Sugar Swings! Serve Some

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

lego and superhero frozen yogurt and fruit pops...


 ...so i started working out for the first time in like a billion years.....i'm using one of those DVD systems that up front tell you...."you are totally going to be sore and hating life but you'll be happy with yourself once you are done" sounds fun right?...i'm only on week 1, so i'll let you know how it's going...but lets just say i think i'm working muscles that may never have been worked out---ever!

and since i'm working out, i can't have a lot of sugary cake-y sweets around, that's just way too much temptation....plus the kids are pretty much sick of cupcakes from me.....

i've been pinning a bunch of "healthy desserts" lately, and decided to make some yogurt pops with some fruit n' yogurt toppers....

these are super simple too....buy some yogurt (whatever flav you like)....i used banana, blueberry and strawberry....and plop some on a baking sheet lined with parchment and add a stick (the guru of all stuff on sticks, meaghan over at the decorated cookie, did yogurt pops but flavored them herself!--that took an extra step so i opted for store bought!)...don't freeze yet. (oh and make sure your cookie sheet fits in your freezer!)


for the toppers....i seem to keep collecting ice cube trays since i use them all the time for things other than ice! and who doesn't like lego and super heroes?


and we recently had a fruit tasting with the kiddos to see if i could get them eating more than their usual routine of fruits....(btw-they seem to think figs are the most disgusting fruit in the world....but they did try them along with kiwi, prickly pear, and a bunch of others, so win!)....


....i blended up some of the leftover fruit and added a little vanilla yogurt to the mix in a zip lock baggie.....then added some of the mix to the molds...freeze well.  After about 2 hours, pop the fruit "cubes" out of the molds and add immediately to the unfrozen yogurt pops...(well immediately after you take some cool pics, if you do that sort of thing!)



these actually make great snacks too if you make a bunch and keep them in the freezer....

                            

...freeze the pops for a good few hours (or even overnite if you want).....

and you get some yummy fruit and yogurt pops!


at least the kids like them!
...and no worries i'll be back to more buttercream and cake-y stuff soon enough :)  thanks for stopping by and have an excellent rest of the week!


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Sunday, July 15, 2012

watermelon doughnuts....!


....so i kinda have a thing for pink and green (as you can tell by the blog design)....so anything watermelon related works for me since that's all pretty pinks and greenie green...

for these doughnuts, the cake is not watermelon flavored....i did watermelon cupcakes awhile back so wanted to try something different and had some leftover green batter from these cupcakes....


...and they are baked doughnuts too (is it donut or doughnut?)....using one of those doughnut pans....before adding the batter, just added some green food gel in streaks to bottom of pan and to the actual batter on top (as in pic) since i wasn't sure what side of the doughnut would look best for this....


i actually used the side of the doughnut closest to the pan side as that looked more like the doughnut shape....then added some watermelon cream cheese icing (link to recipe in this post and is made with real watermelon juice)...and finished with some black sesame seeds on top....


...and you get some yummy little doughnut cakes with some really delish watermelon cream cheese icing....(btw it's pretty much impossible to pipe cream cheese icing unless you add like 2 bags of powdered sugar!)

i hope you like them and really hope you are enjoying the summer...hard to believe it's mid july already....i think we need to create an extra summer month because it goes by way to fast! thanks for stopping by and have a fantastic week!


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Sunday, July 1, 2012

red, white, & blue madeleines......!


aren't these colors so pretty??...and ok maybe it's not really red, white, and blue....maybe more pink cream and purpley-blue, but guess what they are made with all natural food colorings so i'll take 'em!....and you may be sick of madeleines from me since i've done them a bunch of times before like here for halloween, here for the winter holidays, and some pink ombre ones here....



but i love making them because they are so stinkin' easy....i use this recipe all the time, and just change the colors up depending on the holiday or theme....this time to mix it up a little i wanted to use some natural colorings versus the food gels (don't get me wrong the food gels/colorings come in super handy and give you any rainbow of colors you like, but i always like to try to experiment to see what you can get with the natural ones too).....when i saw these at trader joes, i knew i needed to try them in some goodies....freeze dried fruits, they are crunchy and still sweet, so i figured you'd be able to make them into a nice powder....


being a pharmacist....i was able to break out my old mortar and pestle and grind some stuff up (also good to take out any frustrations you have going on!)...blueberry and strawberry powder....


....which i then added to some of the madeleine batter...i probably added about 1/4 cup of powder to about 1 to 1 and 1/2 cups of batter (you could use a sieve and filter out the larger particles but i wasn't that motivated).....add each color to a zip lock baggie, snip off an end and pipe into madeleine pan....the powder made the batter a little thicker and i was worried it wouldn't bake up the same, but it turned out fine.....


...the batter is thick enough to hold its shape a bit and you can "pipe" the different stripes....


bake @ 375 degrees only for about 6-8 minutes depending on your oven....definitely keep an eye on them since they are small and bake up fast---you don't want them to brown as that will hide the color, and you want the color to stand out!


...and you get a bunch of super easy madeleines all ready for a 4th of July par-tay!...the strawberry and blueberry color and flavor really made these super tasty too.....i really like how the powdered freeze dried fruit added the color and flavor....i want to find some other freeze dried fruits/veggies too and experiment with color too...oranges, pineapple, raspberries, red grapes.....exciting! (is it weird i get excited about stuff like this??)

have an awesome week, 4th of july is in the middle of the week which stinks...but we're taking the kiddos to hershey park for a couple days this week (shhhhh don't tell them....it's a surprise!!) so that should be fun...actually they love staying over in hotels....pretty much any hotel....so if we told them we were staying overnite at a holiday inn in town, they'd be super happy about that by itself, so hershey is just a bonus now....wish me luck, i'm tired already thinking about it :)


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