I just found a blog (via Twitter) this morning, asking about S’mores. Well, you  might have seen my previous posts about how I made homemade marshmallows. Later, I turned them into S’mores and sold them at work and at my son’s spring hockey tournament for donations for the Weekend to End Breast Cancer.

This is how I did it: The first batch is pictured above– I dipped the marshmallows into milk or dark chocolate and then into crushed graham crackers. Later, I made them with whole crackers like this: I put a little chocolate onto each graham cracker and then placed a piece of marshmallow on each one. Then I dipped them into the melted chocolate, and let them cool on parchment paper. They were incredible! I think Jon may have taken some photos of those- I will post them up later. Next, I want to try making different flavoured marshmallows to use- such as chocolate, mint or raspberry- maybe coconut!

Mine came out a little smaller that I expected, so I’ll make them larger next time when dividing the dough. Here are a few of them hanging out in the frying pan (5 minutes per side is all it takes), and another shot showing the second side that doesn’t get as browned as the first side. I always wondered why that happens and now I know:  it’s because after they cook on the first side, they rise a little bit into a dome shape in the pan and when you flip them over, not as much of the muffin touches the cooking surface.

I split them with a fork and tasted one with some homemade raspberry jam. YUM! They are delicious, and pretty simple to make with my stand mixer doing all the hard kneading work.

While I was waiting for the dough to rise, I found some recipes for Cinnamon Bread. I wanted to make the kind that is rolled and when you cut it you get a nice spiral in the middle of the loaf.

Here’s a shot of the first loaf from the inside.

Looks pretty tasty, right? Well, the cinnamon and sugar oozed out all over the place and the side of the loaf kind of caved in when I was trying to get it out of the pan (the sugar made it stick)  The loaf also seemed to split open and come un-rolled a bit, even though I pinched the dough together along the seam really well and baked it seam-side down. The picture of the outside of the loaf isn’t quite as attractive:-( It ended up almost like a great big sticky cinnamon roll which is fine if that’s what you’re trying to make.

The good news is that it tastes wonderful!

Back to the drawing board to try for a loaf that looks a bit prettier. My second try is in the oven right now. I reduced the sugar filling, used white instead of brown sugar and I tried an egg wash on the dough to ’stick’ the cinnamon mixture rather than butter this time. So far so good- nothing is oozing out yet. I’ll post pictures when they are cooled and I’ve sliced into them.

The other good news is that it smells fantastic in the house today!

Next I want to try making mini blueberry pies. I watched Anna Olsen making mini cherry pies on Food Network recently and they looked great. Unfortunately it’s not easy to find tart cherries around here. Plenty of sweet cherries, but they aren’t ideal for baking.

The event raised over $500 for the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre. Yeay, cupcakes for a great cause!

The best part is…drum roll please… I won the grand prize of the evening for the Best Tasting Cupcakes! How cool is that?  OK,  so the REAL grand prize winner was the Coconut Mojito Cupcakes, but they left before the judging, so the prize went to me as the runner up. The prize was a $300 certificate for a custom cake from Tartlets Pastry & Cake Design Check out the gallery of cakes on their site – just amazing.

Pretty fun evening, but I ate WAY too many cupcakes. My favorites were the Burger Cupcakes, complete with red, yellow and green icings for condiments, brownies for the ‘meat’ and sesame seeds on the tops of the ‘buns’. They were the winners for Most Creative Cupcakes. Aren’t they the coolest?

I wonder if these will be good enough to take to Cupcake Camp?

Yesterday was our 4th wedding anniversary and we took a walk all the way around the seawall (over 10km) and then stopped for a lovely Thai meal at a tiny restaurant in the West End. While we were there, we looked in to a new shop on Denman called ‘Cupcake’. It’s a very cute little bakery selling only…you guessed it…many kinds of cupcakes. They looked very pretty, but $2.95 EACH?? I think I’m in the wrong business!

Results: Well, everyone said the cupcakes tasted good. (my family is too polite to say otherwise though!) but they came out too dense for my liking., closer to a pound cake consistency. I wanted light and spongy. I like the taste of this recipe, so I think I’ll try it again making sure the eggs and all liquids are at room temperature and avoiding over mixing after adding the flour.

By the time she married at 30, she really didn’t know how to cook, clean, sew or take care of a home. She had to learn by herself, and I think it was mostly via trial and error. She told me once my father went fishing and brought home his catch and she sat down and cried. She had no idea how to prepare or cook the fish.

