Hello, Peppermint.

Procrastination did not defeat me this time!

Decembers Cupcakes: Vanilla-Peppermint!

I had originally planned to bake these yesterday but, I decided the suspense of making them the last day of December would be funner (read: crazy stressful).Of course, I had to fight for kitchen use with my father, making Menudo and Chicharron for us. But I eventually got my time.

This recipe called for peppermint extract, and when ever I don't have a certain ingredient a part of me freaks out but the other part gets excited. especially when it comes to different extracts. The cake itself came out very good in my and my moms opinion. one thing that I did do was add a drop of pink food coloring to the batter. I felt like the cupcake would just be too white. The liners, the cake, the frosting. Pink cake added a nice touch to it and it complimented the little pieces of red in the crushed candy canes I garnished the cupcakes with. Frosting, I was satisfied with. Nice texture and it was easy to pipe. My mom on the other hand didn't like it. But from what I think I heard, my dad and Gabriel liked it.  I'm going to keep this post short since I haven't really sat down and spent time with my family since the Dick Clark's: New Year's Rockin Eve special started. Hope y'all had a great Christmas, last couple days of Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and a happy New Year's Eve. 

Sorry, this picture looked way better on my phone.

Recipe created by Candace Nelson, owner of Sprinkles Cupcakes

♥L

It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year

Finally, It is December! My favorite month of all time. Thank you Mamas little pilgrims who bring Thanksgiving to the home. But it is time for you to go back in your box, because the little polar bear family need to take your place to make us feel like it snows outside. Which then reminds us that it is December, which leads to getting excited that Christmas is in 24 days, and it is totally okay to listen to Christmas music now, then I can comfortably listen to O' Holy Night , The Little Drummer Boy- specifically the one that David Bowie and Bing Crosby sing, and of course, Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas Is You. Which then leads to getting that fuzzy feeling in my heart of remembering why we celebrate CHRISTmas! Obviously, the next thing I want to do is watch A Charlie Brown Christmas just so I can hear Linus reminding everyone what Christmas is all about. 

With the season of Christmas already in my head, I have come to a decision on what my December cupcake will be! (thanks to Katherine) Fortunately for y'all, I will give you a hint to hold you, faithful readers, over. 

                                                                          

This brings warm fuzzy feelings to my ♥

Please, watch it :]

♥L

October & November Cupcakes!

Leave it to me to wait to the very last day of November to bake the two cupcakes I promised you. #lifeofaprocrastinator

Okay, so what should have been October's Cupcake:
 Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

For starters, I just want to say I absolutely LOVE when the cakes come out like these did. They just look so perfect. The recipe was pretty easy and didn't take me very long to mix it all together. They smelled very delicious and taste scrumptious! Not dry at all, the frosting and the cake together are a great combo.

Speaking of the frosting...I had some complications with. Really, every time I make cream cheese frosting it never comes out the way I want it. And my piping of the frosting never, and I mean NEVER comes out the way the picture looks from the amazing bloggers I get the recipes from.   The picture I managed to get actually came out amazing ha ha. About 3 minutes after I took this photo the frosting started to droop. Actually, every cupcake I frosted slowly started to turn into melted ice cream. figuratively speaking. Very disappointing. I'm convinced I can't make the perfecting cream cheese frosting because I don't have a Kitchenaid tilt-head stand mixer with the paddle attachment.

Besides that fact, these cupcakes came out delicious.

November's Cupcake:

Apple Cider Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream

Because I was happier with the way these came out, I have more pictures to show you :)

These took a little more work than the Pumpkin ones. This cake is a good consistency. Not super moist but not dry at all. They weirdly have this apple smell to them, when the only thing apple was the apple cider.

Taste wise, I wish there was more of an apple taste to it. You can totally taste the spice in it too. My frosting came out okay. It definitely has a salted caramel taste! This was my first time making a caramel sauce and it came out pretty awesome. ha ha! Obviously, I enjoyed piping these bad boys way more than the pumpkin. They are much prettier to look at. The one thing I did forget to do, with the frosting the recipe called to sift the powdered sugar and I forgot to do that. *sigh* even though my sifter was literally right next to the bowl. So I don't know if that would have made any difference really in the making of the frosting. Next time I'll have to make sure I don't forget to do that.

