Yours

(Video from: http://splatexperience.com)

In light of Easter weekend I thought I’d repost a blog and poem I wrote a couple years ago for my other blog, The Waking. Hope you guys enjoy and are reminded of the amazing sacrifice our Savior made for us. Happy Easter, friends! :)

I feel like I’ve been a little more reflective this year of the sacrifice that Jesus made for me … for us. It’s amazing to think that the sinless, blameless Son of God would take my sin and shame on himself.

I think of my life thus far, all of 26 years, and I can’t help but think of all that has been forgiven. I look ahead and I’m sure there will be many more things that need to be forgiven. I think of the times that I’ve asked for forgiveness and still felt guilty… so I would ask again, and again. As if He couldn’t or didn’t hear me the first time. There have just been times I haven’t trusted his forgiveness enough to forgive myself. But he paid it all. My debt has been paid in full and there is nothing I did or could ever do to deserve it. It’s a gift Jesus offers with open arms and all I have to do is accept it and trust in it.

The miracle of the cross is that Jesus not only died so we could be forgiven of our sins, but that we could also turn from them and be transformed. His grace is not there to excuse our sin but to save and free us from it. I didn’t mean to ramble on this much… I just feel thankful.
 
This Easter I hope you reflect on all Jesus has done for you, I pray that you accept and trust in the gift of salvation. I pray that you experience the fullness of salvation that was purchased for you on the cross.
 
Yours
You’ve grown me up. Sculpted my skin, skin that still has the imprint of your hand. I am uniquely yours.
 
And for a time I breathed nothing in but you. For a time in my life beauty was about to begin. But I caved in, into my own sin. It was then that there was a new imprint on my skin. One that was uniquely mine.
 
But the blood that was shed to wash away my sin, the iniquity of all men. The life that was taken so I could be born again. Thorns on your head, nails in your hands left an imprint of my sin on your holy skin. Son of God, son of man the imprint of the nails on your hands has brought me back to life again.

Songs For Easter Reflection:

A Drop of Blood by The Ember Days
I Wonder by Tara Leigh Cobble
Revenge by Jon Foreman
Why by Nichole Nordeman
The Beginning by Showbread (Nervosa album)

Snickers Cupcakes

If there’s anything that can make chocolate cupcakes even better … it’s definitely a Snickers Bar. I made these Snickers cupcakes for my cousin’s baby shower last month and I’ve been meaning to post this recipe.

This being her first baby, to say that we were all super excited would be an understatement. So planning for this shower started early. We knew there had to be cupcakes involved, they were just simply mandatory, but we weren’t sure what kind. We looked at several different recipes but finally landed on testing out a recipe we found for Snickers Cupcakes. Unfortunately, we were less than thrilled with the results. But it sort of became my mission to get these right … therefore I admittedly went a little nuts and tried out two more recipes lol. I mean this girl is not just my cousin she’s like my sister, it was important to me to get these right. But the good news is after combining a few different recipes, I got it! :D

I was so happy with how they turned out! My cousin said she loved them and everyone at the shower seemed to really enjoy them as well, which made all the recipe testing totally worth it! It was actually one of many delish treats at the shower, which was so lovely by the way!

And just a couple weeks later, her beautiful baby boy was born almost a month early. It was so special to see and hold him. It seems like just yesterday that my cousin and I were playing dolls and now she has a baby! Crazy! We’ve been through so much together and have so many good memories with each other. From Barbie's, Saved By The Bell, *Nsync, road trips, and lots & lots of concerts to weddings, and now babies! Okay, now I’m getting too emotional lol. So I’ll spare you the water works and just give you the cupcakes! ;)

Snickers Cupcakes -

(Recipe adapted from http://www.annies-eats.com/)

Moist chocolaty cupcakes, fluffy caramel frosting, and Snickers…needless to say these are a little rich but very delish!

I used Hershey’s chocolate cake recipe, which is my old stand by, you just can’t go wrong with it. I also added in a little coffee & melted Ghirardelli chocolate. The filling is chopped up Snickers coated in caramel topping. They’re topped off with Salted Caramel frosting, more chopped Snickers, and caramel topping.

These cupcakes are so easy to make. And let me just say this is the best Salted Caramel frosting I’ve tried so far. It complements the chocolate cupcakes perfectly!

With bits of Snickers inside as well as on top, this will make any Snickers fan a happy camper! Hope you give ‘em a shot! :)

Cupcakes -

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa or HERSHEY'S SPECIAL DARK Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Directions:

Heat oven to 350°F. Line a cupcake pan with cupcake liners.

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of electric mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into lined cupcake pan.

Bake 16-18 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan to cool completely.

