Chocolate Seashell Cupcakes!

Pin It Now!

It sort of looks like I'm turning this into a food blog lately. It's not my intent but I just haven't had any other decorating things to blog about lately. I have a new project I'll be working on this weekend. It's something wonderful that I just found at the thrift store! Hopefully I'll be able to share it with you soon! Anyway, when it was mega-hot last weekend I decided to try my hand at making chocolate shells. Remember when I made my fondant seashells awhile back? I used that same mold only this time I used melted white and semisweet chocolate. I melted the chocolate in the microwave. After you pour it in the mold you have to pop it in the freezer for a bit before you can unmold it. They turned out great and they taste a lot better than the fondant.

I had all these chocolate shells so then of course I had to bake something to use them on. It was too hot last weekend to bake so I did these on Monday night when it had cooled down a bit and I brought them into work yesterday. Everyone loved them! You're probably wondering why I took these photos outside...it was before 7:00 am and there just wasn't enough light in my apartment to get a good picture of them.

I used white cake mix that I bought at the cake decorating store. Then I made up some chocolate-almond whipped cream to fill the inside. I used Pastry Pride which is a non-dairy cream you whip up. I added some Hershey's Chocolate Syrup to it and some almond extract. After the cupcakes cooled I inserted a special filling tip into the top of the cupcake and then you just squeeze the pastry bag and it fills it up inside. Chocolate cream-filled cupcakes are just so over-the-top!

For the top I made chocolate ganache and then topped it with my chocolate seashells. I had a couple people tell me it was the best cupcake they ever had! And see those little lacey cupcake wrappers...I made those with doilies from the dollar store. I have to thank Mo from Mo's Cottage...she showed how to make these fancy cupcake wrappers on her blog! I think I made mine too short though!

Chocolate Ganache

1 c. heavy cream
1 Tbsp. butter
1 oz. sugar
12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, broken into small pieces

Heat heavy cream, butter and sugar a saucepan. Stir frequently and bring the mixture to a boil.
Set chocolate in a stainless steel bowl. Pour hot heavy cream mixture over the chocolate. Allow to sit for 5 minutes to melt the chocolate.

Mix thoroughly, making sure all bits of chocolate are dissolved.

Cover and put in the refrigerator for 1 hour or until thick enough to put in pastry bag to pipe on cupcakes.

Guilt-Free Root Beer Float

Pin It Now!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE root beer floats! Vanilla ice cream and root beer, so simple but so good! It's such a refreshing dessert on a hot summer night!

I make mine with low fat, sugar free ice cream and diet root beer and trust me...it tastes just as good as the more fattening version. Look, only 90 calories for 1/2 cup and the root beer is 0 calories!

You even get that nice foamy top!

Yep...It was good!!! Now, I'm curious, is this just an American dessert or do those of you in other countries also make these?

Updated to add: For those of you outside the U.S. that have never heard of root beer before, it's not really a beer, it's more like Coke (Coca-Cola) but with a different taste. It's a carbonated, non-alcholic beverage. I wish I could send you all a can, it's really good!

Sunday Drive

Pin It Now!

It was HOT here this weekend...close to 100 degrees! Too hot to do anything so I sat around and watched a lot of TV which is something I don't do very often on the weekends. Yesterday afternoon Lauren and I were so hot and bored that we decided to go for a drive so we could at least be cool in the air conditioned car. We even took Beau with us! I grabbed the camera and we drove around the streets of Los Gatos to look at the pretty houses... It was too hot to even roll the windows down so there is glare on a lot of these photos.

(You can click on any of these photos to enlarge)

This house above is so teeny-tiny but so cute!

Luckily the weather is supposed to be really nice and only around 80 degrees next weekend for the 4th of July. I have Friday off so it will be a nice 3-day weekend!

Shrimp Louie on the Patio

Pin It Now!

Tuesday night I made Lauren and I Shrimp Louie Salads for dinner. It's a quick and easy weeknight dinner.

