Mexican Conchas (Sweet buns)

When I was looking for some Mexican-inspired desserts for Mike's potluck, I ran across a recipe for Mexican Conchas. Have you ever heard of these? They are sweet buns. They looked so cute and fairly easy to make so I decided to go for it.

I love the shell designs on top and also the colorful topping. That is not something you see everyday.

 

Emily and I have really gotten a lot of use out of the new Kitchenaid mixer. We've made a lot of yeast dough recipes lately. And frosting. And some cookies. And on and on. 

What should we make next?

Yield: 16 bunsAuthor: Jennifer SmithPin it

Mexican Conchas Sweet Bread

Mexican Conchas are traditionally found in Mexican markets and are named for the shape of their topping, which looks much like a shell. Use your imagination to come up with the shell designs. Perfect for Cinco de Mayo celebrations.

prep time: 2 hourcook time: 20 MINStotal time: 2 hours and 20 mins

ingredients:

Sweet Buns

• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup warm water (110 - 115 degrees F)
• 1/2 cup lukewarm milk (110 - 115 degrees F)
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour

Sugar Cookie Topping

• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup margarine
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• gel food coloring

instructions

To Make the Buns

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water in the bowl of stand mixer. Add milk sugar, butter, salt egg, and 2 cups of flour. Stir together until well combined. 
2. Switch to the dough hook attachment and add the rest of the flour. Knead on medium speed for 3 minutes until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl. Add more flour, if needed. 
3. Place the dough in a large, oiled bowl and turn the dough over to coat both side. Cover with greased plastic wrap and place in warm place to rise until doubled in size. 

To Make the Sugar Cookie Topping

1. beat the sugar, margarine and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add flour and mix until thick. Divide dough into three equal pieces and place each piece in a plastic sandwich bag. Add a few drops of food coloring gel and squish the dough until evenly colored. You may need to add more flour if the dough is too soft.
2. When the dough has risen, divide it into 16 even pieces. Form each piece of dough into a bun by tucking the corners under. (Do not roll between palms because this will make the dough tough.) Place the buns onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. 
3. Take the sugar cookie topping and divide into 16 even pieces. Take each piece of dough and press it between your palms until it forms a cookie disc shape. Moisten one side slightly and place it on top of each bun, wet side down. This will help the topping adhere to the bun. Use a cookie cutter or a knife to lightly score rings or swirls into the top of the cookie topping to resemble conch shells. Let buns rise in a warm place for approximately 40 minutes. 
4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Bake buns for 18-20 minutes until lightly brown on the bottom.

http://www.gracelikerainblog.com/2017/05/mexican-conchas-sweet-buns.html

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Ocean Biome in a Shoebox

The other week, Emily had to make an ocean biome in a shoebox for her science class. She put a lot of thought into how she wanted her biome to look and I thought it turned out really neat. It even had a stingray that moved!

In case you're curious, these are the supplies that we used and how we put it together.

For the box, we just used a cardboard shipping box. I cut the flaps off. The first thing we did was cover the outside with colorful wrapping paper so that the box would look "finished" on the inside as well as the outside. Just wrap it like you would wrap a gift and tuck the ends of the paper inside the box. The inside of the box will get covered up so it doesn't have to look neat.

Next, Emily took some printed scrapbooking paper that had a water pattern on it. We got two pieces of 12X12 paper and we needed probably twice that much. We could only cover the back and sides of our box, but not the top or the bottom. We just used white printer paper for the top and bottom. Just fold the paper and glue it down with white school glue.

For the coral reef on the left side of the box, I printed a picture of some coral off the internet and pasted it to a small piece of cardboard. Then Emily cut the cardboard/picture and pasted it onto the bottom of the box. We had gotten some small plastic ocean animals from Hobby Lobby as well as some small fake plants. These are sold in the hobby section of the store and are things that are used to make miniature models and things like that. 

The animals that we got were made of a squishy plastic, sort of like a pencil eraser. Since they were soft, I was able to use a needle to thread a piece of fishing line through the back of the animal so that we could suspend them in the box to make them look like they're swimming. 

The "sand" at the bottom of the ocean is actually brown sugar that we glued to the box with white school glue. We also added some pieces of cardboard to make the ocean floor look uneven. We attached some turtles to the seafloor using hot glue as well. We made the mistake of trying to hot glue the turtle to the floor after we'd put on the sand, but the turtle kept falling off. We eventually had to scrape some of the sand/brown sugar and hot glue the turtle down and then add more brown sugar around it. So, don't do like us and make sure you attach your animals before you add the sand. 