Yes, there will be a next time. I am determined to have prettier looking Pumping Cupcakes and I want to try and bring out the flavors a little more with the Apple Cider Cupcakes. Also! The recipe for the ACC gave some options on what to do with the left over caramel, one was to poke holes in the cake and allow the caramel to soak in! um, delicious!

If you would like to attempt to bake these please, click on the titles of the cupcakes and it will direct you to the awesome bloggers pages that I went to to get these recipes from!

I know what you're thinking now, "Well, tomorrow is December Liz, I hope you have an idea of what you will be baking us." And as a matter of fact, I do! I know exactly what I will be attempting. Please, stay tuned. And thanks for reading. : )

♥L

Here's the deal

I am aware I missed Octobers Cupcake.
I really have no legitimate excuse as to why.
Maybe a mix of laziness, procrastination, being poor, and being overwhelmed with other things.
My apologies for anyone who was waiting patiently for them, mainly my sister because I made the mistake of telling her what I was planning for October and got her hopes up for free delicious cupcakes. Sorry, Katherine. I'll make it up to you.
I'll make it up to all of you.

It's November y'all! Probably one of my favorite months ever, tied with December. Why? Well because it is the month of Thanksgiving! A month where I try my absolute best not to complain about the empty toilet paper roll from hell that is always there when I need to use the bathroom! No no, I take all the power in me to stop and be thankful that I am incredibly blessed to have a toilet, and a bathroom, and running water.
Its awful to think that I try extra hard to do this only in the month of November because really, I should be doing this everyday. But I guess the two wooden Pilgrims my mom puts out the minute Halloween is over just pulls on my heart strings. No excuses Liz! My point is, take the time to be thankful for everything, everyone, and anything. Not just on Thanksgiving Day where we all are thankful for the thee F's and a G in our lives, Family, Friends, and Food and God. No no, lets spread the love of thanks all throughout the month, ya? Extra brownie points if we make it apart of our everyday routine 365 days a year :D

I hate my kitchen with everything inside me, with the exception of our fridge and stove ha ha. But the space...drives me nuts. But at least I have a kitchen. And because I said I would make it up to y'all for my laziness in October, I am baking two yes, you heard me, TWO cupcakes for the month of November! To celebrate my favorite month, and being thankful for my tiny kitchen. So mom...if you're reading this...can you buy me some ingredients? ha ha

I am pretty stoke about these cupcakes but frightened at the same time. Pictures to come as soon as those delicious baby cakes are done!

 

♥L

Piña Colada Cupcakes

As I said in my last post, Septembers Cupcake was the Piña Colada Cupcake!!

My sister Katherine requested that I baked these for her Birthday. I was super stoked but scared out of my mind!! As always when I try a new "challenging" cupcake but I was ready for it. But then...I hurt my back. yea, perfect timing right? I was out for a good week. Katherine's birthday was approaching and it was still painful to stand but I was so determined to bake these cupcakes. Not only for my sister but for you...my faithful readers. So naturally I prayed and prayed that I would miraculously would be healed just in time for baking. I wasn't completely healed but was able to stand for a longer time and sitting became a lot more comfortable for me so that was enough for me and I didn't complain. I'll stop writing and will post these pictures then I will talk about the cake. 

                

So I tried something new and I used these super cute souffle cups. They were bigger than the mini cupcakes I've made but smaller than a regular cupcake. It was perfect.

Katherine loved them. She obviously ate more than she thought she would in the picture shown above. ha ha. One thing that she mentioned, which I agree, I need to figure out a way to really bring out the flavors. There were chunks of pineapple and small pieces of coconut in the cake. along with Malibu Rum. They were tasty. But I probably will 86 the coconut pieces and make the pineapple in finer pieces. I would add more Rum ha ha and maybe some coconut extract or something that will bring out the coconut flavor in another way. If that makes sense ha ha.

September is quickly coming to an end and I need to start thinking of Octobers cupcake! I'm thinking...something related to pumpkin?? maybe? ha ha don't know, come back to find out!

♥L

Drum Roll Please

I have chosen Septembers Cupcake! Thanks to my sister and my mother for having my sister in September ha ha

For Katherine's Birthday Cupcakes she has requested:

Piña Colada Cupcakes!

taken from Pastry Affair.  We will see how these turn out. Pretty excited about these. I will post my pictures and how things went probably the day or a few days after. 

♥L

Be Good to Me

It's the first of September. 

I have two things going for me this month... One, the picture on my calendar for the month of September are Giraffes! Perfect right? The second, my 23rd birthday. So please be good to me. 

