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What’s Cookin’ Wednesday – The Extended Edition

The “What’s Cookin’ Wednesday” giveaways were supposed to end last week… but I’m adding one more week. I am SUPER excited about it, and I think you will be, too.

A couple weeks ago, I was invited to take part in a webinar with NYC cupcake chef David Arrick. David, who was formerly a Wall Street attorney, founded Butch Bakery, which specializes in unusual cupcakes – specifically, cupcakes made for men. Take a look:

In addition to not looking like your everyday pink fluffy cupcake, they come in really unique flavors. For example, they’ve got The Campout,which is an ode to s’mores, and the Beer Run, described on their website: “Butch meets buttercream in our chocolate beer cake with beer-infused buttercream topped with crushed pretzels.” Think that’s unique? Check out the Home Run – “This peanut butter cake with banana bavarian cream & crumbled bacon is more fun than getting to third base.” Yes, you read that right – bacon on a cupcake.

They also have a rum and coke cupcake, which they may have thought they made for men, but they really made for me. AND according to David, he’s working on a new margarita cupcake. Really – there are no words to describe my thoughts on that.

Anyway… The point of the webinar was to introduce us to the genius that is Butch Bakery, but also for us to get baking tips from David himself. His biggest tip? Use Breville products!

I was introduced to Breville a while ago, when I was asked to review their blender. I love that thing, so I was excited to see what other small appliances they offer. David showed us how he can make his famous cupcakes using two things – the Breville Stand Mixer and Smart Oven.

Aren’t they pretty?

After we all drooled over these for an hour, David told us that the people at Breville were sending us one of each – and a stand mixer to give away! Needless to say, we were all thrilled. Cortney and I pretty much stalked the UPS guy until they were delivered!

I was intrigued by the Smart Oven. I’ve actually never had a toaster oven. I’m a child of the 80s, we love our microwaves! I really never thought about getting one, but now that I have it, I love it! This model comes with a wire rack, a removable crumb tray, a pizza pan, a baking pan, and a broil rack. It can do just about anything! The LCD display has options for baking, toast, pizza, broil, roast, cookies – you name it. It’s big enough to fit a casserole dish as well! The first time I used it, I could not believe how quickly it preheated. My oven preheats really quickly, but still, the Smart Oven caught me off guard with how fast it was ready. There are so many times that I want to bake a few dinner rolls or something and I hate to use the regular oven, so I am looking forward to having the Smart Oven for things like that.

Now, onto the stand mixer!

I was soooooooooo excited about this, because as my interest in baking has developed over the last year or so, I’ve heard time and time again how wonderful stand mixers are. They are an investment, to be sure, and a lot of people I know got one for a wedding present. However, when I got married, I was too clueless to know I needed one, and I hadn’t been able to pull the trigger on buying one myself. But let me tell you.

This. Thing. Is. Amazing.

I’ve had it for about a week, and I’ve tested it out quite a bit in that time. I made buckeyes first. I have been making buckeyes for a few years, and while they are delicious, a problem I always had is that the peanut butter filling turned out very crumbly – so much so that I couldn’t use a good portion of the last batch I made. Not so with the stand mixer – the mixture was creamy and beautiful and I used every last morsel.

I also made three pumpkin rolls. I love making pumpkin rolls and I love eating them even more, but they are rather time consuming. A couple weeks ago I made three of them, and it took me a solid three hours. This time, using the stand mixer, I shaved a half an hour off the total time AND I managed to do the dishes and clean up the kitchen during that time as well. Honestly, I have no idea why the mixer saved me so much time, but it really did. It also made the cream cheese icing super fluffy and smooth – no butter chunks to be found.

The mixer comes with an assortment of attachments – a regular mixing one, a dough hook, a wisk, and my personal favorite, a scraper.

It scrapes the side of the bowl as you go, and it comes standard with the mixer. How cool is that?

As you can see, I could not be happier with either of these products, and I am thrilled that Breville has given me an opportunity to give a mixer away!

