Ugly Cake, the Making of

Happy New Year ('s eve)!

Jams and Maggs are together and pissed at Tams! (Okay, not really. But she did steal our New Year's Ugly Cake idea...or just got to it first. Whatever).

So, to one-up the Kitchen Ninja, here's a much BETTER Ugly Cake (cuz you don't have to eat somebody's face to enjoy it). And also: a tutorial. Whee!

Step One: Make a cake. Any cake. Ugly Cake is not picky. We chose devil's food. (Maggs says: "Please enjoy my Gramma's antique mixing bowls and my lack of counter space").

Step Two: Gather your decorative toppings. Since we are not as ambitious as the Kitchen Ninja, we purchased our icing. Buttercream. Yum. Usually, we use decorator's icing to make freehand drizzle, but as we were feeling particularly lazy, we went for the candy topping: Milk Duds. The Reese's were for eating. They just wanted to be in the picture. Reese's are such attention whores.

Step Three: Turn cake(s) out of their baking pans. Usually, with cake baking, presentation is key. However, the key to a successful Ugly Cake is impatience. It's best not to wait until the cake is completely cool before inverting. Tonight, we were lucky and the cake came free of the pan without incident. Usually, it breaks into a million different-sized chunks ("all the better to build with," says Maggs), but since both cakes came out of their pans quite easily, we went for a traditional two-tiered structure rather than a more creative approach. If your cake falls into a million pieces, don't fret. Simply paste the chunks together in whatever formation you desire. Icing is the glue of the cake world. It can hide a multitude of sins.

Step Four: Ice that thing! Again, impatience pays off. It's best to ice the cake while it is still warm, so you can experience the frustration of icing slippage and runoff. This will also ensure that your candy topping won't completely adhere to the icing's surface.

(Okay...I guess the icing doesn't cover all sins).

Step Five: Decorate with your choice of toppings. The Milk Duds give it an unexpected chewy texture. We couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not...a tasty thing, yes. But not necessarily good.

(Topping slippage: an unexpected delight).

Step Six: Enjoy the finished product. Remember: the more bizarre the shape, the more fun it is to cut!

We hope this tutorial was a helpful one. Remember: if you are trying to make a cake, but are too impatient to do it properly, make an Ugly Cake. Just be sure to tell everyone you did it on purpose, or else they'll just think you're inept.

Jams & Maggs out!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from the Ugly Cake

Kitchen Ninja got icing tips and a big top cupcake baking mold for Christmas.

Megasaurus and Jamiepants have showcased ugly cakes before on Facebook, so I figured I

should probably make one as well - and here it is. Ugly. Cake.

I used Martha's (Stewart) yellow cake recipe, and made my first attempt at Meringue Buttercream frosting.

Here's Martha's Cake Recipe. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE it.

Yellow Cake

4 c. sifted cake flour

4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 lb (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temp.

1 3/4 c. sugar

6 egg yolks at room temp, beaten.

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/2 c. milk at room temp.

* Oven at 350 degrees F.

* Butter and flour cake pans.

* Sift flour with baking powder and salt, and set aside.

* Cream butter until fluffy. Add sugar gradually and beat until light and fluffy.

* Beat in egg yolks and add the vanilla.

* Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, alternating with milk. Stir batter until smooth.

* Pour batter into prepared cake pans and bake for about 45 minutes.

a gaggle of hats:

or...a bundle? i'm not sure what the appropriate term is. oh, well. here we go!

the following three hats are a gift to my [not so] tiny-headed cousin. hopefully they fit! and hopefully his mom isn't looking at this. :)



cone! i swear this type of hat is cute on - even though it looks stupid here.




made to look like a baseball cap - i did this one without a pattern, so it looks a little wonky.




i always think hats like this look like a lazy bear hat. either way, it's super stretchy and i love it.

next is a larger version of yet another hat i made for a tiny cousinfriend. the adult-sized version served well as a christmas gift to a friend. the flower accessory is made from the mollie flowers tutorial on roman sock.