We ate out on the patio and I set the table with a seaside theme. I found these pretty napkins at Marshalls a couple weeks ago. I spread two of them out to use as placemats.

I also used my glass fish plates I bought at a thrift store awhile ago. Oops...I didn't even notice I had the plate upside down until I uploaded the photos! It was a week night and I was rushing to get the dinner on the table and photograph it before Lauren came home hungry and ready to eat.

For my "Louie" dressing I just use a jar of good Thousand Island dressing and I add a little horseradish and a couple shakes of Tabasco Sauce to spice it up a bit.

A glass of wine for me and water for Lauren. It sort of feels like a mini vacation when you dress up the table during the week! Trust me...I don't go to this much trouble every night of the week! I cook dinner almost every night but I don't decorate the table like this. I don't want to give the wrong impression here! haha.

Now you can go on over to Gollum's blog and see who else is joining in on Foodie Friday!

Pretty Bedrooms

Pin It Now!

After looking at the photos of my bedroom I posted yesterday I realized that I have way too much going on and I want to tone it down a bit. That's not easy for someone who is not even close to being a "less is more" type of person! I went to the Country Living website for some inspiration and I'm surprised that the bedrooms I like are all very soothing and they don't have all the clutter I do!

Photo credit: www.countryliving.com

My Bedroom

Pin It Now!

I mentioned last week that I moved my bedroom around and here it is. The funny thing is I thought it looked good until I looked at these photos which is why I didn't post it last week. I think I have too much going on in here. For some reason my bed looks really small in these photos but it's a queen-size bed! I didn't want you to think I was sleeping on a twin bed!

If you remember before, I had my bed under the window and my dresser was where the bed is with a big mirror over it.

I would have hung that cottage sign a little lower but I had to hide the screw holes from the mirror.

If I decide to keep the room arranged this way I'm going to redo everything on that wall so it's not so busy. Oh my gosh...I just realized my finger got in the shot above...oops!

This is the other side of the room and that's a chair that I've had forever that's waiting for a paint and reupholster job to done on it. I have too many projects and not enough time!

Beau liked the bed better by the window so he could actually look down and see what's going on outside! He can look out the window but he can't see what's going on in the parking lot now!

Well, now I need to decide if I want to leave it this way or put the bed back under the window...

Update: I always get asked about the paint color and my quilt so I'll include it now:

Paint: Glidden paint in Cancun Blue (it photographs nicer than it actually is though and it looks different every time I photograph it. If you look at the right photo in my header you will see what I mean)

Quilt: It came from Summer's Cottage. Her link is on my left side bar under "Favorite Places to Visit". Once you are on her website you can click on the picture to get to her eBay store.

4 Years Blogging!!!

Pin It Now!

Today is my 4 year blogging anniversary!!! I can't believe how fast it went and how much bigger blogging has become in the last 4 years. Just 4 short years ago, I had to explain to so many people what a blog was and now it seems everyone has one! My apartment has changed so much in 4 years which has all been chronicled here! It's been a really fun 4 years!

I was very honored to be asked to do a guest post over at Lookiloos! You may remember Lookiloos...they did a post on me and my blog and it was featured in the Home & Garden section of the San Jose Mercury News last February! That was one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to me! The article I did today for Lookiloos was a mirror makeover project that I showed here awhile back . I rewrote it a little for Lookiloos. Just click here to see it!

Summer Decorating

Pin It Now!

This weekend I brought out my $10 silver tray that I found at the Santa Cruz Flea Market last summer and filled it with shells and candles.

It's usually cool enough here in the evenings to have candles burning but there are those really hot summer nights where I don't even want the lights on! I'm hoping we don't have very many of those this summer!

I bought the candles and the small shells at The Dollar Tree...I'm loving that place lately! They have an online store now but they don't sell everything that they have in the stores so it's better to go in if you have one nearby.

Here are the shells from The Dollar Tree, I used these and then filled in with larger shells, beach glass and moss that I already had.