Cream Cheese Frosting

Cream Cheese Frosting

This will frost about 12-16 muffins or cinnamon rolls or (1) 9 inch round cake (carrot cake is our staple birthday cake as you can see in the picture).

Ingredients:

• 4 ounces butter (salted or unsalted), softened
• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

• In a large bowl, beat together butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer. With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the powdered sugar and continue to mix until smooth and creamy. Mix in the Vanilla Extract. Enjoy!

Homemade Whole-wheat pumpkin muffins

Homemade Whole-Wheat Pumpkin Muffins

Pumpkin Muffins (yields approximately 24-30 muffins):

Preheat oven to 350F (325F for convection).

Mix Wet ingredients (including pumpkin) in Bosch Mixing Bowl (I usually double this recipe (a triple will not fit in the Bosch bowl - don't ask me how I know this...) and it makes between 48 – 60 muffins depending on how full I fill the muffin cups.) Yes, you can use another mixer or whip these up by hand. I love the Bosch because it is the best home mixer for bread kneading. It does great with everything else, too.

• 2/3 cup water
• 4 eggs (room temperature)
• 1/2 cup coconut oil (melt it if not liquid at room temperature.) (or melted butter or olive oil)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (or puree some fresh apple)
• 2 cups fresh or canned pumpkin (NOT canned pumpkin pie mix)

Add dry ingredients and mix with cookie paddles.

• 3 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 cups hard white wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cup soft white wheat flour (you could use all hard white whole wheat flours if you don’t have access to soft white wheat or whole wheat ‘pastry’ flour)
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tbsp. cinnamon
• 1 tbsp. nutmeg

Line muffin tins with cupcake/muffin liners and spoon about 1/3 cup of mixture into each liner. Bake for approximately 25-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffins comes out clean.

Remove from oven and muffin tins and place on a wire rack to cool. Enjoy as soon as they are cool enough to eat. For an extra special treat, make some cream cheese frosting and serve on top!

Fresh Flour Pancake Recipe

2 c. fresh ground flour from soft white wheat berries
4 tsp baking powder
4T sugar (You can cut this in half)
1 tsp salt
1 1/8 c. milk
1/8 c. vinegar (or lemon juice or use 1 1/4 cup buttermilk instead of milk and acid)
2 eggs
3T real butter (substitute olive or coconut oil)
1T vanilla


Spread some real butter and drizzle real maple syrup on finished pancakes. It is the best fresh flour pancake recipe I have ever made. Enjoy!

Cool Dude

This kid loves to put on a show. So if you get excited about him wearing sunglasses, he will be excited about it. He's a fun kid.

New couches!

Here are the old couches that we bought from Goodwill for $60 before we were married. They lasted us a long time, through many sick kids. But they have seen their day and too many cotton parties (where the kids pull out the stuffing and throw it around the room). We are loving our new couches that fill up the room a lot better and will better accommodate our growing family. Plus, they are sooooo comfortable!

The Nothing

In Arizona, dust storms can come rolling upon you in a hurry. One day we had just finished watching "Neverending Story" with the kids. Yes, that awesome version that we watched as kids growing up. We thought our kids needed to be exposed to Atreyu and the Nothing. Right after we finished watching we started getting dinner ready. I looked out the back window and saw a dust storm approaching. It looked just like the Nothing from the movie. We definitely got the kids hyped up about the Nothing coming to destroy us. Too fun.

Eating beans

This kid loves to eat beans, and make a mess while doing it!