Farmville Inspired - Strawberry Lemonade!

This weekend I decided to try making strawberry lemonade.

Doesn't it look good? It is! And a good way to get rid of the winter blahs.

I got the recipe from My Baking Addiction, and it's pretty much a keeper! I thought it was a bit too sweet, so next time I may use a bit less sugar.

2/3 cup - 1 cup sugar
1 cup of water
2 cups strawberries
1 cup lemon juice
4-6 cups cold water (I used 4 cups)
ice
1 sliced lemon

Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan. Place over heat until the sugar is dissolved. Let cool.

Place the strawberries in a food processor or blender, with 1/4 cup of water and puree.

Place the sugar syrup, strawberry puree, and lemon juice in a pitcher. Add 4 cups of water, ice and a sliced lemon and stir to combine.

Winter wedding cake

I did a big wedding order this weekend!  100 strawberry champagne cupcakes with a 6 inch top tier.  All of the cupcake wrappers were handmade.

Strawberry Champagne!

Peggy Porschen's Strawberry Champagne recipe from her book Boutique Baking! (I left out the pink because the bride wanted it in a cream color). ;)

Sooo yummy too!

Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes

Angel food cupcakes with strawberry buttercream and lemon curd filling! A perfect end-of-summer dessert!

Strawberry Rhubarb Pies!

This was my first time making strawberry rhubarb pie. Also my first time making latticed pies. Fun stuff.
Pies are my weakness. If I could wish for 1 food to eat all the time and not gain weight, it would be pies. <3

Berry muffins!

These fruit muffins are made from leftover pulp from a juicer! It's an awesome way to use all that stuff that's leftover after making juice, and it's all fiber and they taste awesome! Recipe is below...

Berry muffins

1 cup of pulp (any fruits you want) and 2 bananas (or use 3 cups of pulp).
1 cup of vegetable oil
3 eggs
1/2 cup of honey
1/2 cup of brown sugar
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup wheat germ
1 tbsp baking soda
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup of fresh berries.

Mix pulp and bananas, then add oil, eggs and honey. Mix dry ingredients together and add to wet ingredients. Stir in fresh berries. Bake for 23-25 minutes at 350 degrees.

Not So Petit Fours

I made these square cakes using the leftover strawberry mix and buttercream from the last set of cupcakes. Topped them with fondant and some fancy designs made with some leftover chocolate ganache. It's fun to see what you can do with leftovers!

Strawberry social...

I love when the local market is open in the summer! It's right down the road from us so I can walk there whenever I want and get fresh fruit and vegetables! The other day I went, and everyone had big baskets full of strawberries for only $5. So I froze some and then used them to make strawberry mini cupcakes, with strawberry buttercream!

I got the recipe from the Fake Ginger blog, which was (as usual) passed on from another blog before it. It calls for using cake flour, but since I didn't have any on hand, I used a bit less all-purpose flour and put in a tablespoon of corn starch. Turned out wonderuflly!