Tag Archives: holiday

Dec 18 2015

A Colorful Winter Giveaway (US) Ends 12/25

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It’s the holidays and the time for giving, so what better time than now to have a giveaway!? I haven’t had a giveaway in some time and usually try to do one every Christmas. This year the items are less Christmas themed than usual. I’ve been collecting the cutest cupcake, dessert, and colorful items I could find throughout the year. This time I have two prize packs to giveaway so there will be two winners!

So let’s get right to the giveaway!

Prize Pack #1 – (Total ARV $50.12)

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This prize pack includes:

  • Cupcake-2-Go cupcake carrier
  • Betsey Johnson zipper pouch
  • Cupcake ornament
  • Cupcake bath fizz
  • Doughnut candle
  • Martha Stewart’s New Year’s Celebration DVD
  • Cupcake magnetic page markers
  • Cupcake plunger
  • Doughnut sticky notes
  • A frame
  • Essie mini nail polish
  • Doughnut sanitizer
  • A glitter pencil
  • A handkerchief

 

Prize Pack #2 – (Total ARV $47.31)

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winter2015giveaway2

This prize pack includes:

  • Cupcake-2-Go cupcake carrier
  • Betsey Johnson zipper pouch
  • Reusable silicone baking cups
  • Doughnut candle
  • Cupcake ornament
  • Cupcake bath fizz (Not Pictured)
  • Martha Stewart’s Homemade Holidays DVD
  • Chapstick Cake Batter lip balm
  • Essie mini nail polish
  • A frame
  • Birthday Cake Gourmet Gum
  • Cupcake sticky notes
  • A glitter pencil
  • A handkerchief

The Rules for Entry:

To enter you must be 18+ years old and have a shipping address within the US. The giveaway will end December 25th at 11:59pm EST. Enter by filling out the Rafflecopter widget below. Only entering your contact email is required. The rest of the entry methods are optional and will only increase your odds for winning. For complete giveaway rules, click here.

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Nov 27 2015

Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie

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I was tasked with making a pie for Thanksgiving this week, and I had some bourbon, so I looked around for a recipe I could use it in. I love bourbon and don’t mind the taste of it in desserts, so when I came across this Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie recipe from Allrecipes.com I decided to give it a shot. It was well liked on the website and included a 1/4 cup of bourbon, so I knew it must be good.

Final verdict? It was so frickin good! It has a nice chocolate and bourbon taste that goes so well with the ingredients of the pecan pie. I didn’t want to post about the recipe until I had a chance to try some myself, but it was so good I decided to make a post about it, because this is the perfect pie for the holidays. Nothing better than booze and pie at Christmas-time. The alcohol in the bourbon should be all cooked out by the time it’s complete, so anyone can eat this pie. It still retains the lovely flavor of bourbon after baking too.

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The one thing I would recommend for this pie is to use a deep pie dish. The recipe makes just a little bit too much filling for a regular pie dish. As the above photo shows, the filling fit perfectly in my 1 and 3/4 inch deep pie dish.

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Instead of melting the chocolate, the chips stay intact so that there are nice little nuggets of semi-sweet chocolate throughout. I really liked that.

Make sure to click the link at the beginning of the post for the recipe if you’d like to try this pie. Let me know how you like it!

What desserts are your go-to during the holidays? I’d love for you to share any recipes you love.

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Dec 17 2014

Duff Goldman Holly Jolly Cake with Holiday Frosting {Review and Giveaway}

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I hope by now you’ve read and entered my other Duff Goldman review and giveaway for a box of Chocolate Snowball cookie mix (it ends today!), but I have another treat for you provided by Duff Goldman by Gartner Studios. I have the opportunity to review another product from the Duff Goldman holiday line and give away a package of the same products I’m reviewing!

Today’s product is the Duff Goldman by Gartner Studios Holly Jolly Cake Mix and Holiday Frosting. The first thing that caught my eye about this product was how vibrant the colors of the cake were. It’s very festive. I also liked that the frosting looked really white. I hoped that the product lived up to these expectations.

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The products are described by the company as “layers of holiday colors to dazzle the eye, and moist, delicious flavors to tempt the taste buds” with a “decadent” frosting. I hoped this description wouldn’t be setting me up for disappointment.

