Day Three Hundred Sixty Two: Terrific T-Shirt Necklace

One of the things I like best about Martha is how she can make something amazing out of nothing.  A couple eggs?  She'll cut herbs from her garden and whip up a gorgeous herb quiche.  Scraps of felt?  She'll make beautiful baby booties.

So I was intrigued when I saw Martha's Recycled T-Shirt Necklace.  It's an old t-shirt turned into a pretty darn cute necklace.  I had to see if it really could be done.

It starts with a regular t-shirt.  This is one I never wear.  The back is covered in sponsor names.  I'm pretty sure most people have a shirt that looks similar to this at home.

Cut off the bottom hem and discard.  Then cut the body of the shirt horizontally into strips.  This will make large loops.

Lots of loops:

One at a time, pull the loops and stretch the fabric until it starts to curl.  Stack the loops on top of one another so that all the side seams are in the same spot. They sort of look like thick pieces of yarn.  It doesn't matter what was printed on the shirt, now you can't see it anyway!

Once you have the thickness you desire, secure the seams with a scrap piece of fabric about six inches long from the same shirt.  

And the final product:

Um.....Shockingly cute, right?  Not bad for a shirt that was just taking up space in my shirt drawer.

Three days left.....

Day Three Hundred Twenty Three: Animal House Sugar Cookies

My three-year old daughter's class studied hibernation last week.  On Friday, they had a Hibernation Party and all the kids wore their pajamas and brought a stuffed animal to hibernate in a "Hibernation Station".  To add to the fun, I brought bear-shaped cookies for the kids.  I used Martha's Flower Sugar Cookies and Royal Icing recipes.  I needed 40 cookies for the party.  This recipe claims it makes 24 cookies.  (This is my nice way of questioning the counting abilities of the person who wrote this recipe.)  I only got about a 10 cookies out of this batch. Maybe it was because the bear-shaped cookie cutter was so large. :shrug:

 If you recall, sugar cookies are not my strong suit.  I am capable of rolling out the dough and cutting the cookies, but I have a major handicap when it comes to transferring said cookies intact onto a baking sheet.  They always end up slightly deformed. So needless to say, finishing ten cookies that still looked like bears took me quite some time.  That was a lot of work for only ten stupid cookies.

Undecorated cookie:

Confession: It is at this point that I went to my local supermarket and bought a box of sugar cookie mix.  I was being lazy, and was pressed for time.  It would be a cold day in hell before I would reproduce Martha's fabulous recipe three more times. I was ready to curse the day I bought that bear-shaped cookie cutter. After making about ten more cookies, I had to enlist my husband into buying more mix for these dang cookies.

It was this point that my husband's mother, the consummate baker, called our house.  And, of course, my husband tells her that we are making cookies from a box.  I was mortified.  Were she dead, I'm sure this sort of information would cause her to roll face down.  As it is, I could almost hear her mental scoff through the phone.

Box cookies, indeed.

I hope all of you, (and she) will forgive the transgression.  It is not one I hope to repeat.

At any rate, with the cookies finally (finally!) cooked, I was able to decorate them. Martha's icing recipe is fabulous.  It's runny enough that it smooths beautifully on a cookie.  (You have to use a thicker version for the outline.)  The meringue powder gives the icing a little sheen like you see on professionally-baked cookies.  These are my bears:

Bear Cookie outlined in black icing:

This one sort of looks like a horse:

An aardvark perhaps?  Not sure if aardvarks hibernate.

Completed cookies:

Those are little chocolate sprinkles on his bum.  (For a three-dimensional I'm-pretending-I-know-what-I'm-doing look.)

 The aardvark:

The cookies looked great and (since I'm the only one who tasted both) no one noticed that some of the cookies were from a box.  (Shhh.  It's our secret.)  Except for the mutant versions, I was excessively pleased with myself.

Maybe a little too pleased. :dancing around the living room:

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Four: Haunted House Cake, Part II

On Thursday I started Martha's Haunted House Cake for my son's 6th birthday party.  It is a time-sonsuming process, so it took me two days.  

Friday, Day Two:

Supports had to be cut and inserted into the first layer of the cake.  It pained me a little to stick these into the cake....I can't take them out if I screw up:

Then the second layer is (gently) put on top:

Pearls are piped around the bases of both cakes to hide the ugly cardboard bases:

But we aren't done yet....

I had to bake the brownies for steps...and place them into the side of the cake with toothpicks:

Action shot:

And then shave the chocolate "grass" for the haunted house lawn:

The final product:

Could someone move that purse, please?  Notice my son's fingers itching to touch that little rubber mouse.

I will note that that adorable little house and tree on top of the cake are supposed to be made out of cookie....a fact I didn't realize until Thursday and after I had already cut the buggers out of cardstock.  I was going to attempt to make the cookie shapes on Friday, until my eldest daughter woke up sick with a stomach bug.  So cardstock had to do...

Even without the cookie house, the cake was delicious (if I do say so myself) and still ridiculously adorable.

Day Two Hundred Nineteen: Everything's Coming Up Roses Tart

Sometimes good things are born from necessity.

Yesterday, as I was performing my daily search of Something-Martha-To-Do, Martha's website was down. :curses:  It forced me to try the old-fashioned method and look in one of her books.  I found her recipe for a gorgeous Nectarine Tart (MS Baking Handbook, p. 256) and couldn't resist the potential train wreck.  I wish I could post her photo as it looks amazing....and amazingly hard.