Another fun thing that Emily wanted to do was make a stingray that could cruise across the ocean floor. I cut a slit into the top of our box to facilitate this. I used the needle and fishing line to attach the stingray, then tied the finishing line through the holes of a large button. Then we threaded the stingray through the slit in the top of the box. The problem was that the thin fishing line would not travel smoothly through the slit in the box. So, we added a small safety pin that would add more stability as it slid down the slit in the box. We also put scotch tape all along both sides of the slit in the box to help the safety pin move more smoothly. This did the trick! We used hot glue to attach a starfish to the top of the button.

All the kids in Emily's class thought it was pretty cool that her stingray moved. That little button contraption has gotten a lot of use and is still going strong. (Perhaps I should sell it on EBAY? I could probably get a lot of money for it!) She said that none of the other kids had animals that moved in their biome box. 

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Oklahoma Weather

Today was one of those infamous Oklahoma spring storms. The weathermen have been talking about this day for a week.

In our area, it wasn't that bad. We got some rain and some high wind and very little hail. Some other areas in Oklahoma got the dangerous storms and tornadoes.

I thought it was funny that all of us took pictures of clouds today.

Mike's early morning picture west of our house

When I was on my way to the bus stop this afternoon to get the kids, I took this picture of the clouds

When I saw Emily, she was taking this picture of the same clouds

We are supposed to get more storms tomorrow so we'll have to be weather-aware again. We do have a storm shelter in the garage so we'll be safe no matter what comes our way. 

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Wordless Wednesday - Blue Power (My new Kitchenaid mixer)

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Blue Sprinkle Cake Pops

Remember those cute little elephant cake pops that I made a few weeks ago? Well, I only made a couple dozen of them so I had a lot of balls of cake dough leftover. I stuck them in the freezer for just such an occasion as this.

When Mike said that his work was having a potluck, I knew that I wanted to make something with those frozen call balls. I looked online to see if I saw some easy cake balls that would work for Cinco de Mayo, but nothing really stood out to me. So, I just ended up using the rest of the leftovers from the elephant cake pops to make these cute and easy blue sprinkle cake pops. I used the leftover blue candy melts that I'd used for the elephant ears.

Making Cake Pops with Frozen Cake Dough Balls

Step 1 - Let frozen cake balls thaw in the refrigerator for a few hours. I'd frozen my cake balls and then put them into a plastic freezer bag so I just laid the bag flat in the refrigerator to thaw.

Step 2 - Melt a small amount of candy melts in a small container. Dip the lollipop stick into the candy melt then insert it into the bottom of the cake pops. Then put back into the refrigerator to let the candy set up, at least 10 minutes.

Step 3 - Melt the rest of the candy melts in a tall container. I actually use a blender bottle to hold my melted candy melts. It's nice and deep and perfect for dipping.

Step 4 - Dip the cake balls into the melted candy melts and let the excess drip off. I usually tap-tap-tap the stick on the side of the cup to let everything drip back into the container. 

Step 5 - Sprinkle the colorful sprinkles over your cake ball while it's still wet. Make sure you do this over a small bowl so at you can catch the sprinkles that fall off.

Cake Pop Tips!

• First and foremost, don't use too much frosting in your cake balls. You don't want them to be too wet because they'll be hard to work with.
• If your cake balls look like they're starting to fall off the stick while you're dipping then, just twirl the cake ball around slowly to try to keep things even.
• Use a foam block covered in aluminum foil to hold your cake balls upright as they are drying. You can pre-poke holes with a skewer to make it easier to insert the lollipop sticks.

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Growing Up

My Emily is growing up. Can you believe it? Does she not look 17 in this picture?

If you read my last post, you already know that Emily's hibiscus bloomed for the first time today. I showed it to her when she got home and she was really excited. She calls the plant "Hi-Be" and she takes care of it herself. 

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Emily's Hibiscus

OH MY GOSH YOU GUYS!!! Emily's hibiscus is blooming and it is gorgeous! The picture does not do it justice.

I'd gone out to check on it this morning after breakfast and the bloom was maybe 1/4 open. I wish I'd taken a picture of it this morning, but I didn't have my phone with me. I figured I'd show Emily when she got home from school. I went back outside at lunch and the bloom was open and it's huge and so colorful.

There are no less than 17 other buds on the bush right now, including the one in my picture below that will be open before you know it.

Emily is going to be so excited when she gets home!

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Mother's Day 2017 - Barbados Coconut Turnovers

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there.

I didn't get to see my mother or my mother-in-law today, but I did get to spend some times with the ones who made me a mother.

