One of my favorite people is getting in just over a month, so yesterday we threw a semi-impromptu bridal shower.

The reason the lovely bride to be looks like a pirate in the photo above is thanks to a Brazilian game wherein the bride has to guess what the gift is, and if she guesses wrong the person who gave it to her puts makeup on her. If she gets it right, the giver gets painted.

I made a Vine video of how everyone looked, it's in the tweet below.

Mel's bridal shower!!! vine.co/v/bDrDMU0puAz
— JoPickle (@jospikol) March 23, 2013

Oh and that tiny pup is Piper, Jolyn's dog, who I fully intend for Midas to fall in love with. We've already planned their wedding.

Somehow, I went from having a completely free and open weekend (the first in quite a while) to being busy every night.

Andddd I have a ton of things I want to get done:
- clean my room
- wash/change sheets (soooo annoying but so worth it)
- bake something! I'm in a baking mood lately, so I figure I should go with it.
- grade papers (don't so much want to as have to)
- write Monday's lecture (see above)
- paint my nails!
- run! This stupid sore throat has been preventing me and I'm so anxious to get running.

A lot to fit in between weekend plans...but I figure if I write about it maybe I'm more likely to get some of it done.

But am I starting on any of these things? Nope. I'm going shopping because I want a new nail polish color. 

PS: I'm seeing The Lorax tomorrow and I really want to make these cookies!

Source: soudersstudios.com via Kelsey on Pinterest

Last weekend I made brownies. I used this recipe but made a few changes based on what I could find/had available. So my actual recipe is below.

• 1 box (15.25 Ounce) German Chocolate Cake Mix - the original recipe calls for a larger box but my grocery store only had this size in German Chocolate
• 1/3 cup Evaporated Milk
• 1/2 cup Evaporated Milk (additional)
• 1/2 cup Butter, Melted
• 60 whole Caramels, Unwrapped
• 1/3 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
• 1/4 cup Powdered Sugar

So, the recipe calls for using a 9x9 pan, but I only had 8x8, so I used that. I combined the cake mix with the 1/3 cup evaporated milk and 1/2 cup melted butter, using the same amounts of liquid even though I was using less cake mix than the original recipe. I did this because in the original recipe she mentioned that the batter was really thick, so I figured adjusting the liquid to dry mix ratio would help. It did. 

I put half the batter in my greased 8x8 and baked it at 350 for 8ish minutes. Meanwhile, I melted the 60 caramels with 1/2 evaporated milk in the microwave. 


I poured most of it over the bottom layer of brownie, saving the rest since I didn't want the caramel layer to be too thick. I sprinkled 1/3 cup of chocolate chips over the caramel, then put the second layer of batter over it all. I found it helpful to shape the rest of the batter into an approx. 8x8 square because it would have been difficult to spread over hot caramel. Oh, I also stirred a handful of chocolate chips into the second layer of batter because I didn't use the pecans called for in the original recipe. Because I didn't know if the person I was making the brownies for liked pecans. 


I baked the whole thing for 25ish minutes. Let cool to room temperature, put it in the refrigerator for a few hours to let everything firm up, then sprinkled the whole thing with powdered sugar.

This past weekend was the 4th of July (duh) so I decided to try my hand at a patriotic cake for a church dinner.

I started by making two red layers, one blue layer, and one white layer.

I cut the red and white layers in half horizontally, and left the blue intact.





Then I cut out 4" circles from the blue, one red layer and one white layer. I stacked them all to create the flag pattern and applied cream cheese frosting (liberally).





Sadly, the people who cut the cake at dinner didn't actually use a knife, just a pie server, so it looks pretty ragged. But I'm still happy with how it turned out. Next time I'll use better food coloring to get brighter colors, and I'd probably make the cakes from scratch instead of using a mix.

Overall, though, a success!

Brunch was a success! I wish I'd taken pictures, but the truth is the food was gone way too fast to take any. I ended up having to make pancakes as well because so many people came.

Since I moved out to SLC, sometimes I feel pretty lonely (even though I have an amazing roommate), and it was so nice to have people come over and have a good time together (even if they were there for the food and not necessarily my fantastic company).

I decided to have friends over for brunch tomorrow, and I am baking up a storm.

On the menu: crumb cake, chive buttermilk biscuits, and apple cheddar tart

Hopefully everything turns out OK. If the smell is any indication, the crumb cake will be awesome.

Now I just have to invite people, or there won't be anyone to help me eat everything!