baking

Because “Dadsicles” doesn’t sound right…

wittychild

…although it does sound just a bit cannibalistic, doesn’t it? (And yet: “Steak Diane” doesn’t bother me in the slightest.)

All right: long-time readers know the drill. No matter how many new and exciting recipes I try – which admittedly hasn’t been very many in recent years – I keep returning to the tried-and-true ones because those are the ones that everyone seems to like the most. This is how, for Father’s Day, I wound up baking dark chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. It’s a classic for a reason.

While cruising Pinterest one morning shortly before baking, I saw a fun decorating idea that shouldn’t have been too difficult to replicate. (Ironic foreshadowing alert!) The creator used Mike and Ike candies skewered on toothpicks that had been cut to size to create mini popsicles. Summery and fun, sure, but also, pop-sicles? How dad-joke appropriate!

While my cupcakes were baking, I grabbed my candies and a couple of toothpicks to experiment with length. Cutting the toothpicks right in half made them too long, and wildly disproportionate. On my second attempt, I managed to get the right length on one (unequal) half of my toothpick, and, satisfied, lined up the pointy ends to trim the other (unequal) half to match…

…and sliced those kitchen scissors right into the knuckle of my left index finger. This thing immediately bled like a stuck pig and required a hasty retreat to the bathroom to wash it out and bandage it. Nearly four weeks later, I still have a mark. Sheesh.

Efficient use of toothpicks be darned, I eventually shoved a single pick into each candy, and my backup baking buddy trimmed them to size once they were already in. I’m delighted to report that mine was the only injury suffered in this whole process.

I added a few multicoloured sprinkles to keep the rest of the top from looking too stark.

For all the blood, sweat, and tears that went into making these, they turned out exactly as planned, and were a hit with the man of the hour.

Thanks for looking! 🙂

baking

Names can be deceiving

wittychild

After getting in touch with my inner domestic goddess to make a triple-chocolate hazelnut pie for Mother’s Day last year, the gauntlet had been thrown down. How was I going to top that? I wanted a dessert that was ~fancier~ than I might normally bake “just because”, but ideally not too involved. I don’t ask for much.

I happened upon a recipe for raspberry and chocolate dessert lasagna, and although I was A-OK with the first few words, the last one weirded me out a bit. Was I expecting it to be savoury or something? Maybe involve layering chocolate sauce in between noodles (which, admittedly, are a pretty neutral base on their own)? Once I read it though, I knew I had found my dessert.

It starts, as so many good things do, with a chocolate crumb base. The recipe called for taking a bunch of Oreos, removing the filling, and crumbling the cookies. I opted for…wait for it…chocolate baking crumbs from the store, because really. The recipe also recommended mixing the desecrated Oreos with melted butter before patting it into the pan and freezing it to set; I mixed my wholesome crumbs with the butter and then baked it at 350 for ten minutes. Yes, it’s supposed to be a no-bake recipe, but that bit of heat really makes a difference in the crust.

Once that had a chance to cool down, it was time for the pudding layer. This was hardly rocket science: it employed one of my favourite tricks, preparing a box of instant pudding with half the milk normally called for. I’ve done that as a cupcake filling before, and it works really well!

Next came the mousse (or “mousse”, if you’re a purist, which I may not be). A brick of cream cheese is blended thoroughly with some sugar, milk, and vanilla; to this, a half-cup of raspberries is added and the whole thing is blended some more to break down the berries. Then, one cup of thawed frozen whipped topping (how Cool!) is gently folded in. This might not be traditional mousse, but it’s light and tasty and wouldn’t be out of its element simply spooned into dessert cups as a standalone.

Finally, the rest of the thawed frozen whipped topping gets spread on top. I had some raspberries left over, so I used them for garnish and to provide a visual guide for cutting later on.

I set the whole shebang in the fridge to chill for at least four hours, and it cut like a dream!

The pretty pink filling and double hit of chocolate would make this a great Valentine’s Day dessert, too – but it was a big hit for Mother’s Day. It’s not too rich, but is the perfect light finish to a meal. And definitely way tastier than anything with the name “dessert lasagna” should be.

