My most commonly requested cupcakes has become oreo cupcakes with oreo cream cheese icing. I’ve made several batches for people and enjoyed it immensly! They are chocolate cupcakes with an oreo inside.

Another cupcake I’ve recently made is just a yellow cake with a nutella cream cheese icing.  I don’t have pictures of this one but it is amazing to taste! My next adventure was making a crostata. This is a traditional italian dessert that consists of a sugary dough filled with some sort of preserves. David’s family has always done it with sour cherry and that makes it one of my favorite non-chocolate desserts.

I’ve also tried to make s’more cupcakes. These definitely didn’t turn out pretty after a day or so. I learned that cake batter will quickly absorb any sort of marshmallow if it is in a gooey form. I tried to put a marshmallow in the center and it melted into the cake. I used marshmallow cream for the icing and it has now absorbed into it as well. It was pretty the day I put it on though.

Finally, the most recent attempt on a new baked good was mini-cherry cheesecake cupcakes. These are delicious and I’m not even a big cheesecake fan! They look great as well and would be great to use at a party!!

I donated some cupcakes to Phi Sigma Pi Relay for Life. I did different color ribbons to show the different colors for cancer awareness.

These are cupcakes that were taken to a baby shower (obviously it was for a boy!)

Here are some cupcakes I made for the husband’s Law School Graduation.

I made this bouquet for my mother-in-law for mother’s day this year. She loves mickey, pirates, and pink so I combined the colors to decorate a pot for her. Instead of putting a real plant in it, I decided to make cupcake flowers for her so those were the flowers in it. I actually had waitresses asking for a card when we took it to her at brunch on Mother’s Day.

These are froggy cupcakes I made for my sister-in law for her birthday. The husband labeled the three on the top row with her family’s names.

A mickey cake for my mother-in-law’s birthday this year.

Pig cupcakes for a friend of my mother-in-law.

These are from Gay’s graduation celebration back at the beginning of January. The first one is The Very Hungry Caterpillar and the second one is from Where The Wild Things Are.

My grandmother’s surprise 80th birthday celebration. The 80 is made out of chocolate and vanilla cupcakes and the tower has red velvet cupcakes.  (Sorry, I couldn’t get the 2nd one to turn sideways!)

1 can dark, sweet, pitted cherries in heavy syrup, drained
3 tbsp. cherry brandy
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened (but make sure not to melt it or it won’t work right!!!)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 oz. unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled (but don’t cool too much or it won’t be melted any more)

In medium bowl, stir the cherries in 2 tablespoons of the cherry brandy. Let stand 30 minutes, stirring ocassionally.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom and sides of a 9″ square baking pan.

In small bowl, stir together flour, salt, and baking powder. In a large bowl, beat butter until creamy. Add sugar and continue beating until the mixture is light and fluffy. Mix in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in melted chocolate until blended. Beat in flour mixture, just until combined. Stir in cherry brandy. Scrap batter in prepared pan, spread evenly.

Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean. Remove pan to wire rack, cool completely. Cut into 16 bars.

Black Forest Cake Brownies

While this recipe turned out awesome, I have to say, I wouldn’t want to do it without an electric mixer. That turned out to be a blessing. One thing I noticed as well is that it never says to put the cherries in. As you can see from the picture, I decided to do so anyway and I think it turned out better because of it.

After we get to Paris, we go to the ticket counter to get our next boarding passes. This flight is the one that will take us from Paris to Detroit. When we try to get these boarding passes, they immediatly say that they are unable to give us seats together.  Well, being that I am not a big fan of flying and this is an 8 hour flight, I wasn’t going to do that, not to mention that we had spent a few hours on the phone before we left for the trip booking seats. When we missed that first flight, they cancelled all of our seat assignments though so that was wasted time. Finally he does what he has to do and gets us seats together.

We get to Detroit and make it through customs. Once we get through, we need to pick up our luggage to swap it. We got our bags but Gian and Carmen lost one. When they asked about it, Delta informed them that it wasn’t lost. They knew where it was but somehow it was in Hong Kong….that was a great help! We still have to get our boarding passes and have about 15 minutes before our flight leaves. So we go to the ticket counter hoping that we are able to make the flight. Once again, Gian and Carmen get their boarding passes and we are unable to. The poor woman that was working at this counter was a Northwest employee that Delta had just absorbed. That was difficult enough but then she was unable to get into the Delta system as they had not had training on it yet and didn’t have access. Now why Delta did this to someone, I will never understand. She spends a while on the phone with someone at a gate near ours and finally tells us to head up there and we will be able to get the tickets from him. That was fine but by this time we had missed our first flight so we were on a flight that was supposed to leave an hour later.

