♥If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies♥

There's just NO WAY that you can have a baby shower without cupcakes! You might be pardoned if you have the bash in an igloo, serving only raw muktuk & caribou milk, but anywhere else....

Never thought I'll see a cake that even a wrapper couldn't fix..... until I saw this pic.

This very adaptable frock can be dressed up or dressed down, depending on the soirée you have in mind for her

Let her take the lead & use several shades of green for a fresh, Springtime feel.

Coupled with purple she becomes lively & playful & gets a fresh, fruity palette from a orange partner

With her refreshing, adaptable style, she’s definitely becoming the little black dress of the cupcake world

...& at these prices, who cannot afford one for every occasion?

A bland smile is like a green light at an intersection, it feels good when you get one, but you forget it the moment you're past it. -Doug Coupland

I just ♥ these beautiful stylish cupcakes from http://miocupcakes.blogspot.com/
I ♥ the colours
I ♥ the visuals
I ♥ the yummyness..

Just thinking by myself how awesome these ladies will look in one of our cupcake wrappers... bliss ♥ ♥

check out this CUTIE pie idea from Bakerella! just to add sum ooomph to my Manic Monday!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s Cowboy Cookies. Or, in this case, Cowgirl Cookies.

Well, I took the traditional oats, chocolate chips and pecans this cookie is known for and added some pink m&m’s to make them, well, more girly.

But why stop there? I also made a few cookie mixes to try out as a test run for a gift idea. You see, I missed said friend’s birthday (sorry friend) and I wanted to make up for it. So, I took her basic recipe and made a few adjustments so I could fit all the ingredients into these jars.


They’re smooth Ball jars made especially for crafts. Smooooooth. No embossed logos in the glass. Nice. And with a little fabric, labels and a brown suede bow, they’re perfect little gifts.


But which one should I give her? It actually matters because I made four different variations. If you notice in the photo above, some of them have more oats, more flour or more sugar. I was trying different combinations to get all the ingredients to fit.

Oh and note to self: Use a ruler when attaching labels next time.

Luckily, the first test batch I made, worked. Yes!

So, here’s the recipe:

Cowgirl Cookies

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup & leveled
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cooking oats
3/4 cup m&ms
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 – 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Stir all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.


Add

1 slightly beaten egg
1/2 cup butter (melted slightly in the microwave)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Use the back of a large spoon to work it all together. You may even need to use your hands to get everything incorporated.

Then roll the cookie dough into 1 1/2 inch balls, place on a parchment covered baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven. I got about 26-28 cookies out of these.

Pretty and tasty. But I still want to try the other mixes later, and if one tastes better I’ll make sure and update the recipe. Besides, I want to know how long these will last in jars. Any ideas?

Want to make some cute cookie mix gifts, too? Here’s how.


Start with a 1 quart smooth Ball jar.

Layer the ingredients in like this:

First: flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt
Second: oats
Third: m&ms
Fourth: chocolate chips
Fifth: brown sugar
Sixth: white sugar
Seventh: chopped pecans

Pack each level down really tightly. I mean it. Pack it in. Or else it won’t all fit. Also, I added the chopped pecans last, because if the ingredients were too much or not enough, then I could add more or less pecans to adjust. I’d rather sacrifice nuts than chocolate, you know. The ingredients should be flush to the top of the lid when you seal it up.


See. There’s some of the pecans peeking out from under the fabric.

To decorate the top of the jars, get a spool of suede cord and some fabric. I really wanted to find some pink western bandana fabric, but this will do.
Anyway, cut the fabric into 6 inch squares and the suede into 25 inch pieces. Place the fabric on top and tie ribbons around the lid to hold it in place.


For the labels, you’ll need some card stock, a paper punch and double-sided tape.


Note: you can change the color of m&ms and give them as Halloween gifts, or Christmas gifts, too. Check out the seasonal m&ms in the candy aisle. They are usually available in special holiday colors or themes. The pink ones were in the Breast Cancer awareness bag. Also another great gift idea.

Enjoy!

http://www.bakerella.com/mix-things-up/

With Ramadan around the corner - we would like to wish all our Muslim friends and customers a blessed Ramadan. I squizzed the net and found some beautiful cupcakes for this occasion - how about placing them in a stylish cupcake wrapper - just to give Eid that special "wow factor"


http://www.flickr.com/photos/qupcake/2853295205/

After spotting these little lovelies from littlecottonrabbits, I am totally positive that I should convince my husband to pursue his childhood dream of becoming an Olympic Knitting Champion. He says that at that stage a “Crochet King” would have worked for him too, but knitting was his THING!

Enough of all this macho woodworking & cooking & baking & fixing things, I say. It’s time to lay down the drill & pick up some needles!

Just until he finished a dozen or so of these cupcake darlings for me

& maybe a little tea cosy or two....

Images:Flickr/ littecottonrabbits

"Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world." - T'ien Yiheng

Although this is perhaps his best known quote & one of the most often used in relation to tea, there is very little known about the man that gave us this wisdom

Different sources give his date of birth circa 1570 to an exact date in 1766

However – whether this was written in the 1600’s or around 1750, his gems on tea was surely born out of the high regard for these leaves, that by all accounts was discovered by his ancestors in 2737 B.C.