Thanks for looking! 🙂

baking

For those who like their mornings hot and spicy

wittychild

Back in what was autumn according to the calendar but undeniably the holiday season (to be fair, this encompasses almost 3/4 of December), I was idly flipping through my mother’s issue of Woman’s Day magazine when I hit a pocket of holiday gingerbread recipes. My first question to myself is always “Can I see myself making that?”, and the answer is usually “Nope.” It saves a lot of time and angst, truly.

When I flipped the page to see a pan of gingerbread rolls staring back at me, something snapped. What a fine thing that would be, to create a warmly-spiced, yeasty breakfast from scratch! I could just about hear the songbirds tweetling (muffled somewhat by their chattering beaks; this may have been a fantasy, but it was still almost-winter) and see my pretty dress flare out around my legs as I spun from the oven to the counter.

And then I remembered that the birds had all flown south, that it was too cold for dresses (also, they’re impractical), and that there was no way this was going to happen before Christmas.

I did, however, have a few days off before New Year’s, and so the great culinary experiment of 2025 came to pass. The behemoth that is Hearst Publications has thoughtfully not provided the recipe on their website for me to link to; suffice it to say it proceeded much like regular cinnamon rolls would, but with a few extra additions.

You start with your dry ingredients…

Note the addition of ginger and a little bit of ground cloves to the mix. Also, this might have been my first time not proofing my yeast beforehand, and the whole thing stressed me out.

Next up: wet ingredients. Butter in milk, essentially.

Combine the two and work until your dough is suitably elastic. I added some molasses into the dough mixture to help amp up the whole gingerbread experience.

Get your filling ingredients together…

…again with the ginger and ground cloves to help out the cinnamon and brown sugar.

Then quick-quick-quick, stretch your dough out into a rectangle, coat it with butter and your filling, then roll that puppy up.

I cut mine into nine pieces because I was using a 20 cm pan, but probably would have done twelve slices for a larger pan.

And then…I covered the pan with plastic wrap and stuck it in the fridge overnight. The next morning I pulled it out and let them rise a bit in a very low oven before taking them out to preheat it for baking.

They got a cream cheese icing…

…and a molasses drizzle to finish.

Should I have let them cool a bit more before spreading the icing on? Probably. But also, everyone was beyond hungry at that point and bordering on hangry territory.

They had more kick to them, spice-wise, than I had anticipated, so I was grateful for the cream cheese to temper that a bit. Overall they were…OK. Not inedible or unpleasant, but a good reminder of why I’m happy just getting up and grabbing breakfast rather than making a whole production out of it. But the house smelled wonderful, and that’s something you just don’t get with toast.

Thanks for looking! 🙂

craftmas, Cross-stitch and Embroidery

On the fifth day of Craftmas…

wittychild

…my true love gave to me: five gold rings.

The song that inspired this series of posts (“The Twelve Days of Christmas”, not that you probably needed me to tell you that) has an awful lot of birds in it. That realization first hit me a few years ago, and I mused that if that was my true love’s idea of a super Christmas gift (or gifts), it might not be true love after all. The partridge in the pear tree? Yum, fruit. Two turtle doves? A symbol of love, so…OK. Three French hens? Ooh la la, mais…pourquoi? And calling birds sound like a disturber of sleep and not much else. Despite that, I love Satsuma Street’s whimsical take on them each year, but I’ll admit that although I’m not one for jewelry, I was looking forward to the five gold rings as a break from all the birds.

Well.

When the 2024 ornament designs were released, I couldn’t figure out why there was another bird. According to their website: Did you know the Five Gold Rings is actually about ring necked pheasants?

Reader, I did not.

Despite my initial eye-rolling and sighing, I wasn’t about to stop the set halfway through. And…I like it. The design, not birds especially. The colours are lovely, and the gold beads really add something.

I’ve got it hanging with the others, and now just have to work my way through geese and swans before I finish my avian tour.

Thank you for looking – Merry Christmas! 🙂

craftmas, Other Crafts

On the fourth day of Craftmas…

wittychild

…my true love gave to me, three stockings hanging.

(OK, I might be a stocking short, here…)

For the past several years, Lettuce Craft has hosted a Christmas card swap. As swaps go, it’s super low-key: you can choose how many people you want to exchange cards with, and then get your cards made before you sign up. Once sign-ups close, boom, you’re ready to send (and receive!). Who doesn’t like getting mail, especially when it’s a handmade card?

