Fun and Easy Summer Treats

I thought I'd take a break from blogging about my home remodel and share a few fun summer recipe ideas. The cupcakes are from Wendy Paul's "101 Gourmet Cupcakes in 10 minutes," a local cookbook author, while the pie filling recipe is from the Lion House Cookbook. Happy Baking!

#1: Root Beer Float Cupcakes with Root Beer Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients for cupcakes: 1 white cake mix and 1 cup of your favorite root beer
MIX together root beer and cake mix. Pour into paper liners and fill 3/4 full.
BAKE at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.

Ingredients for Root Beer Buttercream Frosting: 8 Tbsp. (1 stick) butter, room temperature; 3 3/4 cups powdered sugar, sifted; 3-4 Tbsp. milk or cream (I used 1% milk); and 1 tsp. root beer flavoring.
PLACE butter in large mixing bowl. Beat until light and fluffy, about 30 seconds. Stop the mixer before adding sugar to avoid a large mess.
ADD sugar, 3 tablespoons milk or cream, and root beer flavoring. Beat frosting, starting on slow and increasing your speed until frosting is nice and creamy. Add up to 1 more tablespoon of milk or cream if frosting is too thick.
FROST cooled cupcakes. You can cut the long end of a bendable straw to place in the middle of the cupcakes for decoration.


#2 Cookies and Cream Dream Cupcakes with Oreo/Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients for cupcakes: 1 box chocolate cake mix; 1 cup sour cream; 3 eggs; 1 tsp. vanilla extract; 18-24 whole oreo cookies; 12 oreo cookies crumbled (I used a plastic bag and rolling pin, the crumbled cookies are for the frosting); and 1 recipe vanilla buttercream frosting.
MIX together cake mix, sour cream, eggs, and vanilla. Place a spoonful of batter on the bottom of each paper liner. Place a whole oreo cookie on the bottom lying flat. Cover with remaining batter until 3/4 full.
BAKE at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes. Allow cupcakes to cool on a rack completely.

Ingredients for Vanilla Buttercream Frosting: 8 Tbsp. (1 stick) butter, room temperature; 3 3/4 cups powered sugar, sifted; 3-4 Tbsp. milk or cream; 2 tsp. vanilla extract plus crumbled oreos.
PLACE butter in a large mixing bowl. Beat until light and fluffy, about 30 seconds. Stop beating before adding sugar to avoid a large mess.
ADD sugar 3 tablespoons milk or cream, and vanilla extract. Beat frosting starting on slow, increasing your speed until frosting is nice and creamy. Add up to 1 more tablespoon milk or cream if frosting is too thick. Add crumbled Oreos to buttercream frosting. Be generous and frost cupcakes nice and high.



This last dessert is Rhubarb Pie. I picked rhubarb from my garden that was a bit bitter, so be sure to choose ripe rhubarb. The pie crust is my "easy" version. I buy a Marie Calendars frozen pie crust. I set one pie tin upside down, and let the crust dethaw so that I can use decorative cookie cutters for the top crust. Hopefully the pictures will help you achieve the same look.



Ingredients for Rhubarb Pie: 1 1/2 cups sugar; 2 tablespoons flour, 1 egg; 3 cups fresh or frozen rhubarb, cut in 1-inch pieces; 3 drops of red food coloring; and 2 9-inch Marie Calendar pie crusts.



Combine sugar and flour. Beat egg and blend with flour mixture. Add rhubarb and red food coloring. Mix well. Pour into unbaked pie shell. Using the dethawed crust and a cookie cutter, cut shapes to cover the top of the pie. Brush the top of the pie with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes or until nicely browned. (I usually wrap a piece of foil around the edge of the pie, so that the edges won't burn, then take it off for the last 10 minutes of baking.


(Be sure to bake the pie on a cookie sheet incase the fruit filling spills over like mine did!)

The Rootbeer Float Cupcakes were such a hit, I didn't have any left to photograph!

Photos by Request

The remodel is progressing fabulously! Aside from my laundry room fiasco, all is going along at a smooth pace. We now have siding, stone work, a front door, dry wall and tons of dry wall dust. Here are a few pictures. The siding and stucco still need to be painted, so keep that in mind.





