My Oven Works!!!

So there has been this white square object with 4 circles on top, and a square window on the bottom in our kitchen. I haven't used it in forever, so I had started to forget what it was for. The other night I figured it out! And it turns out that you can make really yummy things with it!

The dessert is called Cream Cheese Chocolate Cupcakes. I got it from Taste of Home's Contest Winning Desserts book. Very, very good, and very, very rich.

Here's the recipe! (I'm impressed that my cupcakes looked the same as the picture in the book!). When I made it, I doubled the recipe and it gave me 42 cupcakes, and I had extra filling leftover (guess I didn't put enough in some of them). Enjoy!

Filling:

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup sugar

1 egg

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup peanut butter chips

Cupcakes:

1 cup sugar

1 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 Tablespoon white vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup baking cocoa

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Beat the sugar, egg and salt smooth. Fold in chocolate and peanut butter chips; set aside.

For cupcakes, in a large bowl, beat the sugar, water, oil, vinegar and vanilla until well blended. In a large bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into sugar mixture until blended.

Fill paper-lined muffin cups half full with batter. Top each with about 2 tablespoons of the cream cheese mixture. Bake at 3500 for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted into cupcake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely.

Christmas in August!

So after I took those sewing classes in March, I decided I wanted to make Christmas stockings for 2008. Before summer started I found a stocking pattern I liked (McCall's 4990) and then found some fabric that I hoped would look good together. Somehow during the middle of the summer I found time to make them.

I had a few mistakes along the way so I got pretty experienced at seam-ripping. This was one of them. I was so proud of my straight seam and lining up the edges so well, and I even tied the knots at both ends before I realized I'd sewn it backwards (yes I have to tie knots because my machine doesn't backstitch, but I still like my machine better than the modern ones).
Here's a closeup of the red/green fabric.

Here's a closeup of the fabric that I used for the cuff. (I didn't want too many flowers so I thought some squares might help). :)
For the lining, I used a black scrolled fabric. Paul originally thought it was a weird selection, but I think it's grown on him now that he sees the whole thing put together. I wanted the inside to be dark so it's a surprise when you pull out the presents.And I made sure that you could fit DVDs in them. You can actually fit 4 in at once.
Here's the finished product. Paul said we should leave them up from now til Christmas. I'm kinda proud of them, so I don't mind leaving them up for a while. But I'm not ready to think about Christmas quite yet since we still have 2 weeks of summer camp to finish!