***and now, a little something i'm working on - almost finished!***



until next time,
jamie lynne

Peri-Peri Chicken and Potatoes and Wholewheat Maple Rolls

Still on vacation here. Still snowed in. What to do? Cook, of course.

This recipe might sound time consuming to most of you, but that's just because you don't live in South Africa. In South Africa, Peri-Peri sauce and seasoning is readily available, there's even a chicken chain that only does Peri-Peri (oh Nando's, move to America!). Making this sauce takes some work, but it is so worth it. Make a whole bunch and freeze some for later.

Peri-Peri Sauce

5 red peppers, roasted, sliced

2 red chilies, diced

2 tsp paprika

1/4 cup lemon juice

4 cloves garlic

5 tbsp cider vinegar

3 tsp. tabasco

Put all the ingredients into a blender. Blend to a paste.

Peri-Peri Chicken and Potatoes

1 whole chicken, quartered

8 yukon gold potatoes

2 onions, diced

1 c. red wine ( don't cook with a wine you wouldn't drink... :)

1 c. water

1/4 c. parsley

olive oil

kosher salt

pepper

1. peel and chop potatoes. toss in olive oil, salt, pepper and parsley. put in bottom of large corning dish.

2. quickly brown outside of chicken with onions in pan. Remove once browned. toss in sauce until completely coated. put coated chicken on top of potatoes.

3. roast, covered, at 400 degrees for 1.5 hours. add red wine and water. roast, uncovered for 1 hour.

If you like your roast potatoes crispy, take potatoes, put them on a baking sheet under the broiler and let them crisp up a bit.

Wholewheat Maple Rolls

6 1/2 c. wholewheat flour

2 pkgs yeast

2 teaspoons salt

4 tablespoons brown sugar

2 1/2 c. water

1/4 c oil

5 tablespoons maple syrup

1/2 stick salted butter

1.Mix 2 1/2 c. flour with yeast, salt, sugar.

2.Heat water and oil until lukewarm. Mix with flour.

3.Add more flour until dough is elastic, roll into large ball and drop into oil bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 30 mins.

4. Punch down, and make rolls out of dough. Place on oiled baking sheet. Allow to rise for 15 mins.

5.Bake for 15 mins at 400 degrees.

6.Melt butter and mix with syrup. Brush onto top of rolls.

Why I love Jams and Tams

First post! First post!

My love for my fellow craft ninjas has just burst into an explosion of awesomeness. Thanks for creating the blog and then surprising me with it girls. You rock.

I haven't had much time to make things recently because of school craziness. I was planning on doing an entirely handmade Christmas, only using supplies from my stash. Unfortunately, time was my enemy and my family was pretty lucky to get presents at all. Nonetheless, I am very proud of my creations and now my family and friends can get their Christmas presents later when I have more time to work on them. So, you know...in June.

These are Christmas ornaments I made for my dad. I had planned on making him something for his house since he won't buy things for himself, but he got something pretty instead. They're made out of some of my Gramma's old jewelry. I'm planning on making something similar for my sisters as well.

For my eldest sister and her husband, I painted something for their new apartment. I dissected a battered John Grisham novel (The Firm, for those of you who are interested) and pasted it to a canvas. The landscape is done in little tiny dots. Lots of them. Lotsa dots.

This was "commissioned" by my other elder sister and her husband. She wanted something for her house. I wasn't entirely happy with some of the technical work on it, but she seems happy so I'm not going to whine too much about it. The John Grisham pages make an appearance in this one as well. Are we sensing a theme?

Hopefully I'll get some sewing done in between schoolwork and the start of the semester. No promises, though.

