a little night sewing

I've spent the past few evenings sewing some extra Barbie clothing for an upcoming craft show. As you can see, I also snapped a bunch of behind-the-scenes photos.

Magnetic pin cushion. This kind is a lot easier to use than the typical tomato cushion (though I'll admit it's not as cute).

My trusty Husquevarna Viking.

Fabric and trims for 2 Barbie evening gowns.

Vintage Barbie illustration.

Barbie, waiting with the scissors and thread for her modeling gig.

Samples of a new bathing suit design I'm working on (these will be debuting in the shop in a few weeks!).

Dress bodices and my iron.

In other news, I tried out a new dessert for an Australian-themed dinner the other night: lamingtons. I'd never heard of these before I started researching Australian food; basically, they're squares or cubes of butter cake coated with chocolate icing and topped with coconut.

Mine weren't particularly authentic, but they did taste great! I used chocolate ganache instead of icing, and toasted up plenty of coconut to sprinkle over each.

My recipe is from a copyrighted cookbook, but here's a few online recipes I that look similar:

• Lamingtons 1
• Lamingtons 2

Also, here's the ganache recipe I used:

• Ganache (it's at the end of the brownie recipe)
  

banana-oatmeal muffins

I'm usually not a fan of banana-related baked goods, but my Mom, muffin whiz that she is, makes a mean banana-oatmeal muffin. Which just happens to be what we had for breakfast this morning.
Above are my photos, and here's her recipe:

Banana-Oatmeal Muffins

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup + 1 teaspoon honey
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups mashed bananas (4-5 medium)

Combine oats and milk and set aside.

In large bowl, mix flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

To soaked mixture, add oil, eggs, vanilla, and bananas.

Add wet mixture to dry ingredients and stir only until the flour is moistened.

Fill greased muffin cups and bake 375 F--20 minutes.

Makes approx. 17 muffins.

Best served with scrambled eggs and orange juice.

What did you have for breakfast?

v-day

It was a very nice Valentine's Day.

Jones New York shirt, thrifted cardigan, Ralph Lauren cords, Croft & Barrow oxfords, Mossimo purse

I made some last-minute valentines that turned out rather dorky....

...but you can't go wrong with Riesens!

I also made a cherry pie for the family. By the time I got around to photographing it, it was mostly mutiliated.

I miss it already (the pie, I mean :).

Did you have a nice Valentine's?

hand pies

I made these yesterday after coming across the recipe in an old Martha Stewart magazine. Here's the recipe. I didn't have any dehydrated strawberries, so I substituted the same amount of thawed, drained, frozen strawberries and omitted the water.

They were really delicious!

crust

I made this blackberry pie today. I'm sure my blackberry pie recipe would be nothing new, but I decided to share my crust recipe because it's super easy and delicious.

Favorite Pie Crust

(recipe makes 1 crust; double for 2-crust pies)

Ingredients:
-2 c. all-purpose four
-1/2 tsp. salt
-2/3 chilled butter
-1/4-1/2 c. cold water
Note: I use my food processor to make crust (just recently got one of these, and it's miraculous), but I've made crust most of my life without one, so I'll include instructions for both, with special processor instructions in green. I use the little spinny-blade-thingy with my processor.



1. Sift flour and salt together into large bowl (or bowl of food processor).

2. Cut butter into 1/2 in. chunks and add to flour mixture.

3. Cut butter in with pie cutter (or pulse with processor) until mixture has the consistency of bread crumbs.

4. Add water and stir (or pulse). Start with 1/4 c. water and slowly add more until mixture retains shape when packed together with your fingers.

5. Pack mixture into a ball (if using processor, dump mixture into a bowl before doing this; I don't want to be responsible for missing fingers :).

6. Spread flour on your work surface, and roll out dough with rolling pin, sprinkling with flour and flipping occasionally to prevent sticking. Dough should be about 1/8 in. thick.

7. Fold crust into quarters (in half, then again) and position in pie pan with folded corner in the center.

8. Unfold, press into place, and finish the edge as you wish (I use the Fluted Pinched method from this page).

9. Bake according to your recipe and enjoy!

Tuesday Baking Adventures

This afternoon the autumnal weather inspired me to bake a pumpkin pie. I would put a picture of the finished pie here, but it's being consumed as I type.

My sister had a random pancake craving at about the same time. Between scaling a recipe for 8-11 pancakes down to one serving and missing the part in the directions about greasing the pan, she ended up with this:

pancakes (sort of)

She told me they tasted good, but somehow I doubt it :)

Skittles

While I was baking, I turned around to find our kitten, Skittles, looking innocently up at me from my little sister's high chair! I thought the picture was too cute not to share.

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a nice week! Thank you for all the friendly comments.