To begin, make the tart dough, chill, then roll and shape into a tart tin.  Blind bake using beans or handy pie weights like so:

After the crust has baked to a golden brown, let it cool.  While you are waiting, cut a million eight nectarines into thin slices.  Overlapping the pieces, shape each into a rose.   Like so:

No really, those are sliced nectarines.  Amazed yet?  :you are looking at a goddess:

Continue to fill the inside of the tart with roses....

...Until the tart is full:

 It's gorgeous isn't it?  I'm not ashamed to say I was pretty proud of myself at this point.

Fill the tart with a sugar-brandy-egg mixture and cook for about forty minutes.  In the end, you have this:  

This is such a gorgeous tart....and super-good.  I've been passing this tart up for years, thinking I could never get the roses to look like Martha's.   Truthfully, it wasn't hard. I made it after dinner and didn't have to stay up all night to finish.  All it took was a little patience...and a sweet husband who is handy with a knife.  (Love you, honey.)

Day Two Hundred Nine: Wheel of (Fortunately Easy) Cleaning

Fall Cleanup 2012 (Part II)

According to Martha, one should clean one's kitchen cabinets every week (MS Homekeeping Handbook, p. 42) and one's woodwork twice a year (MS Homekeeping Handbook, p. 544).  My schedule isn't quite so punctual.  I tend to complete this chore on more of an "as needed" basis, which boils down to whenever I get the enthusiasm to attack the chore, a.k.a. Not Often Enough.

Martha suggests using a soft, damp cloth or undiluted household cleaner for stronger stains.  I use these, which make the job easy:

 

They are brilliant and who doesn't love that bald guy?

I not only cleaned my cabinets, but also scrubbed the scuffs and fingerprints from the woodwork.  Note the before and after photos, which are really more impressive in person.  (Trust me.)
Before:

After:

 Before (Notice the coffee? tea? drips on the bottom of the cabinet):

 After:

Before (Grimy fingerprints): (The owners must have children.)

After:

I could give you a whole tour of the house, but really, it's not that exciting.  Except for me.  I'm stickin' ecstatic!!   :does a cartwheel:   My husband is out of town, but when he comes home I'm going to be showcasing my cleaning job like Vanna White.

Day One Hundred Eighty Three: Happy Half-iversary!

It's hard to believe that this blog is SIX months old today.  I'm half finished with my crazy commitment to try one Martha task a day, and you are half finished reading about it.  Well done, you.  I'm a little astonished that I've been doing this for six weeks.  Fact of Life:  Time flies when you are busy as hell having fun.  To mark the occasion, I made Martha's Birthday Cake.  This cake was conceived and baked for Martha's birthday and it's a beauty:

My kids have been bugging me to make this cake for months now.  They spotted it in one of Martha's baking books and it's become a bit of an obsession.  It's actually a dome-shaped cake with a layer of buttercream filling, a layer of apricot filling and a meringue topping.   I'll give you a moment to savor the visual.

This is my dome-shaped cake.  It's a standard cake baked with cake flour, but mixed with eight whipped egg whites, so it's super-light.  It's like cake-flavored mousse.

Martha cuts the cake into four layers, but given my past problems with cake leveling, I thought three levels would be challenge enough.   According to Martha, an easy way to cut cake layers is to insert toothpicks into the cake, and use them as a guide for your serrated knife.  Like so:

This was a nifty trick and totally worked.  I felt like a layer-cutting rock star. :air guitar:  This is two layers with a layer of meringue buttercream in between:

The second layer is topped with a layer of apricot filling:

 And finally the dome top:

Did I mention every layer is brushed with Amaretto simple syrup?  It's delicious.  :sigh:

The finished layers are topped with a thin layer of meringue buttercream icing:

All these egg whites and meringue mean that there were lots of egg yolks left.  This is my glass of leftover egg yolks:

Pretty gross, actually.

After that, I piped meringue stars all over the cake...one by one....

About a year half-hour later, my cake was complete:

My cake doesn't look quite as perky as Martha's cake.  I'm not sure why, and I don't care.  It's still amazing, and amazingly good.

Happy Half-iversary!

Day Forty Three: Don't Bug Me Anymore Cupcakes

I made a mistake the other day.  After the Honey Lace Cookies nearly set off my smoke detector, I decided insect-themed treats were not my gift.  My son won't be bringing them to school. My mistake was not informing my son about this realization.  He was disappointed that he would not be the bearer of sugary delights and he let me know it:  By asking me over and over and over and over when could we bring treats to his class.  I relented and (with permission from the teacher) decided to try Martha's bug cupcakes.  They are achingly cute but the directions don't look that hard. (Yes, I know those are famous last words.)

Cupcakes:

Tops of the cupcakes removed and cut in half:

Beheaded cupcake with frosting:

The cupcake tops turn into (ta-da!) WINGS:

Seriously, how clever is that?


One could stop there, but Martha wouldn't, so neither will I....


Creating the bug heads with gumdrops and licorice:

The trickiest part of the whole operation was getting that licorice to stick into the head.  Curse you, bug anatomy.


Decorated cupcakes:

I cannot express how excited my son was to bring these cupcakes to his class this morning.  They fit almost all  the favorite criteria for boys' favorite things:  1) bugs, 2) sugar, and 3) a high potential for getting dirty.  If these cupcakes could also make a lot of noise and glow in the dark, they would be prefect.