December Meowbox

Review of December meowbox.

This will be my second Meowbox, I'm on a bi-monthly subscription right now so I only get a box every other month. $34.44 per box and it comes with soo many goodies!!

I'll start off by saying that I LOVE the personalized boxes, it takes half the month to arrive (even though they charge my credit card on the 1st) but if they're writing every single cat's name on every single box I can appreciate why it takes a bit for it to arrive.

Once the box is opened up I just simply lay it down on the floor and let the magic happen... Doesn't take long to figure out which toys have the cat nip in them!

These cards just make my day! I have started saving them on my fridge because they are just so adorable! There's detail and love in each card <3

This month's box had the festive theme down packed- there was a candy cane toy, a mitten toy and a sugar cookie toy... Then there was the chicken... He's pretty cute too though! EVERY SINGLE ONE was laced with cat nip this month... Princess Peach went wiiild.

I was worried about the treats that were coming in this month- the last box we got she was not a fan... HOWEVER these maple bacon treats are apparently to die for because she can't get enough of them!
.. Do you ever get the feeling that your cat eats better then you do?


And now without further ado... Some action photos!

Final words.... This box is great- I absolutely recommend it to anyone who has a cat!! The treats sometimes don't agree with her pallet however everything else has been a 100% success!

Chocolate Reese's Cake

Because it's not Christmas without chocolate!

Chocolate cake with Reese's Peanut Butter cups, Reese's pieces, and chocolate drizzle on top!

Chocolate cake is part of my solid recipe collection which I look forward to sharing these with all of you!

 

Linzer Torte- Keeping the tradition of the Holidays

For the first time in many years I was asked to make a Linzer Torte for the holidays! Naturally I made sure that I still knew what I was doing before making one for others. Since it's been so long I no longer had a good recipe for one so I consoled the internet to get myself caught back up.

A little history on Linzer Tortes: Named after the city of Linz, Austria it's a holiday classic in Austria, Hungary, Sweden, and Germany and mainly seen on the dinner tables at Christmas time. Linzer tortes can be made in many sizes and shapes from cookies, tarts and tortes. I chose the torte for my experiment to make sure the baking times worked for the oven.

After researching loads of recipes on Pinterest and various other sites I managed to see the trends and the necessary measurements and ingredients to make an epic torte!







RECIPE

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees
Recipe for a 10" torte pan

3/4 cup Sugar
Zest of 1 Lemon
Zest of 1 Orange
3/4 cup Margarine
1 Egg
1 Egg Yolk
1 tsp Vanilla
1 1/3 cups Flour
1/4 cup Ground Hazelnuts
1/3 cup Ground Almonds
1 1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Ground Cloves
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt

1 cup Raspberry Jam

I had some fun with my food processor and grounded my own nuts... It was loud but it was fun! Also treated myself to some new Wilton Torte pans.. So beautiful so untainted!

 


The crust- although has a lot of ingredients is very easy to make and much more fun to work with as opposed to it's cousin... The pie crust. Everything in it gives the torte it's unique texture and flavor. Nothing can be missed. It has a very distinct look on top with the lattice pipe work on top.

1. Mix the sugar and zest lightly and let sit for a minute to let the flavors settle in. Once settled cream with margarine.
2. Add in the eggs and vanilla, mix until just blended.
3. Add in flour, nuts, spices, baking powder and salt all together and divide the mixture in half- one half being larger then the other. Put the large half into the fridge for 10-15 minutes to set and scoop the small into a piping bag.
4. Time to prepare the torte pan and preheat the oven! Press the refrigerated mixture into the base of the pan. Set it in the fridge for a final 10-15 minutes.
5. Spread raspberry jam onto the base of the torte and pipe your choice of design over top of the jam. Don't be afraid to show your personality!
6. Pop that bad boy into the oven for 30-35 minutes or until the jam is bubbly and the edges are a beautiful golden brown.

The first attempt was a complete success! Full of taste and wonder, I don't intend to go another 6 years without making one of these (especially with my pretty new pans) and I want to experiment with the other filling options I've seen around as well. This is my kind of dessert because it's not too sweet and has a ton of texture and flavor!

Bottoms up!

Herb Cakes and Bad Ideas

I had the honor of creating a cake that went beyond your standard shapes, lots of corners and shapes were involved the the creation of this green chocolate marble experience to really drive the theme of this birthday party home!

Unfortunately after weeks of planning I lost touch with the woman who ordered it and it was never picked up... (Yes I too am still confused over the whole thing) So I was dubbed with the challenge of re-purposing this eccentric cake! Usually I will jst pawn it off on my co-workers if I do experiments or if orders get cancelled but with the nature of this cake- I felt a room full of insurance brokers wouldn't really enjoy it as much...

 

The spare cake was turned into "old fashion" style cake pops (when you mush the cake up and reform it into terrible looking balls) but there was still the issue of this big cake.

