Twiggie Makes by Candace Grahl

This time of year really makes me want to write a pumpkin cookbook. I have so many recipes & I know I am not alone in my pumpkin obsession. Or am I? Doesn’t matter. All I know is just when I start cranking out some of my past favorites, I stumble upon more new recipes. This is one such a recipe, found at one of my favorite recipe sites, Kraft Foods.

Four Layers. Alllllllll together now…

*sigh*

It is so good, y’all. And easy!! You can find the recipe here, or bookmark this post for the recipe below. Enjoy!

Luscious 4-Layer Pumpkin Cake

1 pkg yellow cake mix
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin, divided
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup oil
4 eggs
1-1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice, divided
1 pkg (8 oz) cream Cheese, softened
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 tub (8 oz) whipped Topping, thawed
1/4 cup caramel ice cream topping
1/4 cup chopped Pecans

1) Preheat oven to 350°F.

2) beat cake mix, 1 cup pumpkin, milk, oil, eggs and 1 tsp spice in large bowl with mixer until well blended. Pour into 2 greased and floured 9-inch round pans. Bake 28 to 30 min. or until toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 min. Remove from pans to wire racks; cool completely.

3) Beat cream cheese in medium bowl with mixer until creamy. Add sugar, remaining pumpkin and spice; mix well. Gently fold in whipped topping. Cut each cake layer horizontally in half with serrated knife; stack on serving plate, spreading cream cheese filling between layers. (Do not frost top layer.) Drizzle with caramel topping just before serving; top with nuts. Refrigerate leftovers.

*I omitted the chopped nuts & used toffee bits instead, & used a bag of caramels, following the instructions on the bag to make the caramel sauce. Easy!

Easter was two weeks ago and I’m just now getting to post some pics! We have been very busy, but also someone in our home (not me), who shall remain nameless (not Conner) accidentally dropped my laptop (not Max) and now it’s moving at a snails pace, quite literally. Good news is I get a computer upgrade (woot! woot!); bad news is posting or general surfing on the interweb has become very annoying and virtually impossible. But that’s okay, focus on the positive: New computer! And it wasn’t me who dropped it! (but I still love the person who did)

Okay, Easter. My family gets together for the major holidays - Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. Every now and then other holidays will be sprinkled into the mix but those are the constant and while that means a lot of people that also means it’s pretty fun. And because our family is big and because our family is southern, that means if you have no where to be or no where to go on said holiday then you are invited! This is a good thing, makes everyone behave since we have “visitors”. Here are some of my favorites of the day (warning : lots of pictures!)

Max practicing his skillz

When they get older I’m totally going to make them hold hands just like this when they fight

Easter Egg Hunting Time

This boys cheeks kill me!

Handsome big brother

Me and Max

Checkin’ out the goods - his expressions are priceless

Conner’s a hand-talker like his mama

Melting - love these guys

My dad

My brother and his new baby girl, Addison

Time for the four-wheelers - it wouldn’t be a holiday without them

My dad and Max, who wasn’t so sure about the four-wheeler at first but loved just sitting on it

Aunt Gwen’s turn - this is completely hysterical if you know her. She’s a cross between Truvy and Ouiser in Steel Magnolias. Love her!

Nana and Papa on the four-wheeler

Melting, again

It was definitely a long day, so Papa had the right idea!

Hope your Easter was sweet and filled with fun!

While I still think fall will trump any of the seasons (for me), spring still holds a soft spot in my heart. New season, new beginnings and everything is alive again. While I love the season itself, I usually opt out of Easter-type crafts since they tend to be a little too much on the cutesy side. However when I stumbled across this idea from Duncan Hines I scribbled down all the ingredients onto my shopping list and resolved that no matter how cutesy I just had to do them. So cute!! And so much fun, I might add. The best part? No-bake cookies - those are cut and decorated graham crackers you see. When I tweeted I was doing this, I got a few people asking how can you cut a graham cracker without breaking the whole thing? I thought the same thing but I am here to tell you that it can be done! Just be gentle and don’t use low-fat grahams (they’re harder to cut than the regular version). So if you’re interested in tackling some of these super-cute treats, I’ve outlined all the steps I took below. Please let me know if you give them a try!!

Easter Eggs Cupcakes

Cutting the graham crackers: It really is as easy as it looks. You can use a template or freestyle it. If you do use a template, you can take the tip of your serrated knife and drag it across the surface of the cracker, creating a traceable outline.

Then with gentle pressure begin cutting (or chipping away, really) the cracker.

It took me about 30 minutes to cut an entire box of graham crackers, all while my children ate breakfast. Easy!

Decorating the grahams: The original recipe says to use canned frosting that has been tinted, however that stuff takes forever to dry. And not to mention you make a mess tinting everything. So I picked up some bags of molding candy…

…microwaved them per the instructions on the bag…

…spooned a little onto the cracker…

…and then smoothed it over the surface.

While the candy was still wet I gave Conner some jumbo sprinkles and let him have at it.

Such a handsome assistant I have. Note to self: need to work on his “cheese” face…

And if you’re feeling really adventurous you can nuke some more candy, pour into a small sandwich bag, snip the tip and pipe more designs on the top.

