My Vision, it goes something like this . . .

I want a smallish shop, maybe somewhere in Milwaukie or an area that is walker friendly. I think its great to have a shop that when couples are just walking around together (like me and Greg do) can stop in and get a snack and enjoy some time.

I want the walls to be bright and colorful, I love graffiti, so having a local artist come in once a month and do a mural on one wall would be really great, not to mention it would give them a chance to show off their work in a positive way.

I also love the fact that a lot of smaller shops are letting local artists use their store as a gallery, so I would love to showcase local work. So it would be cool for me to see the things they can do artistically and also another outlet for them to show their work off.

I want to use renewable and eco friendly sources for my packaging.

I want a good spot for an out door seating area, so that people can enjoy the sun, or a good outdoor covered area so they can enjoy the sound of the rain, or bring there dogs for a snack.

I want to have some good pet friendly choices available also, as well as vegan, and low sugar.

I want customer input on choices and flavors to offer. I want a monthly contest for a customer creation to be showcased.

I want to help out local schools, and do fund raising.

I want to say that if there are people that love the cupcakes but don't love the weight they add, to meet me after hours and we will walk the neighborhood together.

I want to make special special cupcakes, one pink for breast cancer awareness, and a blue one for prostate cancer awareness, and since i can't make one for every charity, a red one to help children in need, and 75% of each cupcake will go to that charity.

Oh, and since I have kids and seeing them, and well all kids succeed at school is super important to me. Having a time during the week where kids could get together and study would rock. I am not the smartest person out there, but a little encouragement and a delicious snack can go a long way with a child.

I want to help the people that are around as much as I can, I want to make others lives a bit brighter, and offer hope to those that are lacking. I don't expect to be able to change the world of become some great important person for doing it, I want to have a job doing something that I love and be able to help the people that support me.

So if anyone a bunch of money laying around and wants to start me up, just email me koekjecupcakes@yahoo.com. lol

Ah, maybe with tons of hard work and some luck it will happen. If not, then at least I tried.

What-A-Cake!!!

The birthday went really well. The cake was done a little bit a head of time, so that made things so much better. Here are some pics of the finished tree:

I made modeling chocolate out of chocolate chips and corn syrup, then molded it around a wire and wood frame I made earlier. The wood grain of the tree was made just by scraping a tooth pick in various patterns, and to make the 'bark' of the tree a bit deeper and glossy, I mixed some brown food dye paste and water and painted it on, add a hand ties noose, and then ta-duh I have a chocolate tree!!
On the trunk of the tree I carved "Z (heart) MOM" awww . . . .

It turned out really well. I had to make a base so the tree could stand so I found a piece of metal vent at home depot, some plastic tubing, and some epoxy.

As for the rest of the cake, well I made chocolate cake, and half of the cake with filled with chocolate mint mouse and the other half was a tart cherry filling.

The cakes were baked on a cookie sheet so they were a lot thinner than normal layer cakes, but that allowed me to make 4 layers and thus making the cake extra moist.

The cake was topped with plain vanilla whipped cream frosting (tinted to be grey, but later seemed to turn a weird purple-grey color). Tombstones were made from marshmallow fondant and later painted with black dye paste diluted with water (which also turned the same strange grey-purple color, at least it matched).

Dirt was made from finely ground chocolate graham crackers, brown sugar, and coco powder.

Blood was made from strawberry pie filling tinted darker with a bit of black dye and red dye.

Lastly, the bone (except for the whole body) were formed from fondant.

It was a lot of work, but the end product was really nice, and tasted amazing.

A Birthday Cake Graveyard?? Oh, no . . .

So I know it has been quite some time since I have written, or even made anything. I have been busy with the boys and homework, my work, and just trying to figure out where dinner is coming from . . . and yes, WoW also.

Well, September is upon us and it's time for Zack's 8th birthday. He actual birthday was on Monday. I sang to him when he woke up and we took him out to a restaurant of him choice, he even got a piece of cake with a candle in it. Then he wanted to go to the park. It actually was a really nice day, the weather was perfect and the food was good. Hooray for Zack!!!

We are throwing him a party/BBQ this Saturday at a cool local park. I am pretty excited, not to mention that it should be a great day, but we are meeting our friends for the first time, so that is exciting as well.

I asked Zack what kind of cake he wanted and he, being the blood-loving child that he is, wanted a bloody, creepy, death cake. Those are his words not mine. I know most parents are think "oh, my what are they teaching that kid" well, he like scary movies and gore, but I figure that his super strong love for cooking and doing housework pretty much evens out the other stuff, right??

As for the cake. I am going for a grave yard look, complete with blood, scary tree, noose, headstones, and a shallow grave. It is still a work in progress, but here is the noose. I made 2 cause I wasn't sure what size would look best.

I am also making a tree out of wire and modeling chocolate. The headstones will be made of fondant as will a few bones and some leaves. I also am gonna use cherry or strawberry pie filling for my fake blood, probably tinted a bit darker to get a good bloody look.

