What I Learned/Works for Me... Marshmallow Fondant

Several weeks before the big dual birthday party for the kids, I began talking to them about birthday cakes. I told them we could either do one big cake or two separate ones. Lucky me, they chose separate.

I mean that, actually. I love the cake decorating process so it was twice the fun for me.

Sarah and I began talking about her cake. First she mentioned a Cinderella cake. (Meh.) Then she came up with wanting butterflies and flowers. I immediately came up with a design in my head. But the only way I could picture it was going to have to involve fondant.

Problem.

I’d never used fondant before.

But I was willing and excited to try. Seriously, how hard could it be?

So my mind was made up. I was going to be experimenting with fondant. I watched for Hobby Lobby to put out one of its 40% off coupons, bought Wilton fondant and asked a few fellow foodies to share any words of wisdom.

Then while on Twitter one day (I’m sure while I should have been working) I mentioned the cakes I was going to be working on. Someone asked me if I was using buttercream or fondant and I replied that I would be trying my hand at fondant. Then she mentioned having used marshmallow fondant recently and how much better it tasted.

I was intrigued. This I had not heard of before.

So I did as I’m prone to do. Research. I researched just a little bit and came across a posting on the Wilton forums that included a recipe. And here was the great thing…. I was going to be able to make this fondant that would taste better out of stuff already in my pantry and be able to take back the expensive purchased fondant. I was beyond excited about that prospect.

So here’s how to make it and some tips I picked up in my experience:

Marshmallow Fondant
(For in depth instructions and step by step pictures, visit the recipe on my recipe blog.)

Ingredients:

1 cup mini marshmallows (packed)
1 tablespoon water
1 ½ - 1 ¾ cups powdered sugar
Gel color

Method:

To measure the marshmallows, pack them down and put as many marshmallows as possible into the measuring cup. Place the marshmallows in a heatproof bowl; add the water and place in the microwave for 20-30 seconds or until the marshmallows begin to puff up. Remove from microwave and stir; it should be starting to get soupy. If you care to color the whole batch, add your color to the melted marshmallows at this point.

Sift and knead in the powdered sugar about ¼ - ½ cup at a time; first kneading with your spoonula/spatula and then with your hand but keeping it in the bowl. You will add at least 1 ¼ cups powdered sugar. Stop adding the sugar when you can form it into a ball in your hands dusted with a little bit of powdered sugar and it does not stick to them.


Working with the fondant:

I first ice my cake in similarly colored butter cream icing. I hated the idea of having a colored fondant with white butter cream between it and the cake.

When rolling it out, use your powdered sugar like you would flour when rolling out sugar cookies or pie pastry. Dust your counter top with the sugar and keep it well dusted so that it does not stick.

To transfer the fondant to the cake, roll it up on your rolling pin (I just used my wooden one - nothing special here), then unroll it over the cake and form it down over the cake using your sugared hands.



I had trouble at the bottom of my round cake with the fondant stretching out and creating these folds. It was easy to cover up with the rest of the decorating I was going to do. This is something that I think I will figure out with time and practice.



Don’t worry too much about there being powdered sugar on it after you have placed the fondant on your cake. When covered, the powdered sugar soaks on into the fondant and your color is left vibrant.

Keeping your finished cake covered keeps the fondant moist and tender. If you want it to dry, then leave the cake uncovered.

When you are all done, you'll need to MOP your floor. Powdered sugar will likely be everywhere.


Storage:

Store the fondant in a zip top baggie.


Overall Impressions:

This is definitely a better way to go than the purchased fondant. It tastes better and is easier on the wallet without a whole lot of effort. I personally much prefer spending less on something that one 3 year old at our party scraped off the cake and put entirely in her mouth than spending more on something that most kids would spit out.

I learned a lot and I learned that Marshmallow Fondant definitely works for me!

~~~~~

For other What I Learned... posts, go visit Musings of a Housewife.

For other Works for me Wednesday posts, go visit We are THAT Family.

Mama Braggin' Monday - My boy is the FOURest

Mondays are the day of the week that I shamelessly brag on my kids here on the blog.

To see my original post about Mama Braggin' Monday, go here

So, join me if you like. I'd love to see what awesome things your kids are up to. I am no longer adding the Mr. Linky, but please leave a comment and brag on your kids. Or you can brag on mine. Either way.

~~~~

Nathan came out of his room Saturday morning saying, "I'm the four-est!"

We celebrated his fourth birthday on this weekend. Isn't he precious with his #4 chocolate chip pancake?

His big gift this year was a bicycle. I tell you what, the boy is a natural.



He climbed up on that bike and didn't stop all weekend long.