• According to legend the second emperor of China, Shen Nung, discovered the swig when tea leaves wafted into his cup of hot water & he savoured the remarkable taste of the amber liquid

(Tea was cited in a Chinese dictionary for the first time as Erh Ya in 350 A.D. )

Admiration for the delicates leaves is almost tangible in this charming quote by Lu Yu, the great Chinese scholar and writer :

“The best quality tea must have creases like the leathern boot of Tartar horsemen,
curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock,
unfold like a mist rising out of a ravine,
gleam like a lake touched by a zephyr,
and be wet and soft like a fine earth newly swept by rain “

All this has me quite craving a cup of horseman’s’ boot myself now.....

All of us at Three For Tea has our own favourite cuppa.

Earl Gray, green, red cappuccino

But the one we all agree on is Spicy Chai

The word “chai” actually means “tea” in Hindi & Punjabi

The spicy brew that Westeners call Chai tea is actually Masala chai or Spice tea

This milky tea is made by combining loose leaf tea with ½ hot water, ½ hot milk, spices & a sweetener, brought to a near-boil, strained & served

Traditionally black tea & sweeteners such as jaggery / honey was used. Condensed milk sometimes substitutes both the milk & sweetener (works for us!)

The traditional Masala Chai is a strongly spiced beverage brewed with "warm" spices. It mostly incorporates one or more of the following: cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, star anise, peppercorns & cloves

The Kashmiri version of chai is brewed with green tea instead of black tea and has a more subtle blend of flavourings: almonds, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, sometimes saffron and a pinch of salt

With the wide range of Masala Chai teabags available these days it is really easy (though not quite the same) to quickly brew yourself a cup anytime – there is even a local Rooibos version on the shelves!

It is not quite the same as when made from scratch, but will still give you that fiery milkyness that is just the thing for this bleak July weather

Image: www.tea.co.uk

These pops are essentially cake truffles on a stick and are very simple to prepare: Bake a cake, mush it up with frosting, roll it into balls, insert a stick, and dip it in chocolate! These things really are a hit with kids because they are so fun, but adults seem to enjoy the delicious truffle-like confections equally well.

Want to make some? Go to http://reciperhapsody.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/cake-pops-2/

I Found this delightful idea on www.southafricanfoodies.co.za


"Apple Candles: The next time you have a dinner party, instead of using your normal candles to achieve a cosy atmosphere, try apple candles. Core the apple and place a tea light candle into the hollow opening, the metal around the tea light will prevent the apple from burning and best of all, apples float, which means you can create your very own homemade floating candles."

With South Africa producing wonderful apple varieties such as Fuji, Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Royal Gala, Starkimson, Sundower and Red Chief, we should make much more of this bounty
How about baking a Tarte Tatin to celebrate the woody winter smells? Traditionally served warm with double cream, crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream, I find the tangy yummy-ness of crème fraîche the perfect partner
The only tricky part is getting the pastry just right – but oh, the fulfilment of slicing through the crunchy top, spooning through the soft, vanilla-baked apples & seeing the caramel making a pond of heavenly liquid gold is worth the effort in 70 fold (& worth the wait while it bakes & your husband stands, spoon-tapping on the kitchen counter, staring at you as if YOU decided on the baking time!)
Come on, try it – you will not be disappointed. And maybe get a surprising gesture from the spoon-tapping loved one...just for trying

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/tartetatin_80584

*Apples makes out 43% of SA’s soft fruit export

We all have our favourites

Its been a very busy but productive week here at Threefortea. We've received a lot of queries from caterers, bakers, stylist, food-fundi's, home-goddesses and all-over cupcake folk - so delighted to see that the cupcake culture is as alive as "paptert" in South Africa!

Just to check out that amusing word: fundi
In Swahili it is used for a skilled mechanic & the word umfindisi is a teacher in Nguni... now ThATS AyOBa!!!!

We have a great response on our new coating as well - more about that soon .....

The cupcake evolved in the United States in the 19th century, and it was revolutionary because of the amount of time it saved in the kitchen. There was a shift from weighing out ingredients when baking to measuring out ingredients. According to the Food Timeline Web, food historians have yet to pinpoint exactly where the name of the cupcake originated.

There are two theories:
 the cakes were original cooked in cups
 the ingredients used to make the cupcakes were measured out by the cup.

In the beginning, cupcakes were sometimes called "number" cakes, because they were easy to remember by the measurements of ingredients it took to create them: One cup of butter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour, four eggs, one cup of milk, and one spoonful of soda. Clearly, cupcakes today have expanded to a wide variety of ingredients, measurements, shapes, and decorations - but this was one of the first recipes for making what we know today as cupcakes.

Cupcakes were convenient because they cooked much quicker than larger cakes. When baking was down in hearth ovens, it would take a long time to bake a cake, and the final product would often be burned. Muffin tins, also called gem pans, were popular around the turn of the 20th century, so people started created cupcakes in tins.
Since their creation, cupcakes have become a pop culture trend in the culinary world. They have spawned dozens of bakeries devoted entirely to them. While chocolate and vanilla remain classic favourites, fancy flavours such as raspberry meringue and espresso fudge can be found on menus. There are cookbooks, blogs, cupcake wrappers and magazines specifically dedicated to cupcakes.