Catching up on movies

Deadpool was awesome. Lucy was ridiculously stupid. Dracula Untold, the "true" origins story of how/why Vlad Tepes became Dracula, was way better than Lucy within the first few minutes.

Digging on the decoupage

Wow, I meant to be a lot better about getting in here and writing something at least once a week that pertains to my "creative adventures." But I've been so busy having them that it didn't work out as planned. Remodeling a room can be consuming. But remodeling something as important as the bathroom is all-consuming. Thus, some things, such as my experiments with sugar substitutes, will have to wait. I'm sure when the bathroom is done I will be burning the candle at both ends trying to soak up as much summer weather as I can, too. I missed a sizable chunk of summer last year, and we don't get nearly enough of it in Minnesota!
But anyway, today I was going to talk about decoupage. I was first introduced to it at summer bible camp sometime before junior high, and I have really liked it ever since. It's a great way to add your own personalized oomph to anything, and it doesn't have to be permanent. It is also a great cover up for something you aren't quite ready to replace. For example, when I painted the guest room, it was a gorgeous pale green and antique white. Something called "Man in the moon." I love the color, even though it doesn't show up well in these pictures. (I have to start using a camera instead of my phone.) The outlets and light switches looked so out of place, though! Luckily, although I never got into the scrap-booking fad, I do make cards, and I happen to have quite the stash of hoarded clearance sale card stock and scrap-booking paper. Hence, the transformation:

Outlet and switch covers are under a dollar where we live.

The overall look in the room is pretty cool.

Decoupage is versatile. I bought some of the cardboard magazine/file holders from Ikea. They are about $1.99 for a box of five, which you can't beat. They are white, which goes with all sorts of great color schemes, especially the modern minimalist. But mine were to hold patterns in my office/creative space, and so they were going to need to reflect something a little more eclectic. 

In the beginning, they were this way:

Nothing at all wrong with them, just really out of place in a room like mine. I used a pack of standard sized square scrap-booking paper which worked on two levels. For starters, it was big enough to trace the sides of the organizers, and also, the packs usually will have two sheets of the same pattern, which was exactly enough to cut up and cover the outside of these. I didn't bother with the inside, because why? 

I used mod podge, which is THE adhesive for all of my decoupage projects. Since I wasn't giving it a protective coat on the outside, it didn't matter which variety I used, and so I stayed with a standard matte. These boxes are just a smidge taller than can comfortably fit on the square paper, so I did need to trim a bit off the top. The good news is that you can use the natural lines in the cardboard as a template.

Just cut off the top one or two lines and it's going to be perfect!

This work in progress uses pages from Tom Sawyer, therefore complimenting the color and decor of the room as well as reflecting my book-geek personality.

The seam shows in the picture, but the mod podge dried clear.

So there you go. This is also a great project for scrap fabric. I need to use up the paper more, though. I already has a pad of these papers that all coordinate with one another somehow. If you don't have that and want to buy paper to coordinate, most of your craft stores have coupons nowadays, and the paper is less than a dollar per sheet, anyway. Happy crafting all!

In which our heroine experiments with a sugar substitute (some pics included)

It's only fitting that my blog kick off with a recipe. The kitchen is one of the easiest places to be creative.
I have read, heard, and looked at the different stevia sweeteners on the market, and have especially kept an eye on the baking blends. I am not one of those people who has to add sugar to everything, so it is mainly used for desserts and baking anyway.
The thing with sugar substitutes, whether natural or not, is that they always seem to leave a chemical sweetness sort of after taste that I can't abide by. My main line of thinking is that the occasional dessert isn't so bad, anyway, and if you are going to indulge, indulge.
But hey, if you can cut some needless calories somewhere, why not? Would the taste be worth the cost? Would the final product work out? I don't see enough blogs about it, and I don't know anyone who bakes with it, but I am pretty confident with my cooking and baking skills so it was time to try it. The go-to flavor for fat free or low calorie foods always seems to be chocolate. It can hide a host of sins and go with all sorts of other flavors. But chocolate doesn't like me back. So I needed a different recipe. I came up with almond. Almond also goes with a variety of flavors. It's delicate and doesn't require a load of sweetener to begin with. Okay, then. Almond cream cake it is.

Before I go any further with this, though, let me just put a few things out there: First, I added almond flour to this recipe. I don't tout this recipe as healthy, paleo friendly, gluten free, or any of that business. I just think almond flour is delicious and adds a really great texture. I also don't want to debate the merits or health benefits of going sugar free. I'm not here to offer an opinion on what Dr. Oz said. I just wanted to experiment with low sugar baking. Having said that, though, this is dramatically lower sugar, not completely sugar free. There are other ingredients your body will work on digesting, so the whole, "You shouldn't do that to your insulin," conversation probably doesn't need to happen. K? This was just for fun.