I tell you what though, when I purchased it on Thursday, I had a VERY hard time believing that he was big enough for a 16" bike. It looked so big and I just have him idealized as so much smaller than he is.

But he is big. Whether or not I want to believe it.

And no matter how I want to freeze some of his more precious moments in time or fast forward some of his more LESS than precious moments, time continues on just the same as it always does.

And what I need to do is just concentrate on the boy in front of me. Not the one I have idealized in my mind. And I need to not get bogged down too much whether a particular moment is good or not so good.

Sometimes it's just hard for me to see the "four-est" for the trees.

Foodie Friday - Friends, Farmer's Markets, and Piiih

As I shared with you on Monday, I had the chance to participate in a Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 meal/event. This is an event where a food blogger will present a proposal to Foodbuzz and go through a selection process. Foodbuzz selects 24 bloggers to each host a food event (24 total, obviously) in the same 24 hour period of time (hence the name 24, 24, 24).

This event was hosted by Kelly at evil shenanigans. I recently met Kelly (@bakingblog) and Marye (@MaryeAudet) both on Twitter. A month or so ago, Kelly asked if there were foodie bloggers who wanted to put together a North Texas food bloggers group to meet periodically. I was all about that and this ended up kind of being our first meeting.

We had such a wonderful time and all immediately hit it off really well. Yes, we talked about food, a LOT. But we also talked about family, work, goats, chickens all kinds of stuff.

My one regret of the evening is that, darn it, I didn't get a picture of the three of us. Ahh well. There will be other opportunities, I'm sure.

One of the main points about Kelly's proposal was to highlight some ways we can buy local here in the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area. If you have not had a chance to go read Kelly's post, you can do so by clicking here. She highlights a good butcher, specialty cheese shop and talks a bit about the Dallas Farmer's Market.

So, as Marye and I decided what we were going to bring to contribute, we both tried to do local things as well. Personally, I wanted to do something fabulous with the blackberries from my back yard. It doesn't get more local than that.

I considered making a new recipe with them but was a little nervous about something I hadn't tried before. I was cooking for other foodies here, afterall. So, I put it to a vote with my family and they all voted for me to make the berry pie that we all love.

On the condition that I bring some home to share with them.

Oh, and let's be clear on how to pronounce this. We're Texan and that's not necessarily "southern," but as Texans, we love this dessert dish and have our own way of prounouncing it that might be similar to the way those in the deep south might prounounce it. It's hard to type out, but if I had to, I'd type it, "piiih." Say it with me, "piiih".

Great.

Now, I realized that I needed some additional berries to go with my oh so local blackberries, so I thought I'd take a cue from Kelly and try one of our local farmer's markets.

Yeah, right. Farmer's Market my big toe.

Sorry, but when I think of Farmer's Market, I think of the one we used to go to on Thursday and Saturday mornings in Manassas, VA near the town square. Vendors from all over the outlying areas brought in their produce and only accepted cash. A baker from Leesburg came to town and brought his fresh croissants and chocolatines (and I got to practice speaking French with him). It was a family event for us on Saturday mornings and a wonderful place to spend some time and get local products.

But what I have here in the burbs is essentially what should just be called produce markets, not farmer's markets. I went in and asked, "Where are your strawberries from?" "California." So then I asked, "Where are your blueberries from?" I think she said one of the Carolinas. Well that's a pretty big farm, in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I want to support the local small business and will visit the market again, but to call it a "Farmer's Market" just seems wrong to me when they don't appear to be doing much different than the grocery stores. I'm just sayin'.

I did hear about this site called Local Harvest on Twitter, though, the other day. You can type in your zip code and find local markets in your area. I'm looking forward to exploring a little bit of what I have found there.

So, now let's get to the important stuff. The PIIIH. Say it with me, now... "PIIIH".

Great.

In short:

Make a graham cracker crust.



Grab some berries.



Make a puree, then a thickened sauce.



Let your husband who has been dealing with a garage sale lick the sauce pan with the extra sauce while the assembled pie is cooling in the refrigerator.



Make your whipped cream, top and serve.



If all of those instructions are a little to vague for you, you are welcome to go look at the recipe here.

Y'all have a great weekend, and until I see you again, make it Way More Homemade!

1st & 15th Scripture Memory

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:18 (NIV)


I know I am late, once again, in posting my verse but I typically wait until I just see a verse that strikes me. This one did just that this morning as I read my daily devotion from Proverbs 31 Ministries.