For those who are following my cupcake challenge, I have yet to figure out what Septembers cupcake will be. There are a butt load of birthdays that are in September and I'm already feeling the anxiety of not knowing what to get these people and feeling bad for the ones I won't be getting gifts for...I'm also really hoping that God will provide me with the man of my dreams so my plan for my life at the age of 11 will kick into gear. But lets be real, that plan was supposed to happen last year. And we are silly to think our plan is exactly what God has planned for us already. I'm sure He is laughing at me right now. A girl could pray. 

I have a feeling September is gonna be a lot of listening to Country music. missing my best friend Amy, hoping she sees an Elephant or Giraffe in Africa just in time to send me a picture for my bday ha ha but that's a stretch. Baking Cupcakes. Praying. Lots of Dates with Jesus. Crying. Writing. And playing volleyball. 

It should be good. 

I'm ready for you, September. 

please be nice.

❤L

My Cupcake Challenge

Alright. So here is the deal. Before my bestie left for Africa she made me promise her that I would bake a new cupcake every month that she is away. And blog about it. Which means, 10 new cupcakes and a guaranteed blog post every month for the next 10 months!! Crazy right? I can't let her down. Plus, I am thinking, maybe in return I will get a beautiful picture of some elephants or giraffes straight from Africa!? yes? maybe ha ha. Anywho...
I have already knocked out Augusts cupcake!

As part of Amys going away gift she requested Blueberry Cupcakes. And that is exactly what I gave her. Without further ado:  

Amy's African Blueberry Bliss Cupcakes

Tedious Blueberry Placements 

Finished Product, Sloppy Frosting

All Boxed Up, Ready to Go

These were Buttermilk Blueberry Cupcakes with Blueberry frosting topped with a fresh Blueberry. Amy was in heaven. She asked for blueberry and she got it ha ha. Why the buttermilk and not just a plane cake? well, her favorite pancakes are blueberry so I kind of just went off of that. I was not too happy with the way my piping turned out. see, I put in lemon zest with my frosting and it wasn't getting along with my tip and kept getting caught, thus making my piping come out all retarded. But it was okay.

Unfortunately, I underestimated my amount of blueberries that I placed in each cake. But, I heard they were still delicious. I made another batch of these cupcakes, a week after, for my church youth group. And I made sure there were plenty of blueberries in the cake ha ha. It took FOREVERRRR, but I did it. And I eighty-sixed the lemon zest, which made no difference in the taste, and my piping came out so much better!

Second Attempt!

I have no idea what my cupcake for September will be. I might ask my sister Katherine if she has any requests for her birthday. It's the 9th of September, and she is the one who usually gets me baking crazy cupcakes I think I could never do. She is the one who told me to make the Tres Leches Cupcakes...which in my opinion are my best so far. ugh, so delicious its not okay. As soon as I figure out what Septembers cupcake will be I will be sure to post about it. 

♥L

It Goes Like This

June and July were good to me. 

     In June I went back to Bolivia for a mission trip and that was amazingly beautiful. I might write a post just on my experience.

     July I had an awesome chance to work with one of my best friends, Amy. 

She worked for a church in Pasadena and was the head coordinator for their sports program, Upward. Upward has a summer sports camp and Amy hired me to be the "team mom" or the "mom tent" I basically was mom away from mom. Made sure they were drinking water, gave them a band aide if they needed one, pep talks, encouragement or someone they can sit next to if they didn't want to play anymore. 

Not only were those three weeks so awesome because of the kids, but I was able to see Amy almost every day. Now this may not seem like a big deal, but it is. 

Our friendship is awesome but growing up we hardly saw each other. we went to different schools and only saw one another on Sundays and if it were a good week maybe for youth group on a Wednesday night. Those three weeks, not only did she make me fall more in love with country music, it reminded me of how blessed I am to have a girl like her a part of my life and to truly call her my best friend. I might have mentioned in a previous post that Amy was considering going on a mission trip of some sort. (And if I didn't, sorry. ha ha I probably had good intentions to but forgot.) Well, God made that happen. He opened doors like crazy and provided a way and a place to get her there. I am super excited for her new chapter. She will be in Malawi, Africa for 10 months. 

Loving God and Serving God.