Oh. And I made a pie.

christmas scarf!

guess which ninja finally dropped her camera one time too many!

that's right...this ninja. so my photos will be poor until i can talk myself into spending the money to replace it. i can literally pull the top off of the thing and hear stuff jingling around inside, so i can't avoid buying a new one anymore.

until then, here are the two photos of the scarf i made for fellow ninja megan for christmas: it's a long piece of jersey with a peacock feather embroidered at the end. simple, but i love it [and i hope she does, too].





i tried to draw my own peacock feather pattern, but was disappointed in everything i ended up with. urban thread's patterns were on sale, so i purchased this one. most of their simple patterns [all of which are adorable] are a dollar for the hand embroidery version. and, best of all, they keep stored the patterns you've purchased in the past so you can access them on the website with your sign in, instead of having to save them to your computer and hope you don't lose them.

*update with better photos from my new camera!*

Coconut Curry Chicken Soup

I'm (Kitchen Ninja) on vacation, and it's cold. snowing, freezing cold. So, I'm experimenting with soups and stews/stirfrys that hit with a lot of flavor - spicy, sweet, salty and sour. Last night I made Coconut Curry Chicken Soup and it turned out awesome.

Here's my recipe:

Coconut Curry Chicken Soup

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1 can light coconut milk (SHAKE BEFORE OPENING)
3 onions, sliced
1 bag baby carrots, thinly sliced
1 jalepeno, sliced with seeds (clean out seeds for milder flavor)
2 cans chicken broth
3 limes
1 c. sweetened coconut flakes
1 lemongrass stalk
4 tsp tumeric
1 tsp paprika
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp red chili flakes
1 tsp sesame oil
olive oil
salt, pepper to taste.


1. Saute 3 of the sliced onions with olive oil, sesame oil, lemongrass, tumeric, paprika, curry powder, salt and chili flakes.
2. Add cubed chicken and allow chicken to brown.
3. Add coconut milk, chicken broth, baby carrots and the juice of two limes. Allow to simmer for 30 mins.

4. TO MAKE SWEET & SPICY GARNISH:
saute onions, jalepeno slices and salt with a little olive oil - until onions are golden, add coconut flakes. Continue to saute until coconut is also a golden hue.

Remember to take out the lemongrass before serving. Garnish each bowl with a little bit of toasted coconut/jalepeno mixture.


that's it - simple and really delicious. I like to add extra lime juice to mine when I serve it. It makes all the other flavors really pop.

Kitchen Ninja Out.

Press 'n Seal Portraits

HOLY JEEZ! Press'n seal is awesome. This past weekend the one thing I really wanted to do was make an embroidered portrait of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. I know, totally boring, everybody's doing it, blah blah blah...

As I was looking through my crapacopia of stuff I found that I had no tracing paper or tracing pen. BAH. What to do? That's when Press'n Seal came to my rescue.

I put the press'n seal over a picture I liked. I then outlined it in permanent marker. I picked out a piece of fabric, press'n sealed the design onto it, put in in my embroidery hoop, and got to it.

The nice part about this technique is that you can also do some free hand work and add to simpler designs.

Here's the finished product - I think I'm going to turn him into a hot/cold compress cover.

what? it's over?

because i'm still in the process of making most of my gifts. what can i say? unemployed, but apparently very easily distracted.

anyway, i took a little time out today before joining my father's side of the family to try out a recipe [technically two, but the steps are the same] that i found on the blog for Craft:



cinnamon maple pecans and sugar & spice almonds: original recipe entry found here.

cinnamon maple pecans


2 cups pecan halves
1/4 cup real maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 dashes of salt [i left the salt out of this entirely and it tasted very good on it's own - the flavor of the pecans really came through]

melt everything but the pecans together while roasting the nuts on a baking sheet for 8-10 minutes at 300 degrees fahrenheit*. toss the mixture and the nuts in a bowl, then spray the baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray and spread the [now sticky] pecans back on the baking sheet and cook for another 20-25 minutes. lay the nuts out on parchment paper to cool. yum!

sugar & spice almonds


2 cups whole almonds
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon water
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 dashes cayenne [this is supposed to be for "mild" spice, and i'm telling you right now these things smelled hot, but weren't spicy to taste at all. use more cayenne if you want them spicy]

to cook these, follow the exact same steps as for the pecans, only substitute these ingredients.



i made a double batch of both of these, because the bags of nuts i got at the store had almost exactly four cups each in them. that, and my family eats a lot. :) props to katie goodman for the recipe and craft: magazine for the share!

happy christmas, all,
jamie lynne

*get about 4 hours of sleep the night before christmas, spend all day with your crazy family then come home and say this word out loud seven times trying to spell it. it's a funny word.

