Cream Puffs

These are so yummy I could eat a whole batch to myself! This is an easy recipe that's a lot of fun to make:

Cream Puffs

1 cup water
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup flour
4 large eggs
Sweetened Whipped Cream (about a 500 mL carton)
Powdered sugar

1. Heat oven to 400 F (200 C)

2. In a medium saucepan, heat water and butter to a rolling boil. Stir in flour; reduce heat to low. Stir vigorously over low heat about 1 minute or until mixture forms a ball; remove from heat.

3. Beat in eggs, all at once, with spoon (not beaters); continue beating until smooth. Drop dough by large tablespoonfuls about 3 inches apart on lightly greased cookie sheet.

4. Bake 35-40 minutes or until puffed and golden. Cool away from draft, about 30 minutes. Cut off top third of each puff; pull out any strands of soft dough.

5. Fill puffs with whipped cream; replace tops (do not fill puffs while still warm, as this will melt the whipped cream). Dust with powdered sugar. Cover and refrigerate until serving. Store remaining cream puffs covered in the fridge or freezer. (Frozen cream puffs are delicious!)

I missed the powdered sugar on this batch, just imagine that it's there.

I don't cut the whole top off, but instead leave a flap so it closes nicely. Or if you are fancy and have a garnish and cream syringe (something like this) then you can inject the cream directly into the puff. This will give you a clean more professional looking cream puff.

Try out the recipe and enjoy! Let me know what you think.

Quilt Squares

I've been kind of crafty lately. My last two post have been about my new Cricut (that I love), but I have also been working on some quilting squares. My mother-in-law asked me to make 4 squares (one for each of us in the family) and send it to her. She is making a quilt for her mother (my husband's grandmother) for her birthday. We each had to make the square reflect ourselves or something we like.

Mine is a colourful flower, and the first one that I attempted.

My 5 year old daughter "E" drew a picture on her square of a mountain, birds, the sun, grass, and flowers. I then embroidered over her pencil drawing with coloured thread and used buttons for the sun and flowers.

For my 23 month old son "G" I traced his hands on fabric then sewed them on the square.

My husband wanted his square to be of his guitar and amp. He loves music and is an excellent guitar player. He didn't have time to sew it (or the inclination) so I did it for him. I'm not much of a sewer (obviously) and have only done a few projects like a baby quilt, and some aprons for "E". But I must say, I am rather pleased with how this one turned out. First I want to show you the originals.

The amp:

His Guitar:

And my quilt square:

I think it turned out well, "A" likes it anyway. I first cut out the basic shapes of the guitar and amp and then used fabric glue to  put them on the square. I used sequins for the pots and silver thread for the guitar strings and mesh of the amp. For the lettering, I used my Cricut and glued that on as well. I used my sewing machine for all the stitching (outlines, mesh of the amp, frets on the guitar neck, etc.). It was a lot of fun, and I hope Gramma likes her quilt.

Making Bread Again

So I think I have the hang of it. My Bosch no longer crashes to the floor (you can read about that here) and my bread looks and tastes pretty good. I feel like such a good mother! Fresh home made bread still warm from the oven is the best!

Here are my latest efforts, a combination of whole wheat and rye flour:

Looks so yummy! The only problem with making my own bread, is that I want to eat it... all the time! I'm trying to eat healthier and not snack (I've already lost 14 lbs!) and fresh bread is just so good to snack on! Oh well.  I'll just have to be extra vigilant.

Natural Mommy-Mechanism

I find as my kids get older, I have more desire to develop my homemaking skills, like making bread, sewing, quilting, and even canning. These are things that I wasn't really interested in before. Is this a built in mommy-mechanism, like pinching your children's bums? (see bum-pinching post) Do these desires just naturally grow in moms as they get older until she becomes like her mom and her grandma? Is it built into us like super strength when a mom saves her baby from underneath an overtunred car? Or is it a 'keeping up with the Jonses' mentality when you see a friend's or neighbour's crafty project and think, "Well, I could do that... maybe even better!"

Just this year I have made a quilt for my son, aprons for my daughter, started baking homemade bread on a regular basis, embroirdered squares for a quilt, made homemade cards, and developed other crafty or homemaking skills. I've thought to myself befrore, "I have no desire to can... ever." But I found myself the other day eating a friends wonderful canned peaches and thinking, "Maybe I could can some peaches this year." Where did that come from? Was it my stomach talking or a natural mommy-mechanism?

What do you think? Are homemaking skills (like baking bread, and sewing clothes for your kids) a natural desire for moms? Or do we do it because we feel like we have to?

Making Bread

My mom bought a new Bosch so she gave me her old one. Today I took it out for the first time to make some yummy homemade bread. I’ve never used a Bosch before and it came with no instructions (hand-me-downs rarely do), but I’ve seen my mother use it, and really it’s just a big mixer, what could be so hard?

I found a recipe for whole wheat bread and got to work. I put all the ingredients in the bowl and left it to mix for 8 minutes, following the recipe. I noticed that the Bosch was kind of shaking as it mixed, but it looked within reasonable shaking limits. I left the dough to mix and went about the kitchen doing other stuff. Suddenly I heard a huge crash. I turned around and there was the Bosch, unplugged, upside down, on the floor. I didn’t leave the mixer anywhere near the edge of the counter so it couldn’t have just fallen off.

Apparently, the mixer was shaking so hard, that it travelled all the way to the edge of the counter where it teetered and finally relinquishing to gravity it toppled to the floor. I picked it up and nothing looked broken, the dough looked all right so I plugged it back in and continued mixing (the eight minutes wasn’t up yet), but this time I turned the knob to speed 1 instead of speed 2. It wasn’t shaking so much then. How was I supposed to know that speed 2 would send the Bosch crashing to the floor? There were no instructions.