Now, because I spent almost every day with Amy most of our talks in the car involved the future. Amy did not let the idea of me becoming this great and fabulous baker pass by. She challenged me and made me promise her that every month she is away that I bake a new "fancy" cupcake. She also told me I had to blog about it. I already completed my cupcake for this month, and I will post about that a little later. 

To end this post I just want to share some stuff with y'all.

These past three days have been extra difficult for me but weirdly special. 

I was asked to bake 84 cupcakes for my church's youth group.

I love baking and everything about it. But at some point it becomes very emotional for me, especially when I get frustrated with something or wonder if there would be a better way in doing something. Times like those I just want to talk to my Abuelito. (I wrote a post on that)

Tuesday night I baked and Wednesday afternoon I frosted.

Yesterday, August 8th was the 5th anniversary of my aunt Candy's passing. If I had to pick any of the deaths I have had in my life to be the hardest and one that I haven't found complete closure in, it would be hers. I do a very good job at covering it and pretending that I dealt with it in a healthy way but I don't think I ever let myself fully talk to God about how I felt about it. Just the surface stuff. Anywho, I woke up feeling a little off. A little sad. But still, the day felt like it was going to be special. And it was. In the morning I was able to bless my mentor with God planned babysitting. That was pretty awesome how it all turned out. Then the rest of the day I just couldn't figure out why I felt so weird. Then, I was reminded  that it was August 8th when my mom text me that she was going to the cemetery. Then it all made sense. Soon after that my friend Marissa called me and asked what I was doing and wanted to pick me up so we could hang out with a high school friend we both hadn't seen or hung out with in a long time. A part of me didn't want to go but I knew if my aunt was still here, she would have told me to go have fun. So I went. And it was awesome. 

I thought I would share this with you. Even though I felt like I wanted to cry or just do nothing because I missed my loved ones so much, those memories and love I have for them is what keeps me moving forward and to do the things that I know they would have enjoyed seeing me do. And this goes for both sets of my grandparents, and my aunt. All who are not with us anymore but give me that driving force to live my life as if they were here.

♥L

Abuelita and Abuelito

Aunt Candy, holding me on the right.

  

Grandpa

*not pictured, my Grandma, Nelle. She didn't like taking pictures and the few I have I don't have on me to show you.

Stretching for 2013

Lets cut to the chase, I am failing at keeping up with my posts. What's new. I told my instagram photo challenge that my New Year Resolution was to write more in my blog. Never exactly said it would be daily. Ha ha but it has taken 5 days to actually start. Anywho,

it is the beginning of 2013. And I don't think I am all that excited about it now. Before I was all about it. Super stoked. Ready to concur all that comes my way. But now, that has changed.
As 2012 was coming to an end I looked back on my year. I had a ton of personal accomplishments. Overall 2012 was good. Sure, I had a rough time. It was not all rainbows and sunshine. Not even close. But as my mentor, Alyson, asked me how I was doing spiritually and where I am at I had to think. And it wasn't until then when I realized where I really was on my walk with Jesus.

Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

This verse nailed it. especially the last part. "...narrow the road that leads to life.."
I'm walking on a narrow road. Long and narrow. And hard. few find it. I imagine my self walking this road and just stopping. Not lost. Not giving up nor turning back. Just stopping. Looking back, seeing what I walked, what I went through, then looking ahead and seeing what is yet to come. And that I am no where near being close to finish. It has also hit me that living my life for Christ is hard. To make the decision everyday to live my life for Him, and walk as He walked.

I am at a point in my life where I am facing my challenges. I know what I want and that is to live my life for Christ. No matter how hard it is. I am slowly starting to finally accept that the Lord loves me for me, regardless of my mistakes. Life is getting harder. And I am scared. I am not looking forward to 2013 only because I am turning 23. I am getting closer and closer to being a super legit adult, still jobless and facing the fact that I am no where near where I thought I would be  10 years ago. And this scares me. But because of what I just said in the paragraph before this, all I can do is take a deep breath, do a few stretches, maybe some lunges, and continue walking, with full faith that the Lord is going to continue to guide me through this narrow path. 

This is where I am at.
Goodbye 2012, It was nice. I went through a lot, learned a lot about myself and the Lord, had some make ups and break ups, spent more time with friends I hardly saw the previous year, aced my math class, and got some pretty stellar Christmas gifts.
Hello 2013, be gentle. Lord teach me more about you, develop the gifts you have given me, grow my heart, prepare me for Bolivia, provide time for me to mentor,  and keep me focused on your plans for my life and not my own.

♥L