Anniversary in more ways than one

February 29th is a big day for me. Not only is this my 200th post YAY, but it is also my first, fourth anniversary. It was four years ago today, February 29th 2008 that I got married.
Now, I get to celebrate!

Hubbie and I met some 10 years ago this month (Feb). I saw him in my first year English class and thought he was super beautiful! Being too shy to say anything, I just kept my nose in my books and soldiered on. A cute guy like him needs someone equally as good looking.
Later on that day, I walked into the social area of the university, the Agora, and saw some people playing a game. I walked up and said: OH WOW... MAGIC CARDS (nerdy game)... only to notice that the one playing the game was ... my future hubbie.


I was super embarrassed! But he was nice. We talked, played a few games of Magic, and then he asked me out to a movie. Our first 'date' was watching a movie about cannibalism (a movie called Ravenous).
One thing led to another, and we started to go steady. Six years later...
Hubbie hands me a box... my birthday present he says. I open it up, only to find a lovely kitten he had rescued from the humane society. As I lift the kitten and begin to freak out, he tells me to look at the bottom of the box. There was no ring, just two simple words... ENGAGEMENT KITTEN. I said yes of course. To this day, I still only have my wedding ring... one which matches his.

We were married in 2008. I was completing a Masters degree in English, and he was in Fort teaching... we decided to go ahead with our planned wedding date, even though we would only get a weekend together. We had chosen the leap year. Much like our courtship and engagement, the day was unique and fun... a perfect day for a wedding.
With Hubbie-to-be driving in town late on a Friday Night (after the school across the street blew up ... no really... from a gas leak just as he was leaving), and with me getting the final touches in place... we wed on a cold, freshly snowy Saturday. Our small ceremony was perfect. And he was mine forever! The school was repaired 1 and 1/2 years later...

I think the world of him. Unfortunately, he is actually sick today, so no big celebrations for us. He was super sad that he was not well enough for our dinner reservations, but I would much rather go when he feels well. Instead, I get to nurse him to health... I love him a lot!

Of course, what anniversary would be complete without cake! I decided to finally try the "ROSE" cake that I am Baker Legend, Amanda designed some time ago. You may have seen other people's versions... not it's my turn.

It's pretty. Roses for an anniversary. Hubbie loved it!

And of course, I can continue on being the dorky house wife I've always wanted to be. I seriously dreamed of it when I was young, but not knowing how to cook put a real hamper on that. I had a lot of work to do, and I think I fixed the problems... Maybe . At least I don't burn water anymore.

So, now I'm off to 'cubble' my Hubbie. Later on, we eat cake. Maybe, just maybe he'll be better this week, and we can celebrate for realsies.

CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE!
And HUGS!

Book of your Life Cake

Hmm. What is this book? Why, it is about my life! It has my interests and dreams! IT'S A CAKE!

That is more or less how I viewed the giving of this latest cake. One of my coworkers recently celebrated her 60th birthday.


I love when I get asked to do an 'over-the-hill' cake. I mean, what do people normally ask for when they want to celebrate an 'older' birthday... tombstones, graves, hills with people passed out on them. I mean, what tells a person that you care about them than showing them they will soon be dead? Right?

Seriously, Google OVER THE HILL CAKES and you are going to get a bunch of winner ideas. Not that they cannot be well exectuted or quite beautiful; it's just the idea of reminding people of what is coming. That's why I decided on this Book of your Life theme. Take a look:


Barb's friends conspired to tell me the things that were important to her: her grand-kids, quilting, shopping, working with friends, gardening. These were the elements that I incorporated into the cake, trying to make it seem like a positive reflection on the years to come, rather than reminding her that death is waiting around the corner with a little scythe and black robe.


Anyway, over the next week you'll notice some changes here at the blog. I'm going to be revamping this year's design, and hopefully everything will run smoothly. If you find things hard to find for a bit, I apologize. This will be my third anniversary at Domestic Sugar, and so I decided for a change of scenery. My next post will actually be my 200th! YAY.

Cupcake Gallery - Sugar Flower Cupcakes

My friend Wendy celebrated her birthday yesterday. To celebrate, I decorated cute cuppies for her. I decided that she is such a fun and sunny lady that fun flowers would be perfect! This post has no comments, just LOTS of photos.

