Carrot Cake Cupcakes {Recipes}

My sister and I made two different kinds of cupcakes to serve at the luncheon following our Mommom's funeral today.  I am not kidding you when I say that at least 15 different people came up to me and said that the carrot cake cupcakes were the best cupcakes they've ever had.... and that was just perfect because the recipe's name is actually "The Best Ever Carrot Cake Cupcakes" courtesy of Miss Paula Deen :)  

Please don't compare my actual cupcake pictures to this... because you will be let down.

So here it is folks.... 

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup apple sauce
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 8-oz. can of crushed pineapple, well drained
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract, divided
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• Small pinch of ground cloves
• 3 cups grated carrots, grate on larger side of cheese grater
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• For Frosting:
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 3 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Fresh coconut, shaved and toasted for garnish (optional)

Steps

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, apple sauce, sugars, pineapple and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and small pinch of ground cloves. Stir in carrots. Fold in pecans. Pour into muffin tin lined with beautiful paper or foil liners. Fill each liner 3/4 full. Bake in the preheated oven for 18-20 min. Let cupcakes cool completely. While cooling, prepare frosting.

Frosting: 
In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Pile the frosting high on the cooled cupcakes and garnish with the toasted coconut if desired.

* The only thing I did a little differently was the frosting.  When I made it according to the directions, it came out pretty soupy, so I added about an extra cup of sugar and a little extra cream cheese.  That gave it a little bit of a stiffer consistency so when I piped (I have no idea if I am using that word correctly!) the icing on, it looked a little nicer :)  

Here are mine!!

*taken with my cell phone

*taken with my cell phone.  

the LODGE

This weekend Chris and I are venturing off to the Lodge.  It's a weekend that we look forward to every year.  This year, there are 12 of us going :) It's an all around amazing time.  We start off driving through fabulous mountains like these: 

Once we finally get over those lovely things, we are there!  We spend the weekend cooking massive meals, reading books, playing games, making fires, hiking, skiing, tubing, and just lying around doing nothing :)  Here are some pretty cool pictures from past trips:

Where we serve our grub :)

the amazing CAST IRON stove we cook our grub on!

Who's that you ask?  Oh that's JR the ram that lives on the porch ;)

Chris pretends to grow facial hair  <3 him

LODGE 2009

What's wrong with chicks with staches?!

Tubing!

LODGE 2010


Hope everyone has a great MLK weekend!

Happy (Belated) New Year!!

This year for New Year's Eve, we went to our friends' house in West Chester for a par-tay :)  I was in charge of bringing a dessert and an appetizer of some sort.  Long story short, my appetizer (delicious mini crab quiches) got scratched because Wegman's is not a fun place to go on New Year's Eve and they were COMPLETELY sold out of mini philo dough cups.  Thumbs down!!  Thankfully, they weren't counting on mine and there was plenty of food to go around.

I did, however, use the dessert bringing opportunity as a practice round for the brownie-pops.  Kelly (different Kelly from the baby shower post) and Tim got married this past July and their color scheme was bright pink and teal and the teal has definitely crossed over into aspects of their home.  So I decided to incorporate that into the Pops.

The amazing cake, I <3 teal and pink

A picture of their reception area.
It was held in the Curtis Center in Philadelphia, PA

I bought this really cute teal with white polka dots bowl to put the pops in.  Since the bowl was pretty wide (I think about 8-9 inches in diameter) I used these flat disc like styrofoam things to smoosh the pops into.  Then I used a combo of bright pink and shimmery white ribbon to create a layered effect.  This let me cover the styrofoam in a really cute way.  (AND I thought of that idea ALL by myself, which is a rarity.  I usually steal... I mean borrow my ideas)   And that's pretty much it.  I almost dropped them (and had a heart attack) when I was walking to my car that night, but thank god, I caught them and all was right in the world again.  

Ta-Da!!

I <3 them

Kelly's food spread :)

Ed was the first {dirty} man to try the Brownie-Pops!!  

Me and the hostess, Kelly!  Happy New Year!!

The Main Event! {Baby Shower}

So today was the day!  And everything was great even with the oh-so-fabulous 5 inches of snow mother nature dumped on us.  

Big shout out to Kel's mom for lending us her Jeep or it would have been.... let's just say, interesting.... trying to get to the shower.  

