The hubby has a stomach issue that is keeping him from eating most tomato based pasta sauces. See? Nothing real exciting. Certainly not post worthy. I have already posted about making a basic white sauce.
Click Here for the white sauce recipe.
Roast in a Crockpot
 My crockpot has been getting a workout making pork roast and chuck roast that is served with the thickened broth. Again, nothing real exciting or post worthy.
Homemade Pizza
Pizza has also been served quite a bit lately and I have already posted about how to make homemade pizza,
Click Here for the update and recipe link
Future Posts
My youngest grandson is turning one in February and I am making a rubber duck smash cake. Watch for the pictures and step by step photos. Also, tricolor, Valentine cookies for the grandkids are going to be baking in a week or two.
So keep looking through my recipes and cooking up some homemade happiness on a plate!

Rosette Birthday Cake

Cake mix strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting. 10" bottom layer and 4.5" top layer

Cake Pan Hack

Use a removeable, 1.5 quart crockpot to bake a 4.5 inch cake layer. Grease and flour the inside of the small crockpot insert, pour in about an inch and a half of batter, and bake for about 20 - 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few crumbs clinging to it.

Wilton 1 tip created large rosettes. Small open star tip for small red flowers. Small leaf tip for the leaves. #5 writing tip for writing. 

Bottom and top layers are split and filled with cream cheese frosting.

Princess coach was made using the mold shown below and melted vanilla bark. The gold is from Wilton color mist, an edible spray. 

Melted vanilla bark held a round toothpick onto the back of the molded candy carriage. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday Season!