Enjoy!

Tea Time!

One of my coworkers is having her two granddaughters over for a tea party (HOW SWEET!) and asked me to make some tea-party themed cookies.

When I think of tea party, I think dainties, flowery teacups and the 1900s. Now.. those were the days (I should know, I was there)! Back in my day, people sipped their tea, not slurped, and had great gossipy stories.

Well, maybe I am a little less old than I am claiming, and maybe I've never liked tea.. ever! But I do have a fond memory of the ladies who used to live down from my parent's house. We called them the "Sweet Williams Ladies" because of the vast and beautiful garden which had Sweet Williams flowers (They were actually mother and daughter). I used to get invited to their house to dance and have tea. The eldest lady had a wonderful tea set, pink roses and polka-dots. She had MANY teacups. I think that's where I first fell in love with teacups! The set looked like:

Now, even though I was too young for tea, they used to put milk in a teacup for me. It was wonderful! We would sit at the table, this lady who was probably around 70 at the time, and myself, who was maybe 7? and sip our drinks, looking out onto the garden. After tea, the eldest would play her organ, and the youngest and I would dance.

Tea has special meaning to me, even though I still gag at the taste.

Wasn't that a great way to end that story?

Anyway, I thought I'd share that memory. These cookies will hopefully be enjoyed with the same sold of bliss that I experienced!

Now, just as a heads up to all the Fort Frances peoples. Confederation College in town has decided they want to have a cake decorating class, and have asked me to be the instructor! SQUEE! If you are interested, you can call the college at 807-274-5395 to put your name on the list. I will have more information once the course is ironed out.
This one looks like a creative cupcake class.

I'm super excited about it!

I love you a Latte

While these cookies were originally for a sick friend (one whom enjoys going for lattes with me), I couldn't help put think the theme was a little reminiscent of Valentine's day, which is quickly approaching.

The title: "I love you a Latte" is another one of those dorky things Hubbie and I say to one another. The response to the comment is always "I love you amore" which I guess drives home the fact that I am completely dorky in every aspect, and I am officially "ONE OF THOSE MARRIED PEOPLE." YUCK!


Anyway, the theme was of hope. Of course, beautiful monarchs and lattes seems a strange choice for hope, but friendships, like any type of love, are formed through a gathering. To be metaphorical, the Latte cookies symbolize a gathering, as coffee trips are wont to do, and the butterflies symbolize overcoming, rising above (in this case, sickess). Seeing as my friend is neither wanting or ready for metaphors, I figure posting here might explain my dorky choice.

Oh look... there's another ENGLISH MAJOR... with her useless degree flaunting bad spelling mistakes and internet journaling. Isn't she special. (-___-);

Back to cookies. This design is perfect in my opinion for Valentine's day as well. The Latte cup is not a cookie cutter I own, but a hybrid: CUPCAKE cutter with SQUARE cutter on the bottom = LATTE CUP cutter. HURRAY! I think finding new uses for old cutters makes my budget a little happier. Why not find another use?

And what about these butterflies? This is my absolute favorite 'pretty' cutter. Even the normal cutter looks nice. I got it online, and have used it many times. This time, I used it for the monarch butterfly: Outline the black and fill it in!

I actually think the colours of the Monarch are absolutely stunning! I also love the Monarch's story... how it flies to South America every winter, and only it's children will return. How does it know to do that?! What sort of amazing evolutionary mechanism tells it to do that... I still can't train my husband to make coffee. "THANK YOU!"

Mine is better anyway (╤ ◡ ╤)♥

So, here's to pretty cookies, friendship and love. Hopefully I will have some more classy analysis to blither about.
Until then!

General Grievous: The Cake

This was quite an ambitious cake to make. I sat for a while with my friend Penny, trying to figure out a way to accommodate her son's party theme: Lego Star Wars. The big request came from her son's favorite Character: General Grievous...