Finally we made it on our flight and made it home. We ended up spending over 19 hours between airports and airplanes that day and needless to say, we were glad to be home.  It was an amazing trip and I loved every minute of it. By the end of it I was ready to get home to english signs, english menus, speaking english, and a regular hamburger. However, I’m already anticipating another trip to Europe but this time, we will see different places.

Fountain at the bottom of the Spanish Steps

Spanish steps...do I really have to walk up them?

The next stop was the church of the Capuchin Monks. As strange as this sounds, it was really neat. If you don’t know the story, the monks that were buried at the original church site had to be moved when the new church was constructed. They piled the bones in the lower area of the church and people are able to walk through. While it seems really strange (and it most certianly is!) it was a really neat thing to see. However, we have no pictures as they are not allowed to be taken here. Following this, we headed to capitol hill where David was able to re-create a few pictures from his childhood. James, these are for you!

Man, this foot smells!

What's that finger pointing at?

From here we had some amazing gelatto that David made a huge mess with. I think his new shoes ended up with 4 or 5 different flavors on them in the course of our trip.

Some of the flavors that David's shoe got to try.

Finally, we made our way to St. Clemente. This church is gorgeous but the draw lies in the church that is underneath the current church. The underneath church was originally a pagan church. While we were there, we saw a group holding some sort of religious service in the bottom part of the church.

Finally, we headed to the hotel near the airport in Rome to rest up for the night.

Mouth Of Truth

Following this, we walked by Circus Maximus which is now just an empty field.  An interesting side note about it is that Gian used to have baseball practice there when he was a child.

Circus Maximus

We also walked by the Altar of Santa Maria of Heaven on our way to the next stop.

Alter of Santa Maria of Heaven

The next major destination was “The Wedding Cake” which is also a  monument from Mussolini’s time. The Romans call it the Wedding Cake because they are not fond of it and think it is gaudy.

The Wedding Cake

Top of The Wedding Cake

The Forum was the next sight. We didn’t walk through it but we were able to look at it from the top. The forum was the city center of Rome during ancient times. Now all that is left is the ruins of the city.

The Forum

Can you imagine what it used to look like

From here we passed by the prison that held St. Peter on the way to see the Colosseum. We spent time inside the colosseum. After the walk up the stairs, we were able to look out at the floor of the colosseum and see what it used to be like.

The Obligitory Colosseum Picture

Walking up the steps inside the colosseum

Inside the colosseum

One more colosseum shot

We followed this with a quick stand up lunch of sandwiches.

Lunch

Our next stop was the Vatican Museum. We spent a while in here and I could have spent many more hours here. My favorite part was being able to see the Sistine Chapel. However, there were some amazing works of art throughout the whole thing.

After we left the Vatican Museum, we walked next door to St. Peters. We were able to go in at this po9int and see the entire thing. We looked at the entire church and even the spot where Gian was baptized.

St. Peter's Entrance

St. Peter's...this is an awesome shot!

Very difficult to see but this is where Gian was baptized!

We then walked up to the top of the cupola. It was approximately 350 steps up to the top. I am pretty sure I had to temporarily loose my mind to do this but I managed it. I took picutres with my back to the railing but I wouldn’t look out. I stayed against the wall while David took picutres of everything for us. We then walked the 350 or so steps back down.

On our way to the top!

I made it...Here's the proof!!!

On the way out!

It is something I can be proud of and say I did but I don’t see myself doing it a second time. But then again, when in Rome…

Finally, we went to dinner with family again. We spent several hours that night enjoy good food and good company. After a huge meal, we re-enacted the family picture that they had taken several years ago.

Pesto pasta

Sausage, meatballs, potatoes, and bread

Salad

Wonderfully delicious dessert

All of the family that could be there!

We then headed back to the hotel, worn out and achy but it was finally time for bed!