Moo MiniCards and coupon!...Works For Me Wednesday

Have you seen these? They are called Moo minicards. They are the cutest things!


They are like business or calling cards, but they're smaller and with YOUR pictures! Use them for your etsy shop, or for a business card, or to promote your blog, or as a gift tag (wouldn't these be fun with your child's picture on the front?).


{You can see the size of them compared to a regular sized business card.}

Here's one piece of advice...TRIPLE CHECK your spelling. I ended up with bakeat350.blogPSot.com...nice. Very professional of me. :)


Oh, and how about a coupon? I got one in with my order for NEW customers to www.moo.com. Never ordered before...you're in luck, 15% off. Coupon code: 2RB2CK

Despite my misspelling, Mini Moo cards Work for Me!


What else works for me?

• Pure vanilla extract
• A podcast for foodies
• Freezing buttermilk
  

Two Peas in a Pod

I've made Pea in the Pod cookies before, but last week, I was really excited to get to make TWO peas in a pod!

These little babies went off to a baby shower...


The idea of twins has always sounded so fun to me. Maybe that's because I don't have them? ;) My Papa was a twin, though, and I thought that was the neatest thing!

{My grandfather, Jack, on the right with his twin on the left and their mom. Thank you, Emily for uploading these old pictures!}

Little Sweet Peas!

Here are links to a few more baby cookie ideas:

• Little Sweet Pea (just one!)
• It's a Boy!
• Baby Blue monogrammed cookies
  

It's ON!

Alright, gals (and guys?)....Flavor-of-the-Month is officially ON! Yay! Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer the poll question. If you said "yes," I have your name and address, and will be contacting you if you do not participate. I KID! :)

First, July's theme: PIE!

This means you can make ANYTHING related to pie...cherry pie, banana cream pie, mini pies, hand pies, whoopie pies, key lime pie martinis...your choice. Summer just makes me think pie!

Post your creation on the last or next-to-last day of the month. I'll post my FOTM post by 12:01am on the last day of the month (and I'll include next month's theme).

<a href="http://www.bakeat350.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://i638.photobucket.com/albums/uu101/bridget350/bakeat350_flavor_large.png" alt="Bake at 350" /></a>
PLEASE include a link back here to Bake at 350. Here's a logo to use in your FOTM posts (made by the wonderful Leslie who is on vacation right now, but I still wanted to give here a little plug anyway):

Two ways you can use this logo:

1. Right click on the image and choose "save image as" and save to your computer. When posting time comes around, add that saved image as a picture in your post.
2. Copy and paste the code above directly into your blog post. This provides the logo and links right back to Bake at 350.

(Leslie also made a darling little sidebar button, if you want to add it to your sidebar, please do...it's over in my left sidebar).

I'll give you a heads-up as we get close, especially this first month, with more details on how to link. If you've participated in Works For Me Wednesdays, it will work the same way. You'll just need to add your blog name and a short (3-4 words) title to sum up your post....ie:

Bake at 350 (cherry pie)
OR
Bake at 350 (pecan pie ice cream)
OR
Bake at 350 (coconut cream pie martinis)

That's what everyone will see. You'll also add the link to your post. (The link is what shows up in the address bar when you click on the actual post...not your MAIN webpage address.)

For example, my main blog address is:
http://www.bakeat350.blogspot.com/

BUT, the link to my Vanilla Extract post is:
http://bakeat350.blogspot.com/2009/07/pure-vanilla-extractworks-for-me.html

Make sense? Believe me, it's sounds much more technical than it actually is. I was so nervous the first time I participated in WFMW, but it's really a piece of cake pie! :)

ANYONE is welcome to join in...please do!!! And if you can't participate every month, that's ok, too.

Alright....I'll see you back on July 31st!

In the meantime, if you haven't seen the movie WAITRESS, please rent and watch it while you're making your pie! :) It's one of my favorites!

Pure Vanilla Extract...Works For Me Wednesday

When I first started baking, I didn't pay much attention to the vanilla extract I was using. I just grabbed the red and white bottle my mom always used.

Then, I started paying a little closer attention to ingredients. You know, I'm not sure what propylene glycol is, but I'm pretty sure I don't need it in my vanilla extract.

Here's what I use...

Morton & Bassett Pure Vanilla Extract.


Here's what the ingredient list looks like:

No propylene, no corn syrup...just the good stuff. There are plenty of wonderful vanilla extracts out there. Read the labels, experiment and find one or two you like the best.

One more thing, when I first bought this vanilla, I nearly had a heart attack about the price...$13.00!!! But, look closer! The bottle is 4 ounces compared to the 1 or 2 ounce bottles of the other stuff I was buying, so it wasn't as expensive as I thought.