We went to lunch after church.

This afternoon, Emily and I worked on an extra credit project for her social studies class. She and a partner had to pick a country and put together a presentation on it and make a specialty dish that the country is known for.

Emily and her partner chose Barbados. Her partner was out of town this weekend so I helped Emily with her dish. She wanted to make Macaroni Pie, but I was not sure if they would have a way to keep it refrigerated at school and then heat it up at the appropriate time so we picked another dish that could be served at room temperature.

We settled on Coconut Turnovers. She had to make enough to serve her entire class so that was a pretty big project. I thought they turned out great though. The bun is really soft with a nice crunch sugary topping and the inside is sweet and warm. YUM!

Barbados Coconut Turnovers Recipe

Adapted from Barbados.org

Dough

• 2¾ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 4oz cold butter 
• ¼ cup sugar
• 4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm milk (approx 110-115 degrees F)
• ⅓ cup sugar water (dissolve sugar in water)
• Brown sugar

Filling

• 2 cups grated or shredded coconut (fresh or frozen; NOT dried coconut)
• ¾ cup white granulated sugar
• ¼ teaspoon allspice
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon almond extract

Instructions

Mix the flour and salt, then cut in the cold butter until you have a breadcrumb-like consistency.

In a separate bowl, mix the white sugar, yeast and milk.

Combine the wet ingredients with the dry, mixing to form a dough. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured board and knead gently for 1-2 minutes.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover, leave somewhere warm and let rise for about 1 hour (the dough should double in size).

Combine the filling ingredients in a bowl, stirring well so that the sugar begins to dissolve and the mixture is moist. Set aside.

Punch down the risen dough and lightly knead it for a minute. Cut the dough into 20 equal pieces. With each piece, roll into a 3-inch circle, place a heaping tablespoon of the filling in the center; spread the filling out to ½-inch from the edges. Lift one end of the dough to the other, folding and sealing the ends together. Form into a loaf shape.

Place each turnover on a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet, seam-side down. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes.

Brush turnovers with sugar water and sprinkle with brown sugar, then place in an oven preheated to 350F. After 18 minutes, brush again with sugar water, sprinkle with more brown sugar, and allow to bake for another 2-3 minutes. This will help develop a sugary crust. Remove from the oven and cool on racks for 15 minutes.

Turnovers are best eaten warm. 

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Cinco de Mayo Cactus Cupcakes

Cinco de Mayo was last week, but Mike's work had their Cinco de Mayo potluck earlier this week. I made several things for him to take, including these Cactus Cupcakes. 

I thought they turned out really cute. The cupcakes were vanilla cake with green buttercream frosting. I used a Wilton Dessert Decorator Pro with a small star tip to apply the frosting. Just start in the middle and pipe little stars all around until the cupcake is completely covered. The pink sugar flowers (similar) were something I found at Hobby Lobby. If you don't want to use pre-made flowers, you could pipe pink buttercream in the center and that would be cute, too. I used orange and tan striped cupcake liners to look like terracotta pots. I thought that worked perfectly.

I thought these cactus cupcakes were perfect for a Cinco de Mayo celebration. Mike said everyone at his work really liked them. They had a lot of desserts and he ended up bringing 8 or 9 cakes back home.

I recently got a new cupcake and cake pop display and carrier, and this event was the first time I got to use it. It worked perfectly. It was easy to put the cupcakes into their spots and they didn't move around one I got them in place. I was concerned about how they would travel in the car so I asked Mike to send me a picture of the cupcakes in the carrier when he arrived at work. He indulged me in that and they looked perfect. 

Sadly, the leftovers did not arrive back home quite as neatly. I guess he was in a hurry to get home because a few of the cupcakes had fallen off their perches onto the tier below. I still think it's a great carrier though. Mike got a lot of questions and compliments on it from people at his work. I'll do a another post to show you all the neat features of the carrier I got.

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Baby Shower Candy Bar Game

One of the games we played at the baby shower was the candy bar game. I don't know if you've ever had the opportunity to play this game before, but it was a lot of fun and sometimes pretty funny.

In the candy bar game, the host says a word or phrase related to pregnancy or parenting and the players have to guess the type of candy bar that best represents this word or phrase. Instead of printing a list of the possible choices, I decided to attach the candy bars to a poster board. I used a stiff poster board that I found at Hobby Lobby. I thought this method worked out really well because people could visually see their options and which choices are still remaining.

You can find many different lists of phrases and their matching candy bars for this game online, but I will share the list I used below. 