The first thing that was a plus is that the food coloring gels that come with the cake mix do actually get the batter pretty close to the red and green in the picture! So even if this cake wasn’t any good, I had a feeling it would still look pretty cool.

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I was a little bummed that I wouldn’t be able to do the 4 layer cake, because I didn’t have the right sized pans. The box suggests two 8in round cake pans so that each cake can be cut in half for the layers, and 9in pans (which is what I had) were not recommended. I could have said “screw you, cake box instructions, I’ll do what I want,” but since this was a review, I wanted to follow the directions correctly at least this first time. In the end, I opted for a two layer cake.

The batter tasted pretty great but was a tad sweet. The frosting was also very sweet.  I was afraid it might be too sweet when put together. Another drawback of the frosting was that it wasn’t as white as the frosting on the box of cake mix. It was closer to the cream color on the frosting label. It tasted a bit like a mix of regular vanilla frosting and cream cheese frosting.

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I cooked the cake according to the directions and ended up pulling it out of the oven a couple of minutes early because a toothpick already came out of the center clean. This was probably one of the moistest cakes I’ve ever baked. Even after cooling for a long time, the cake stayed sticky. Because of this stickiness, when you frost the cake, you’ll have to do a crumb coat. To do this, spread a thin layer of frosting all over the cake to glue all the crumbs together that mix into it after you’ve put in the frosting filling between the layers.  To set this quickly, I stuck the cake in the fridge for a few minutes so that the frosting wouldn’t be tacky to the touch. Then I frosted as usual, no crumbs this time! I found a great tutorial for crumb coating on Martha Stewart if you need a visual.

While putting cake in the fridge can dry it out, this cake needs a bit of chilling to firm it up for cutting slices. The cake was room temperature when I took the first slice out and it nearly crumbled all over the place, plus the slice fell over when I was trying to serve it on a plate for the photo shoot! It was not very easy to handle when it was warm and it was messy. There were cake crumbs all over.

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I don’t know how they got the frosting so clean in the cake box photo. Crumbs got all mixed up into mine when I cut the cake. I found out later that chilling the cake briefly does make the cake more firm for slicing, but it’s still a bit crumbly.

Now to the taste. As I expected, the cake was a little too sweet for my liking. If you like really sweet desserts, this might be the cake for you. A little goes a long way, because it’s so sweet and rich. Chilling the cake helped cut down on the sweetness too somehow. A small piece of this with some not-too-sweet coffee would be pretty good though!

Here’s that first slice I cut that fell all over the place. I was able to salvage it by putting the ugly side to the back. Oh the things I do for pretty photography.

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Overall, I did like this cake. It was bright and moist and looked very Christmassy. The only negative things I found were mostly with the frosting, because it wasn’t as white as I expected, and it was too sweet. The cake itself is so sweet, it could be a dessert on its own.

Want a chance to give it a try? Enter the giveaway below for a Holly Jolly Kit that includes one box of Holly Jolly Cake Mix and two tubs of Holiday Frosting.

BUY IT

If you would like to buy the Holly Jolly cake mix, it can be found at Target and Stop and Shop, and the Holiday Frosting can be found exclusively at Target until January 2015. Some of the holiday products can be found online at www.gartnerstudios.com.

CONNECT

Stay up-to-date on all things Duff Goldman by Gartner Studios! Follow on Facebook and Twitter.

WIN IT!

One lucky reader will win their own package of Duff Goldman by Gartner Studios Holly Jolly Cake Mix and two tubs of Holiday Frosting!

Open to U.S. residents 18 and older. Giveaway ends 12/24/14 at 11:59 pm EST.

Click HERE for complete giveaway rules.

To Enter, just fill in your name and email into the Rafflecopter widget below. For a better chance at winning, complete as many of the optional entries as you want. Come back daily for more entries!

If the Rafflecopter widget does not show up, just click the link that says “a Rafflecopter giveaway.” Then you can put your entries on that page.

