Yummy Homemade Raspberry Streusel Muffins!

I don't know about you but the Raspberries in the Carolinas the last few few weeks have been simply delicious and perfectly ripe! We have a local produce stand down the street and we try to get their blackberries and raspberries when we can but even the ones in the grocery stores have been tasty lately! 

Funny little story about how I found this recipe...I picked up one of those little envelopes of wildberry muffin mix in the grocery a few months ago to make for my boyfriend's family that was visiting. They were great and I loved them a lot and so I bought them the next week.  I have made them several times and it wasn't until just recently did I realize that the package says muffin mix with artificial berries.  Artificial berries???? Wait...how do you make an artificial berry.  Obviously I knew they weren't fresh berries but thought they were pieces of dried fruit, but at one time REAL fruit.  Well I was wrong.  Now I want those berry muffins but I don't want them with fake berries.  No offense to anyone that makes these muffins and enjoys them because I certainly did until a few weeks ago!  So I searched high and low for the best raspberry muffin recipe and I found a good one...here is the original recipe.  I've made a few minor changes to mine but here is how to make them...

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

1/2 cup sugar (I used granulated Splenda)

1 egg

1/2 cup sour cream (I used light)

1 cup milk (I used skim)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour (I used whole wheat)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries (I sprinkled mine with a dusing of sugar depending on how naturally sweet they are)

STREUSEL:

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup quick-cooking oats

3 tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons cold butter or margarine

Servings:   16

 Directions:

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy; beat in egg.  

  In a small bowl, mix sour cream, milk and vanilla.
.
Combine dry ingredients

 Stir into creamed mixture alternately with sour cream mixture just until moistened.

 Gently fold in raspberries.

Fill 16 greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full.

Combine flour, oats, sugar, cinnamon and salt; mix well. Cut in the butter until crumbly.  Sprinkle on top of muffins. 
  Bake at 400 degrees F for 18-22 minutes or until muffins test done. Cool in pan 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack. 

By this time...your house will smell great and you will be dying for them to cool so you can sample one or two! 

These are perfect to make for out of town company or for yourself to enjoy with a cup of coffee and I bet...the kids will love them too! :)   Enjoy! 

Oh, the Joys of Cupcaking!

I'm not sure if "cupcaking" is a real word but I sure do like to use it!  This is only my second blog post but I just have to share some of my cupcakes.  Unfortunately these are all cupcakes I made prior to blogging so  I don't have step by step pictures. I do have final product pictures and a brief explanation of how the cupcakes were made.  If you would like to know more about how to make any of the cupcakes, please feel free to contact me! 

Now let me just say, I am by no means a contestant on Cupcake Wars or the Cake Boss but I enjoy making them!

Two of my favorite cupcake books are from the Hello Cupcake series!  These books are filled with wonderful ideas and I love when an occasion comes up that fits one of the cupcakes in the books.  Perfect excuse to try out another cupcake!  All of the cupcake ideas I'm about to share came from these books but some of them I have altered slightly!

(My apologies for the bad photos…some of them were taken with a camera phone because I made these prior to blogging.)

April Fools'

April Fools' Chinese food cupcakes.  I told my boyfriend that I would pick up dinner and this is what I brought home! 

The fried rice cupcake is an iced cupcake with rice crispy cereal that was coated in Hershey's Cocoa Powder.  I stacked the cereal to create a rice mound.  The "egg" pieces are yellow laffy taffy, the "peas" are green ball candies and the "carrots" are pieces of orange tootsie rolls (from a bag of mixed fruit flavored).

The lo mein cupcake is an iced cupcake with tinted vanilla frosting using  Hershey's Cocoa Powder and a thin tipped icing bag to create "noodles".  The "broccoli" is a green tootsie roll cut up the middle (only half way) and then pulled apart to look like split stalks.  The "florets" are made from a green laffy taffy and icing to give it the texture of "broccoli". 

I also made these on April Fools' for some kids that I know.  What kid doesn't like a cupcake t.v. dinner tray on April Fools'? 

The chicken was a regular vanilla iced cupcake that I dipped into graham cracker crumbs.  Then I took a whole graham cracker and amazingly enough cut out a chicken bone shape with scissors that I only use for food...this took a few attempts before I was successful because the cracker kept braking. Then I iced the cracker with white icing and stuck it in the back of the cupcake.   

The mixed veggies are made from various pieces of candy ranging from fruit flavored tootsie rolls to jelly beans cut in half.  I iced a cupcake with tinted green icing and stuck the veggie shaped candies on. 

