Pumpkin Mochi Cake

A couple months ago I visited my cousin Esther's place and had the most delicious green tea mochi cakes and red bean mochi cakes. I loved that they were slightly sweet, very chewy, and gluten free.  Score!  She referred me to this awesome recipe and I've been making green tea mochi cakes (substituting 4 teaspoons of green tea powder for red bean paste) almost every Saturday morning ever since.

Now that it's well and truly October, our nearest grocery store finally started stocking pumpkin puree. Filled with the Halloween/October spirit, I made some pumpkin mochi cakes.  I used the original recipe and made three minor tweaks.

1. I substituted 1 C of pumpkin puree for the red bean paste.  
2. I used 1 1/2 C of sugar.  Trust me, I needed it!  (I first made one batch using only 1 C of sugar and ended up with bland chewy bars.  Ick.)
3. I greased my pan (I'm sure parchment paper would have worked too.)  You must do this.  If you don't, your mochi cake will stick to the pan and you will cry a whole lot. 

 Here's what my pumpkin mochi cake looked like once I sliced it up:

(I have no idea why I'm currently into wild west stuff.....)

The recipe makes a ton of mochi cake. Once your cake cools, just cut it up and store your tiny mochi bars in Tupperware. 

I love having my very own stash of little chewy bars to munch on throughout the day...erm... I mean throughout the week..... because I've got self-control like that.... yeah....

Jam monster

A couple weeks ago we located a bread that was gluten and soy and nut free.  

Hooray! 

It was seriously the best discovery ever.

Now he's able to enjoy bread and jam on a daily basis.  

"What is this stuff?"

"Oh my gosh, it's delicious!"

"I wonder if mum will let me have another piece?"

Crapty Fridays- DIY mustache tie clip

Hubby has a thing for tie bars and I have a thing for mustaches.
So when he asked me to make him a mustache tie clip (like the one here), I rose to the *hairy* challenge!

But how to do it?  And for that matter, how could I do it cheaply?

After brainstorming for a bit, I decided to go with the ol' plastic lid route.
Yep.  You read right.  I'm talking about a disposable plastic lid from a take-out container. 

Materials:
- paper
- pencil
- scissors
- old tie clip that you don't want
- wrench
- plastic take out lid
- Sharpie marker
- nailpolish (I used silver and a clear top coat)
- glue gun
- sandpaper

Directions:

Step 1:  Get yourself a tie clip with a relatively flat face.  We had this old tie clip that we had lying around.  It came in a bag of random doodads at a thrift store.  Hubby and I found the tie clip funny, but totally inappropriate for him to wear to work.  (Hubby's name isn't Richard, silly!)

Step 2:  Use your wrench to pull off the unwanted adornment from your tie clip.  Hubby did this step because I have the arm strength of a four-year old.

Step 3:  Trace your tie clip on a piece of paper.  This will help you figure out how big to make your new mustache adornment!  Doodle different mustache shapes that you'd like to use.  (I had three choices and opted to use the middle not too full, not too skimpy mustache.)

Step 4:  Cut out your chosen mustache.

Step 5:  Use your sharpie to trace your mustache shape onto a plastic container lid.  Cut out your mustache shape.

Ooh.  That's one crapty mustache.

Now it's time to get your hands nice and dirty.

Step 6:  Sand the back of your mustache and the front of your tie clip.  Roughing up the two surfaces will hopefully help the hot glue to stick the two items together.  (I tried this at first without sanding and the mustache easily peeled off from the metal.)

Step 7:  Paint the front of your mustache with several coats of nail polish. 

Note:  Before going the nail polish route I tried spray painting my mustache silver. It totally did not work.  The spray paint peeled right off.

Step 8: Hot glue your mustache to your tie clip.  Then, voila!

Hubby wore this clip to work and got a ton of compliments.  Phew.  The mustache stayed put the whole day and now he can wear it again.  .  

Have you crapt lately?  If so, I'd love to hear about it.
Or, would you like to give me a crapting challenge?    I'd love to crapt with your crap!

Happy crapting! 

Making apple chips (oven method)

After last week's yummy sun-dried tomato experiment, I thought I'd give our oven another go and use it to make apple chips.  Baby Chuck and I went urban apple picking (erm... that's when we went to the grocery store and bought apples) and came back home with a bag full these lovelies.  Yum.

I peeked at several recipes online and then thought I'd try making my own apple chips.

Ingredients:
- Apples!
- optional:  sugar or cinnamon (I didn't use either, but some people sprinkle their apples before baking)

Materials:
- cutting board
- dull, round knife
- cutting board
- baking sheets
- parchment paper (which I learned the hard way is not the same as wax paper- eek smoke!)

Step 1:  Preheat oven to 275
Step 2:  Line baking sheets with parchment paper
Step 3:  Core apples (I used these awesome instructions)

Step 4:  Slice up your apples and place them on baking sheet
Note:  Try to slice equally thick circles, othewise your apples will cook at drastically different times (which I learned the hard way)

As you can see.... I kinda sucked at cutting slices.

Step 5:  Bake for 1 hour.  Then check on your slices and turn them over.  Keep an eye on them and check back every 15-20 minutes to make sure they don't burn.  Thin slices could be done as soon as 1 hour, and thicker slices may need up to 2 hours to dry.

Note:  If your chips turn dirt brown... they're overdone.  (Again, another lesson that I learned the hard way.)

The results of my oven's labor

They were slightly chewy and sweet.  I liked eating them and kept popping rings into my mouth.  Baby Chuck found them a bit too chewy and hubby (surprisingly) liked them too.

Let me know if you go urban apple picking and try making apple chips too!