Taryne's Baptism...

"...every perfect gift is from above."  -James 1:17

Today we baptized Taryne. It was a great day. She did not cry during the actual baptism part of the church service, she was good while our pastor carried her around the church "introducing" her to the congregation and she was quiet and good through the entire church service. Her Godparents are my sister Charlotte and Kyle's sister Jordana. We have had a lot of questions about 2 Godmothers...it doesn't matter.

It was nice to have both sets of grandparents and all her aunts and uncles here to see her being baptized. We wished we could have had all of our extended family, but since that would mean ALOT of people, we decided it was better to keep it small and personal.

After church we had a fajita lunch at our house. Kyle and I cooked chicken fajitas. I made Mexican rice from Homesick Texan's blog and my mom made her yummy pinto beans. We had all the "extras" for the fajitas. For dessert, I made Kyle a Pina Colada cake and lemon cupcakes. My mom made a chocolate meringue pie for Kyle's recent birthday and Kyle's mom brought a loaf of Amish Friendship bread (and the starter mix for it, so if you are interested in a starter bag, let me know).

Here are some pics from the day...

The invitation I made for today.

Taryne being baptized at Peace Lutheran.

I love this banner they use for baptisms...

Kyle, Me, Taryne, Charlotte & Jordana

Theia and Taryne...they weren't very cooperative for pictures today.

All the aunts and uncles and cousin: Josh, Jordana, Charlie, Taryne, Tanya, Charlotte, Zach and Theia. I know it looks funny that Charlie is holding Taryne, when he is Theia's dad...

The food...

Lemon cupcakes with lemon icing and chocolate daisies.

I am glad it was such a wonderful day, but we are all exhausted!

Until next time...Gig'em!

Chocolate Sour Cream Cupcakes (or Cake) with fudgy frosting...

I have been looking for a recipe for chocolate cake and I found one for chocolate sour cream cake. I found the recipe on Delish. Well last weekend I decided I needed to test this recipe since I was planning to use it for the cupcakes for my sister's wedding shower. This recipe included a recipe for a fudgy frosting...which I have to say is super yummy!

So here are the ingredients...

The muffin pan with the liners...

The baked cupcakes...

The frosted cupcake...

And my taste test...yummy!

The recipe...


Chocolate Sour Cream Cake (or cupcakes)


Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening (I used the Crisco sticks)
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled
1 8 oz carton dairy sour cream
1 cup milk
1 recipe fudgy frosting


Directions:

Let eggs stand at room temperature 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans or line muffin pan with cupcake liners. Set aside.

In small bowl combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In large bowl beat shortening and sugar on medium speed until combined. Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined. Beat in melted chocolate and sour cream. Alternately add flour mixture and milk; beat on low after each addition just until combined. Spread batter in prepared pans/muffin pan.

Bake 25 minutes or until tops spring back when lightly touched. If you are baking cupcakes, I baked them for 18 minutes and that was perfect. Cool on wire rack 10 minutes. Remove from pans; cool.

Prepare fudgy frosting. Place one layer flat side down on plate. Spread top with 1 cup frosting. Stack second layer flat side down. Spread with remaining frosting. Makes 16 servings.

Fudgy Frosting
Ingredients:

1-12 oz package semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup butter
8 oz carton sour cream
4 1/2 cups sifted powder sugar

Directions:

In large pan over low heat melt and stir the chocolate chips and the butter. Cool 10 minutes. Stir in the sour cream. Stir in the powdered sugar; stir until smooth. Makes 4 cups.

I was able to get 24 cupcakes out of the recipe. The cupcakes were light and the frosting was rich but they complimented one another very well. This week has been super crazy so I didn't have time to make the cupcakes for Charlotte's shower from scratch, but I will be making the icing from scratch. I can't wait to share these cupcakes with you...

Until next time...Gig'em!

It's a bird...It's a plane...It's Superman!

Apparently Superman is a popular super hero. This is the second birthday I have made a Superman dessert...the first was a few years ago for Zach. I made a sheet cake with blue icing and the Superman logo on top. Today I made Superman cupcakes.

To start I made a batch of royal icing and tinted some red and some yellow. I printed out a Superman logo in the desired size and placed under a sheet of wax paper. I then traced the logo with the red and yellow icing. There was a little trial and error...To begin, it works MUCH better if you do the yellow first and then pipe the red around it...once the yellow has hardened of course. Because it has been fairly damp here in College Station lately, it took until Sunday (I piped the logos Friday night) for the logos to fully harden.

Today I made a chocolate cake recipe from the Hershey's cocoa powder recipe (yummy!!) and cream cheese icing from one of my trusty cookbooks. After the cupcakes cooled and the icing was tinted blue, I piped it on top of the cupcakes and added a candy logo. They turned out awesome!

Here are a few pics of the cupcakes...

I have to say...I impressed myself...I was a little nervous that it might not work out or that my scratch cake or icing would taste bad and I would have to make a run to the store for a box mix and canned icing.

Until next time...Gig'em!