April Fool's Day Cupcakes

Though I'm hardly a prankster, I definitely enjoy a well-played joke every once in a while. April Fool's Day can be a fun day to plan and carry out such a prank. One of my favorite memories of growing up is an April Fool's Day when I taped the sink sprayer "on" so that when someone turned the sink on, it would spray water all over them. My Dad thought it was pretty hilarious, too... And there was the classic prank I think someone in my family tried every year where you put a few drops of food coloring on a new stick of gum and let it dry. After carefully putting it back its foil wrapper, you casually offer your victim a stick of gum. When they start to chew it up (if they don't notice the drops of dye), their unsuspecting mouth would soon turn blue! Oh, those were good times.

I'm excited to start trying silly little pranks on my kids, but my little one is still too young to appreciate the humor. So instead, last year I pulled this one on my husband. I don't think he minded too much.

I also made these adorable TV Dinner cupcakes! We put a bunch in a big pot, put the lid on, and went to "deliver dinner" to a few of our friends. We told them there was a sign-up sheet passed around church that week to bring them dinner (which is often done for new mothers or other families in need of a meal, so it was plausible). It was so funny to watch their reactions of confusion or panic as they had already started to get dinner ready for the night. Ha! My husband is not a very good liar, so I got to do most of the talking...

They were really fun to make and only need a few special ingredients. A few notes:

• The "Peas and Carrots" cupcake looks best if you cover it completely (instead of leaving spaces in between the candies like I did). I used cut up orange Starburst for the carrots and green skittles for the peas. It's really hard to get enough green skittles to cover several cupcakes because there are only so many in a package. You could also use runts, M&Ms, or any other green hard candy.
• The "Mashed Potato" cupcake is probably my favorite. It's just white frosting piled high with a small well on the top. Drizzle caramel sauce on top for the gravy and plop a yellow Starburst in the middle as a pat of butter. Although it looks a little chewed, the secret to the butter is putting the Starburst in the microwave for a few seconds to soften up the corners a bit. Isn't it so cute?
• The "Chicken Leg" cupcakes take a little more work because you have to make the bones out of melted white chocolate, form it into a bone shape on wax paper, and stick them in the freezer for a few minutes. The cupcake is yummy covered in frosting and dipped in crushed up graham cracker crumbs.
• The "Dessert" cupcake is pretty self-explanatory. And very delicious. 

Did you pull any pranks this year? What are some of your favorite ones from past years? I'm always looking for fun new ideas to try!

Inspiration from Our Best Bites and Delectable Edibles: Check out their websites for more instructions and pictures. They also have some cute ideas for other foody cupcakes (I LOVE the spaghetti and meatballs!).

Banana Muffins

What do you do when you have a bunch of bananas that look like this?

Make banana bread, of course! Actually, we go through a lot of bananas in our house so I decided to buy an extra bunch this week just so we'd have some around long enough to get this ripe. I make these muffins a LOT and we often have a bag full stored in the freezer for quick breakfasts on the go or yummy snacks. We hadn't had any in a while and I was feeling a big banana muffin craving.

Why muffins you ask? Well, I've tried my hand at loaves of banana bread several times and just couldn't seem to quite get it right. Either the middle is underdone and squishy but the outside is perfect or the outside is overcooked but the middle is soft and perfect. Or it comes out looking great and then collapses in a matter of minutes. While I wouldn't say I've given up perfecting the banana bread loaf, I've found muffins are lot more forgiving and more convenient. They're easier to cook, more portable, and perfect for popping in your mouth. Really, it's hard to screw them up.

I tried out several different recipes before trying my hand at creating one myself. Combining things I liked from each recipe and using ingredients I felt happier about, I discovered a recipe that I love and feel pretty good about eating. I always get compliments when I share them with others (if they last that long) and hope you'll try it out so I can share them with you.

One of my favorite things about these muffins is that they can be easily adapted. Like I said, I feel like it's pretty hard to screw them up. Feel free to substitute ingredients and alter amounts according to your tastes. While the recipe calls for 2 TBS yogurt or sour cream (I use whatever I have open in the fridge at the time), sometimes I use more if I don't have much applesauce or if I'm using small bananas. I've even used more in place of an egg when I only had one on hand and the muffins turned out great! Also, though I usually use vegetable oil, I've used coconut oil and it worked great too!

There are lots of add-ins you can use to jazz up the muffins as well. Some of my favorites are:

• Chocolate chips and butterscotch chips: Actually, I consider these an essential part of the recipe rather than an add-in. My grandma used to always put these in her muffins and I love the chocolate/butterscotch combo in these muffins! Plus, we left out some of the sugar and oil so we have some calories to spare, right?
• Oatmeal: Sometimes I'll replace 1/2 cup flour with 1/2 cup or so of oatmeal. 
• Flax Seeds: I've recently started grinding flax seeds and keeping it in the freezer so I can throw it in recipes like this for some extra nutrition (I add about 1/4 cup per batch). 
• Nuts: I suppose you could add chopped walnuts or pecans if you want to ruin the muffins. Just kidding... I just prefer my nuts separate from my baked goods. But if you like nuts in your cookies and brownies, you'd probably love them in these!

