CHOCOLATE PECAN TARTLETS

Tonight is the support group meeting for Alzheimer's Idaho (local grassroots organization) and if you read this blog you know I make their dessert each month. Tonight they are having chocolate pecan tartlets and to gild the Lilly, whipped cream.

 A few simple ingredients.....

Depending on how many tartlets you are making you will need to either make your favorite pie crust or purchase in the dairy case or in a box.  For 12 you will need more than for one crust pie but not quite two so you can use your leftover crust to make some cinnamon roll-ups, etc.

Roll out your crust and cut out using a large circle cutter or if you don't have a large one you could thoroughly wash a saved tin can as it would give you the nice sharp edges that you need.

 I used two different type of tartlet pans the four showing are dark and have a removable bottom the ones showing in the back are standard French tartlet pans, no removable bottoms. They both work great as I spray the pans with non-stick spray before putting in the crust.  These are ready for the oven.

Once out of the oven and cooled set on a rack and drizzle with melted chocolate of your choice.

Ready for delivery with the whipped cream.

Recipe:

Yield: 12 Tartlets                                   Oven temp: 400 °

Ingredients

1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/1/4 cups chopped pecans
1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup light brown sugar
4 eggs
1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 bag chocolate chips, either milk or semi-sweet

Directions

Melt the butter and set aside to cool.  After the butter has cooled in a large saucepan add all the other ingredients and then the butter and stir to mix completely.  Cook over medium until the mixture is thickened but not too thick, if you get it too thick add a little more water.  Spoon approximately 2T into each tartlet and bake for about ten minutes - keep an eye on them, do not want to overcook as you have already cooked the filling on the stove top.

Using a microwave melt the chocolate in a glass bowl at 30 second intervals stirring after each interval.  Once the chocolate is melted put into a plastic bag, twist the bag and then turn the bag up before cutting the tip as once you cut the chocolate will come running out.  Drizzle away on your tartlets.

 No right or wrong with the drizzle.....


Resource

Black, removable bottom tartlet pans, HomeGoods
French tartlet pans, Williams-Sonoma

Thank you for stopping by.

THE BIRTHDAY TREE & A CAKE TRICK

This last week our twins turned 8! As is our custom we had them for a few special hours for birthday fun with Grammie & Poppa.  I was not going to do a post on this but decided I would because both of these things were easy and cost saving.

After Christmas I found this 4' lighted tree in a box, very woodsy and it was one of those things that I bought because I knew I would do something with it, just not sure what and the cost was about 1/4 of the retail price.  I think this project could be just as easily done with a tree branch glued into a block of wood.  My first task was to go to the party store and purchase some paper items.  Started by tossing red and blue serpentine's - think they were .69 cents a package.

I next wrapped the trunk with blue and red tissue festooning and then went to the computer and found a few cute pictures of the twins, printed them out and using double stick tape glued to mini paper fans, all very easy to attach to the stick tree. Finished it off with more of the tissue festooning in the upper branches and the "topper" was of photo of the two of them.

I printed out the "Birthday Tree" banner and the "8" on my inkjet printer and once again attached with double stick tape.

Turns out a "Birthday Tree" is a pretty cute place to display the gifts. The best part was when their Grammie heard "you did this for us?" Be still my heart.

I was intent on getting a two tier cake but then found out they started at $40 without any decorations so.......I bought a round and a square and....

 

Put them together and made some green buttercream to match the buttercream on the bakery cake (using gel food color  dark green and then yellow to get the color match). Then using a star tip for the buttercream I finished off the raw areas to make the cake look cohesive.

Some adorable "Happy Birthday" candles and an "8"

 Party ready and both cakes plus candles about $21.
  
Ready to sing "Happy Birthday" and blow out the candles.

Resource

Cakes, Walmart
Candles, serpentine's, tissue festooning & mini-fans, party store
Tree, HomeGoods (was a Christmas item)
Star frosting tip, Wilton 2D

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ST. PADDY'S DAY TREE

When I found the little white tree after Christmas and decided to use it for three holidays I kept that in mind when decorating and made sure the take-a-part would be easy.
Gathered up some supplies, of course my morning cup of coffee and started taking the Valentine tree apart.

Prepared a storage box for the things that were just Valentine so they would be handy to find for the tree next year.

I was careful to just tie on the ornaments so they were easy to remove so I could change out the ribbon.

I love Midori ribbon and had this beautiful dark hunter green that I thought coordinated beautifully with my top hat.

Changed out the red mini-colander for this white one and put a few lucky Irish coins inside to cover the burlap.

I think this top hat is just amazing - it looks like a silk top hat but it is a lovely graphic from the Graphic's Fairy printed out on card stock with my inkjet printer - regular printing - all I did was print it out and cut around the graphic (getting rid of the areas I did not want) and then make a hole for the tree to go through.

I added this sweet little Annalee St. Paddy's Day mouse with his lucky horseshoe.

In place of the fabric/felt garland that was used on Valentine's Day I added a couple of feather boas - tree done!

