the glittered nest

Homemade Playdough Gift

Homemade playdough is a great gift to give and a great craft for antsy kiddos at Thanksgiving time. Getting the meal ready and watching the kids can be really stressful with lots of family activity going on.  Break out the playdough...I guarantee even the teenagers will join in. 

 
 
  
  
All you need is:

3 cups of water

3 cups of flour

3 Tbl of oil

6 tsp of cream of tarter

1.5 cups of salt

food coloring

Mix it all in a big pot until it starts to come together and look like a big ball. Turn out onto cling wrap.  Let it cool for several minutes and then play away!

Let your children help make it so they feel they have helped with this special gift.

To wrap mine I used parchment paper and red and white baker's twine.  The little flower is made from two mini cupcake liners and a button.  You could easily add a cookie cutter.  Don't forget to attach the recipe!

 

Paper Mache' Holiday House

 The first house of our Christmas village was constructed today by my daughter Abby.  These houses are so fun to paint and add glitter too.  You can find them at Hobby Lobby for only 4.00.

You can't tell in this picture but we added battery operated lights inside and it lights up.  The top comes off and you can even use this as a gift box. 
  We used German Glass Glitter for the roof and miniture ornaments for the front of the house.

 The glass glitter was purchased online at castleintheair.biz.  They have great double sided crepe paper too.  We also used Martha Stewart's glitter from Michaels.  She has some of the most beautiful colors. 

Right now the little house sits amongst turkeys and pumpkins but will soon be surrounded by snow and trees. Happy Holidays!  This is a great project to do with your kids at any age!  It took us an hour to make this little creation.

 
 

Whimsical Tree

I wanted to post some more pictures of the tree we decorated for our booth.  At first it was on the table sitting atop a cake pedestal until a strong wing came along...oops...my girls said.."mom that was a bad idea!"  That's ok, we'll make it work next time.  My friend Val suggested using plaster of paris in the bucket to weigh it down.  Anyway, here it is.

  Materials used: two branches from my back yard, reindeer moss, little nests, white cotton roses and three hand sewn birds.

 

  Here are some sweet nests you can buy from chasing-fireflies.com for the holidays.  

 

  
 
I made a larger one that hangs in my girls' bathroom:

I think these would be fun to make for Christmas gifts for families with little kiddos!  Maybe that will be the next project!  Have a great week.

 

Brownie Truffles

 

I am showing you pictures of a cake truffle below but all you have to do is to substitute brownies instead of cake.All you need to make the cake truffles are a box of cake mix(or brownie mix), some frosting and candy coating:

This recipe is from Bakerella

1 box cake mix (cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake)
1 can frosting (16 oz.)
Wax paper
 candy melts (1 lb. pkg.)
Lollipop sticks

  After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl.

Mix thoroughly with 1 can frosting. (I use the back of a large spoon, but it may be easier to use your fingers to mix together. But, be warned, it will get messy. Also, you may not need the entire can of frosting, so start out by using almost the entire can and add more if you need to.)

 
Roll mixture into quarter size balls(mine are a tad bit bigger) and place on wax paper covered cookie sheet. (Should make 45-50)

 

Melt chocolate in the microwave per directions on package. (30 sec intervals, stirring in between.)

Dip the tip of your lollipop stick in a little of the melted candy coating and insert into the cake truffle. (Insert a little less than halfway.)

Place them in the freezer for a little while to firm up.

 

Once firm, carefully insert the cake truffle into the candy coating by holding the lollipop stick and rotating until covered. Once covered remove and softly tap and rotate until the excess chocolate falls off. Don't tap too hard or the cake ball will fall off, too.

I like to use my colander to stick the lollipop sticks into. You can get several in at a time. For cake truffles, all you have to do is rotate the ball off of the stick gently.

Bake Sale Day!

This is the cute little painting Abby made with our name Sweet Nest.  She also made the aprons you see.  They have a nest, a large cupcake and an eiffel tower. 

MAdi's brownie truffles turned out great and looked so cute on the little wood stands.