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****I received these products free of charge for an honest review of the products. I was not compensated monetarily for this review and all opinions are my own.****

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Nov 24 2014

Holiday eShakti Dress Giveaway

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I’ve reviewed eShakti.com dresses a couple times in the past and really love how customizable they are, yet still affordable. Lucky for you, eShakti has given me the chance to offer my readers another giveaway for their website! One winner will be able to choose any dress they like from eShakti.com’s large selection of fully customizable dresses. What a better time than now to pick out that special holiday dress you’ve been meaning to buy!

eShakti offers many ways to customize a garment including changing the neckline, hem length, or sleeve length. You can also input your personal measurements to make sure your dress it going to fit your exact body type. You can get all of these customizations for just an extra $7.50! Taking a dress to a seamstress or tailor to custom fit it could cost easily ten times as much, sometimes even more. And it even gets better: If you’ve never customized a dress from eShakti before, your first time is free!

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If you’d rather buy a dress without customization, they offer sizes from 0-36W. Every woman is welcome at eShakti.

Another perk if you’re new to eShakti, if you register with their website, you get a $30 gift coupon toward your first order! They really want you to have their clothing, guys.

eShakti also offers a selection of skirts, tops, and jackets. Check out their New Arrivals section for their latest beautiful editions.

You can choose any dress you want from eShakti if you win the giveaway, but I’ve selected a few dresses below that I think would be perfect for the holidays:

1. Beaded snowflake ponte sheath dress

2. Beaded crepe sheath dress

3. Beaded polka dot tulle dress

4. Floral lurex jacquard sheath dress

5. Floral jacquard sequin waist dress

6. Grace dress

 

FOLLOW & CONNECT

You can now connect with and follow eShakti on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Google+, and Instagram!

GIVEAWAY

To Enter: Fill out the mandatory entry of your name and email in the Rafflecopter widget below. After that, enter as many optional entries as you like to increase your chance of winning.

Eligibility: eShakti only ships to the US and Canada at this time, so unfortunately, this giveaway is limited to residents of only those countries.

The giveaway ends at 11:59 pm EST on December 1st, 2014. Come back daily for more entries!

For complete giveaway rules click the link below:

Official Giveaway Rules

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Mar 11 2013

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Whiskey Ganache Filling and Irish Cream Frosting

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I love the combination of the ingredients in the unfortunately named alcoholic drink the Irish Car Bomb. It includes Guinness Stout, Jameson Irish Whiskey, and Baileys Irish Cream liqueur. It’s called Irish because of the Irish alcohols used in the drink, but the drink originated in America. The “car bomb” part of the name in part refers to the shot of Baileys with whiskey floated on top, being dropped or “bombed” into a glass of Guinness, but also to the history of car bombs that have plagued Ireland in years past.

Many find the name offensive, but that’s the point isn’t it? Alcoholic drinks are named outrageous things so that people remember them, for example: Agent Orange, Kamikaze, Redheaded Slut. Alcoholic drinks tend to be offensive. That’s just how it is. I’m not here to judge, I’m just here to bake! So let’s get to it!

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I used Brown Eyed Baker’s “Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes” recipe to make these but changed a few things about the recipe to suit my own needs. First, I decided not to call what I made Irish Car Bomb cupcakes, mainly because I chose to use Carolans Irish Cream instead of Baileys and many would not consider it a true “Irish Car Bomb” without the holy trinity of Guinness, Jameson, and Baileys. For the purposes of this recipe, Carolans Irish Cream works just as well for the frosting, but if you want the more authentic taste of Baileys, I’d suggest using the exact recipe from Brown Eyed Baker.

IMG_2988The other thing I decided to try was splitting the batter into two, making one half as Brown Eyed Baker did, and the other with dairy substitutes for the heavy cream and sour cream. They aren’t completely vegan, but my boyfriend prefers less dairy in his diet, and I wanted him to be able to eat these too! Plus he helped me make these, so it was only fair to make something he could eat.

For the less dairy version of these cupcakes, I used almond milk in place of the heavy cream, and vegan sour cream instead of regular sour cream. The vegan sour cream didn’t quite taste like real sour cream, but since it was mixed into the batter, the taste didn’t matter much and it moistened the cake just like the regular sour cream did.