Check back soon cause I will post more pics as soon as I get the other stuff done, and if anyone has any creepy ideas I would love to hear them.

Herb and Cheese Semolina Cupcakes

I finally made my herb-y cupcakes. I used the Spanish Orange recipe as a starter and slightly modified it.

I omitted the oranges and I reduced the sugar down to about 1/4 Cup and added in a bunch of herbs, mine were mostly rosemary and thyme, I also used some onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. After beating it all up I added in about 1 cup shredded cheese, and since it was rather thick I put in about 1 C of sour cream and 1/2 C to 1 c of water (you could probably use milk or veggie stock). The batter should be slightly thinner than typical cake batter, and you can fill the cupcake tin or papers all the way up since there is almost no rise in these.

I may have put a bit to many herbs in them, because when they were cooking the house was scented rather strongly of herbs, and by strongly I mean over powering to me. Greg liked it tho, so who knows it may just have been me!

When done they looked really good, just like little cornbread muffins, but with a diff flavor and texture. These cupcakes would make a great add-on to almost any dinner or even lunch. I was thinking that a good hearty chicken and white bean soup would be great. Greg suggested drizzling some garlic butter over them.

Nothing, nothing at all

I know I said I was gonna make cupcakes this weekend, I also said we might take a hike. We did nothing, nothing at all. We sat around and the boys had a good weekend playing out side with their friends. Me and Greg relaxed the whole weekend other than 1 trip out on Saturday to the bank, DMV, lunch, and then store we stayed home and enjoyed the good weather and the fresh breezes coming in all the windows. It was a great weekend. We took turns playing our WoW online and just hung out.

I do think I am gonna try to deliver on my cupcake promise tonight, and see how that goes. I am sure my co workers and/or family will be grateful.

1 week of school down, several left to go.

This week has felt really long and at the same time really fast. I am so glad that the weekend is near.

The boys' first week of school seemed to go really well, they are enjoying their new class mates and their teachers. So far, so good.

Last night me and Greg went to our first Portland Timbers game. It was better than I thought it was gonna be. I am not a big fan of any type of sporting event, unless you consider watching a CSI marathon an "event". I got the tickets through my work because Greg is such a big soccer fan (Chelsea, being his ultimate favorite) and I thought it would help take his mind of the everyday stresses that we all have, not to mention get us out of the house and away from the kids. I do love the boys but sometimes we need a small break that is something besides going to work. It was a really great night for going out also, the temp stayed around 70ish and the sky was clear. Over all it was a great night and I think that we may be going to quite a few other games and taking the boys with us as well.

I am not sure what I am gonna make this weekend. Since I still have quite a bit of the semolina left I may re-make the Spanish Orange Cupcakes I did a week or so ago, but instead of sweet I think I will go savory with some herbs, cheese and maybe some shredded chicken.

Other than trying to make a treat or two I think this weekend will be spent relaxing and just hanging out. Possibly going on another hike or wandering around downtown.

Does anyone else have weekend plans?

Wonderful Wall Art

What could be better than letting your child decorate their own room? How about doing a family art project together so everyone can decorate! That's what we did this weekend. A few days ago I found a post on HowAboutOrange about wall art and thought that it would be a fun thing that we all could do together. So we all went to the craft store and found the foam core, for the boys I had them do theirs on the thinner kind and me and Greg chose the 1/2", it's around $5-$6 for a sheet of the thicker kind and about $3 for the thinner kind. Not to bad considering that they are fairly large pieces of board. Then we all went down to the scrap booking isle. In the turtorial it said to use decorative paper and where better to find pretty paper then in the scrap booking isle? I let the boys each pick 3 diff sheets and me and Greg got some as well. Then after we all made of our mind on what we wanted we went in search of paint for the sides. You can buy little bottles of acrylic paint for about $1.50 each in many many diff colors. The boys each got one color that would go well and I got 2 diff ones, Greg shared a basic black with Zack. The only thing left was the spray adhezive and x-acto knife. We finally got all we needed and left the store with our bounty.


I traced the largest piece of paper on the board for the boys and told them that they can draw a shap in the middle and then another one, I also showed them online where the idea came from so they had something to reference. Zack drew a curvey square and triangle and circles, Johnathan wanted something more even, so we went with the basic picture frame style with a few rectangles and solid squares.


For Zacks it was easier to cut the shape out first and then spray it and stick the paper to it and cut off the extra, for Johnathan I stuck the paper first and then cut out the frames. I did mine similar to Johnathan's and Greg used 3 solid rectangles for his. After everything was cut out and the paper was glued down, I painted the edges and that was it.


It is a really simple project and the pieces can be moved around and rearranged when ever the mood strikes.
This is Zack's, he chose a orange and black flame paper, solid orange paper, and a shiney metallic silver paper with the edges painted black.
This is Johnathan's, he chose hot pink paper (yes, he really did choose pink, if you ask him it's his favorite color) and then a pink and cream flower design paper.
This is Greg's, he used a solid brown, and then the other 2 that look like vintage ink block prints and layered them on top of each other. It looks really good in person. I love the black and white designs.
And this is mine. I did mine is a dark green, a light moss water color type of paper, a green and cream fern leaf paper and a cream water color paper.

