✬*•.¸¸☆¸¸.•*✬ Mason's Birthday ✬*•.¸¸☆¸¸.•*✬

Hi sweet lovers!  

So, here it is another Tuesday and you're probably looking for our weekly, Tuesday's Tips & Tricks blog post.  We are very sorry but today we will not be doing a post as it is our son, Mason's, 2nd Birthday in heaven.  

Mason's teeny little hand in Eric's

If you've read the Squidoo story that our good friend Lori wrote then you know all about our three boys.  If not, this is your chance to check it out!  

This evening we will be doing a balloon release in our backyard with family & friends, having Birthday cake and celebrating Mason's short time with us.  We also have many friends & family members across the USA lighting a candle in honor of Mason.  

I realized yesterday in coordinating everything for our balloon release & candle lighting that we have a lot of people that love & support us.  That is something we are eternally grateful for and blessed!  We love you all and thank you so much for sharing in our journey!!

~Anne

Tuesday's Tips & Tricks

Everyone loves layer cakes, am I right?!  I mean seriously, how can anyone resist the cake, frosting combo that sometimes includes ganache, fruit or even a scoop of ice cream?  *drool*  

Chocolate Cake with Kahlua Buttercream & Ganache

We make layer cakes all the time, and all different shapes & sizes too.  Here's the biggest issue with making a layer cake though (at least in my mind), having multiple cake pans!  And don't even get me started on trying to find a place to store all these cake pans.  So I don't.  What?  What's that I said?  That's right I keep 2 pans of very common sizes and just 1 pan of any rare or hardly used sizes.  But that makes it really hard to do our Lemon Meringue cake that's 5 layers of sweet, citrus goodness right?  

Lemon Meringue Cake

Oh no!  Not if you know what I have learned over years of baking.  Ha ha ha, don't you just love it when I share...  

When your cake layer comes out of the oven give it about a minute and then turn it out on to your wire cooling rack.  Sometimes I'm rushed and don't wait at all and it still comes out great, but you didn't hear that from me.  ;)  As soon as you turn the cake out, put your pan in the sink with some warm water running into it.  Our kitchen faucet has an attachment on it that allows it to swivel and spray water all over the sink. I use that to rinse the whole pan for a minute or two.  After that's done I can usually touch the cake pan with my bare hand (be careful) which means that I can wash it, dry it, grease it and get another cake layer baking.  It takes all of 5 minutes, maybe.  

Just remember to thoroughly dry your cake pan, even on the outside.  Water is a great conductor for heat and you don't want excess water on the outside of your cake pan making your cake layer cook unevenly.  

Now get baking!!

LOS T-shirts!

We've had many people ask us over the past year when, and if, we would be ordering and selling t-shirts.  Tada... that day has arrived!!  

The best part about ordering new shirts, for me, is trying to take just the right picture to display them.  This is very hard for us though because we're silly, we have some minor ADHD and we try to not take life so seriously.  It's really fun but super hard for Dad when he's behind the camera.  I absolutely LOVE the photo we got (above) but in all honesty it was the very last picture we took, and to get there we had to go through about 20 other poses, 80 laughs, a few snorts and a couple of eye rolls from the Pops.  Now you wanna see some of the outtakes don't ya!?!

This is a great photo but you can't see the shirt, total duh moment on our part.

And something about posing like this makes E hungry.  Personally, I just think he's a little weird.

Then we had our 'Vanna White' moment which thrilled Dad to no end.  ;)

I love this one though!  It's a picture perfect description of us, I'm posing and having a great time and E is just not sure what to do so he looks to me for inspiration.

I think I'm laughing at Dad for giving us 'the look'.  What is it about Dad's having a look, they all have them, and they dole them out whenever we do something crazy, bad, silly or stupid.

Look, E is confirming... I do in fact have a brain!

This would be a great picture for us to use but E isn't really smiling.  Ugh.  Do you have a hard time getting your man to smile in photos?  What is it about men & smiles???

Now that you've seen all this you really want a t-shirt for yourself don't ya!  Email me at annedora@littleonesweets.com with your size and we will add you to our t-shirt list.  We would like to get an order placed in the next week to 10 days so hurry!  Do it, do it now!!  It will be a nice quality, men's pre-shrunk, cotton t-shirt and we will be a-$dding our name to the front with our logo and our website to the back.  We expect the t-shirts to be in the $18-$20 range and will be accepting cash, check and Paypal.  :)  

Update... we will also be able to order kids shirts that will be the exact same look & price as the adult version.  Yay!  

This ones for the guys out there...

I know, I know..."The kitchen is the ladies department."...That's what we've been told our whole lives. But, let me tell you... that's far from the truth!

Some the best Bakers on the planet are men! Chef Ron Ben Israel, Chef Duff Goldman and Chef Buddy Valastro all make their livings (and a ton of $$) creating some of best tasting goods known to man.

The point I'm trying to make is:  THE KITCHEN IS NOT ONLY FOR THE LADIES!

Don't be afraid to kick her out of 'her' domain and try to create something decadent. Maybe surprise her with something for a special occasion? Birthday? Anniversary? 