Last year, I made a Pablo Backyardigans cake for her son, but this year, since he's growing up so fast, he wanted something a little more boyish and a little less childish. We settled on making something with General Grivous.... like this:

This was a cool cake to make, but had all sorts of little problems to overcome. Since they wanted Chocolate cake, I had to work through using chocolate cake and icing with WHITE MMF. That is no easy task! There was CHOCOLATE EVERYWHERE! I was battling to keep the fondant nice and pristine. Then there was the issue with the light sabres, and keeping them round. Oh boy, let me tell you: Think about the structure and have a strong idea. Even though I had doling in the swords, they still flopped a little, and the fondant did not keep its shape all that well. (╧__╧;)


The final product, while a little awkward in places, was actually okay to make. This is my first cake since my back injury, so I was pleased to make it. Sadly, my back began to act up, but luckily, I got everything done. The biggest challenge was making all the 'gears' and 'mechanisms' in his legs and arms. I knew that it would be difficult, and wanted to fit the most cake into this cake as possible, so I ended up with solid pieces with piped and fondant-covered details. Not bad.

I was planning a how-to, but when you get into the grove, you really move. It was mostly well-placed cake pieces and covered in chocolate buttercream and fondant. Ah well. It was a neat little project, which was well enjoyed!
Happy Birthday Zander!

BEST MUFFIN EVER: Snickerdoodle with Caramel-Apple filling

Hey All.

This is my new favorite Muffin recipe of all time. It had been making its way around Pintrest, and I just had to give it a try. I did not regret my decision!

This muffin is called the Snickerdoodle, not to be confused with the cookie version of the same name. The absolute best part about this muffin is how moist it is. I have seen so many recipes where the muffins were like bricks, thick and chewy. This muffin is moist and spongy. PERFECT.



As it stands, the recipe is perfect, but can you imagine what would make cinnamon and sugar better... APPLES AND CARAMEL! No really, my Hubbie fell over backwards over these muffins. I had to give up a little on my not-so-resolute-resolution, but it was totally worth it.

♥ Snickerdoodle Muffins ♥
Adapted from eat me, delicious

2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon cream of tartar
¾ teaspoon nutmeg
2 sticks butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ¼ cup sour cream

Topping:
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking pan (cuppies) with wrappers if desired, or spray.

Mix Flour, Tartar, baking powder, baking soda, and nutmeg.

Cream butter and sugar, add egg and vanilla. Slowly incorporate dry ingredients and sour cream until smooth (use spatula on the sides and bottom of the bowl to be sure).

Mix 'topping' (cinnamon and sugar) in a small bowl.
Using an ice-cream scoop, and scoop an amount and place in the 'topping' bowl. Roll batter around to coat (or simply place cinnamon/sugar in the bottom of the cuppie tin and sprinkle liberally on top).

Bake for 20-25 minutes (or until light brown on sides/top). Cool.

Yield: 24 Muffins.

Want to step it up a notch? Keep reading!


At about the point that the muffins were cooking was when Hubbie suggested a dessert with apples and caramel. That got my brain in a tizzy. I thought... CINNAMON, SUGAR, APPLES AND CARAMEL... IT'S A PIE IN A MUFFIN'S FORM!

So, I began to make up the caramel. It's super simple!

Caramel/Apple filling

1/2 c BUTTER (Must be butter)
1c brown sugar
1 large apple ( granny smith (best) or Macintosh).
1 tsp vanilla

Cut apple into small cubes. Place butter and brown sugar, vanilla and apples in a thick-bottomed saucepan. On Low-Medium heat, melt butter and sugar until the sugar begins to boil lightly. Stir often! Continue to bubble on low for 5 minutes, or until much of the water from the apples has been cooked off and the mixture is smooth. Let cool (not completely) until warm.

Core the muffins (take the centers out with a knife... eat them! EAT THEM!) Pour apple/caramel mix into the centers of your muffins. If you wish, garnish with walnuts or Pecans for a nice contrast in texture/flavor.

EAT THEM! \(휴﹃휴) /

You will seriously not regret making these muffins. I have never seen a muffin so wonderful, so moist and so scrumptious. The apples and caramel are DIVINE! The thing I liked the most was the simplicity. As you can tell, things have been pretty busy, and I've not had a lot of time to bake. From start to finish, this recipe took one hour. That's all! When time is precious, you need to make something that will be amazing as well as time efficient.

Hope you all enjoy!!