The desert was made with the same tinted icing as the chicken but then I poured slightly melted chocolate sauce on top.  Then I added star sprinkles on top...the Kids Cusines I had as a kid always had the "do it yourself sprinkle packets"! 

The "mashed potatoes" were made with a regular vanilla iced cupake to look like "potatoes".  For the "gravy" I used some slightly melted tan tinted icing (the same icing that was used for the "chicken" and "desert").  Slightly melted carmel sauce

 would have also worked as well but I didn't have any on hand. 

Movie Theater Popcorn

This is by far one of my favorites...aren't they just adorable and perfect for a movie theater birthday party?  These are actually pretty simple to make. I used a knife to make an X impression mark on the mini-marshmallows.  You don't want to cut all the way through the marshmellow because it will fall apart.  This helps the marshmallows to look more like "popcorn".  I just frosted a cupcake like normal and added the mini-marshmallows by stacking them similar to a box of popcorn. Then I took a pastry brush and some watered down food coloring to brush on the "butter".  You don't need to add much because the yellow liquid "bleeds" and spreads well on the marshmellows.

I added the tickets just as my own special touch.  I used hot glue to attach the tickets to a toothpick to create a cupcake pick.  I got the tickets and cupcake liners from Hobby Lobby in the circus party theme section.

Panda Bears

I love panda bears and have since I was a kid.  When I saw these in the book, I just knew I had to make them!  Just to warn you, these are very time consuming. These would be perfect for a jungle or zoo themed birthday party or for a kid that loves Panda bears. 

 Each panda requires a standard sized cupcake for the body and a mini cupcake for the head.  The body cupcake gets iced and dipped into Oreo cookie crumbs.  The head gets iced and stuck onto the body.  I waited until after I stuck the head on to draw the face on but I would strongly recommend drawing the face on first...it can be really hard to keep your hand steady to draw the face at that angle. The ears are made from Chocolate Cheerios.  The arms and feet are made from Oreos broken in half. 

Billiards Balls

I made these for my teenage brother's birthday party beause he had a bunch of friends over and they all played pool. 

These are simply regular iced cupcakes dipped in  colored sugar crystals.  The ones that have a stripe I made using a wax paper stencil so that the colored sugar only went in the stripe area.  The numbers are icing written on Necco wafers. 

Oh how I love cupcakes!  Hope this post will encourage you to bake!  You don't have to be a famous baker to make cupcakes!  I look forward to sharing with you soon many more of the cupcakes I've made!

Check back here tomorrow at Creative Spice for a great recipe!  Have a great day everyone!   

Memorial Day/4th of July Wreath

 Materials:   2 Rolls of red and blue ribbon (Dollar Tree), Star Garland (Dollar Tree), Pennant (Target dollar rack), roll of white tule (which I had from a previous project) and a wooden wreath base (Dollar Tree). 

 I spray painted the base of the wreath red. While the paint was drying I took the spools of ribbon & tule and cut them into strips.  I cut the strips at varying lengths from 8-12 inches. All the cuts were apporximate because I wanted varying lengths of ribbon. The number of strips you will need will vary depending on the size of your wreath.   

 After the paint was dry I tied the ribbon around the wreath base.  I tied them on with just a basic

double knot. I alternated blue and red leaving around an inch (just eye ball it) in between each ribbon tie. 

 

 After tying on all the ribbons, I started wrapping the wreath with the garland in empty spaces I left in between the ribbon.  The garland is very flexiable and wraps easily but just to secure it, I put a dab of hot glue in between each ribbon knot. 

 After securing the garland I added the white tule.  I only had about 8 pieces of cut tule so I just tied them on around the wreath by eye balling the spacing. 

 This is where a Cricut would have come in handy (hoping to get one this summer). Scrapbooking stickers or cut outs would have also worked but I didn't have any in black.  I went very basic with this part and just wrote out the words "Happy Memorial Day" as shown above with a felt tip pen on white cardstalk.  I went over all the letters to make them fat block letters. 

After writing out the letters, I cut out the words individually and used a glue stick to glue them horizontally on the pennant.  I secured the pennant on the wreath by punch a hole in each on of the pennant and tieing to the wreath.  I also made a pennant for 4th of July so that I can use the wreath for both holidays.  Pennnts have been around forever but seem to be a popular item lately in craft and decorating world. 

The final product!  I'm very happy with how it turned out and I am so glad that I can use it for both Memorial Day and 4th of July!  It is very patriotic and perfect for both holidays! USA!