It doesn't have to be incredibly beautiful or extravagant...She will appreciate it regardless. 

Ideas and recipes are easy to find...Ever heard of Google or Pinterest? Find one or two simple recipes and go for it!

Some notes of advice:  Do not try to alter a recipe your first time out. Also, baking is a science. With that being said, measurements have to be precise for all the ingredients to work together and make your creation shine. Its not all that hard to do. In fact...its chemistry. Figuring out how each ingredient of a recipe works with each other to create a cake, bread or scone is kinda cool. You will easily figure out what flavors work with each other and what to stay away from. You will have some failures, but don't let that detract you from trying.

Here are some of my creations for some inspiration:

Peasant Bread

Cream Cheese Muffins

Baileys Vanilla bean Fudge

Bacon Cheddar Scones

Home made Soft Pretzels

Now get in the there and show her what you can do!

*Don't forget to clean up your mess, She'll appreciate you even more!*

-E

It's Tuesday Again.... Time For Tuesday's Tips & Tricks!!

Today is all about recipes, yay!!  Over the weekend I made a pie for my Dad for Father's Day and I, with my infinite baking wisdom did not read the entire recipe, at least once, all the way through before starting.  So when I reached the bottom of the recipe, as the all of the components were coming together to form the pie, I found an error on the author's part, major freak out time!  At the beginning of the recipe it calls for a mixture to be placed in the freezer to set however, at the end of the recipe it said to remove the mixture from the fridge.  Aaahhhh!  Did I do it wrong, is everything messed up, oh no, oh no, why didn't I read the whole darn thing???

I did bake the pie with my freezer mixture and everything was perfectly yummy but I also emailed the author of the recipe.  She wrote me back a few hours later thanking me for catching the error and stating that using the freezer was correct (whew!!).  So in light of this I thought I would share with you, my reminder to read the ENTIRE recipe before you even to commit to making something, pull all the ingredients out, or even start  the process.  

Here's the pie we made, it's a Blueberry Coconut Cream Pie and we served it with a Toasted Coconut Whipped Cream.

Plus, we have decided to include a few extra recipe and baking tips for you today.  Some of these are a gimme and some, maybe not.  ;)

-  Ingredients for baking should be room temperature (take out of refrigerator approximately 60-90 minutes before needed).

-  Weighing ingredients with a digital kitchen scale is the most accurate method of baking.

-  To bring cold eggs to room temperature quickly, you can put the whole eggs into a bowl of lukewarm water (not hot) for 30 minutes.

-  Incorporate dry ingredients together with whisk or fork before adding to wet ingredients.

-  Get a separate oven thermometer for an accurate temperature reading–most ovens are either “hot” or “cold.”  Our oven runs about 5 degrees hot, being able to adjust for that makes a big difference in our final product.

-  Use middle rack, unless otherwise stated in recipe.  This will also help prevent "domed cakes".

-  Typically, when in the oven, cakes or baked goodies are nearing done when you can smell them in the kitchen.  Sounds weird, but you’ll see!  I usually smell them about a minute or two before the timer goes off and trust me, your nose knows better than a timer does.  Timers are great but every oven is different.  Trust your instincts!

We hope you enjoyed today's Tips & Tricks, please leave us a comment to share your tips & tricks!

Tuesday's Tips & Tricks!

Welcome to our first ever "Tuesday's Tips & Tricks" blog post!!  Woohoo!  One of our goals when creating LOS was to provide yummy tasting goodies for our friends, co-workers and loved ones.  Who could have predicted that we would garner such a following that complete strangers would be calling us to place orders?!?  Wow!  As LOS has grown we have tried to not only keep our original goal but to expand upon it.  We understand that there are times you want to make your own goodies and we want to help you do it easier, tastier and prettier.

Ok, stop drooling at the brownie batter and pay attention, that goes for ya'll too, our first tip is a 

really good one!  

When you're making a batter (cakes, brownies, etc) that calls for water to be added, this is your chance to add more flavor!  Swap the amount of water for the same amount of another liquid that will compliment what you're baking.  When making anything chocolate, coffee is a great liquid to use.  However don't go crazy and add something strong like vanilla extract.  In the past I have used coffee, fruit juice, soda and even a mild or complimentary liquor.  No worries, the alcohol is usually baked out in most cases depending on time and oven temperature.  There have been a few times where I don't have something else on hand to use or can't think of something complimentary so I keep a few flavored extracts on hand to add to the water.

So, what do you think of our first tip?  Will you try this?  We'd love to hear your thoughts about our tips & tricks and let us know some of yours!

  

Welcome & New Ideas

Anne  June 10,2013



​

Hi sweet lovers and welcome to our new site.  Thanks for stopping by and for your continued support!  We have been working hard to keep up with orders while trying to get our new website done and would love to know what you think so feel free to comment below.  One of the ideas we have been pondering is a "Tips & Tricks Tuesday" blog post.  Sadly, we won't be sharing ALL our secrets but some that will help you out for when you're doing the baking, hosting, etc.  So keep checking back for what's new with us and how we can help you!