Eventually, my mom became a decent cook. She made simple meals like roast beef, boiled potatoes and a plain veg, or chicken pot pie. She overcooked most meats and I think that’s why I grew up disliking meat dishes. She was very good at making soups and she taught herself to bake bread. I have fond memories of sitting beside the table watching my mom knead a huge lump of bread dough bending down to scoop flour out of the huge container on the floor. She did it all by ‘feel’, no measurements needed! Pretty impressive. She was also very good at extending ingredients to feed many on a tight budget. I’ve always been impressed with how my parents managed to raise 5 children on one salary and end up mortgage free in their early 50’s.

Once I became an adult, I realized there were a few things I could improve on from my mom’s way of cooking and baking. Pastry is a major one. I remember learning to make an apple pie in class at school. I came home and made it for the family and everyone exclaimed about the incredibly flaky, light crust. Even though my mom made pies regularly, she overworked the pasty dough, kneading it until it was smooth with warm hands and re-rolling it over and over. She didn’t worry about the fat being chilled or the water being ice cold. Her pastry didn’t taste bad, but it was pretty tough to get a fork through!

So, here is the blueberry pie I made last night. I love the pastry star cut-outs for the top crust. Not my idea, but looks great anyway. I could never get my head around doing a proper lattice top. I had fun making it, using a combination of several recipes I found online. We didn’t wait for it to cool completely, so it was pretty juicy, but I must admit it tasted fabulous. How can you lose when you’re using delicious local berries (these were frozen from last Summer)  This is what’s left this morning.

The lucky winner of this giveaway will get ONE DOZEN pieces of their choice of:

S’mores or

Chocolate-Dipped Oreos

…or a combination of the two:-)

All made fresh and packed up carefully.  I can send them anywhere in the US or Canada.

I will include a little Juicybags surprise gift too:-)

Are you ready for a sweet treat??

Here ’s how to enter this contest!

1) Click through the current auctions I have posted for my Weekend to End Breast Cancer Fundraiser, then come back here and tell us which is your favourite item and why.

2) Tweet about my auctions and post a link to your tweet here. Here is a sample tweet you could use:

‘Help fight breast cancer,bid on some fantastic donated items and support handmade too! http://triagefromhome.com pls RT’

3) Blog about my breast cancer auctions with a link back here (2 entries) -leave 2 comments (and post the link to your blog entry)

4) Blog about this giveaway with a link back here (2 entries) -leave 2 comments (and post the link to your blog entry)

5) BID on one of my current auction items (3 entries)-leave 3 comments

6) Donate instantly to this great cause by either going to my online donation page, or to the Paypal DONATE link up in the top right corner of this blog  (Paypal takes their little cut off the top, so the online donation page is preferable) (5 entries for any donation $5.00 or more)

Good luck!

This giveaway contest will run for 2 weeks, ending on March 28th at noon Pacific DST

I will notify the winner via email and the winner will have 48 hours to respond to receive their prize.

~~Don’t forget to follow the instructions to enter~~

~~Comments saying just ‘yummy’ or ‘those look good’ will not be counted as entries and will be deleted!~~

I can’t believe I didn’t really know about this incredible kitchen-ware until now! Sure, I’ve seen the catalogues at work in the coffee room over the years and perhaps someone has told me they were having a party, but I guess I didn’t really pay much attention.

Well, last night I had a fundraiser party to benefit my Weekend to End Breast Cancer fund. I was quite nervous because there was only going to be six of us there. I really wanted it to be fun and successful. I spent the morning cleaning the house, and hoping that everyone would show up. Marcie (the PC Rep)  showed up with her totes filled with products and once my sister arrived and we started looking at things and asking questions- I was hooked! Marcie made some delcious little cakes with chocolate caramel sauce and pecans. Did you know you can toast nuts in the microwave? I didn’t. We had lots of fun trying out the gadgets. In fact my son told me this morning that he couldn’t get to sleep because we were laughing so loudly–oops!

I wish I had taken a video of each of us taking turns testing out this Colour Coated Bread Knife. It was hilarious how excited we got about this knife:-) I think we all bought one. It doesn’t look like much in the picture, right? But it was incredible to cut with. I know, it sounds ridiculous-but we were all ooohh-ing and aww-ing over this knife!

I ended up buying more stuff than I was expecting to, and this morning I realize there are several more things I really want that I forgot to order. The party will be left open for another week, so I’ll see if I can collect a few more orders and perhaps place another one myself. These little decorator bottles are on my list. They are going to make cookie and cupcake decorating so much easier.