Resource

Annalee Dolls, The small Annalee's run about $25 directly from Annalee.com but TJ Maxx & Marshall's always has them discounted for every holiday and then red tagged after the holiday.
Green & White boas, Dollar Tree
Gold coins, Dollar Tree
Small grater with red top, Cost Plus (.79 cents)
Mini-colander, Cost Plus ($1.98 assorted colors)
Green/white polka dot ribbon, Hobby Lobby
Large shamrock, Hobby Lobby
Antique mini-kitchen utensils, Ebay seller, here is a link to a strainer she has on sale now:Link
Tree, TJ Maxx (after Christmas)
Battery Lights (50 light), even though the review's were mixed on these lights I took a chance and LOVE them,GBB LED 50 Super Bright Indoor and Outdoor Battery Operated Christmas Wedding Fairy String Lights on 5M/16ft Long Silver Color Ultra Thin String Wire
Top Hat, The Graphic's Fairy, Link
Midori Ribbon, specialty stores, online and Ebay sellers.


Thank you for stopping by.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

Valentine Day

noun

1.

February 14, observed in honor of St. Valentine as a day for the exchange of valentines and other tokens of affection.

RUSTIC BARN WOOD SIGN

My sweet hubby and I were recently in California and we saw sign very similar to this one so we decided to try our hand at making one for a dear friend.  Last summer we had gone to a really cute farming area here in Idaho and picked through some barn wood and brought some home for projects.

While Hubby was in his shop putting together the barn wood sign, using a scrap piece of the barn wood I set out to test my whitewash.  A word about whitewashing - many recipes and ideas out there on the best way to do this but I belong to the school of "the easier the better, do what works for you." Start out with a clean brush (do not use foam, this is rough wood), dip in water and brush a test area.

Using some diluted craft paint brush paint over the wet wood, you might have to add more water, when you like the look, stop and let it dry.

I was happy with the way it looked so went forward with painting the sign.

I also tried some of this Liming Wax on the other side of the board.  If I was not transferring an image to the wood I would have used this as I love the look and nice finish attained with this product.

Straight from Hubby's shop - size is approximately 12x18 and he ripped strips of the barn wood to screw to the back so the sign will be easy to hang. 

 This is what it looks like after the whitewashing (be sure and do the tops and sides).

After drying - it will lighten up when it dries.

There are many ways to transfer images to wood and I decided with this rough wood and the fact that I wanted the sign to look old and rustic, I used Lesley Riley's TAP.  In my resource area below I will list fonts used and size of each font. This photo is before the whitewash - the wording had been cut and placed to make sure that the scale was correct.

Using a hot dry iron you adhere the words (make sure you flip the image) to the whitewashed barn wood.  Because the wood is old, dry and rough it will not adhere which was OK with me because I wanted it to look like maybe it had been around since 1963. After the transfer there were areas that I had to take a paint brush to and when that was dry I went back to some areas with whitewash again.

The final step was several coats of this matte, clear finish to protect the finish. Ready to put into the mail.

Resource

Barn Wood, go find a farmer :)
Krylon Low Odor Clear Finish, craft, hobby and hardware stores
Briwax Liming Wax, Briwax Liming Wax, 8 ounce
"The" Font, Mongolian Bati, sz 145
"Cyrus" Font, FrankRuehl, sz 180
"Family" Font, ChopinScript, sz 182
"Est 1963" Font, Century751SeBdBT, sz 99
Lesley Riley's TAP, Lesley Riley's TAP Transfer Artist Paper 5-Sheet Pack: 5 Iron-on Image Transfer Sheets  8.5 x 11Thank you for stopping by.



 

BIRTHDAY INVITATION IN A BOX!

We have the good and great fortune to live near three of our five grandchildren. Since moving to Idaho, on their birthdays, we like to invite them to spend a "birthday day" or hours with us to celebrate with Grammie & Poppa. So today's post is the most recent birthday invitation for soon to be, eight year old twins, Belle and Mitchie.

I admit I did not have a plan other than I had purchased these little paper-mâché boxes and cones thinking I would find a recent photo for the cones and decorate the boxes.  I had thought I would find some antique paper to cover the boxes with but then remembered I had some pink and black sticky back vinyl and took off from there.

Using a couple of simple white pom-pom's I colored them with Pebbles chalk, took just a few minutes and I had white no more!  I love these chalks for all kinds of things, I find them useful.

One of the great things about this vinyl is the grid on the back as it makes it very easy to measure and cut out your pieces.

The box is covered, now for the cone.

Covered the cone and using Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive added a recent photo which I cut around to fit on the cone.

To finish off the box I went to my scrapbook embellishments and found these pears and some ric-rac, glued the ric-rac and randomly attached the pearls. Ready for some white sizzle, a wrapped sugar cookie and the invitation.

After the first one, the second one was very easy. Covered the box with vinyl, then added checkered duct tape (I cut for the correct width) and some cute 7Gypsies tape around the bottom.

To finish off the box I cut and folded some black ribbon that had pom-pom edges and glued around the raw edges of the cone.

Now to fill and they will be ready for delivery.

One of Grammie's sugar cookies dipped in glaze and lots of sparkly edible glitter (to be wrapped in Saran wrap).

Ready to go - hope these two like their invitations.

Resource

Cricut vinyl,  Walmart and craft stores, online too, comes in many colors
Black & White duct tape, Big Lots
Pebbles chalks, craft stores and online 
7Gypsies tape, online and craft stores
Pom-poms, craft stores and online
Pom-pom ribbon, Costco
Paper-mâché boxes and cones, craft stores
Font for invitation, Century 751 No2BT, 11pts.
Invitation created in Corel Draw

Thank you for stopping by.