The interior photo is of my daughter in our new study/library. As of yesterday, the walls were also taped and plastered. The laundry room was retiled while we were away on vacation. I've order a new sink--the Gilford farmhouse sink by Kohler--and have a cabinet man coming on Wednesday, so that should be underway and completed in a few months. Here are a few photos of my new checkerboard floor.

The best part of the remodel was LEAVING it behind while we spent a few days in St. George and Zions. Here are a few photos of my cute kids enjoying the peace and quiet of remodel free time.

Internet is up . . .

I will try to have pictures soon! Lots has happened since my last post . . . roof, windows, doors, insulation . . . brick deliveries, siding delivery, paint swatches all over the place! In the process, my washing machine hose broke, leaking for the length of an entire day before I discovered it. It leaked from the second floor laundry room through the ceiling onto the main floor. Now I'm remodeling my laundry room too since they cut out a huge portion of dry-wall and had to rip out the damaged flooring and cabinet in my laundry room. I'll post pictures of that too!

Rain Protection at Last!

Well, its the start of a new week, and though I don't have pictures, I thought I'd report on the progress of our remodel. Today I have roofers and electricians here working, and they should be here for the next few days. The heating vents and gas lines are in place, and the fireplace box is awaiting dry-wall and mantels. I feel like the decisions I make now are really important, because they're the visible items that can't be changed once my decisions are made. Don't they know that decision making is not more strength? I like to move furniture around, so can't we have 2 potential places to put all of the desk wiring? Apparently NOT! Anyway, I am most pleased with the roofers since the weather has been wet and unpredictable. I won't have such sleepless nights over water damage now that the roofers are here. Shannon, my builder, told me today that we have about 10 more days of slower progress, then it will be amazing how quickly we are through with the project! Happy Remodeling to me, to me!!

Latest Developments

I didn't realize that it had been so long since I posted pictures. There as been a lot of progress in the past few weeks despite uncooperative weather. We've had lots of rain and snow, so many hours have gone into tacking up plastic to protect the work that's been done. Today finally cooperated, and the living room was opened and exposed to build the bay window. Its interesting to look at new construction, but its strange to look into my existing living room with my painting of Wheeler Farm and my piano covered in blankets and plastic exposed to the outside world. In the past few weeks, I've gained a porch, a study, and a new bay window for my existing living room. The fireplace surround is in place and the insert will be delivered and fitted on Thursday. We salvaged a set of windows that are installed on the study facing the porch, but I think we are a week off from having doors and the rest of the windows delivered.







Here are a bunch of pictures, including storm clouds the builders had to race to protect the house from leaks. Its been a crazy few weeks, my schedule being so busy that I haven't had much time to think about the remodel let alone post pictures. Its been to see it come together so well. I think the neighbors are feeling less nervous as the design becomes clearer.

A Roof on Monday

Today's pictures show the beginnings of a roof and the interior views of what will be the study. Plywood covers what will be windows, but you can begin to see the room take shape. So exciting!

Front view of the new porch and the roof begun. In the next few days they will begin to build the new roof for the porch.

View of the addition from the back and side yard.

Interior view of the study. The corner window will be recycled into the north wall of the study.

The 3 squares at the top of the south wall will be a bookshelf wall with three high square to windows.

This view is looking west where there will eventually be french doors to the front yard.

Catching up on the Progress

Wow! Spring sports have begun, we went on vacation and the builders have made a lot of progress on our remodel. The problem is that I'm finding little time to blog with my busy schedule. Before Easter, cement cutters cut three openings through our basement: a walk-out basement door, a door to the new exercise room, and a door to the cold storage. We left for southern Utah and Las Vegas a few days before Easter. It was snowy and cold, so I was pleased to return home to a porch and flooring for the study. Since then, the exercise room and study have been framed, windows and doors ordered, and the walk-out patio area completed. Only glitch was that the builder had planned to stick frame the vaulted ceiling in the study, but the engineers plan showed it with manufactured tresses. To appease building inspectors, we waited for two days to get a revision letter from the engineers. My hopes are that this week, the roof will be completed over the study. Only negative to that is that the builder's will soon have to break through existing walls on the main floor of my house. A little more inconvenient for me, but nice to be moving along. Here are several pictures to show the progress.











The thing that makes me the happiest is that I can now open my front door without falling to my death. The back still has "death drops" but I'm not longer worried for the neighbors and their pets safety.