So.. I've been toying awhile with an idea... I make a cake... we eat it.. and talk about stuff! It's simple but in front of a camera it could certainly be interesting! This cake- I decided would be the front runner for this idea. The first episode went as soon as I could have expected it to with the minimal prep I did for it-- didn't take long to realize I am weak when it comes to starting and driving conversations in front of a camera apparently! (while in real life I can talk for hours of course!)

Out of 20 minutes of shooting... I managed to salvage 4 minutes to sum up the experience. Don't judge! Haha I'm still learning..

White Cheddar and Caramel Popcorn

So I'm happy to report my internet presence is starting to ramp up again! (Just in time to take on continual learning at work of course so we'll see how good I do haha) but in the meantime I had the opportunity to sample some of Orville Redenbacher's new creations!

CARAMEL & WHITE CHEDDAR

I received this product free/complimentary for testing purposes but all opinions are my own." So far it's delicious! Loving the white cheddar for sure. The caramel is super sweet but still pretty good I must say.

My only critiques for the flavors would be that the caramel popcorn was SUPER sweet so I found myself digging through trying to find the white cheddar kernels more often then not. However that's a me thing- I'm just not big on sweets. 

 

I also found the packaging ridiculously large for the amount of popcorn actually inside the bag. Huge bag, huge box- which got shipped Canada post? Couldn't have been cheap. I get it they're trying to look competitive next to maybe a not so premium flavor- but it was a bit of a disappointment when I opened the bag.

However overall I did enjoy the product and I would definitely buy it again for a special treat on movie night or if I'm just having people over.

Thanks Orville Redenbacher and to Influenster Canada for giving me the opportunity to try this out!

Painted Easter Eggs

I don't like doing anything normally and I take every advantage to show my nerd side! Easter is no different in this situation. I start saving up egg shells long long in advance in anticipation for this exciting time!
I haven't done a big lot of eggs since in a few years so I knew I had to ad on the the lovely ones I'd managed to protect all this time!

Throwback to the originals ! Pokemon was a key subject that year along with Angry Birds! Then of course I had a couple of easy randoms like the Jack Skellington, Pumpkin, the Walnut from Plants Vs. Zombies and Toad from Super Mario!

This year I continued with lovely trends of our time (plus a couple continual obsessions)

 In honor of my favorite droids!

My Yoda wasn't exactly what I wanted... He more so looks like a green Stewie Griffin but he's still pretty cute!

 To continue my true love here are some new pokemon eggs! Jolteon!

And of course Eevee! Hopefully more evolutions to come.

Olaf was definitely one of my randoms this year, no other eggs to associate with Frozen but he was just so easy I couldn't resist!

Now last but certainly not least! My Doctor eggs! <3 to look like the 10th and 11th doctor <3 these make me happy.

Hopefully more to come before the holiday arrives! And perhaps I'll continue after still I have yet to decide! I definitely enjoy it but I only seem to get excited for them before Easter! 

I'm also open to suggestions for anything else in egg form!

Cheers!

Nicole

National Cupcake Day 2016 a HUGE success!

With last years numbers in mind I went in guns hot with even more cupcakes this year and I am pleased to announce that I successfully raised $460.25!! Surpassing last year!

It wasn't all sunshine and lollipops all the way through however, it's not exactly easy to store 200+ cupcakes in my little house. Took some strategic planning and some late nights to ensure the cupcakes freshness.

Excuse the bit of a mess in this picture however the majority of the space is taken up by cupcakes! Including the stacks of cereal boxes, those were cupcake donations from my mother. The night before the fundraiser was a bit of an ordeal, due to some unfortunate circumstances I ended up throwing my back out. Whelp... your back is a very essential part of working on dozens and dozens of cupcakes so icing them all on a timeline certainly wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done however I did get through it!

And I think they turned out pretty darn cute!

I arranged to set up in the same place as last year which was once again a huge success, people are very generous when it comes to helping out the SPCA! Hurting back being minded I was there from 12 until just after 4pm and then all the cupcakes had been called for. It was great, same location, same duration and even more cupcakes sold from last year!
I took in some memorable currency this year too. People were itching to have a cupcake! So they dumped their wallets!

The american nickel wasn't anything to write home about but I enjoyed the 10 pence and the other coin I'm not 100% sure on it's origin! But my favorite was definitely taking in the $2 bill, I know it's in rough shape but I look forward looking to see how much that one is worth these days!

All in all this year (aside from the injuries) was a huge success! I'm really looking forward to next year and beating my numbers again!

National Cupcake Day February 29th 2016

National Cupcake day has come once again!! Last year I raised over $400 in 4 hours, I'm hoping to double my contribution this year!
It's the sweetest time of year!! ‪#‎nationalcupcakeday‬ baking cupcakes to save the lives of thousands of furbabies alike! Support me in my online bakery by searching Nicole Hubley at www.nationalcupcakeday.ca

I was so fortunate last year to get so much support!! Friends took time out of their day to make extra cupcakes and coworkers went the extra mile to make sure the fundraiser went above and beyond.

February 2015