The Phantom Moon

Easter Spread

Happy Easter!  I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter with their friends and families, and had a chance to stuff your bellies full of delicious food.  We were able to celebrate with both my hubby's side of the family as well as mine which was perfect.  

During Easter we normally buy yummy sweets and chocolates for the kids / adults in the family, but since we've confirmed that BB has a tree nut allergy we decided to change things up a bit this year and make everything homemade.  It took a full day of baking, pounds of flour, sugar, butter and even some dyed eggs but in the end the results were super delicious ...

I managed to make 48 Dinner Rolls, 6 Easter Breads and 1 Casatiello.  Not bad considering this was the first time I made each of these babies!

This was the basket for my In-laws with the Casatiello which even got a thumbs up from my MIL (yahoo!).  I plan on tweaking each of these recipes ever so slightly and I'll post the updated recipes in the next few weeks or so.  Especially the Casatiello recipe, since it was a huge pain in the tookhes to find to begin with (plus finding it in English and not Italian was doubley hard).

And here are the cuties all wrapped up and ready to go ...

The goodies were devoured by everyone and I even snuck in a roll later on that night with a nice glass of milk.  Double yum, my friends.  I hope everyone had a blessed and happy Easter as well!

Turning 5 with Hello Kitty

BB loves Hello Kitty.  She loves cats in general and there's something about this cute white kitty with an adorable red bow in her hair that has captivated my little girl.  So for her 5th birthday we decided to make her first official party a Hello Kitty themed one.  It also happens to be the first big party that we've had at our new house so it was a bit nerve wracking for sure.  The birthday girl was super excited and helped place her balloons around the house on the morning of her party, still in her pj's of course! 

The day before I spent a few hours making her special birthday cake.  I took my direction from the amazing Raspberri Cupcakes' Purple Ombre Sprinkles Cake.  Instead of the Purple Ombre coloring for the actual cake, I chose to use a rainbow theme which I pulled from her Happy Birthday banner and some of her other HK decorations (I'll show you the inside shortly ...).

I thought it would be cute to add a little felt pennant to the cake so little Hello Kitty wasn't all alone on top of the delicious 10 layer sprinkles cake.  I hand sewed the felt pieces together using some red and white twine and I think it complimented the cake perfectly.

If you're thinking of making a sprinkles cake as well I'd totally recommend it but I must warn you, our kitchen was full or sprinkles when all was said and done!  I even found sprinkles in the stove the next day, lol.  But it was completely worth it and I would make another one this weekend if I had the time :)

I also decided to switch things up a bit and cut out some rainbow colored felt circles and stitched them together to make decorations for the main party room as well as scattered throughout the house.  They came out just right and even had a bonus feature of casting the prettiest lights on the ceiling.

I also borrowed some of BB's Hello Kitty toys and decorated our mantel with them, along with some mini mushrooms I painted and another set of hand sewn rainbow color pennants that were originally supposed to decorate the table but looked even better on the mantel along with her toys.

After eating 'til our bellies were dangerously full, it was cake time!  BB was such a trooper and let us sing Happy Birthday to her (it's always been banned from bday parties in the past since she's never liked it and for whatever reason, has always made her sad) and blew out her candle all by herself.  Hubby and I couldn't have been any prouder of our big girl!

Then it was time to slice into the cake and everyone gasped when they saw the colorful layers!  It was awesome and just what I was hoping for to say the least!  Everyone loved the cake and you can bet that I packed up plenty of leftovers for everyone to take home and enjoy again the next day.

And here is my very own "cheese" shot as I was handing out these beauties.  Can you tell I was proud of myself, lol?

Happy Birthday my sweet girl!  I'm so glad you enjoyed your party and I can't wait to celebrate with you again next year ... xoxoxoxoxo

Cookie Love

For the past few weeks, my little helper and I have been on a baking streak.  And let me tell you, working with a 4 year old is so enjoyable but double the work!  I laughed with my sister the other day and confessed that it sometimes felt like I was working alongside my 73 year old grandmother.  We've had mostly hits and a few misses here and there, and I'd like to think this one is a hit.  I used a recipe for Lemon Sugar Cookies and although the dough seems a little too sticky for my taste, it's pretty easy to whip up and use as long as the dough is super chilled and you have plenty of extra flour for your table and rolling pin.

I think the next time I make this I'll add an extra 1/2 cup to 1 cup of sugar to the actual dough.  I'm thinking that will solve the sticky dough issue?  I'm not really an expert at rolled cookies though so if any of you are wiser and have a better solution please post it in the comments for all of us amateurs out there.

Can you tell which cookies BB helped me out with?  I love how the decorations are totally clustered in the middle.  And yes, we used Easter decorations but that's all we happened to have on hand so it worked in a pinch.

And here's the present my little helper left me with ... a tiny nibble on one of the heart cookies.  And that is the extent of her sweet tooth.  After that bite she put the cookie back and sweetly asked, "can I have an apple?".

Here's the recipe if you'd like to make some yummy Lemon Sugar Cookies (via).  Enjoy!:

Lemon Sugar Cookies

Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 (14 oz.) can Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons grated lemon peel
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
5 cups Pillsbury BEST® All Purpose Flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
LEMON DRIZZLE
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Instructions

BEAT butter and sugar in large bowl until creamy. Add eggs, sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice, lemon peel and vanilla; mix until smooth.

COMBINE flour, baking powder and salt in separate bowl. Add to butter mixture; mix well. Divide dough into 3 balls. Wrap in plastic; refrigerate at least 4 hours.

HEAT oven to 350°F. Roll each ball on lightly floured surface to 1/4-inch thickness; cut into desired shapes.

BAKE 10 to 12 minutes. Cool on wire rack. Garnish with Lemon Drizzle, if desired.

COMBINE powdered sugar, water and lemon juice; mix well. Drizzle over cooled cookies.