Anyway, these are the ingredients I used:
1 stick of butter
1/2 C coconut oil
3/4 tsp salt
1 Tblsp (heaping) of baking powder
3/4 C of Truvia baking blend (no, I wasn't paid or given things for free- this is what I used)
2 tsp of vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp almond extract
5 large egg whites
2 C cake flour
3/4 C almond flour
1 C milk
splash of cream (you can eyeball this)

These pictures are all sort of weird. I had to take them on my phone. So excuse the fuzziness.
First, pre-heat the oven to 335. Grease and flour or spray a bundt pan with an easy release sort of cooking spray. Regular cooking spray never works well releasing cakes for me. I use something specifically for baking. Then cream the butter, coconut oil, baking powder, Truvia baking blend, salt, and extracts. You can add the egg whites one by one and save the yolks in a covered bowl - unless you aren't interested in using them until later, you can leave them on the counter. As you blend all of this, please don't be alarmed if the batter takes on a weird texture. You haven't failed. You're just getting started.
After you feel comfortable that it is pretty well incorporated, add in the almond flour and mix again. Then add the milk and cake flour in turns. Splash in some cream. Bake according to your oven. It took mine about 33 minutes. Yes, I had cracks. It will be upside down and so I don't think we should care.

Remember back when I said this is dramatically lower sugar, not sugar-free? I used an old-fashioned cake glaze with cream and powdered sugar and just a hint (2 scant drops) of almond extract. I didn't include a recipe because I literally just dump about 3/4 - 1 cup of powdered sugar into a bowl and then add the cream until it's the consistency I want. This time I was pouring it on a still-warm cake, so I made it a little thicker.

You can also add some toasted sliced almonds. I just got distracted and forgot. Anyway, this cake turned out beautifully. Sugar substitutes are always sweeter, so I do what the equivalent is minus a small fraction. If it says 1/2 C of substitute, I'm going to do 1/2 C minus a tablespoon or two. Does that make sense? The cake turned out perfectly! The crumb is super moist and delicate. I'm not sure if you can get that from this picture, but you can trust me on this.

The other recommendation I have to using sugar substitutes is to not tell anyone. The power of suggestion is formidable, to put it lightly. When people think, "Sugar substitute," they think, "Chemical aftertaste." But when my b.f. came home, he had two big slices and loved it and never noticed any difference in the taste. Believe me, that guy gets nit-picky.

Now, what are you going to do with all those egg yolks? The answer is nearly always lemon curd. Unless it's custard. Or crepes. Almond and citrus are one of the universe's great pairings. They are right up there with peas and carrots, peanut butter and jelly, chocolate and caramel, Rhett and Scarlett... you get the picture. In fact, here it is:

There are a lot of lemon curd recipes out there. I never look at them anymore, because this is one of those things I have made so often that I throw things in the pan and just expect them to work. I almost didn't use the Truvia for this, because despite my laissez faire attitude toward making it, I take my lemon curd pretty seriously. But the cake turned out so perfect I just had to keep pushing. The lemon curd did cook up just fine, but I do think that maybe I could have cut the sweetener just a wee bit more than I usually would. I am thinking I used almost half a cup, maybe a third cup. Seriously, you would think I'd carefully measure for the sake of the blog, but eh. Anyway, this morning I threw the room temperature egg whites, about 1/3 cup of Truvia, a tablespoon of lemon emulsion (or whatever you do for the zest part - zest, maybe?),  a half cup of lemon juice (fresh is amazing but bottled won't make you a loser) and a heaping tablespoon of corn starch. I whisked it really well before I started cooking it on medium heat. This is important, because corn starch can do funky, lumpy things if you heat it too soon. I just kept whisking and whisking away. About the time you think you've done something wrong, missed a step, or maybe shouldn't have tried it with Truvia, it thickens up like magic. Take it off the heat and add anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 a stick of butter and mix until it melts. Voila! Lemon curd. You can be impatient and eat it right away with the cake, or you can pop it in the fridge. As I said, I thought I could have gone with a tad less sweetener, but no one else has had that complaint so far, so maybe it's back to the power of suggestion.
There you go. A sugar substitute recipe that works. I had to come back and edit this recipe to say that while the next day the cake was still perfect and I fed it to company who all liked it, the lemon curd was a bit different. Some of the Truvia crystallized and was a little crunchy. It didn't change the taste at all, but it was definitely NOT what is supposed to happen with a curd. I may have to come back to this recipe and tweak it at a later time.