Filling -

Ingredients:

24 fun-size Snicker bars, chopped

1/3 – 1/2 cup store bought caramel topping

Directions:

Combine chopped Snickers bars in a bowl with the caramel topping and mix to coat.

Salted Caramel Frosting -

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter

2 cups powdered sugar

15-20 caramels

2 tbsp. heavy cream

Kosher salt

Directions:

In a small bowl, melt caramels with the heavy cream. You an pop it in the microwave for 30 second increments till smooth. Allow a few minuets in the fridge to cool.

In a large bowl, whip the butter for 20 seconds of medium high speed until fluffy. Add in one cup powdered sugar and mix until combined. Once the caramel is completely cool to touch, drizzle into frosting and beat on medium speed until well incorporated.

Then add in the second cup of powdered sugar and the salt (1/4 tsp. – 1/2 tsp.). Beat 3-4 minutes or until fluffy.

Garnish:

8 fin-size Snickers bars, chopped

Caramel topping

Assembly - 

After cupcakes are completely cool, use a knife (I use my cupcake corer) to hollow out out the center of each cupcake. Fill each cupcake with a spoonful of the filling mixture. Spread or pipe on caramel frosting. Garnish with chopped Snickers and drizzle with caramel topping. Then devour! :)

Currently…

Reading: Um… sad to say nothing at the moment lol. But the last book I read was “A Homemade Life” by food blogger, Molly Wizenberg. Let me tell you, I fell head over heels in love with this book! It actually came out a few years ago but I just got it as a Christmas gift. It’s half memoir half cookbook. Molly shares her beautiful stories of growing up with foodie parents who gave her a love of cooking, losing her dad to cancer, living in Paris, and meeting the love of her life through her blog, Orangette. Each chapter ends with one or two delicious recipes that tie into her stories. If you’re a foodie, this is the book for you! It will make you want to get in your kitchen and cook and bake your heart out! 

Watching: The Holiday! It’s on right now in the background as I am blogging. It’s one of my favorite movies, never get tired of it.

Thinking about: How I haven’t blogged in a while. It’s funny, I can get so frustrated with the whole blogging thing sometimes but when I don’t do it, I miss it. Go figure!

Anticipating: My sister coming to visit in a couple weeks! We actually just got to go visit her for the first time since she moved to GA, which was so fun! But our cousin just had her first baby, an adorable baby boy, so she’s planning to come down to meet the little guy! Really excited for us all to be together again!

Listening to: “Heartbeat” by Kopecky Family Band. Just discovered these guys and I’m really digging them! Check ‘em out:

Eating: Healthy No-Bake Chocolate Bars. Found this recipe on Pinterest and decided to give it a try. I was a little skeptical as in my experience any recipe with the word “healthy” in the title tends to be questionable, but these are actually pretty delish!

Working on: Getting fit & healthy! It’s not easy but I’m trying. And I was working on this making this cake stand a week or so ago. I made it out of a plate my mom bought at Target and a milk glass goblet I found at the antique store in my town. I think it’s my favorite one yet.

Wishing: That I could’ve gone to this years SXSW! So many awesome artists were playing, drove me crazy to have to miss it!

Art Journaling: New Pages!

Whenever I feel like being creative one of my favorite places to run to is my overly full, just about falling apart now art journal. I’ve been working in this particular one for a year now… and needless to say, I think it may be time for a new one. I posted about my adventures as an art journaling newbie here last summer, but seeing as how I’ve created quite a few new pages since then, I thought it was time for another little peak.

I feel like the more I art journal the more I fall in love with it. Getting all my supplies out, putting on some music or a movie and making a big mess for a couple of hours is sort of therapeutic. Even though my pages are no where near the amazing art that I’ve seen some girls fill their lovely journals with… but that doesn’t really matter to me. This is my “art”, if you will. The art that I’m capable of making… just for the sake of making it. This is my place to be creative. My place to play.

I don’t believe there are any rules to art journaling except to let your imagination run wild and just create. And to do it for yourself. It may be scattered or messy but it’s all the pieces of you that make it beautiful.

It still continues to be one of my favorite hobbies so I hope you enjoy this little look into what I’ve been filling my art journal up with lately! And I hope you give art journaling a try if you haven’t yet… you just may find yourself a little addicted.  :)

I made a page for one of my favorite pictures of my sister, Cecily and I at her wedding last October. This picture was taken after the festivities and is very special to me. I framed the picture in little leaf jewels and added a piece of burlap on the adjoining page for writing down memories from the day, which I have yet to fill in.