This year, I sent the tri-fold stockings card from the Merry and Bright kit on SVGCuts. They fit perfectly in your standard 18.5 cm x 13.5 cm envelope – that’s 7″ x 5″ for those who don’t speak metric – and were a fun way to mix and match patterns.

I stamped a festive message inside, and they were ready to go.

And just for fun, I did a variation with a green background:

Thanks for looking! 🙂

craftmas, General Sewing

On the third day of Craftmas…

wittychild

…my true love gave to me, a stocking just for my kitty!

When my Baking Buddy became a cat dad earlier this year, I knew I wanted to do something special for kitty’s first Christmas. (Yes, he already has an ornament like that.) He’s always made sure that my furkids have something for the humans and their opposable thumbs to unwrap on their behalf at Christmas, and I wanted his new addition to have the same.

I found a fun paw-shaped stocking pattern (in three different sizes!), and also some fabric on Spoonflower that looks a lot like the cat in question.

Funny story…you’d think that having three stocking sizes to choose from would be enough, but you would be wrong. The regular-sized one sounded human-sized, and the mini felt too small. And don’t get me started on the jumbo! Now I understand Goldilocks’ struggle. In the end I used the pattern for the regular-sized stocking but resized the PDF to 3/4 its original size to strike a balance.

I also left off the foot pads and toe beans. I know! Toe beans! If I had been using a solid colour for the body of the stocking I would 100% have included them (because…toe beans!), but I didn’t want to cover up the fun pattern with them. Besides, human stockings don’t include toenails…right? Help me out here.

My favourite part – or maybe second-favourite, after the orange cat fabric – is the lining. I found a couple of scrap pieces of green cuddle satin in my stash, left over from a pair of pajama pants, that were just the right size and matched the darker green on the outer fabric admirably. It gives the stocking such a luxe feeling!

I filled it up with all kinds of toys and goodies, including a gift card to the pet store for future treat purchases…and am starting to think there might have been something to the regular size after all. Right now it’s hanging at kitty’s new abode, where she’s patiently waiting until Christmas morning.

Thanks for looking! 🙂

craftmas, Cross-stitch and Embroidery

On the second day of Craftmas…

wittychild

…my true love gave to me: two doves of indeterminate species.

If swapping (see my previous post) lets me make things I would never normally make and didn’t even know I wanted to make, then this is pretty much the polar opposite. As soon as I saw Satsuma Street’s “Holiday Glow” design on their social media, I knew I had to stitch it. At the time, it was an exclusive to the Jingle Ball, which meant I was out of luck. But patience is a virtue, and about a year later it appeared on their website, and with a discount code to boot.

There are a few things that stitchers love to complain about. Backstitch and French knots come to mind (the tedium!…although secretly, I kind of like French knots, and there’s no denying the definition provided by backstitch), but black or navy Aida cloth is a strong contender. No problem, I thought, this uses red Aida.

It turns out that even a relatively bright red Aida cloth can be a bit of a nightmare to stitch on and see the holes properly. Once I had a few stitches in place it was a little bit easier, but there was a lot of stitching by feel involved. And the metallics! I originally started out using DMC diamant for the gold and silver but switched to Petite Treasure Braid by Rainbow Gallery, and this may have been the single best decision I made all year.

(Note: I’m not sponsored by Rainbow Gallery; I just really, really love their Petite Treasure Braid. They’ll completely change your view of metallic threads.)

For all my moaning and apparent sudden-onset red blindness, the finished product was 100% worth it.

I found a 9″ x 7″ flexible hoop in a pale red at my local needlework shop and bought it on a whim. It’s not a perfect match to the fabric, but the colour works well with the thread shades and it doesn’t overwhelm the design.

My favourite part to stitch was the rays around the candle flames. Who knew a few straight stitches in gold and silver would add the perfect finishing touch?

Thanks for looking! 🙂

craftmas, Cross-stitch and Embroidery, Other Crafts

On the first day of Craftmas…

wittychild

…my true love gave to me: a peacock but no pear tree!