Amazingly, the alternative batter cooked up better than the regular batter. The less-dairy cake cooked faster and rose better than the regular cake. I had to cook the regular cupcakes longer than what the recipe suggested. Not sure what I did wrong with Brown Eyed Baker’s recipe. Also, the almond milk ganache thickened quicker than the heavy cream one (which is good). It was interesting how different the two batters worked out.

IMG_2976Taste wise, the cupcakes were about the same. You’d never miss the dairy products that I cut out of the alternative cupcakes. I could taste the Guinness in the cake as well as the whiskey in the ganache. I would have liked more of a whiskey flavor though. You might want to add a little more whiskey to the ganache if you like the flavor. The frosting was a little sweet for my tastes on its own, but the bittersweet ganache counteracts the sweet well when it’s eaten all together.

Speaking of the frosting, the recipe calls for 2 cups of butter! That’s a crazy amount. One reason my frosting might have been too sweet is because I chose to use less butter but only cut the powdered sugar buy one cup. Therefore, I might have used too much powdered sugar for the amount of butter. If you cut the butter down, make sure to proportionally cut the confectioner’s sugar too, or it could end up too sweet like mine (unless you like really sweet frosting).

IMG_2989These cupcakes are really rich and boozy: a perfect way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Although the recipe says they only take one hour to make, I highly doubt anyone could finish these in an hour unless you are a quick professional baker. They took me several hours to prepare, mix, bake, and frost, and that was with help! Doing these on my own would have been difficult. I’d suggest making these with a friend, and then drink the extra alcohol while you’re waiting for them to cook. 😉 Keep in mind that these cupcakes do have a slight alcohol content, because the ganache and frosting do not have the alcohol cooked out of them. They are not for those under the legal drinking age.

Have a fun and safe St. Patrick’s Day and drink (and eat) responsibly!

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Dec 26 2011

Christmas Tree and Reindeer Cupcakes

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Merry Belated Christmas!

I’m sorry I haven’t been as active on the blog lately. I blame my holiday laziness, but I did whip up some cute cupcakes this past week that I want to share with you. I hope your families had wonderful get-togethers for the holidays these past few weeks no matter what you celebrate at this time of the year!

For a Christmas party I went to this past Friday I made two cupcake decorating ideas that I’d seen floating around the internet this past month. The first were these cute reindeer cupcakes:

And the others were these Christmas Tree cupcakes:

Both were fairly easy to make but took a long time to put together. For the less experienced decorator, I’d suggest the reindeer ones. I think even kids could put these together. The supplies you’d need to make these are a cupcake (made from scratch or boxed mix), chocolate frosting, Nila wafers, round candies in white, brown and red (I used peanut butter M&Ms for the brown and red noses and white coconut M&Ms for the eyes), black gel frosting for the eye pupils, and pretzels. If I were to do this one again I’d chose smaller pretzels. It’s probably pretty self explanatory by looking at the pictures how to construct them, but I’ll give a quick run down of how I put them together anyway.

First frost the cupcake and put the Nila wafer on near the bottom of one side of the cupcake, then use some frosting to attach the nose. Next shove the pretzels into the frosting near the top, almost to where they meet with the cookie. It was hard to keep the pretzels from slumping over that’s why I put them so far down on the face. If you use smaller pretzels, this may not be necessary. Then attach the eyes with more frosting near the top of the cookie. Unless you want them to be blind reindeer, add a little black pupil to each eyeball with the gel frosting.

For a little more of a challenge I made these Christmas tree cupcakes as well. These ones require a little bit of frosting technique and frosting tips.  Start with a cupcake frosted with white frosting. For the structure of the tree place an ice cream sugar cone upside-down on the white frosting. Then make some green frosting and pipe it on using a closed star tip. Just rest the tip near the ice cream cone and then pull outward as you push the frosting out to make it look like the branchy peaks on the tree.

For decorating the tree you can do a wide variety of things! Some ideas are chocolate covered sunflower seeds, sprinkles, small candies like mini M&Ms, etc. I used some light blue pearl candy sprinkles I had on hand but the decorations are limitless.  You could even try  to find a star shaped candy as a tree topper.

If you made cupcakes for the holidays this year I’d love to see them! You can either post a link to them in a comment below or post a picture on my Facebook page!

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