Blog Switch

Hello, dear reader! This is just a quick post to let you know that I've switched my blog over to Wordpress. Blogger had been giving me problems for a while, so I made the switch. You can find me at www.shoesandshortcakes.wordpress.com if you'd like to follow me there, I'd love you forever! Thanks for reading!

#ODP13 Day Six

 As promised: the first complicated outfit of the month! This outfit actually reminds me of a movie that's coming out, The Lego Movie (don't make fun of me because I watch little kid movies...). There's a scene in the preview where one of the characters asks Batman (my favorite Superhero, btw. Besides Iron Man, of course) if he can make the batmobile in orange. Batman responds, "I only work in black. And occasionally very, very, very dark gray." So basically, I'm Batman. 

 I wore The Dress with my petal dress over top, a black vest, silvery shoes, a black belt, and a black and gray headband. Also: first day with the gel eyeliner, I like it so far!

Cinnamon Apple Cake

via

If you have a Pinterest account and are remotely interested in food, you've probably seen this pin. It has gone totally viral the past few weeks. So I thought, it's apple season, this pin is popular, I might as well try it out, right? Right. It was pretty delicious. Unfortunately, I left mine in the pan a little too long and it broke apart instead of being beautiful like the original photo above (from the original website). But it still tasted delicious! Also: I think it's pretty safe to say I use a lot of cinnamon.. Today my mom bought Cinnamon at Sam's Club, which means it's a ginormous container. When I asked why she bought so much she informed me that I've used an entire little container of cinnamon ever month for the past four months. Some things you just have to buy in bulk!

 If you don't have one of these, you should invest at once. They're amazing. Especially at Thanksgiving when you're making apple pie and apple crisp and apple cider etc, etc, etc. It literally takes 10 seconds to peel and core your apples this way. 

 You'll need 5 medium size apples for this recipe, peeled, cored, and diced. Cover them with the cinnamon and sugar and set overnight. I didn't read the recipe before starting, so I didn't really want to wait overnight to make the cake. If that's the case with you as well, you can do it the cheater way like me.. I just spread them in the bottom of a 9x13 pan and baked them at the lowest setting of my oven for about 10-15 minutes. The purpose of them sitting out was to allow the sugar to break down the apples a little to make them extra juicy, and so baking them accomplishes a similar effect in less than half an hour.

Cinnamon Apple Cake (found here)

Combine and set overnight:
5 Medium Apples, peeled, cored, and diced
2 t Cinnamon
6 T Sugar

3 C Flour
3 t Baking Powder
1/4 t Salt
2 C Sugar
1 C Vegetable Oil
1/2 C Orange Juice
2 1/2 t Vanilla
4 Eggs

Topping:
1 Stick Butter
2 t Cinnamon
5 t Sugar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients, minus the sugar, together. Mix the wet ingredients, plus the sugar, together. (keeping the apples separate). Combine the two until well mixed. Layer the apples and cake batter in a greased tube pan. Bake at 350 for 1 1/2 hours. While it is baking heat the topping over medium heat in a small saucepan until bubbling. Set aside. When the cake has finished baking pour the topping over it and leave it in the warm oven for 5 minutes. This will form a hard sugary coating that is totally delicious. Enjoy!

#ODP13 Day Five

 Happy day five, y'all! Today was pretty lazy, I didn't wake up until 11 and then went to get groceries with my momma. So I just threw on this top (which is kind of my favorite top right now, I've worn it three times in the past month), a black belt, and my multi-colored converse, which were a gift from my grandma a few Christmases ago. I didn't even wear make-up because I ran out of eyeliner yesterday. Since I'm on a spending freeze, I thought I wasn't going to be wearing any eyeliner for a while, but my lovely mom said she would buy some for me :) So I'm trying out gel eyeliner now, have any of you tried it? Thoughts, advice?

#ODP13 Day Four

So my dad's a Major now, no biggie.. ;) Actually, it's kind of a huge biggie cause it took a lot of work to get here! Anyway, congrats dad! I had to look more dressed up for the ceremony (which I was kinda late to...what can you really do about class schedules?) so I paired The Dress with a filmy Wet Seal top (thrifted), orange beads, pink earrings, and black heels. I had my same pink flats from yesterday on earlier in the day while going to class, but I switched to heels on the drive to the ceremony. Happy day four!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Trifle

This is seriously the most delicious thing you will ever eat. For seriousness. And it's so easy. I made it a while ago to bring to a friend's house for dinner and it was enjoyed by everyone :)

 The layers are composed of brownies, whipped cream, a sweet peanut butter mixture, pudding, and Reese's.