Ok so onto the details.... We teamed up with Er's mom and decided on having the shower at Carrabba's Italian Grill.  It was perfect because they don't open to the public until 3, so we had a nice little 12 o'clock lunchtime kick-off :)   Erin and Jay decided against finding out the sex of their baby, but they did pick an adorable green/yellow/brown Monkey theme for their nursery and everything else that goes with a baby.  Once we knew the color scheme, Kelly and I were off.  We wanted to have fun yet make the decorations as functional as possible.  

Oh you want to know about the details??  Well here they are!  

A few months ago, I was wandering a craft fair with my mom and stumbled across these adorable little rosebuds make from socks!  As I am with pretty much everything else, I was dead-set on making them myself.  I bought two different sized socks and got to work.  

Secondly, we wanted to make a diaper cake.  Not only are they a really cute way to give someone diapers, but they also make an amazing centerpiece!  I apologize, because we made the diaper cake at Kelly's house and I totally forgot to bring my camera, so I don't personally have picture documentation of a "how-to", but I PROMISE I will steal Kelly's pictures and attempt a how-to post!  Here are a few pictures of the final diaper cake.  Erin's cousin made the edible cake that you see in the picture... It came all they way from CT and was soooooooo delicious!

Lastly, we made the favors for all the guests to take home.  This was a joint effort... Kelly initially came up with the "Poppy" nickname, I came up with the idea of doing some sort of lolli-POP, and Er's mom suggested doing a yummy brownie-pop!  And that's how the Brownie-POP was born!  (we used a Land O'Lakes recipe)

Here are a few pictures of how they turned out.  We chose to use them as centerpieces on the tables... we bought lime green and grass green chinese take-out boxes, pushed the flaps inside, stuck a piece of floral styrofoam in them, stabbed the brownie-pops in the foam and covered the foam with some decorative tan grassy/moss stuff.  (I'm a really good describer right?!)  Let me be the first to tell you that they were delicious... Kelly and I had a few brownie-pop casualties that we couldn't just WASTE, so we ate them.... and loved every second of it :)  

Here are the tags I made for the favors.  They were VERY simple, I used Microsoft Word,  pirated the pictures from www.babysupermall.com (they are Poppy's bedding), and printed them on cute tan polka dotted cardstock.  Donzo.  

I dare you to tell me you wouldn't gobble these up.... actually, make that a
DOUBLE DOG dare :)

Lastly, (and this isn't really a craft, it's just super cute), we bought pretty much any clothing with a monkey on it and put it all on a clothes line and hung it up as decoration.  

Ta-Da!!  Sometimes I wonder why I spent 6+ years getting a Masters degree when I could just party plan and decorate my life away.... lol.... wishful thinking!!

And just for fun, here are some random pictures from the shower and the after party :)

Getting ready to open presents!

Sweet Jesus, where is all of that going to go?!

Best Friends :)

Poppy's Nursery 

NONE of these were given to Erin for the baby.... they all belonged to her or Jay already :)

<3 Robin

Happy New Year!!

Being that it's the new year, it's only right for me to declare to the world some of my new year's resolutions :)  Like most, it's sometimes hard for me to keep my resolutions, but this year, I want to make some attainable goals!

Firstly, I am going to be more active... I joined an indoor soccer team a little over a month ago and it's been great (don't get me wrong, I almost passed out/died during my first game, but each game gets easier and it feels great to be playing again!)

I am going to cook more... this goes along with the whole be more active thing... what's the point of being more active if you're not eating healthy?!

I am going to MASTER my new camera (Cannon Rebel EOS) that my hubs got me for Christmas.  Gone are the days that I only learn how to use certain feature and leave the rest of whatever electronic it may be unused.

I WILL STOP BITING MY NAILS!!!!!!  Dammit, I am 27 years old, let's kick this bad habit for good!!!

I will read more books; this will be the first full year since 2002 that I have not been bound to undergrad or grad school books.  I LOVE reading, so bring on your recommendations!

Lastly, I'm going to spend more time with my amazing husband.  And I mean REAL time, not watching TV time, or I'm reading while he's on the computer time. I'm talking, going on dates, walks, trips AWAY from technology.

Anyone else have a resolution list?

Poppy

It is less than 1 week until my friend Erin's baby shower!  My friend Kelly and I are helping her mom plan it and I've been taking pictures the entire way so I can have one amazing blog post after her shower comes!  

Oh and to fill you in about the "poppy" title, that's what we've deemed her unborn child since we don't know if it's a boy or girl :)

To say that I'm excited is an understatement... and I don't even get to open any presents!  I'm simply excited to see one of my best friends have a great time with close friends and family :)  

Stay tuned for pics of decorations, favors and fun :)