 
 This little wood stand is so easy to make.  Hobby Lobby and Michaels sell the cross cut wood planks for 5.99-9.99 and all you have to do is cut some wood from your backyard and use wood glue to make a cake stand!  I'll post more on this craft later!

We used burlap for the table cloth and added cheese cloth that you buy from the grocery store to give it a rustic feel. 

 
We found these cute little chalk boards at World Market.  

Our most popular cupcakes were: apple cake with cinnamon buttercream drizzled with caramel and chocolate chocolate:

 
Here are our little tasting boxes with a variety of cupcakes inside!  I found this was a nice and quick item to have ready to go. I will definitely have these at our next sale in November.

 
 Here are the girls running the duck pond activity (which was right next to our booth).  This was a great day and we can't wait to do it again.

This was one happy little baker!  Come out and see us at Steiner Ranch on Nov 7th.  We will have four new cupcakes for the holidays.

 Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth.  We had a great time and we will be donating 20% of our profits to the organization "Feed".  Sweet Nest will be taking a week off of baking and then back in the kitchen for our next event.  Have a great holiday season.
 

 
 

Sweet Nest Sneak Peek

Lots of pink macaroons with light orange buttercream are being baked around here!  This has become my favorite dessert to make and eat!

Our little assembly line for these goodies:

We are getting ready for our Sweet Nest Booth this weekend.  I love to receive goodies in nice packages so that's what we are working on today.

Madi has been working on these and they are turning out sooo cute!  Brownie pops dipped in Vanilla Candy...some have little worms for our Halloween theme.

You can find both the macaroon and brownie truffles under the baking section on the right.  Next post I will give you a sneak peak at what Abby is doing with Art for our booth!

Holiday Bake Sales

 
I'm excited to tell you that my girls(Madi and Abby) who are both 8 and I are going to be selling our little treats at a couple of vendor events soon.  The first one will be in the subdivision: The Ranch at Brushy Creek on October 24th from 12-4.  It is called Trunk or Treat.  The second event is at Steiner Ranch on November 7th from 10-2.  Santa will be at Steiner Ranch that day. 

As you know, Madi is my little baker and Abby is my artist so....you will taste some treats from Madi and I, and Abby has designed our aprons and has designed our little booth sign!  The best part is that we are donating a portion of our profits to the organization: Feed (Feed the Children of the World)  . If you can't make it out but would like to by some treats you can order through my blog and we will deliver for free! Here's the menu for October's booth: All cupcakes are completely homemade and made with the best ingredients:

We are selling four types of cucpakes:

Sweet Nest Vanilla (Madagascar Vanilla cake with Rich Vanilla Buttercream)

Double Chocolate Dream (Ghiradelli chocolate cake with decadent Ghiradelli Chocolate Buttercream)

Pumpkin with Maple Buttercream (Moist pumpkin cake with rich and creamy Maple Buttercream)

Caramel Apple (Granny Smith apple cake with Caramel Buttercream and an extra drizzle of caramel on top)

We will have tasting boxes available with our 4 types of cupcakes(you can preorder) for 8 dollars

We will also be selling:

Spooky Brownie Truffles ( Brownie dipped in Lime Green Vanilla Candy with sprinkles)These are Madi's specialty!

French Macaroons (Pink macaroons sandwiched between Buttercream or Chocolate Ganache)

Assorted Gifts (skull cupcake liners and Halloween cupcake pics/orange and pink crepe paper bouquets with black and white polkadot ribbon)

   

Caramel Apple Cupcakes

Is this a great Halloween cupcake or what!  I love these little mini cupcakes.  I found this recipe on Chocylit's blog and decided to give it a try.  I did not add the cream cheese filling that she does, but did change it and add apple pie filling mixed with a little vanilla custard. 