I wish I could chuck all the old baking pans I have and just buy all the stoneware pans in every size and shape! I love that they become more seasoned and non-stick over time and don’t require soapy washing. Amazing.

Anyone out there interested? If you live close to the Lower Mainland and you’d like to place an order to benefit my fundraiser (20% goes to the cause) please go to the Pampered Chef online shopping site at this LINK. Be sure to enter my first and last names as the party hostess (Helen Jennings) so that it will be credited correctly. The party will stay open to new orders until March 21st.

Happy Shopping!

It sounds like my daughter is settling in Calgary pretty well. She and her friend have moved into their shared townhouse (2 other roomies) and she’s working quite a bit at her hostess job at a restaurant. She’s even looking for a second job! She’s lost her debit card (for about the millionth time) so of course it’s going to be mom to the rescue again going to her bank here to get her a new one and mail it out. Luckily I’m still joint on her account, so they should let me do it.  The best part about her living there is that we don’t argue anymore- AT ALL. I guess it’s difficult to argue with someone when your only contact is text, facebook and phone:-)

I just finished my set of 4 shifts and now I’m off for 5 days. I’ll be doing some local pick-ups of garage sale donations and some more trolling for more. I’m hoping I can get a helium tank donated for balloons and maybe some coffee from Tims or Starbucks. Anyone have a connection? I think my brother can hook me up for some tables. I’m going to need LOTS. I can’t believe all the stuff I’ve collected for the sale. Now to try to figure out how to display it all effectively. I have SO many books. Still trying to work out how to put those out without taking up too much space. I have some great free-standing display grids that I can use to hang clothing on and some hangers my mom gave me. No idea how I’m going to find time to sort through all the stuff and pricing it all?? Yikes…I really hope this sale goes well after all this work.  One thing I thought I might try: I sent a request to the local mall to see if I can set up outside one of the entrances on the Sunday prior to the sale and hand out flyers about it and sell my homemade treats. It’s a short notice request: their website states that non-profit requests need to be made 90 days prior. I guess it was worth a try anyway.

I took my goodies in to work the other day when I had my in-office day. I sold them for $1 a piece as donations to the walk, and I made $60! Everyone raved over the homemade marshmallow Smores. Now, I’m working on getting more marshamallows made to supply trays of goodies in the volunteers’ office at the hockey rink during my son’s Spring Break Tournament next week.  If I have to be there nearly everyday helping out, I might as well troll for donations too, right?

Last night it was pretty quiet on the phones, and I was playing on Twitter a bit and posting some new auctions. I found Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, Shaquille O’neil and MCHammer! They all tweet, and it was fun watching everyone try to chat with Ashton and Demi for a while. I just wish I could get any ONE of them to re-tweet about my blog auctions. Can you imagine the clicks I could get? Ashton has something like 250,000 followers! I can dream anyway:-)

Can you guess what these are? I didn’t even know it was possible to make Homemade Marshmallows until I found this great online tutorial and I had to try it myself. I’d been thinking about getting a stand mixer for while now. It’s definitely needed for this recipe because it has to be whipped for about 20 minutes to get enough volume for the fluff-factor. I needed a candy thermometer as well, because the sugar has to be cooked to the correct heat before it’s whipped.  I wasn’t sure what size pans were needed, so I used two 13×9’s. I think it would have been better using just one and getting thicker, block-shaped pieces like the ones in the tutorial photos. They don’t taste anything like those nasty nothing-puffs you buy at the store. I’ll bet they would take S’mores to a whole new level:-) These are vanilla, but I’d like to try making some other flavours, like chocolate, lemon or raspberry.

These are Hand-Dipped Chocolate Covered Oreo Cookies. As you can see, they follow my current focus:  Breast Cancer Awareness. I am planning to take these into the office with me on Friday and offer them up for a Loonie a piece as donations.  These were so much fun to make that I’d be willing to pack them up and ship some to anybody who wants some. All proceeds to my Weekend to End Breast Cancer fund, of course! I used white, milk and dark chocolate with a bit of Royal Icing to make the pink ribbon on some. Jon and Devon and I tried them and they are incredibly tasty! I have to hide the rest to try to make them last till Friday!

Update: I packed some up and sent them off to my wayward child in Calgary as a surprise. Guess I’ll have to make more before Friday!

]]> http://www.triagefromhome.com/2009/03/sweet-tuesday-treats/feed/ 1