Here’s how to enter!

Required entry: Leave a comment on this post and tell us what you like best about the Smart Oven or the Stand Mixer.

Extra entries:
— Tweet about this contest & leave a comment with a link to your tweet. Here’s an example: “Win a @brevilleusa stand mixer from @momminitup & @jennyitup! http://bit.ly/eX8m9k”
— “Like” Breville on Facebook and tell them Mommin’ It Up sent you, and then leave a comment here telling us you did so.

For more information about all Breville products, check them out on Facebook , Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.

This contest will end at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 29. Good luck!

p.s. You can also enter to win a Breville stand mixer from our good friend Cortney!

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Jonah Love

Hi, it’s me.  I’m still alive, and in baby heaven.  But also recovering from having my gut cut open, so…not quite back to the old me yet.  In fact, it’s 10:05 PM and this is only the second time I’ve been online all day!  But that’s ok, it’s Christmastime, right? We’ll all be a little more absent from the internetz, which is as it should be.  And I’ve got a new baby and breastfeeding and family bonding to do.  So, later this week I will summon the strength to write up Jonah’s birth story for you.  And about how he is fitting in with our family and his big brother and sister. But right now, you can feast your eyes on his newborn pics!

I haven’t had much time or energy to upload photos yet, but Emily took some great ones in the delivery room unfortunately none of them included her in her surgical suit, because that was HOT!) and I will share those with you soon! I do have a few from my phone, and this is my favorite one from the hospital:

I am pleased to report that both Sophie and Joshua think Jonah is totally awesome and they can’t keep their hands off of him! (Sophie holds her hands out and says “Can I hold him?” and then just wants us to hand him over! So cute. And so not happening.  Supervision, baby!)  Joshua told me yesterday that he thinks Jonah “is the best Christmas present ever.”  And he didn’t even add on “But I still want some Wii games.”  It was SO sweet!

We are so blessed to be a family of five.  Thanks so much for sharing in our joy with us!

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Sharing the Joy

We’re running around like crazy people this week… baking, shopping, wrapping, not sleeping… (oh wait, is that just me? Those of you who have your act together and are spending the next few days listening to Christmas carols and drinking hot chocolate, my hat’s off to you)… There’s one reason we’re doing it. To make other people happy, right?

Whether it’s sending Christmas cards or hosting a party or dropping change in the bell ringer’s kettle, we’re doing what we can to make the season bright for those around us.

For Jenny and me, it’s important that we bring the idea of giving to others to the forefront of our kids’ minds, so we were thrilled when Lands’ End asked us to be part of their “Share the Joy” campaign.

Lands’ End sent us each a $100 gift cards with the simple instructions to use them however we wished to help those in need.

We both thought of a million things we’d like to do with the money, but in the end we both came back to organizations that we’ve worked with before. Jenny contacted Joshua’s school principal and asked what their greatest needs were this year, and she said they needed Swiffer mop refills. As you may remember, Jenny pulled off a fairly amazing feat of couponing earlier in the year and got the teachers stocked up on mops, but they have classrooms full of messy, germ-y kids needed to have their supply replenished. So, Jenny used her $100 to help them out once again.

I decided to keep it local as well, and reached out to our local food pantry and found out they were looking for toys, hats, gloves, blankets and pillows. Kate and I went shopping and filled a cart with all of those things. It was fun to see what bargains we could find to make our $100 go as far as possible. Kate kept asking me about where we were in our “budget,” so really it was a lesson about giving to others and about money management all wrapped up into one! When we were done, she said “Mommy, I don’t want any presents this year. I like giving presents to other people more than getting them.” My heart swelled. And then she said, “Well, I mean, I do want SOME presents…” But regardless, she got the point. I hope she’ll remember that shopping trip – I know I will.

Now we want to hear from you – how do you plan to Share the Joy this season?

Thanks to Lands’ End for including us in this project.

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