Monday, May 18, 2015

Mother's Day Sugar Cookies and a Recipe for Tropical Trifle

I should have been a housewife

i should have been a housewife

For Mother's Day a couple of years ago I made some really cool monarch butterflies from Hello Cupcake. They were my favorite cupcakes to make by far and I wanted to try and recreate them into a sugar cookie for Mother's Day this year.

I should have been a housewife

I should have been a housewife

I hosted a Mother's Day BBQ for my mother and mother-in-law and decided to make my cousin Jeff's trifle to accompany the cookies for dessert. Every year his trifle is requested at all of the family holidays and it's a perfect springtime dessert with hints of coconut, crushed pineapple, and mandarin oranges. The best part is you can cook the components the night before and assemble it the day-of to make the day even less stressful.

I should have been a housewife

 Jeff's Tropical Trifle
2 cans crushed pineapple, juice reserved
2 cans mandarin oranges
1 box yellow cake mix
1 box vanilla cook and serve pudding, not instant pudding
1 box coconut cook and serve pudding, not instant pudding (can used 2nd box of vanilla if coconut isn't available)
3 cans Goya coconut milk
2 cup shredded coconut, divided
1 cup malibu rum
1 pint heavy cream

Night before/morning of

1. Substituting coconut milk for regular milk, make pudding according to package directions (mix powders from both packets into one pot). While the pudding is cooking make sure to stir the pudding constantly so the bottom of the pot doesn't get scorched. Once pudding has thickened add 1 cup of shredded coconut to pudding and place on counter to cool. To prevent a skin from forming, place plastic wrap directly on the pudding. 

(If making the night before, once the bowl is cool to the touch, place in refrigerator until you're ready to assemble the trifle)

2. Drain the two cans of crushed pineapple, saving the juice, and place solids into a non reactive bowl. Prepare the cake mix replacing the water with an equal amount of pineapple juice and bake on a jelly roll sheet following the box instructions.

3. Drain the mandarin oranges and add the fruit to the bowl of crush pineapple. Add 1 cup Malibu rum and allow to soak into the fruit as long as possible (night before would be best). If there's any left over pineapple juice after the cake is baked, you can add it back into the fruit mixture. Refrigerate mixture if making the night before. 

Day of

4. Assemble trifle by cutting a circle of cake using the trifle bowl as a guide. Build by placing a layer of cake into trifle bowl, topping that with a layer of mixed fruit (approximately half) and drizzling some of the leftover juices onto the cake. Top the fruit with a layer of pudding and repeat until you reach the top of the trifle bowl.

(I actually had enough left over to make one more mini trifle in a canning jar for lunch the next day... Yum!)

5. Top trifle with fresh whipped cream and remaining coconut.

Enjoy!



Monday, May 4, 2015

Happy Star Wars Day: May the Forth Be With You

I should have been a housewife

Happy Star Wars day everyone! Ever since I found out this was a real thing I've been wanting to make cookies for it. The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle has a bunch of really awesome cookie pictures and tutorials for Star Wars cookies including what cookie cutters you can useR2-D2 and Yoda tutorials, and a post of the whole set. If you haven't been to her site before, you need to take a look at her work, it's simply amazing. Anyway, here are some pictures of the Star Wars cookie set I did for Star Wars day.

Enjoy!

I should have been a housewife

I should have been a housewife

I should have been a housewife


Another Busy Weekend at the Farm and Some Waterfall Pictures

I should have been a housewife

The weather was beautiful last weekend and when I wasn't helping my parents getting the farm ready for the warmer weather, I was walking around taking pictures and experimenting with my camera. 

I always used to wonder how photographers were able to take pictures of waterfalls and get a misty, soft shot of the moving water, making it appear almost magical. I've read up on it a few times and learned its due to the shutter speed. When the shutter speed is slower, moving objects become blurred when the picture is taken while motionless objects remain the same. Since we have a small waterfall on the farm I thought it was the perfect oppertunity for me to practice with moving water.


Since the water was flowing and the rocks were motionless with a steady hand I was able to play around with the shutter speed and get my shot! It took a bunch of different adjustments to ISO, shutter speed, and going back and forth between my lenses, but I finally got some I was happy with. I ended up having to wait for the sun to go behind some clouds and that gave me some pictures that weren't so over exposed.

I should have been a housewife
Waterfall with a "normal" shutter speed

I should have been a housewife
Waterfall with a slower shutter speed but still not there
I should have been a housewife
Waterfall with an even slower shutter speed, magical!
In hindsight I would have gone back and switched from JPEG to RAW to try and save some of the white tones,  I didn't realize I had switched it until we were getting ready to go home for the weekend.

I also had a lot of followers throughout the day, the chickens were especially interested in what all the clicking was about.

I should have been a housewife

I should have been a housewife

I should have been a housewife

Julie and Lilly both followed me all around the farm, keeping watch over the chickens and running along the paths.

I should have been a housewife

I should have been a housewife

I should have been a housewife

I should have been a housewife

After all the running, picture taking, and prep work, we took a break on the new deck, enjoyed a bit of the warm weather, and took in all the changes that come along with spring. Lilly is such a ham and enjoyed sitting on the deck with her Mr. Grandpa.

I should have been a housewife

Be sure to follow me on instagram @rocky092 for more pictures and posts

I should have been a housewife