Mmmm, look at those melted butterscotch chips!

Sometimes I make regular-sized muffins and sometimes I make mini muffins. Recently, I've started doing one pan of each. I'll usually leave out the chips in my mini muffins and they're perfect for my muffin-loving one-year-old. Seriously, I think he'd eat muffins at every meal if I let him. Actually, I probably would too...

Here's my Mr. Muffin Man himself!

What else do you like to add to your muffins?

1st Birthday Sprinkle Party

Leo turned ONE this month! This first year is so fun and full of firsts. I love watching him learn new things while he grows and changes. We got to spend Christmas with all my family this year, so we had lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins to party with us. It has been so fun looking up birthday party ideas for him. While I certainly wanted to celebrate his big day, I also didn't want to spend big bucks. I fell in love with the sprinkle cake when I stumbled across this blog, and decided to throw a little sprinkle party luncheon for Leo.

There are SO MANY cake batter and sprinkle ideas on there that the hardest part was choosing only a few of the recipes and ideas for the party. I decided to do a sprinkle-covered smash cake and cupcakes for everyone else. I used my all-time favorite frosting recipe for them. Seriously, try it. It's light, fluffy, and not overly sweet. It's SO GOOD!

We also had caramel and chocolate-dipped pretzels and chocolate-dipped Oreos. Both were easy (though a little time consuming) and super yummy snacks.

We also had two of my favorite soups, Corn Chowder and Vegetable Lentil, a strawberry spinach salad, and bread. I made a fun collage with pictures from each month of his first year. Everyone loved seeing how he had changed over that first year. It was all fairly simple, but it came together really well and we had a blast.

I also loved how the balloons with "sprinkles" inside them turned out. All you have to do is cut out circles from tissue paper, slip them inside a clear balloon (not inflated), and then get them filled with helium. The colored circles stay at the bottom for awhile, but the static builds inside and within about an hour they'll be sticking to sides. They made for a really fun decoration.

Of course, the best part was the cake smash! 

He was a little timid when it all started. 

but then then things started getting crazy

...and then he got really into it!

It was such a fun day and so special to share it with so much of our family. He sure adds a lot of excitement and joy to our lives and I feel so lucky to be his mommy.

Cheesecake Bites

Here's the recipe!

I have an interesting relationship with cheese.  I can really enjoy a good cheese.  I think I learned this during my 18 months in France.  The French make cheese like Americans make cereal.  They have an entire refrigerated aisle dedicated to every kind of cheese you can imagine.  I was always amazed at the variety and selection of cheeses. One of my favorite things to do was browse the selection and choose a new cheese to try that week.  When visiting Paris with Jacob, I asked him several times if we could just buy a chunk of cheese from a farmer's market and a fresh baguette for lunch.  It may be my absolute favorite meal.

However, I don't seem to appreciate melted cheese as much.  I have been slightly disappointed in the world-famous Chicago Deep-dish Pizza.  Don't get me wrong - It's good.  It's just that the deep dish is filled with melted cheese.  And it turns out that Chicagoans don't really like sauce on their pizza which is actually my favorite part.  I feel the same about quesadillas and really gooey mac and cheese.  I just don't like eating a mouthful of melted cheese.  

But back to the good stuff.  I love that Jacob can appreciate a good cheese like I can and sometimes we'll buy a fancy cheese and pretend we're back in France.  You can find some really good ones here, though the selection is generally quite a bit smaller (and we have yet to find a really good, authentic baguette!).  This weekend we wanted to share our love with some friends and hosted a "Cheesy Game Night" where each couple was invited to bring a yummy cheese to share.  We ended up with quite a good spread and some seriously yummy snacks.  

To go with all the salty snacks, I wanted to make something sweet and found these delicious-looking Chocolate-Covered Cheesecake Bites on Pinterest (because I DO love a mouthful of cheesecake).  The recipe was easy to follow, not too difficult, and turned out SO GOOD.  I was quite relieved that we had a few leftovers.  I will most definitely make these again.  These bites are not a last-minute kind of dessert because you do need to make the cheesecake the day before and freeze it.  But none of the steps were terribly time-consuming and they came out looking pretty good if I do say so myself.

  

I stuck pretty close to the recipe, though I did slightly more cream cheese and slightly less greek yogurt (a little closer to the original recipe that she followed).  I only dipped about a third of the cheesecake bites, left a third plain, and drizzled chocolate and peanut butter on a third.  I have never thought to put coconut oil in the chocolate to thin it out (I've only ever used shortening).  It worked so well and gave the chocolate a slight hint of coconut flavor which tasted really good.  I would definitely recommend making these.  You will not be disappointed.