DIY Birthday Cake Topper Christmas Ornament

  This is a super easy craft even for people like me whose desire to be crafty outweighs my ability. I can’t sew although I try. I’ve watched a bunch of Christmas bow videos but just can’t get them perfect. So this is easy!
I bought the unfinished numbers at Michael’s. Used acrylic paint (the 5 got a glitter pen as a top coat). 
For the cake topper I used good old Elmers glue to attach a kitchen wooden skewer, I wanted it to be removed easily for phase 2, the ornament. 

 
Use something (I used garlic!) to support the skewer so it dries flat. After this dried I added more glue on top of so the glue encased the skewer. 
After the parties I popped off the skewer. It took off the paint a little bit it’s on the back so that was OK. 

  
For the ornament I used a hot glue gun to attach the twine, I want this to last. Wood glue would work too. 

And that’s it! A memory on our tree from the years birthdays and in a few years we’ll have a number tree! 

  
  

Homemade Maraschino Cherries for ice cream

 

Ice cream for dinner!! I remember when I was little having that surprise treat and how I wanted to do that for my kids. We’re celebrating the daddys better hours, having him home at dinner time is such a special thing, dinner had to be special! Also it’s summer (national ice cream month) and our oldest is old enough to really enjoy the surprise. She asks me what’s for dinner every night and for months I waited for the day I would say, “ice cream!” It was awesome! She was really confused and said “really but that’s dessert!” (This is the child who recently said she’s totally in love with zucchini right now.) The excitement and the fun of making it was better then actually eating it and we had tons of leftovers but it was a great memory!

When I was planning the ice cream dinner I knew I would make most of the components myself (this was fun meal planning!) the ice cream, sauces, I made 5!, and whipped cream were a given. We’d have assorted candy and a cherry on top is absolutely necessary for a sundae night! I was definitely not buying neon red cherries at the grocery store and I’ve been wanting to make my own sundae cherries for awhile and this made me finally do it. 

It seems silly to have candy but then be opposed to something that is basically candy itself but here’s why I don’t like them. They have high frustose corn syrup in them and that’s not allowed, red #40, also not allowed in our food (candy is “tolerated”) and a big one they bleach the cherries white so they will turn that neon red color easier! Why on earth bleach something that is red so you could turn it red?! That sentence doesn’t even make sense. The food industry needs to give us more credit, we don’t buy food based on appearance alone. Anyway, the Wholefoods safer option is $6 a jar I can’t afford that and cherries were on sale this week (yay summer!) so making them myself it is!

  

I’m really excited about sharing this because I have never found a recipe for them before. There are recipes that use actual maraschino liquor but I didn’t think I should serve those to my kids, I wanted to duplicate the actual ice cream toppers. They’re basically cherries preserved in a simple syrup (sugar and water) so that’s what I did. I looked up the liquor as a reference and it was noted that it doesn’t taste like cherries but like almonds since it’s made from the cherry pits. That didn’t surprise me because did you ever see kernel paste at the grocery store next to the almond paste? Kernel paste is made from ground peach pits. Did you ever buy the kernel paste to use in your pignoli (pine nut) cookies because it was considerably less expensive then the almond paste? And did it not taste much different? So fruit pits taste like almonds! (Now I buy my almond paste from a wearhouse, my husband gets back in the car and I ask “did you get the stuff?” Then he tosses a brown paper bag in my lap. The price feels naughty!) So I added almond extract for that distinct flavor. Cherries and almond is a classic combination makes sense! The cherries have artificial flavors so I knew my version wouldn’t taste exactly like the store bought ones but that’s a good thing. They were more luxurious and still tart and fresh. My husband without even being asked said “if you wanted to copy the cherries you really did it with the flavor” SUCCESS! These are sweet gooey wonderful little gems to top any sundae! 

my “dinner” that night. i made everything so it was still a home cooked meal ha!

While making these I was reminded of the “spoon sweets” recipe my husbands aunt gave us that I’ve been meaning to make. That is a Greek treat, usually cherry, that is served to guests who visit. Until then I’ll give our guests a maraschino cherry! 

  Maraschino Cherries

Makes a half pint 

A cup of pitted cherries stems on

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup water plus a teaspoon

1tsp pure Almond extract plus more to taste

1/4 tsp pure Vanilla extract

Directions:

Make sure cherries are all pitted. Leave stems. Put them in a half pint jar packed in. In a small sauce pan add sugar and first 1/4 cup water. Over medium heat dissolve sugar then bring to a boil for a few seconds then turn off hear. Add the extracts. Stir and pour over the cherries. Top off jar with remaining water and stir in as best you can. (I held jar upside down, closed) Store in refrigerator to For 3 days before using. Jar may “pop” but still kept refrigerated. Serve with your favorite ice cream, drinks or eat right out of the jar!

Cooks notes: if the syrup seems thick don’t worry the cherries will make a juice themselves. I kept trying them every day ha! And the best texture was around day 3. I also had to add more almond extract so I increased it in the recipe but if you need to add that’s ok. They were perfect after that. After a week they started changing so they are best eaten soon after making them. I didn’t want to add acidity for shelf life because the cherries are tart already so I wanted them really sweet and they don’t last long due to them yumminess! 

