Happy Birthday Evelyn!

Today is my nieces birthday. Since I couldn't be there to bake her a cake I sent decorated sugar cookies instead!

She lives in Hawaii and loves the beach, so I went with tropical colors and shapes. I tried to pick shapes that would break less (I hope!) 

YAY! for the Solar Eclipse!!

Jonathan made a cool device to look at the eclipse. He stacked two welding masks and added a pair of sunglasses to reduce glare. It was really cool to see.

Mom modeling the fantastic goggles

After we all had a look, he took them to the neighbors across the street so their little boys could have a look too!

YAY! for Brownie Torte!!

This is what we had for dessert tonight. It was a small and rich chocolate cake.

This was a fast recipe to put together.

6 oz semisweet chocolate, divided
2 1/2 T butter
1 large egg
1/4 sugar
pinch salt
4 T AP flour

Set oven to 350 F. Melt together 4 1/2 oz chocolate, chopped, with the butter. Let cool slightly. Whisk egg with sugar and salt until frothy. Whisk in chocolate. Fold in flour then remaining chocolate, chopped. Pour into greased 6" pan. Bake 20-30 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes before turning out. Dust with powdered sugar. Serve with ice cream.

Door Latch Cover

**UPDATE**

Click here for a picture tutorial.

I've been working on a quilt and ran into a problem (the blocks won't line up right). I needed to take a break from the quilt problems so I picked a new sewing project.

I started with 5x3" pieces of fabric and a 2x4" piece of heavy interfacing. I decided to make casings for the elastic along each of the long edges and cut one piece of elastic (from a cheap headband) to make it easier to loop over the door knobs.

The fabric and interfacing keep the door from latching so it can be opened and closed more quietly. I'm sending it to Elizabeth to put on Evelyn's door.

Nazook?

The Daring Bakers’ April 2012 challenge, hosted by Jason at Daily Candor, were two Armenian standards: nazook and nutmeg cake. Nazook is a layered yeasted dough pastry with a sweet filling, and nutmeg cake is a fragrant, nutty coffee-style cake.

I chose to make the nazook. The dough was easy to put together and rolled out smoothly. I'm not sure I would make it again. My family seemed to like it (they disappeared quickly!) but I thought they should either be crispier or softer and more moist. They seemed a little like a dry cinnamon roll to me. Maybe I made them wrong? The pastry dough reminded me of rugelach, so maybe I should have picked a filling to match?. Not really sure. 

YAY! for Coconut Ice Cream

Today summer decided to visit, so my plans of Earth-shaped gingerbread cookies for Earth Day died. Instead I made coconut ice cream from a new recipe. It was so good I had to share. She Simmers has a lot of good home-style Thai recipes, and this one is a new favorite. It was really easy and tasted great. Smooth and not too sweet.

2 cans coconut milk (I used lite, but regular would probably give you a more scoop-able ice cream)
2 tsp powdered gelatin
2 T cornstarch
1 cup dry milk
3/4 cup sugar
large pinch salt

Whisk together all ingredients in a pan over medium heat until thickened and smooth. Cool completely before freezing in ice cream maker. Freeze processed ice cream for several hours before serving. It was just the right amount of mix for my Cuisinart ice cream machine, which holds about a quart.

YAY! for Spring Pillows!!

I can't really call them Easter pillows since I didn't finish them until a week after Easter, but they are fun and cheerful so we'll keep them up for the spring!


The larger pillows have a chevron design that was quite fiddly since the stripes ended up at 1" and have to be laid out on the diagonal, and cats and dogs love to sleep on quilt layouts. I ended up laying out the top 3 or 4 times since my boys kept messing it up. 


The pattern I used is from here, but I changed the size of the strips to make it much smaller. My strips were cut to 1 1/2".

The other pillow is a block from Moda Bake Shop. It was quick and easy to put together and I will for sure use it again!