I am working to trust God and be thankful in our present trials and am looking for verses to encourage me down that road. This verse and the devotion today reminded me to keep my eye on the eternal and not the temporal. It reminded me that there are likely far reaching eternal implications to what we are going through in our family. It reminded me that I may not immediately, or ever for that matter, see the outcome. But I need to just trust Him with that outcome and remember that He works all things for good to those who love Him (Romans 8:28) and that He will be faithful to complete His work (Philippians 1:6).

BBA Challenge #3 - Bagels

This week's formula was for bagels.

I'll admit that the thought of making bagels was a little intimidating at first. Maybe it was the 40 pages in the book that were dedicated to this bread. Or maybe it was just 8 pages. I can't remember. But I guess I thought that if the reading about the bagels was that daunting, then the making of the bagels was going to be a nightmare.

I was wrong.

I didn't take any pictures of the sponge that needed to ferment for two hours before starting on the dough. You have all seen enough fermenting dough around here recently. Oh, and I forgot also.

Once the sponge was nice and bubbly and had gotten nice and tall in my Kitchen Aid mixer bowl, I began making the dough itself. Many had warned that the Kitchen Aid wouldn't handle the bagel dough, but I used it for a while anyways, at least to mix the ingredients together and get it to the point where I had added most of the flour.

Mr. Reinhart suggests a few difficult to find ingredients in his formula such as high gluten flour and malt powder or malt syrup. I tried to find these items, but alas, my local Central Market was out of high gluten flour. Drat. So rather than make that 20 minute drive for just the malt powder, I figured I'd be find just using some brown sugar and regular bread flour.

This dough is very stiff and requires a bit of kneading. But it came together finally and I got about as close as I ever do with the window "pain" test.



Next I was to divide the dough in to certain weight increments. Well, I still don't have a scale, so I had to eyeball it. The recipe says that it makes 12 large or 24 small bagels. I decided to do half large and half small which actually turned out to be 6 large and 12 small.

After dividing, I was supposed to roll the pieces of dough into little balls. I have no idea if I did this right or not, but I did the best I could.



The rolled balls were to "rest" for 20 minutes and mine puffed up pretty well.

Then came the shaping of the actual bagels. There are two methods and I chose the poke my thumb through the middle method.



I covered and let rest for another 20 minutes. Now it was time to see if they would float.

Oh PLEASE let these things float. Please please please!

YESSSSS!



Once bouyancy was determined, they were covered and went into the fridge overnight.

I found it interesting the next morning when I took them out of the refrigerator that the one bagel that I had used in the test float was now flat. See that one in the top left corner. Flat as a pancake. Well, maybe not THAT flat, but flat nonetheless.



The first step of cooking is boiling. 1 minute on each side.



What is the purpose of the baking soda in the water? Does anyone know? I didn't catch the reason in the book anywhere.



I don't know about your bagels, but mine came out kind of bumpy.

Well, anyways, if you're going to top your bagels, do so right out of the water. I tried some sunflower seeds with the first batch because I had them on hand.



Then you bake at 500 F for only about 10 minutes. They came out beautifully golden brown.







But I got a big thumbs down on the sunflower seeds from the family.

So the next ones I did plain.








Overall Impressions:

Making these homemade bagels was not nearly as fussy as I thought it was going to be.

My family really enjoyed the fresh out of the oven crisp crust and chewy crumb.

Would I make them again? Yes.

Works for Me Wednesday: Summer Research Projects

This week's edition of Works for Me Wednesday is dedicated to beating the summer boredom. It's the "Mom, I'm bored" edition.

Let me give you a little background first.

In second grade every year at our school, the children do a research project about an African animal that is assigned to them. You may or may not remember, that Sarah did her project on the ostrich (you can see her project here).

Okay, a little more background.

Every summer at our school, the children are sent home with a form to fill out for summer reading. The children are supposed to read 10 books over the summer and turn the sheet back in the first week of the next school year.

SO, this summer, as a part of Sarah's summer reading, we are encouraging her to not only read fiction, which she loves, but we are having her read to learn something. She is going to be doing two smaller scale research projects this summer. One will be on a historical figure and one will be on an animal. Both will be her choice.

The historical figure she has chosen: George Washington, our first President.

The animal she has chosen: Beavers.

I still have a little prep work to do to get her research packet together, but I'm hoping that this summer will end with us all being a little more knowledgable about President Washington and beavers.

I hope this will "Work for Me." I guess I'll need to get back to you at the end of the summer and let you know.

If you would like to see more "Mom, I'm bored" tips, join us over at We are THAT Family for Works for Me Wednesday.

So here's a little story for you...

Have you ever wondered how I came up with the name, "Way More Homemade?"

No?

Well, guess what. I'm going to tell you anyways.

One evening, we were at a dinner at church, an informal leadership banquet. We were seated at a table with two sets of dear friends. I was seated in between my friend Val and my man.