After about a half-hour of decorating and another half-hour of sitting, my eggs were dry. It was so incredibly easy and clean up was a cinch! I will definitely be keeping this idea for the future. Then it was time to ice my cuppies (which I had baked the night before). This is when I say I love making things from scratch. I feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and satisfaction baking this way, however. HOWEVER. Sandra Lee is also one of my favorites and if there are short cuts to be had, take them! Especially when you’re putting more effort into one area (cutting grahams into egg-shapes to decorate) and slacking off in another (enter boxed cake mix and canned frosting). Okay, so back to the icing. I tinted it green - which I didn’t have the right shade of green but didn’t have time to run back out so had to make-do with what I had - snipped the end of a freezer bag and slipped a #12 Wilton tip into the end. Then filled the bag with icing and began piping dots…

…and more dots…

…and more dots…

…until you are all set and there is your grass.

Now just place your egg in the center of the iced cuppie and voila! Super cute, easy and fun Easter dessert.

If all of that is too daunting, you can top your cuppies with robin egg candy or buy premade egg-shaped cookies.

Aside from the shade of green that I had to use, I love how they turned out! And they really were so easy and so much fun to do. Can I say that one more time? FUN!!

Have a great weekend and a wonderful Easter!

I’ve been looking around for some Easter crafts that both my four year old and my not-quite two year old could do together. Conner, my older son, does great with crafts, stays focused until the job is done. Max, my baby….eh…doesn’t. Even when I found this easy craft of tracing an egg shape onto construction paper and “decorating” the egg with colored marshmallows dipped in elmers glue, he did about two, then thought the bowl of glue was waaaayyyy more fun than I had made it out to be. So he proceeded to submerge the same two marshmallows over and over (for 15 minutes) in the glue. Conner, on the other hand, did a beautiful job decorating his egg.

He follows instruction so well. Normally. Nine times out of ten. On a good day. Anyways, I over anticipated just how many bags of marshmallows I would need for this craft and had two packages sitting in our pantry. We’re not a family that loves our marshmallows but I also hate throwing perfectly good food away so I thought I would whip up some rice krispie treats for the holiday weekend (altho no where near as cool or as fun as Amanda’s krispie treat challenge).

And I had gotten the super-fun fruity and colorful marshmallows so how pretty would they be? Perfect for Easter right? I’ve never really enjoyed making rice krispie treats because mine always got so dry and hard. And you know I love my rice krispie treats (Kellogg’s did me a solid by making them for me). So I scoured the interwebz to figure out why mine come out so dry and I think I have it figured out. Actually, I know I have it figured out now since they are so soft and so chewy. Well, according to my fingers and the fact that Max devoured his and he’s not normally a fan of chewy stuff. Oh, and it’s only three ingredients so another reason that I will love this recipe forever and ever. Amen.

Rice Krispie Treats

(1) stick of butter
(1) 16oz bag mini marshmallows
(11.5) cups rice krispies cereal (a 12oz box is enough with maybe a cup leftover)

Okay, first you’re going to melt your butter in a large sauce pan SLOWLY. By slowly I mean kick your burner back on low (2 or 3) and let it melt without it turning brown at all. Apparently this is what makes your treats hard and dry. Who knew? I surely did not.

When your butter is melted take your marshmallows…(so pretty)

…and dump them in, stirring to coat them in butter. Keep burner on low and continue to slowly melt them, stirring occasionally. This will take about 10-15 minutes.

Remember when I got so excited that my treats would be springy and pretty since the marshmallows were? Yeah, I didn’t factor in the melting process would turn from the above to the below. Oh well. Oh, and while your marshmallows are melting, line a 9×13-inch baking dish in wax paper (read: easy cleanup) and coat paper with cooking spray.

Once your marshmallows are about 80-85% melted (I like a few chunks of marshmallows in my treats), pour half of your rice krispies into the saucepan and combine. Then add the other half and combine the mixture until all the rice krispies are coated.

Pour entire mixture into your baking dish lined with wax paper and spread it around evenly and then pressing it down firmly into your dish, either with your spoon or with your hands (I wait until it’s cooled and set-up a little bit before I roll up my sleeves and pack it down with my hands).

Once cooled (about 30-45 minutes), cut into squares, set on plates and remind your children why you are the best. mom. ever.

Max, my official taste-tester. What’d'ya think?

Thumbs up!!

Enjoy!

So if you didn’t already know, Flickr is a rabbit hole. It is up there with StumbleUpon in Life’s Handbook, Chapter 11: “Ways to Blow Hours on the Interweb”. Seriously though, I have been blown away with the talent & creativity that people possess! So much to see, drool over, drink in - I finally had to step away from it, not because I began to feel incredibly inadequate (which I totally did) but because I looked at so many pictures that I kept going cross-eyed. However in preparation for the upcoming holiday, which, by the way, do NOT understand why I’m so excited about. I have always hated Valentine’s Day but am succumbing to its squishiness very quickly & I found some fun pictures to hopefully inspire you to create love. And not in that way. Or maybe - I’ll let you decide!

1. Handwritten “Love” Chocolate Heart Cookie, 2. Pink roses close-up on the red background, 3. mini cookie “cakes”, 4. So yummmm, 5. shadows of love, 6. Sweeter Love, 7. sweets for my sweet!, 8. Love without demand {Explore FP}, 9. cookies, 10. Happy Valentine’s Day!, 11. LOVE revisited, 12. I love you, 13. happy valentines day!!!, 14. Rubber Ducky Love, 15. Assorted Box of Cake, 16. Pink Martinis…All in a Row!