This was such a good project and I think that I will be using this idea in the future many times. There is so many different possibilites.

Cinnamon Spice Cupcakes and The Best Burgers Ever

This past weekend I made Cinnamon Spice Cupcakes with Sweet Cream Cheese filling and Greg made Beef and Turkey Bacon Cheese Burgers. It was kinda a long weekend and I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with school starting and stuff, so I didn't want to make something to terribly complicated but I still needed to make something good. I found a box of spice cake mix in the cupboard I bought a couple weeks ago and decided to do something with that. So it went something like this:

Cupcakes:

• 1 box Spice cake mix (made as directed)


• maybe a little less than 1 Tbl cinnamon (I love cinn. so you may want a bit less or even a bit more, the point was to make it just a bit over spiced so that the filling can play it down a bit)


• 1/4 or a bit less ground nutmeg

Prepare cake mix as directed and add the spices. Set off on the side until the filling is ready.

Filling

• I used a larger tub of plain cream cheese


• maybe about 1 cup of sugar

Mix it together, but you may need to taste a bit to make sure that there is enough sugar so it's sweet enough for you.

I filled each the pan a little less than normal than I would if I was making plain cupcakes and then put a small scoop (apx 1 Tbl) of the cream cheese filling then top off with a little more batter.

Bake as normal, let cool and ta-dah!

I used a mini bunt cupcake pan so mine came out extra big, I used the remaining batter in normal cupcake pans.

When I took them out they looked a little blank so I made a powdered sugar glaze and poured that over. It soaked in right away so you really couldn't tell and it really didn't do much. If you want a glaze I might recommend warming up some of the left over filling and pouring that over each cupcake since the filling tends to get absorbed a little.

They turned out so good, I really liked the spice of the cake with the sweetness of the filling. It really makes a wonderful treat to start the school year with. the boys really liked it, I told Zack it was kinda like Cinnamon toast. He said it was good and Johnathan gave me a thumbs up and said it was good also.

For dinner we wanted to grill, and Greg wanted hamburgers and since I don't eat a whole lot of red meat (it's not that I don't like it, cause I do love me a pink in the middle burger or steak, I just didn't want beef this night, plus turkey is a bit leaner) Greg got some bacon and cheese. I think he just used a bit of salt and pepper to season, grilled the bacon as well and slapped them on a wheat bun with a slice of cheese, and that's about it. There wasn't any special trick or ingredient, but damn those burgers were so good.

I would have to say that this meal was probably one of my favorites.

Did anyone else grill this weekend? What did you grill? Any special recipes or meals?

What a weekend!

Wow. This weekend went it all directions. We had some good times and there was some bad times, but it was the last weekend of the kids' summer so it's to be expected, right?

Friday I got the boys a bit early from there dad's house and we went and had lunch with Greg and then we went school clothes shopping. I was really glad that we got it all done in one trip, and didn't have to stretch it out over the weekend. They picked out some good things and were very please with their bounty. When Greg got off work we went to the mall and wandered around just in case there was something else that the boys needed. They didn't find anything they needed so we settled on a mall dinner and and some more wandering and then back home.

Saturday we went to the craft shop to get the foam core board and the other things needed for our craft project. This is where I got the inspiration. Then we took the boys out for a "I can't believe you and gonna be in 2nd and 4th grade already" lunch at Old Chicago. It's always nice when we take the boys out for a nice lunch.

I also decided to give World of Warcraft a shot this weekend and see what all the hype is about, and for you out there that like role playing games once in a while, this one is a well rounded game. I thought there was way more gore and whatnot but it's actually fairly decent. I was surprised that I like it as much as I do. The boys played outside with friends and me and Greg hung out in the house. We made out wall art projects and Zack had a melt down. Post is on it's way.

Sunday we didn't do much of anything. Went grocery shopping, did laundry, kids played, and we cleaned up a bit. I made my something delicious, but it wasn't chocolaty like I had planned on before. I ended up making cinnamon spice cupcakes with a sweet cream cheese filling. For dinner Greg made hamburgers out on the grill, I choose turkey for mine since it's slightly less on the fat scale, but the rest of them had beef. They turned out to be the best damn burgers that I have ever had. Yes we both took pics of our creations. Post on those is coming soon also.

Monday was spent getting ready, doing more laundry, relaxing a bit, and yes of course playing some World of Warcraft.

Today was the first day of school and we all walked to school and go them in there classes and said our bye's and have a great first day.

Over all it was a good weekend, altho I could have did without the meltdown from Zack but what can I expect, he is almost 8 and wanted pizza. Oh well.

I plan on having the cupcake/burger post tomorrow and our wall art post on Wednesday.

I would love to know how your labor day weekend was spent. Don't be shy, come drop me a line or two.