While I don’t swap as much as I used to, it was impossible to resist the siren call of the Santa Sack Swap on Lettuce Craft this year. One of the things I love about swapping – besides the whole sending and receiving mail factor, because of course – is that it often lets me make something I might not ordinarily make for myself or my immediate circle.

Case in point: a felt peacock.

While browsing my partner’s Pinterest, I saw something similar to this and forgot I had clicked on it until Etsy innocently suggested this pattern from Elliott’s Playground. Clearly the digital takeover is well on its way. It checked all the boxes for me, so I downloaded and printed, and started combing through my far-too-large collection of felt.

I’m quite happy with how he came out! I weighed him down at the front so my partner can set him just about anywhere and have him balance, and he seems to do that just fine. Instead of wrestling with cutting out and then affixing teeny tiny black felt circles for his pupils, I used the pupil piece as a template and satin-stitched his eyes. But I think my favourite part was his crown (fan? The feathers sticking out of his head, in any case). It’s small and sweet, and really finishes him off.

The instructions also included variations for a white version and a Christmas version, so I may have to revisit this pattern for ornaments next year.

Thanks for looking! 🙂

Cross-stitch and Embroidery

So mush fun!

wittychild

When I was gifted a set of four Satsuma Street Halloween ornament kits a few years back, I jumped (ha!) on Hoppy Halloween, and followed it up with Eye Scream and Haunted Hearse. (The latter’s wordplay messes with my brain, and I can’t hear it without thinking, “Ermagerd, hernted [haunted] hearse!”) That left Fun Guy, whose only crime was being a skull. I like my Halloween cutesy, and anything that reminds me of dead bodies – blood and gore, skeletons, zombies – doesn’t do it for me. That old Disney cartoon with the skeletons scared the bejesus out of me as a kid.

And then, out of nowhere*, a Halloween tree appeared in the front room. A Halloween miracle! This was on par with the Great Pumpkin showing up, and I decided that Fun Guy should join his friends on it.

Despite my usual mumblings and grousings about working on black perforated paper, he came along nicely and before long was identifiable as a skull. Then, the mushrooms started filling in, and suddenly he was alive with colour.

If he looked fun (of course) once the stitching was done, the beads and sequins took him right over the edge.

I trimmed him to size, backed him with some black glittery felt, and added a shiny hanging loop.

Isn’t he a great addition?

This is not the first of these ornament kits where I’ve run out of a given colour of floss (white, in this case) and had to raid my stash to finish off the design, but since this was the last of the kits I currently had, I’m not going to get upset about it.

Thanks for looking! 🙂

*She bought it at Michaels. – Ed.

baking, cooking

Do you know the muffin cat?

wittychild

I’m not on social media. The idea of mindlessly scrolling my days away is a bleak one indeed. Do these people not have anything better to do with their time? I do, however, have a Pinterest account, which occasionally shows me TikTok videos, and that’s how I came to learn about, and I quote, “Tiny Tuna Muffins for Cats”. How could I not try making them?

First, I beat one egg:

Then, I drained a can of flaked tuna in water and added it to the egg.

“Mix well”, the video says. No kidding.

To this, I added 1/4 cup each all-purpose flour and shredded cheese.

And then…I mixed well again.

Next, I was instructed to grease a mini muffin tin…

…and add the mixture to the tin. Unlike actual mini muffins or cupcakes, there’s no fear of rising and overflowing, so I filled these pretty much to the top.

Bake at 350°F for 15-20 minutes.

Let cool and serve.

I have thoughts about these. First, use chunk tuna and not flaked; when I drained the tuna I also drained a lot of flakes out because they’re so darned small. My sink smelled like fish, my hands smelled like fish…ugh. Second, consider whether you want this fish goo touching your baking equipment. I bought a small mini muffin tin from the dollar store specifically for this so that I wasn’t at risk of permanently baking a fish smell into my good tins. Third, know your cats and what they like, and be prepared for any reaction anyway. Mine is a cheese fiend, but after taking a couple of nibbles and licking the fishy/cheesy essence from her muffin, completely ignored it.

Was it a cute idea? Sure. Will I be trying them again? Probably not. Maybe staying off social media isn’t so bad after all.

Thanks for looking! 🙂