Gettin' Festive Wit' It. Fa-la-la la-la-la, fa-la-la la-la-la.

Kitchen Ninja has kids. 80 kids, to be exact. So during our holiday party I HAD to make them do a craft - it was a toss up between Christmas Tree Hats ( great for embarassing photo ops) or the more sedate Holiday Wreath.

The budget won and we went with the significantly cheaper Holiday Wreath idea.

SHOUT OUT TO the Dollar General - You,General, are my most favorite General of all.

SUPPLIES:

15 feet of green swag/garland

festive decorations: we used candy canes, glittery pipe cleaners, ribbon, little birds, cherries...you get the picture.

1. make a circle out of the garland material so that it's the right size for your wreath.

2. Decorate.

3. Hang (or use as a festive frame for your face - see below)

It was a fun project, the kids enjoyed it, and one of them said that since her parents couldn't get a Christmas tree this year, she'd hang her wreath above the presents instead.

Kitchen Ninja Out.

foreshadowing:

i hate working with jersey. i've sewn...oh, three things now, in my entire life, and this - the fourth, which you'll see at a later date, i tried to do with jersey.

stupid jamie.

Pos - oh - lay : From the Kitchen Crafty Ninja

POSOLE. This soup used to be the unsigned indie band on the soup circuit - people had heard that it was good, but no one was really going out of their way to try it. Well, all of a sudden Posole is featured in not one, but TWO food magazines. Wha? When did this happen?

Anyway, as a fan of Posole before it was famous I'll share my SUPER EASY (and cheapo) Posole Recipe. If you're not a fan of the Hawt (and a total wuss) , then just cut the chilies from the recipe.

Posole

1 Rotisserie Chicken - Shredded

2 Cans Chicken Broth

2 Cloves Garlic

2 Celery Stalks - Diced

1 Onion - Diced

2 tsp Paprika

Olive Oil

1 Can Chopped Green Chilies (try Chipotle Chilies for a smoky flavor)

3 Cups Chopped Cilantro

2 Cans Hominy - drained

1 Can Diced Tomatoes

1 Can Tomato paste

1/2 Cup Lime Juice

1/2 a Green Cabbage (finely shredded)

1. Saute garlic, onion and celery in oil until the onions are translucent.

2. Add Green Chilies, paprika, cilantro - saute for a minute more.

3. Add shredded chicken, chicken broth, hominy, tomatoes (diced and paste) and lime juice. Add salt and pepper to flavor.

4. Simmer for 45 mins until hominy "pops". Add water if soup seems too thick.

5. Garnish with shredded cabbage, diced onions, and some lime wedges.

*PHOTO COMING*

Crafty Ninja Out.

LINK to SUNSET's POSOLE:

MyRecipes

welcome to our shiz!

so, this one time tammia said to me, "we should start a craft blog!" to which i replied, "we abso-freaking-lutely should!" and here we are.

"we" includes [so far] tammia, who could take a plain-colored bedsheet and make it both awesome and beautiful as well as myself - jamie - the wielder of all things yarn-related. we are also soon to be joined by megan, seamstress extraordinaire and the most patient crafter i've ever met. but she doesn't get to find out until after christmas about our new project. :)

so, for now, take a look at the cards i'm embroidering for christmas, and poke not fun at me for them being so simple. i just started last week and i have like, 25 to make.

merry christmas!
jamie lynne