Is there a vanilla that you love?

Hop on over to see what else is working on Works For Me Wednesday over at We Are THAT Family!

Wondering what to make with that yummy vanilla? How about the ultimate chocolate chip cookies or diet killing cream cheese triangles?!?

I've never met a chocolate chip cookie I didn't like...

....but this one is a real keeper!

I'm way late on this one, but I finally got around to making the chocolate chip cookies made famous by the New York Times last year.

Why I took so long I'll never know, in my book chocolate chip cookies are the ultimate dessert!

I used this adaptation of the recipe by Orangette...recommended by my sister and cousin. This recipe makes the most beautiful cookies! My husband's reaction was, "Starbucks should sell these!" I thought that was a pretty good review. :)

A few notes on the recipe...

1. When I break off a piece of cookie, I like it to bend off, not snap. So, after baking batch or two, I brought mine out of the oven at exactly 15 minutes, when they looked lightly brown, but underdone. They finish baking while resting.
   
2. I let mine sit on the cookie sheet only 5 minutes, not 10 as stated in the recipe. This helped make for a softer cookie.
3. Plan ahead, the cookie dough sits in the fridge for 36 hours before baking...I KNOW! Have something else sweet in the house if you want any dough left for baking! :)
   
4. For the chocolate chips, I used Guittard Semisweet chocolate (my grocery store carries it).
5. For the sprinkling salt, I used Fleur de Sel from the bulk food section of my grocery store.

Need more of a chocolate fix? Here's more chocolate-y goodness:

• caramel brownies
• mint chocolate chip cake truffles
• chocolate sorbet
  

July 4th cupcakes!

I really couldn't resist after seeing red, white and blue cupcakes here and here...and maybe somewhere else. The red, white and blue swirls of batter just looked too fun!

We had plans to meet our neighbors for the local 4th of July parade this morning, and I thought cupcakes seemed like a good way to start. It was only 9am, but hey, it's a holiday.

My son helped me with the batter (although, I think he had more fun eating them than making them). Just make any yellow or white cupcake batter, divide into 3 bowls and tint one red and one blue. (Use gel paste food coloring, and it doesn't take much at all.) The recipe I used comes from this book....Cupcakes! by Eleanor Klivans (love this book!). The link to the recipe is here; it's delicious!

Drop the batter by the tablespoonful into the cupcake liners. Some we swirled with a toothpick and others we left as is. Both looked really neat on the inside.

{I just loved the way these looked after inverting them out of the muffin tin!}

For the frosting, I did the same thing...tinted some of the frosting red and some blue. I put the blue and red frostings up the side of my icing bag and the white in the middle.

Hope you all are having a wonderful 4th of July! Get out there and see some fireworks!!!

♥Have you taken the Flavor-of-the-Month poll? Wondering what the heck I'm talking about?!?!?♥

Little Boy Blue...and a question for YOU...

{Please scroll down a little, I'd love to ask you all a question...}

I've made monogram cookies for baby girls before, but never for a baby boy. These were so fun! I like that the shower hosts chose the scalloped square for the boy cookies...so much more masculine than a circle. :)


The instructions for making the monograms are here. They can be made ahead of time and stored in a container at room temperature. One other note, when choosing a font, it can't be anything too "swirly", the nonpareils will obscure the design and it will just look like a blob. How do I know? I had to throw out my first batch. :)

Now to the question (poll on left sidebar)...would you be interested in a once-a-month, FLAVOR-OF-THE-MONTH, blog carnival/event, hosted here? It's an idea I've had floating around in my brain for a while and after reading all of your coffeecake favorites here, I really wanted to see each and every one of them.

Each month would be a different theme, such as chocolate or yellow or coffeecake. From there, you could make whatever you wanted.

Let's say, the theme was "turtle" (go with me here), you could make Turtle Cheesecake, or cookies decorated like turtles, or Turtle Ice Cream Pie, or a Turtle-shaped cake...whatever.

At the end of the month, you'd post your creation on your blog and link here. On the last day of the month, I'll post mine with a way for you to link in to my post. (Have you seen a Mr. Linky before?). I'll explain more about the details later.

That way, we'd all be able to see each others' creations...and maybe find some new, fabulous blogs, to boot!

I think it would be fun and a great way for all of us to get to know each other a little better. BUT, I know there are lots of other carnivals and blog events, so if you're already overbooked, let me know.

Anyone interested? I'm adding a poll to my sidebar. Please take a moment to let me know. If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Thanks! And, Happy July!!!