 I kept forgetting the layers while I was at the store and I couldn't get the recipe back because I had terrible service, so I just guessed on what flavor pudding. I guessed vanilla, but it was supposed to be chocolate so I  just added cocoa to the vanilla mix and it worked out just fine.

It's so pretty layered too! 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Trifle (found here)

1 Box Brownies, baked according to the box directions

1 5 oz box Chocolate Pudding, prepared and Chilled

2 C Heavy Cream

1 C Creamy Peanut Butter

1 C Powdered Sugar

2 T Milk

8 T Cream Cheese

Beat the heavy cream in an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Transfer to a medium bowl and chill. In the bowl the cream was whipped in mix the peanut butter and cream cheese together until well combined. Add the powdered sugar and milk. Fold 1 C of the whipped cream into the peanut butter mixture until it is a lighter color and mostly combined. Layer however you like and enjoy!

#ODP13 Day Three

 So you know yesterday when I told you today's outfit would be more complicated? Yeah I lied.. It started out complicated, but then I thought I'd save that outfit for Sunday and only had time to throw on this top instead. I'm also wearing a pink bracelet, necklace, earrings, flats, and flower. Tomorrow I have to be a little more fancy for my dad's PROMOTION! Congrats dad! 

Cooking Pumpkin

 I feel like such an accomplished cook! I have officially cooked a whole pumpkin and pureed it into homemade "canned" pumpkin puree! And let me tell you, it's so much tastier than store bought. And it's actually way easier than it sounds! And it's cheaper! We got this pumpkin for $4, and I got over 8 cups of pumpkin puree. One 16 oz can at the store is usually about $1.50. Which would be $0.75 per cup. Cooking your own is $0.50 per cup. And when you love pumpkin as much as I do, you tend to use a lot, and therefore spend a lot... 

 Anyway, back to cooking :) It's pretty simple. Wash your pumpkin and cut it in half. Scoop the seeds out (make sure to save them for roasting! A recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds is coming soon!). My friends from Columbia will be happy to know that I conquered my fear of pumpkin guts and scooped all the seeds out by myself!

 Put your pumpkin halves face down on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for at least an hour. Test it with a knife and when it is soft you can take it out. Let it cool and scoop the flesh out of the shell.

 It'll be pretty thick and stringy, so I put mine through the blender to make it more pureed. 

 Worked like a charm! It's so delicious! Stay tuned for pumpkin recipes!

#ODP13 Day Two

Here we are at Day 2 already! Yesterday went SO fast. Probably because I didn't wake up until 10, but whatever... Sorry for the poor quality of these photos, but they were taken before I headed out to my 8am class, so you get what you get... Today I'm wearing The Dress, my plaid shirt that I've had forever, a black and silver cross necklace, my watch, a bracelet I've had forever, red earrings, and white flats. Stay tuned for tomorrow's outfit :) I'll have more time to get ready tomorrow morning so it'll most likely be more complicated.

#ODP13 Day One

 Day One! I kept it simple for today, there'll be plenty of days to layer! If you missed my post yesterday, you can read how I altered the dress here. You can see all of last year's outfits here. Today I wore The Dress, my pink and blue plaid shoes ($6 at Payless like 5 years ago), my new rose gold watch (Walmart, $13), vintage pink earrings (thrift store, $0.53), and my stained glass-esque elephant necklace (mall kiosk, $1).

Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes with Caramel Icing

These cupcakes are incredible. There's no other way to describe them. SO GOOD. The best apple flavored food you'll ever eat. I'm not even exaggerating. For reals. I made them the other day for a church dinner and they were a huge hit! I found them on Pinterest, but the recipe was on the picture and didn't connect to a blog so I'll just copy the recipe here.

Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes with Caramel Icing

1 C Flour

1 t Baking Soda

1/2 t Salt

1 t Cinnamon

1/2 t Nutmeg

Pinch of Cloves

1 C Sugar

1 Egg

1/4 C Oil

2 C Peeled and Sliced Apples

Icing

1/2 Stick Butter

1/2 C Brown Sugar

1/4 C Heavy Cream

1 t Vanilla

Makes 12 cupcakes. Preheat oven to 350. Mix together all the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl cream together sugar, egg, and oil. Mix the wet and dry ingredients until just combined. Add the apples and mix thoroughly. The batter will be really thick, so you'll want to mix the apples so they let off some of their juice. Scoop into baking cups and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. While the cupcakes are baking prepare the icing. In a small saucepan melt the butter and heavy cream on medium heat. Add the brown sugar and bowl for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Let cool. Drizzle over cooled cupcakes and enjoy! 

P.S. This is my 150th post! Crazy, right??