A page displaying a couple photos I took while visiting one of my favorite bakeries, The Sweet Boutique in Sugar Land, Tx. They have some of the best cupcakes & macarons I’ve ever tasted. I used a flower shaped cupcake liner to write down a little bit about the bakery.

This was just a totally random page I made. A page to just put together a bunch of different scraps lying around. I love using really random things to create pages that, while they may not make much sense, are just fun to make & are pleasing to my eye. I also added a little list of songs I’ve been listening to lately.

This is a page I did while following Elsie Larson’s art journaling course. The theme was “Night Dreams”. So I used a greeting card I had lying around that has stars and moons on it, stick on letters, and a torn book cover from an old children’s book and wrote down a couple weird recurring dreams I’ve had.

A page where I wrote down what is sort of my theme for the new year; to learn to better love & accept myself.

Another random page; as are the next two.

Randomness used: Lots of washi tape, stickers, a stamp, stencils, paint chips, ticket stubs, notebook paper, a receipt, a perfume sample, and a fortune from a fortune cookie.

For some great art journaling inspiration click here, here, or here.

Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes & a Playlist!

Hey friends! Stopping in today with a sweet treat for your tummy and some sweet tunes for your ears!

Hope y’all had a lovely Valentines day! Mine was spent cooking up a meal for my family, Stuffed Chicken Marsala (which is pretty much the best thing in the world, let me tell ya! Will share recipe soon!) and baking chocolate raspberry cupcakes! Whatever your opinion of Valentines Day is it’s definitely a great excuse to bake something yummy and evil, no? Well that’s my philosophy anyway! :D

I got the idea for these cupcakes the night before and thought they’d make the perfect Valentines treat. Plus, I wanted an excuse to use my cute V-day cupcake liners. I made chocolate cupcakes, using Hershey’s recipe because in my opinion, you just can’t beat it, made some raspberry whipped cream to fill them, and fluffy pink buttercream frosting to top them off. They were so delish, if I do say so myself! I mean you just can’t go wrong with the chocolate & raspberry combo, a match made in heaven.

I also got a little fancy schmancy thanks to Pinterest and tried my hand at making little chocolate hearts and “xo’s” for decorations. They were seriously so easy and fun to make. Will definitely be doing more of this in the future. Hope you give these babies a try!

Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes -

This raspberry whipped cream is so light and fluffy! You could use store bought whipped cream and fold in the raspberry juice if you want but really there’s just nothing like homemade whipped cream. Plus it takes hardly anytime at all, it’s definitely worth it! Could seriously eat this by the spoonful! 

Cupcakes -

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa or HERSHEY'S SPECIAL DARK Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Directions:

Heat oven to 350°F. Line a cupcake pan with cupcake liners.

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of electric mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into lined cupcake pan.

Bake 16-18 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan to cool completely.

Raspberry Whipped Cream Filling -

Ingredients:

1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 small pkg. frozen raspberries (thawed)

Directions:

Place the powdered sugar in a mixing bowl. Add the cream and vanilla. Using a metal whisk or an electric hand mixer, whisk the cream just until stiff peaks begin to form. Fold in juice from raspberries. I wasn’t exact on the measurements here, I just added in enough juice to where it had the raspberry taste and color I wanted. You could add the raspberries as well but I just opted to use the juice. Makes two cups.

Buttercream Frosting -

Ingredients:

2 sticks unsalted butter (room temp.)

2 cups powdered sugar

1-2 tbsp. heavy cream

1 tsp. vanilla

a few drops red food coloring (optional)

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, beat unsalted butter till fluffy. Add in powdered sugar, beating one cup at a time till well incorporated. Add heavy cream and vanilla. Beat for 3-4 minutes or until light and fluffy. Add in food coloring if desired.

 Assembly: After cupcakes have cooled, scoop out the center and fill with raspberry whipped cream filling. I use one of those cupcake corers and I really love it,  works great. Spread or pipe on buttercream frosting. Decorate with sprinkles and chocolate decorations, if desired.

The chocolate hearts and “xo” were really simple to make. It was my first time trying it so they’re not perfect but I think they turned pretty well considering. You just pipe melted chocolate chips onto wax paper in whatever shape you want. Let it harden, peel off wax paper, and they’re ready to use! If you want more info about how to do this click here.

And since I simply can’t bake without having some great tunes to dance around the kitchen to, thought I’d share a little playlist with y’all! These are songs that I’ve been loving and listening to constantly lately. Some new (or new to me) favorites such as Leagues, Family of the Year, & Haim to old favorites such as Jenny Lewis, Goldfrapp, & The Verve. And a song that I just discovered and have become addicted to, “The Zookeeper’s Boy” by Mew. How in the world am I just barely hearing this song?!  Why did no one ever share this with me? So wrong. It’s all kinds of awesome!