 

Apple Cupcakes
9 regular cupcakes / 350 degree oven

2-3 apples, granny smith
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/4 cup apple juice
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Rinse and core the apples. Place them on an ovenproof pan or baking sheet and bake for 30-40 minutes until soft.
2. Remove the apples from the oven, let cool slightly, then remove peel and mush the apple with the back of a fork. Measure out 1 cup of apple mush and set aside to cool.
3. Combine flour, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt in a medium sized bowl and whisk to combine.
4. Crack the eggs into a separate, medium sized bowl and beat with a form to break up. Add the oil, apple juice, vanilla, and cooled apple mush and mix to combine.
5. Combine the wet and dry ingredients until all ingredients come together.
6. Scoop into cupcake papers about 3/4 full so cupcakes will have a significant dome. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-22 minutes, rotating the pan after 15 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

Thick Caramel

1/2 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
6 ounces sweetened condensed milk
1 tablespoon heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Bring the butter, brown sugar, corn syrup and sweetened condensed milk to a boil over medium-high heat stirring to combine.
2. With a wooden spoon, stir all ingredients together and then slowly add the heavy cream.
3. Continue to stir for about 20 minutes until the caramel reached 248 degrees. It is important to continuously stir the mixture and to allow it to reach temperature.
4. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and salt. Transfer to a bowl and continue to stir for 2-3 minutes allowing the caramel to cool slightly.

Final Assembly
1. Using a small offset spatula, frost each cupcake with the caramel.
2. If desired sprinkle warm caramel with any number of toppings, like coconut or crushed nuts.
3. Transfer the cupcake into the freezer to allow the caramel to set without dripping over the edge of the cupcake paper.
4. Continue frosting and topping the cupcakes and try to work fast. As the caramel cools, it becomes less spreadable. If possible work in pairs and let your helper top the cupcakes and transfer them to the freezer. By the time you reach the last few cupcakes, you will not longer need to freeze them and you can take all the cupcakes out and transfer them to the counter.
5. Top off each cupcake with a popsicle or craft stick to finish off the look.

Four of these little goodies fit perfectly in a small box. The Sweet Nest (the girls and I) will be selling our goodies at a couple of events coming up...more on that soon!

 
Here is a standard size cupcake with the filling I mentioned earlier.  Just scoop out some of the middle and fill it with the apple pie mixture and replace the top.  Frost with the caramel.  My kids loved the hard caramel on the moist apple cakes, but for an adult I would prefer a rich and buttery caramel buttercream with the apple cake! Enjoy!

New York

  
So sorry it has been a while since I posted last.  My husband had business in New York last week and I tagged along!  We came back only to find ourselves sick!  It was worth it though...just look at this picture! 

I had to take this picture.  This is a little tunnel in Central Park (my favorite part of New York).  I got a whole day to myself while my hubbie was working so I strolled through Central Park and over to The Museum of Natural History and on to mindlessly walking around and shopping in the Upper West Side.  I bought Zabars Mocha coffee beans to take home Yum and ate their Crouque Panini that was out of this world!

Here is one of my new favorite stores: ABC Carpet and Home...you must go and browse

I also had to treat myself to the ridiculously large black forest cake icecream at Serendipitys.  I was so embarrased when they brought it out...I was all by myself...it was yummy though!

Isn't this beautiful?  We walked past this to get to the boathouse where we had lunch.

Here's the boathouse.  You can sit out on the patio and have a drink with a light lunch.  We had a great trip...but of course it's always nice to get back home to see these cuties waiting for you:

 

Halloween Gift Giving

Ok it's time to head into the craft stores and gear up for Halloween!  Here is an idea for a little inexpensive gift to give to a friend for the season.  I love giving my friends little gifts around the holidays that they can use with their kids.

I know you have seen me use this litte box before...I just love the pink color. Bakeitpretty.com

The little skeleton garland is from Michaels for 4.99!  They hang from brown twine and have a real rustic quality.  The curly raffia is a bright orange color from World Market and the bow is also from Michaels.  This little gift totals 4.50 b/c I used a 40% off coupon at Michaels!!!!! Have a great time buying this season. The skeleton garland would be so cute on a wreath on the front door.  Your gift recipient could use the orange polka dot bow you gave her on the wreath too!