I highly recommend a cherry pitter! This is the one I use. Mine is red and this looks updated for the better, I think I got it at a chef store. After pitting 3 pounds of cherries one day, I am an expert it took an hour, you know the pit popped out because there’s a gaping hole. No hole try again! Still check to make sure! 

notice the holes, my beauties after an hour of pitting my hands were red!

Update before posting because it takes me 2 weeks to finish a post! So 2 weeks later I’m still enjoying them and although softer the flavor is still there and great!

Recipe by Malina Kalogrides

Enjoy!

Baked Eggs in ramekins

  

 
It was just Father’s Day and that meant breakfast in bed for our daddy! (I often get breakfast in bed ‘just because’ so he deserves it! Be jealous, it’s OK ha!) I’m currently obsessed with Bobby Flay’s Brunch @ Bobby’s, so much so that we are adding fall brunch to our yearly entertaining traditions (he has an entire episode around apples it’s a given!). One day he did a brunch in bed with dishes that are easy to eat in bed/sans a table. Baked eggs, he calls them shirred eggs, were on the list which made complete sense, no scrambled egg crumbs in the bed, plus I’ve been meaning to make them so I filed them away for my Father’s Day menu. 

Full disclosure these pictures of the process were taken on a random afternoon when I decided I should test them out before hand (also we needed lunch) so I could time it right on Father’s Day. The menu was a surprise for Daddy good thing he works away from the home! (For this only reason, usually we just miss him!) The idea of breakfast in bed for one parent is beautiful but executing it is a whole other story! The cooking parent needs to also keep the kids entertained so the special day parent can relax with the paper (his phone and the MLB network) and stay in bed. (The morning was a little crazy so I had to send him back to bed to eat, classic expectation verses reality!) I made a bunch of treats so I definitely didn’t have time to photograph as I cooked! The test day I felt like over hard eggs (fully cooked yoke, in photo) but as I ate it I wished I left some runny yoke so that’s what I did for my special menu. The runny yoke made a beautiful sauce. Our Daddy is not a toast dipped in yoke guy so being in the ramekin made it so you didn’t even need the toast. (But of course why not have the toast if it is your thing!) 

 

hard yoke

  

runny yoke.. Mmm

 

This version is a spin off of Bobby’s I wanted potatoes in it so I thought I’d pre bake potatoes the day before so I could put like a home fry base but on my test day I didn’t have time so the next best thing was very thin sliced potatoes. Cover the bottom of buttered ramekins/any ovenproof bowl/cup with the potatoes. Salt them/drizzle oil (skip the oil if using bacon) then pop that in oven while you make the cream so they can start softening. The potatoe kind of floats (notice in photos) in the cream and egg it’s really nice. 

  
I used russet but any potatoe will work. I used dill in the cream because that’s what I had and because dill is AWESOME! It taste like butter! Throw that with the cream and salt in a pot and let reduce for a few minutes, a slow boil is fine just stir and watch it. 
  

Take the potoatoes out and crack your eggs over them, live dangerously crack them right in there! Then pour your herbed cream (you just made herbed cream!) over the eggs and back in the oven 10-17 minutes. Times vary for your egg preference and if you double recipe. 

When they come out salt and pepper and a few dashes of hot sauce and serve! The Father’s Day version (also the main photo, I made them again after Father’s Day) had bacon wrapped around the side because Daddies love bacon (mommies do to!) I really enjoyed that version. The runny yoke was a salsa/cilantro version yum and these would pack wonderfully for a picnic at room temp, especially the hard yoke. 

Baked Eggs in ramekins  

Serves 2 easily doubled ect. Done in 25 minutes (less without bacon)

1/2 potoatoe sliced very thin

1/3 cup heavy cream

1 tbls fresh dill

2 eggs

Salt 

Pepper 

2 slices of Bacon broken in 3 pieces each  (I loved the bacon)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter 2 ramekins and cover bottom with potoatoe slices in one layer. If using, wrap bacon standing up against the inside of ramekin. Salt and place in oven until bacon starts to crisp or until your cream is ready if not using bacon.  

In a small saucepan add cream and dill  no need to chop just rip off a few sprigs. Heat until reduced a bit. 

Take ramekins out of oven crack one egg into each ramekin and pour 2-3 tablespoons of the cream over the top. Make sure to get the herbs in. Place back in oven until whites are cooked through and your yoke is done to your likeness. 10-17 minutes. Start checking at 10 minutes. When they come out of the oven spoon a teaspoons amount of the cream (if it formed a skin just push to side, no big deal) over your egg, salt and pepper, hot sauce (Optional) and serve on a plate over a napkin with a spoon. Be careful it’s hot. 

Cooks note: if just serving these then add 2 eggs per ramekin. 

 

from the daddys instagram, this was 1 egg you can really notice the bacon yum!

 
 

Recipe adapted from Brunch @ Bobby’s

Enjoy!