Baby Shower Candy Bar Game Matches:

Daddy at Conception	Big Hunk
The conception	Skor
Choosing a baby name	Whatchamacallit
Girl's Name	Baby Ruth
Boy Names	Mike and Ike
Anesthesiologist	Mr Goodbar
Epidural	Lifesavers
Delivery Doctor	Butterfinger
Labor and Delivery nurses	Sweet Tarts
Umbilical cord	Twizzlers
Hospital Bill	100 Grand
Preemie Baby	Runts
Chunky Baby	Rolo
Diapers, Formula, Medicine	Payday
Dirty Laundry	Mounds
Postpartum Belly	Jelly Belly
Breast Feeding	Milky Way
Dirty Diaper	Milk Duds
Time Alone	Zero
Mommy's Sleep Time	Fast Break
Lullabies	Symphony
New baby	Almond Joy
Triplets	Three Musketeers
Twins	Twix
Baby Laughs	Snickers
Cool Mom	Peppermint Patty
First year of Parenthood	Rocky Road

Some of the candy bars were hard for us to find. I actually put Emily and Mike in charge of finding all the obscure candy bars. They found a lot of them at CVS and Walgreens. You can go on the Walgreens website and look up which stores have certain candy bars. The Big Hunk is one of the candy bars that we had a hard time finding and we finally found on the Walgreens website at a store a few miles away from us. Mike and Noah went there to look for it and they found it right away.

Be sure to pin this so that you can find it later!

The Rocky Road bar was another one that we had trouble with. Mike and Emily eventually found it at a specialty candy store called Lohmann's Good Things in Norman.

This game was a big hit at the baby shower. I'd highly recommend it. Like I said, you can modify the list of candy bars to your liking. There are many choices out there for this game.

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The Best Cinnamon Rolls With Thick Ooey Gooey Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

A few months ago, I made a batch of cinnamon rolls for Mike's work. It was a lot of work! I started off using my hand mixer, but the dough was way too much for it. I ended up doing all the kneading by hand. They were good, but it was way too difficult.

After that, I told Mike that if he wanted more cinnamon rolls he was going to have to get me a Kitchenaid mixer. He told me to go get one. So I did. Since then, I've made several batches of cinnamon rolls for different occasions.

Want to see how I make them? I figured you'd want to know. The recipe is below along with some handy tips from me!

Yield: 12 large rolls or 24 medium sized rollsAuthor: Jennifer SmithPin it

The Best Cinnamon Rolls with Thick Ooey Gooey Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

These cinnamon rolls are so thick and fluffy with delicious cinnamon flavor. And the maple cream cheese frosting just takes these rolls over the top. Don't wait for a special occasion - make these today!

ingredients:

Rolls

• • 2 cups milk 
• • 1/2 cup butter
• • 1/2 cup sugar
• • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• • 1 package Active Dry yeast
• • 2 large eggs
• • 6 `1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Filling

• • 1/2 cup butter, softened
• • 1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
• • 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Frosting

• • 8 ounces cream cheese
• • 1/4 cup butter
• • 1 teaspoon vanilla
• • 2 teaspoons maple extract
• • Pinch of salt
• • 1 pound powdered sugar
• • 1/4 cup milk or more for consistency

instructions

1. In a medium sauce pan, add milk, butter, salt and  sugar. Heat until just below the boiling point. When it starts steaming and bubbling around the edges, remove from heat and let cool until approximately 120 degrees F.
2. Transfer milk mixture to the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment and add yeast. Let sit for about 5 minutes until the yeast starts to foam.
3. Add eggs and mix until combined. Add flour a little at a time until the dough pulls away from the side of the pan. The dough should be soft and only slightly sticky.  Add more flour if needed. Knead for 3 minutes.
4. Transfer dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled in size.
5. Divide the dough in half. Use a rolling pin to roll each half of dough into an 18-inch by 12-inch rectangle. Try to make it as square as possible on the sides. 
6. Spread one stick of softened butter over each rectangle. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Pat it lightly with the palm of your hands.
7. Starting with the long end, roll the dough into a tight log. Pinch the ends together and turn the log over so that the seam is facing down. 
8. Cut each log in half, then cut each portion in half again, forming four equal sections. Cut each of the four sections in thirds. You will end up with 12 cinnamon rolls from each log. 
9. Place cinnamon rolls into round four cake pan, two 9X13" pan, or one 11X17" pan or similar that have been sprayed with cooking spray. Cover with plastic wrap then a clean kitchen towel and let rise until double.
10. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake cinnamon rolls 18-22 minutes until slightly brown on top.
11. For the frosting, beat together the cream cheese and butter until well combined. Add vanilla, maple flavoring, and salt. Mix well. Add in powdered sugar a little at a time. Add milk until desired consistency. Frosting should be thick but pourable. 