Somehow or other, mine and Val's conversation came around to the topic of food (I mean seriously, are you really surprised?). And at some point we began to discuss the ins and outs of certain recipes and landed on a potato casserole recipe. Here's how the conversation went from there...

Me: OH I have a great potato casserole recipe with grated potatoes and full of cheese and...

Val: Oh is it the one with frozen hash browns and cream of chicken soup?

Me: NO. Mine is WAY more homemade than THAT.

**** Silence around the table ****

Me: Well, I mean, I don't use frozen potatoes or canned soup.

**** Silence continues*****

Me: Did I really say that out loud?

Everyone else at the table: Uh, YEAH, you did.


So, after tweeting back and forth with @thereisaseason (otherwise known as Tonya at There is a Season) I decided I'd share the infamous potato casserole recipe with you all this evening.

Ingredients:
4 baking potatoes
1 pound cheddar cheese (grated)
1 cup milk
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
16 ounces sour cream
2-4 slices of bacon (cooked and crumbled)

You will also need:
9 x 13 baking dish

Method:
Peel and boil the potatoes whole until just tender (you do NOT want them falling apart). Remove from water and let cool until very firm (preferably overnight).

Once cool, grate the potatoes into a large bowl (either by hand or a little at a time in a food processor).

Combine cheese, milk and butter in a large saucepan and melt over medium heat, stirring constantly. As soon as it's all melted, combine with potatoes and pour into casserole dish. Top with sour cream and bake at 375 F for 35 - 40 minutes. Remove from oven and top with cooked & crumbled bacon.


So there it is. The recipe that got me into trouble and ended up giving me a nickname that I'd probably never get rid of. It's also located over on the recipe blog here.

Enjoy!

Mama Braggin' Monday - Piano Recital

Mondays are the day of the week that I shamelessly brag on my kids here on the blog. So, join me if you like. I'd love to see what awesome things your kids are up to.

To see my original post about Mama Braggin' Monday, go here.

~~~

Sarah's spring piano recital was about a week ago. She did SO well and actually received an award for being one of the most improved this year.

She played three songs, but I don't want to make you sit through all three of them. Even I recognize that there is a limit to the mama braggin' that you guys will tolerate.

So here are two of the songs she played.

Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee

Do Re Mi

Didn't she do so well???

I'm so proud of how she's doing in piano these days. She is paying with dynamics and has always had a keen sense of playing a song with feeling and not just playing notes on a page.

Her third song is called "A Little Spicy" and is also on YouTube if you want to watch it there. It was a bit more challenging but wasn't one that you would recognize, so I just didn't embed it here. She has another piece that she is still working on that is a challenge piece and I hope that she can finish it to play either at the end of the summer or for fall recital.

~~~

So here's your chance. Brag away, friends. Our kids need to be bragged on every once in a while.

Try to mention Mama Braggin' Mondays on your blog if you get a chance to spread the word.

If you need help in what to do with this Mr. Linky thing, then please click here.


(Yes, I know this Mr. Linky looks different than what we are used to. The one that I usually use is currently not available for some reason and since I use it for free and don't pay a darn thing, this is what I get.)

My weekend was great. How was yours?

Guess what I did this weekend. Just take a wild guess...

No, I didn't go skydiving.

(Although I've done it before.)


No, I didn't go base jumping.

(I have not done that before.)


I tell you what, just go visit my friend Kelly at evil shenanigans to see what I did this weekend.

Go ahead.

I'll wait.


You back now?

Pretty neat, huh?

A more complete post will be forthcoming at some point this week. Probably on Friday. As will more pictures and a recipe for my pie.

Until then just know that it was REALLY GOOD and REALLY FUN!!!

Mr. Mom FAIL

My man is a heckuva great husband. Fantastic father. Enthusiastic car guy. Mr. Fix-it.

He's a lot of things.

But he's not a mom.

He's been home with the kids all week. And will be next week too.

The kids are having a blast.

BUT.

In HIS words, the house is currently in a state of Mr. Mom FAIL.

The evidence:


The dish sponge got placed on top of something that turned adhesive and part of the sponge stuck to the counter top.

The same thing happened to a box of cereal on my kitchen table.




And the t.v. / play room... oh I just can't even talk about it.




Now, it's not like I'm some neat-freak house keeping goddess. And I'll take some blame as there has been a lot of sugar, flour and water thrown around my kitchen as of late between bread and cookie production. But the house was pretty well clean on Monday.

Ahhhh well. We'll get it cleaned up soon.

I just hope that "Jaws the vaccuum cleaner" doesn't come after him.




(In case you were wondering, permission was granted to write this post.)