Anyway, hope you enjoy these songs! Would love to know what’s been on your playlist lately! :)

Valentines Gift Exchange!

It’s that time of year again, the return of cupid, paper hearts, and semi disgusting assorted chocolates. I’ve actually always been a fan of Valentines day, it just feels like a happy day whether you’re in love or not. It’s a day to bake strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and pink sprinkles! Though I’m sure that is an unusually positive outlook on it… maybe it’s the cupcakes that make me enjoy it, ha! But what I love even more than V-day is getting fun things in the mail! So I had to sign up for this blogging party I saw on Casey Leigh’s blog last month. It’s the second year of this Valentines gift exchange also hosted by Nicole, Lauren, Alycia, and Ashlee. Basically you get paired up with another blogger and send each other fun little gifts in the mail.

I got paired up with Audrey over at Jane of Trades, who sent me the sweetest package!

* Three candles – The brown sugar one smells so good!

* Adorable heart cupcakes liners and picks – Being the incessant baker that I am I love collecting cute cupcake liners so I was really happy to see these in the package! Can’t wait to use them for some Valentines cupcakes!

* Pretty nail polish – Love this color! Am wearing it as I type!

* Initial hoop that Audrey made herself – Love this! It’s already hanging on my wall.

* A handmade journal – This may be my favorite gift! How cute is that?! I have an obsession with journals so this was perfect for me! I love that she made it herself and would love to know how she did it! It will definitely be put to good use!

Thank you Audrey for all these thoughtful gifts! They definitely brightened my day! It was great to get to know you and your lovely blog! :)

A Baking Lovers Favorite Ingredients

Well we’ve come to the end of the road of the January Blog A Day challenge (can’t believe tomorrow is already Feb 1st, wasn’t it just Christmas?!). While I may not have kept up with it like I wanted to, it was still so much fun to participate in! I had actually been having a terrible case of writers block for quite some time and the writing prompts from this challenge really helped me to overcome that. I felt for the first time in a long time the writing just sort of flowed… hoping that this continues. So big thanks to Katrina and Lindsay for hosting this awesome challenge! :)

The last topic for January Blog a Day (day 31) is Favorite. So seeing as how one of my very favorite things in the world is baking, I thought I would share a list of my favorite baking ingredients to have on hand. For a self professed bake-aholic like myself there’s nothing better than a well stocked kitchen. I love opening up my cabinets and fridge to find everything I need to spend a day in the kitchen baking my heart out. So below is a list of some of my go-to baking lovers favorites! :)

• Cocoa Powder
• Powdered Sugar
• Brown Sugar
• Spices such as: Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Ginger, Cloves
• Sea Salt – When I bought some of this stuff last year I never knew how much I would use it. Just a sprinkle of sea salt truly makes anything with chocolate and caramel better (as if they really needed any help). And it goes a long way, I bought a medium sized bottle and even after using it quite often, still have half a bottle left.
• Extracts such as: Vanilla, Almond, Peppermint, and Lemon – those are the few I have in my cabinet right now.
• Food Coloring
• Molasses – I love keeping molasses in the kitchen not only for recipes but for making emergency brown sugar when I’m fresh out. It’s a little baking trick I learned a few years ago. All you have to do is mix molasses into white granulated sugar with a fork until it’s all incorporated, and viola!, you have brown sugar!
• Chocolate Chips – My favorite kind is Ghirardelli 60% Bittersweet. I love them because they’re more like discs than chips and they look so much better in cookies. Plus, they taste amazing! I could eat them by the handfuls.
• White Chocolate Chips

• Peanut Butter Chips
• Bars of baking Chocolate - Again I always go for Ghirardelli if given the choice.
• Unsalted Butter – I’ve learned using unsalted butter is truly best for making frosting.
• Peanut Butter – Creamy. Always Creamy.
• Cream Cheese
• Mascarpone Cheese – I love not only using this stuff for Tiramisu but I also love mixing some of it into chocolate frosting. It makes it super rich and creamy!
• Heavy Cream – For making homemade whipped cream, ganache, mixing it into frosting, ect.
• Sweetened Condensed Milk – Ah, if you aren’t a fan of this stuff than you and I won’t relate. Want to put it in everything.
• Honey
• Coffee – It’s not an essential baking ingredient, but I love to put a little coffee or espresso in my chocolate cake batter. It makes the chocolate flavor even richer.
• Cute Cupcake Liners – While not an ingredient I couldn’t leave it off the list. They are just simply a fun must have. I love collecting them.
• Sprinkles – Again another fun must have. My philosophy is that you can never have too many sprinkles! :D