Perfect Raspberry Cream Frosting

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When you’ve searched as hard as I have for the perfect frosting, it’s pretty exciting to finally find it.  I may have jumped up and down a few times when I tasted it.  And I may have squealed just a little. :-)  Our family is kind of picky when it comes to frosting.  We don’t use shortening, it can’t be too sweet and it can’t be too buttery.  Oh, and you get extra points for fluffiness.   Who wants a flat frosting anyways?   I knew I had finally succeeded when I came up with the lemon frosting for my husband’s cake last month but I hadn’t tried any other flavors yet.  On Sunday we celebrated my oldest daughter’s birthday and I decided to try for raspberry frosting.  Oh. My. Goodness.  This stuff is SO good.  I mean, good enough that you’ll want to eat it plain and your husband may be very disappointed when he finds out that you didn’t save the bowl for him. Oops, sorry hon.  ;-)

Ingredients:

1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
1/4 c. butter
Raspberry extract to taste (I probably used about 2 tsp.)
4 c. powdered sugar
1 c. whipping cream

Directions:

In a medium sized mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, and butter together.  Gradually add the powdered sugar, beating after each addition until smooth.  Mix in raspberry extract and set aside.

In another mixing bowl, beat the whipping cream until stiff peaks form.  Gently fold whipped cream and pink/red food coloring, if using, into cream cheese mixture.  Use immediately.  It may seem a little thin at first but don’t worry about it.  It “sets” once it’s on the cake so it’s okay.  Place cake or cupcakes in the fridge until serving time to help set frosting and keep the cream from softening due to the heat.  Enjoy :-)

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Menu Mondays – Peanut Butter Fudge Brownie Trifle

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We love trifles, but I’ve never actually made one.  I have no idea why.  I’ve owned a trifle bowl for years!  So this past weekend I decided to remedy that and make one for our after service food and fellowship time.  It was delicious, though definitely really sweet,  I’d probably go easy on the sweetness of the whipped cream next time to help balance things out.  It went super quick though. :-)

Ingredients:

I pgk. batch of brownies, cooked and broken up into bites size pieces
1 lg. (5 oz.) box of chocolate pudding, prepared and chilled
1 bag of peanut butter butter cups, chopped
1 c. heavy cream
3-4 T. sugar, depending on how sweet you want it
1 c. creamy peanut butter
1 c. powdered sugar
2 T. milk
8 oz. whipped cream cheese, at room temperature

Directions:

In a large bowl, beat the heavy cream and sugar together until stiff peaks form.  Place in the refrigerator until ready to use.

In another bowl, combine the peanut butter and cream cheese.  Beat on medium speed, scraping sides occasionally, until mixture is creamy.   Gradually add powdered sugar and 2 T. milk.  Be careful not to add the sugar too fast or you and your kitchen will be covered in powder ;-)   Add one cup of the prepared whipped cream to the peanut butter mixture and fold in gently.

Begin layering in your trifle bowl.  You can do the layers in whatever order you want.  I began with brownies, then peanut butter filling, peanut butter cups, chocolate pudding and then finished with whipped cream.  You can choose to make it using thick or thin layers.  I did three sets of layer so people wouldn’t have to dig in too far in order to get some of each thing.   On the last layer I kept out the peanut butter cups, piped the whipped cream over the top (rather than just spooning it on) and then sprinkled the peanut butter cups over it.

 

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Menu Mondays – Chia Flax Smoothie

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I came across this smoothie recipe last week and decided to give it a try.  I changed the recipe a little bit until it was the way I liked it.  It is SO yummy I often use it as a breakfast substitute.  I also found that if I skip the egg it’s not as filling but if I use the egg in it, I will feel full all morning.

Ingredients:

1 c. milk
1 T. chia seeds
1 T. flax meal
1/2 banana mashed
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 drops liquid stevia
1 T. coconut sugar (or other sweetner)
1 egg
1 T. peanut butter
3-5 ice cubes

Directions:

Combine all of the ingredients, except for the ice cubes, in a blender and blend until thick.  Add ice cubes and blend until cubes are crushed.  This is just to make it cold because I like my smoothies cold.  Let it sit for a few minutes to thicken more (the chia seeds gel some as they sit so the smoothie will get thicker the longer it’s sitting there) and then enjoy!

 

 

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Family Day – A Maple Event

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We get most of our maple supplies at this place a couple of hours from us.  And every year, in the spring, they host a two day open house.  We go on Friday and it’s an all day event.    There’s a store wide 10% off sale, vendors, seminars and displays.   It’s a great opportunity to talk with other maple producers and see what they do, get ideas, see new equipment, and buy supplies.   That’s why my husband goes.

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The children, on the other hand, look forward to going every year for a much different reason. ;-)  They are mainly interested in the free health food…you know, things like donuts, cheetos, soda, milk, cookies and chips.  It’s stuff they don’t get very often so it’s a super big treat that they look forward to.  And once a year, at this event, I let ‘em go. :-)
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The first thing we did upon arriving was to sell them our commercial grade syrup.  That’s the stuff that’s stronger and darker than the darkest, strongest B grade syrup.  It’s end of the season stuff when the buds are starting to come out and the weather is warm.  And yeah, it’s nasty, if I do say so myself.  It’s so thick and dark it pours out kinda slow and looks like motor oil.  Amazing.  But if I ever doubted it being worth taking the time to boil, seeing the results on Friday totally proved it’s worth.  We brought 15 gallons to them and they gave us nearly $300 for it…which just about covered the costs of the supplies we needed to buy that day!

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Then with money in our pockets and time on our hands, we split.  Jonathan and his dad headed for the supplies…

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…and his mom and I took the children to look for the donuts they’d been talking about for days. :-)  Then we took a tour of the buildings, which is quite an experience.  Every single year I am amazed at it all.  There is SO much equipment. They have 70,000 taps there and send syrup all over the world!

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This is their first bottling station (part of it):

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And this is the newest one (for now…they’re planning to add another one this year):

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There was a room with several steel tanks full of syrup and 3 huge filter presses:

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And more huge tanks outside:

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As well as a huge evaporator being used for a demonstration:

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The warehouses are impressive.  This is just a very small portion of one:

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Inside the store we found some neat displays demonstrating a vacuum system.

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 The children love watching this one because all of a sudden water will spray out of them, making everyone jump :-)

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We even found this electric foot-pedal operated bottle filler, which of course we had to try out. :-)

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Then, in the afternoon, we went for a loooong walk to a farm in the area.

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The children picked tons and tons of dandelions along the way. :-)

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I was shocked to see just how many cows were at that farm.  There’s 4,000!!

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And as you can see in the picture above, the rain had turned the place into one big mud puddle.  At least I tried to convince myself it was mud. :-?  But the smell kind of made it hard to believe that and as we ran through a wet field to try to clean our shoes off, I admit I did thank God that we don’t live on a farm.  But, it was worth it to see the cute baby calves:

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As we packed up for the night, Jonathan opened the van door and two of the children’s balloons flew out.  They were distraught over the loss but as we buckled everyone in, this wonderful man came out of the warehouse holding the largest bunch of balloons I have ever seen.  He told the children that it was for them because they had been so good all day.  I tell you, I could have kissed the guy…well not quite, but I was incredibly thankful.  You should have see the children’s faces!!!  It totally made my day!  There were so many balloons we had trouble fitting them all in the van, despite the fact that two of our children were riding with Jonathan’s parents!  And when we got home, our house looked like this:

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It was the perfect ending to a wonderful day.

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