notes

If I don't have a lot of time, I like to heat my oven to 200 degrees then turn off the heat and put my bowl of dough inside to help it rise faster. 
You can punch the dough down if it has risen to the top of the bowl, but you're not ready to roll it out yet. Just let it rise again and then go on to the next step.
If I'm planning to take the cinnamon rolls somewhere, I usually bake them in disposable round cake plans. You can find these at most grocery stores or you can buy them in bulk on Amazon. I usually fit 6-7 rolls to a pan.
If you have some rolls that start to come unrolled when you're slicing and putting them in the pan, it's okay to just tuck the loose end under your cinnamon roll. It will still come out perfect.
I like to make this dough in the evening and wait to bake the cinnamon rolls until the morning. I do steps 1-9 the evening before and then cover the pans with foil and put them in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, I take out the pans and let them warm up on the counter for maybe 30 minutes before I bake them (remove foil before baking.)  You can stack the round cake pans in the refrigerator, too. I think it helps ensure the cinnamon rolls will be even in height.
I also make the frosting the night before and just put it into a gallon sized zip top baggie. I put the bag of frosting in the refrigerator overnight and then just snip off the corner and pipe the frosting onto the cinnamon rolls after they bake.
These cinnamon rolls freeze well. After they have been frosted, let them cool and then put each cinnamon roll into a separate quart sized freezer bag. Or you can put several together in one bag. When you get ready to use them, just pull them out of the bag frozen and heat them in the microwave.
If you like bigger cinnamon rolls, you can skip the step where you half the dough and just make one 18-inch X 12-inch rectangle out of the dough. This would make 6 large cinnamon rolls. 
I've tried to double this recipe a couple times, but the dough is too much for my mixer to handle and it gets all stuck in the motor. If you want more dough, just mix up a second batch.

http://www.gracelikerainblog.com/2017/05/the-best-cinnamon-rolls-with-thick-ooey.html

I love making the big, thick fluffy rolls. They are so delicious, but it's way too much for most people to eat.

They look great and would be wonderful if you want to impress somebody. You can make them for bake sales or people with big appetites.

Or you can just eat them all up. Or freeze them. Or just eat them. 

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Emily's Salt Dough Map

A few weeks ago, Emily's class made 3D salt dough maps in class.  We had to make the salt dough at home and send it to school in a plastic baggie and provide the pizza box and supplies to decorate the map, but they did the rest of the project in class.

Salt Dough Recipe

4 cups flour

2 cups salt

2 Tbsp cream of tartar

1 1/2 to 2 cups water (add a little at a time until it's the consistency of Play-Doh)

Mix together the dry ingredients then add the water a little bit at a time until the dough is the consistency of Play-Doh. Don't be afraid to use your hands. Knead for a few minutes until smooth. 

I told Emily that we could whip up this dough really quick with the Kitchenaid mixer, but Emily said that her teacher said to mix it by hand. Okay fine. You can do it by hand, too. 

I thought Emily's map turned out GREAT! I was really impressed with it. She decorated it with acrylic paints and labeled it with a Sharpie marker. 

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Wordless Wednesday - Flower Shopping After Church

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How to Make an Edible Animal Cell Cake

Several weeks ago, Emily had the opportunity to make a cell cake for extra credit in her science class. It could be made of any food as long as it was all edible and large enough to feed half of her class.

She chose to make an animal cell cake, which is round. We did a lot of research on the internet to get some ideas for what to use for different parts of the cake.

Emily wanted to look like the cell was cut open so we baked one cake in a large round baking pan and another cake in a large glass bowl to make a dome for the top of the cell. We cut off some dome cake so that we can add in all of our cell parts. 

Here are the items we used for different parts of the animal cell:

Yellow frosting - Cytoplasm

Orange frosting - Cell membrane (add red food coloring to the yellow frosting to make things easy on yourself)

White candy melts - Ribosomes

Airhead Extreme candy belts - Golgi body

Large round lollipop - Nucleus

Sour gummy worms - Rough ER

Red Mike & Ike - Smooth ER

Orange frosting - Nuclear membrane (put some frosting in a plastic baggie and snip off the end to pipe the frosting around the nucleus)

Red gummy bears - Mitochondria

White jelly beans - Vacuole

If you try it, let me know how it goes for you.

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