Posts Under Newsworthy Category
“Leaving on a Jet Plane”
52 Weeks: Week Seven
And, thus, packing. Or, taking pictures of the mess I’ve made on my bed while sitting in my suitcase *instead* of packing!
This could be the reason why I didn’t finish packing until 3a.m the night before I left for my vacation… :)
***I’m playing catch up this week – I kept up with taking photos, however am behind on posting them as I was in Europe from Feb 17-March 3… and was sick the week after! And also busy sorting through and processing 1,250 Europe pictures – which I am still working on!
About 52 Weeks: I’ve decided I’m doing the 52 Week Photography Challenge this year. 52 weeks, one picture a week – each a self portrait.
“See, Hear, Speak”
52 Weeks: Week Six
I think this is pretty self explanatory. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
I wanted to try merging 3 images together – it was much tricker than I anticipated! The light changed very quickly, so over about half an hour of shooting I had very different light conditions to work with.
Lots of thanks to Photoshop being so helpful in fixing that issue ;)
And of course, there’s a behind the scenes shot as well (with a cameo from one of the dogs ;)
Behind the Scenes:
The dog wanted to get in on the action. She jumped on the couch and tried to get into my lap JUST as the timer on the camera went off… this is the result :) She had just been let in from outside, so her paws were all wet de boot!
Also, you can check out a side self portrait of mine – “Queen of Hearts”. It’s not my official 52 Week entry, but it is perfect for the Week 7 prompt for Focus 52 – “love, baby!”.
About 52 Weeks: I’ve decided I’m doing the 52 Week Photography Challenge this year. 52 weeks, one picture a week – each a self portrait.
PS: A very happy birthday to my sister, Kaitlyn – check out her 52 Week’s photo here.
{{ Read more She Bakes! || About She Bakes! || She Bakes! Photos }}
If you know me, than you know I’m not really a football fan. I watch the Super Bowl, but that’s about as far as it goes (and lets face it, I like the commercials and halftime show better than the actual game most years. Sidenote: this year was not one of them, thankyouverymuch Fergie).
Anyways, this year’s challenge for me leading up to the Super Bowl was finding the perfect “mancake” (read as: manly cupcake) to take to my friend’s Super Bowl party.
Mission Successful.
May I present you with… Maple Bacon Super Bowl Cupcakes.
Yes, you heard me correctly. Maple bacon cupcakes (yes, with REAL bacon in them!) filled with a maple icing (which tastes like the maple glaze on maple doughnuts!) and topped with a Vanilla Buttercream decorator icing and chocolate football.
I modified a recipe I found on Vanilla Garlic to make these.
Cupcake Recipe
Makes approximately 16 cupcakes || 350° for 16-18 minutes
- 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp room temperature butter or margarine
Mmmmm maple bacon cupcakes
- 12 strips of bacon
- 1 tbsp bacon grease (save the grease when you cook the bacon for this recipe!)
- 2/3 cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup of bacon (cooked, drained, and crumbled)
Cook the bacon, save the grease and put in the fridge to harden, then mince the bacon (or get the boy to do all this while you deal with the main batter for the cupcakes, which is what I did ;) Beat the butter and cooled bacon grease until it’s light and creamy. Add the brown sugar and maple syrup and mix it well. Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then slowly add to the batter while mixing it. Add the milk. Mix the batter until the ingredients are just combined. Fold in the chopped bacon bits.
Maple Icing/Filling Recipe
**I used this as filling – it’s very liquidy at first, but hardens well if you decide to use it for icing. If I wasn’t decorating these for the Super Bowl, I’d use this as icing and top the cupcake with a curled strip of bacon.
- 2 cups icing sugar
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/2 cup butter
- 3-4 tsp milk (to taste)
- Pinch of salt (to make it a little less sweet)
Toss everything in a bowl, and blend.
Ta da!
As I mentioned above – I used a vanilla buttercream (with decorator consistency) for the icing, since I was, well, decorating them! I always use the Wilton Buttercream recipe (with an extra tbsp of water) with clear Vanilla Extract. Something I’d like to try is making this icing with maple extract instead of vanilla, and see if that will work as a maple flavored decorator icing (and as flavored as the above recipe); but I didn’t have any maple extract on hand when baking.
You can check out the rest of my photos on Flickr:
“Framed”
52 Weeks: Week Five
I had this great idea for a photos last week – but, I got lazy, ran out of time, and was frantic to take a picture on Saturday Afternoon… that’s where “POP!” came from.
So I banked the great idea for later.
Turns out, this week is later.
“Framed” is the prompt work for this week’s Focus 52 project, so I got to use last week’s idea sooner than I expected.
Weird coincidence :).
Outtakes:
Behind the Scenes
About 52 Weeks: I’ve decided I’m doing the 52 Week Photography Challenge this year. 52 weeks, one picture a week – each a self portrait.
“POP!”
52 Weeks: Week Four
I don’t know where this idea came from. I had a bunch of ideas floating in my head for this week, but I slacked on actually executing them and was scrambling for something last-minute (this seems to be becomming a trend with me!). I’ve banked all those slightly more (and some VERY!) elaborate ideas for a later date (so stay tuned :)
Anyways, I somehow started thinking about bubble gum, and blowing bubbles with it, which led to me running over to the store to pick up a pack of Hubba Bubba. This was the result :)
And, unintentionally, it even kind of fits the prompt word for this week’s Focus 52: “Play”.
Outtakes:
Outtake 1: This paticular bubble is HUGE. Like, I feel it’s almost the size of my head, if I could raise it. It was covering my eyes too much for me to love it as my weekly – but I’m a little proud I got it that big before it popped ;)
Outtake 2: This is what happens when the camera goes off a second too late. You get a picture of yourself laughing with gum stuck on your nose.
About 52 Weeks: I’ve decided I’m doing the 52 Week Photography Challenge this year. 52 weeks, one picture a week – each a self portrait.
