Homeade Caramel Sauce

Let me start by saying I have never been a fan of caramel. Kind of a funny way to start a blog right? Not if I say that this recipe made me love caramel! There are quite a few blogs with caramel recipes. I looked at few and kind of made a combination of all of them. :)

If you have never made homemade caramel sauce then you will NEVER want to buy store bought again after trying this recipe!

Ingrediants:

1 cup sugar
1/4 water
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt

In a saucepan, combine the water and sugar. Over medium heat stir until sugar dissolves; about 5 minutes. Once the sugar is dissolved raise the heat to medium high and swirl the pan occasionally until the sugar starts to show an amber color. It can take about 7-10 minutes. It's important not to scrape the sides of the pan or splash the sugar water up the sides.

While you are waiting on the sugar to turn amber, get all of your other ingredients ready to pour in because the next steps happen really fast. Once it is Amber, add the butter into the pan and lightly stir the butter to get it to dissolve. As soon as it has melted remove it from heat and quickly add the cream and vanilla. Lightly stir again (Don't scrape the sides!). Prepare for it to sputter and splash when you add the last few ingredients. It's perfectly normal, just be careful not to burn yourself. Wait for it to cool and put it in a jar or bottle of your choice. Refrigerate and enjoy.

I used a small Kerr jar with the idea of warming it up in hot water on my stove top.

Yummy butternut squash soup!

This recipe for butternut squash soup made quite a hit at my house.

Ingredients:

1 carrot
1 celery stalk
1 onion
4 cups butternut squash-cubed
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 tsp. thyme
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Prepare:

Heat oil in large soup pot and cook diced carrots, celery and onions for 3-5 minutes until onion is translucent. Stir in remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until squash is tender (about 30 minutes). Use a hand blender to puree soup or puree soup in batches in traditional blender once cooled.

Enjoy.

London Fog Latte

Homemade London Fog Tea Latte:

8-oz strong Tazo Earl Grey Tea, hot
4-oz milk
3 tbsp vanilla syrup
Pour hot Earl Grey tea into a large mug or other serving glass. Stir in vanilla syrup. Steam milk, or heat it in the microwave and whisk until very frothy, and pour it into the sweetened tea.
Serve immediately and enjoy.

Spongebob Cake

So for my Aiden's birthday (big #5!) I decided to make him a spongebob cake. I will post the links to the fondant recipe below. For now, here are some shots..

This cake was actually quite simple to make. It was VERY time consuming though. I started by baking two 9x11 cakes. I used a wilton cake pan to make sure it was nice and flat. (Look at the difference in the bake pans and you will see what I mean!) I then rolled the white fondant out and kneeded some yellow dye into it. Make sure you grease your countertops very well to avoid sticking! Once it was nice and yellow i rolled it flat and layed it on the (frosted) cakes. The rest was just details. Made some brown fondant, then red then blue...I used cookie cutters and random shapes in my kitchen to cut out the details on his face. To get the fondant to stay put you can grab a brush and wet the surface you want to stick. It will make the fondant sticky.

Ingredients:

*Two 9x11 cakes (any flavor)
*Cake board
*Frosting
*Food coloring (yellow, brown, red, l.blue, black)
*White fondant (my recipe)
*Rolling pin
*Powdered sugar (to keep the fondant from getting sticky)
*Food safe gloves (if you don't want food dye on your hands)