pumpkin spice donuts

 

Ever since I was little, whenever a big storm was supposed to hit, be it rain or snow, my mom would run to the market to make sure we had enough sugar, flour, and butter while everyone else was stocking up on bread and milk. Baking was our thing during times when the weather was too bad to go outside. To keep the tradition alive, I decided to break in my new donut pans as we waited out Sandy. 

Getting back into blogging has been a little challenging. I had to track down all of my photo gear - none of which I immediately knew the location of. After I located my camera, my tripod, the little attachment piece for the tripod (which I didn't realize was still on the bottom of the camera for about ten minutes), and the battery charger, I got everything all set up to start baking and shooting. And then I turned the camera on only to have it inform me that there was no card. Still have no idea where that ended up. It's nowhere near my card reader so I'm out. So I had to shoot with my little point and shoot. Which is totally good 'nuff, I just got used to all the lovely raw editing options that make night kitchen photos look less crappola. *shrug* I tried. 

This recipe came together really quickly. Even the glazing and sprinkling took no time. I used both regular sized and mini donut pans. I got ten regular sized donuts and twelve minis out of it. A certain boyfriend kept sampling the minis before I even melted the chocolate so I can safely say that these are delicious with or without topping. ;)

I think I'm going to make these for the lunchroom at work one day soon. I think they'd be really well received. :)

Now that I have off a third day for all of this Sandy havoc, maybe I'll try another fall flavor variety later today. Apple cider, perhaps. 

Since these are something you absolutely need in your life, like, now.. check out the recipe after the jump!

Happy happy Halloween!

well hello there

Four months it's been? Jeez I almost feel like it's been longer than that. Basically finishing up my master's is consuming my life a little, but I guess that's to be expected. I'll be done in two short months so if I have to sacrifice some personal things I guess that's okay! I do miss this though. I miss reading blogs, writing blogs, twittering.. the computer just tends to be the last place I want to go at the end of the day after a full day of teaching, some lesson planning, and a reflection paper or two for my university supervisor. I've been writing so many papers lately. Holy crap. Where I have been however, is Pinterest. There are SO many amazing teaching resources on there and I've used tons of them already. It's been pretty awesome trying such amazing ideas out and watching them work beautifully.

Anyway, I write to you today because I have today and tomorrow off for good ol' Sandy. I'm pretty caught up on work and it's been bothering me as of late that this blog has gone to the wayside. Fall is my favorite time of year and all I can do is think about the Halloween crafts and baking I did last year, and wish that I had the time to do more this year. Student teaching has been amazing so far and I think I'm falling into a really good rhythm with it. I want to make a resolution to myself to try to start posting again.. maybe two times a week. Even though that's nothing, it sounds scary huge to me. I want to get back into the swing of bloglife though. I miss it! Also, to my sponsors over there, sorry I crapped out big time on that whole thing. I will most likely be getting rid of that section soon because I clearly don't have the time needed to get it all together. It's gotten stressful and I never wanted blogging to feel that way. So it goes. For now.

So here's to hoping I can wiggle my way back in here and find some time for Tenpenny Splendid once again. Till then..

 

And stay safe if you're on the east coast! Get some hot chocolate, crappy food, a good movie, and hunker down for a few days. :)

june so far

Snapshots from June

Hey, remember that one time when I used to blog? Yea me too. Well I have officially entered my last week of this crazy crazy class and I don't have any presentations left so I am feeling a huge weight off my shoulders. The reason I've been so absent has a lot to do with last Thursday. When I had three presentations due at once. One was the most important part of my grade and was accompanied by what ended up being a 34 page lesson plan (don't ask). Then there was a project I had to do with a partner, and a silly current event thrown in for good measure. Oh and I was the only one who had three presentations due. Just the luck of the draw really. Another girl had two due. The rest only had one. So as much as that sucked, I'm basically done! And I can hardly believe it.

Some interesting things have been happening lately that I'd like to share, cause things, they are a-changin'. Well the first thing has a lot to due with the second thing. The first thing is that I finally (after waiting 5 months) found out where I'll be student teaching in the fall. I'm excited to report that I got into my second choice district (first choice wasn't taking anyone on in the fall) and it's an amazing district! I can't wait to see what the school is like. I'll be in a second grade classroom full time starting in September.

This has got me looking at a TON of teaching resources, and well, blogs. I get all my best info from blogs anyway, so why not? There are actually some really amazing teachers out there with blogs full of great ideas and resources. This brings me to the second thing.. I think once I actually start teaching, I want to make a teacher blog. It's a great place to share ideas and offer downloads of things you've created for your classroom. I'd also love to start talking to other teachers and see what they are doing! I'll hopefully run the two together and keep life-life stuff here, and work-life stuff there. Well, I'm excited about the idea and even though I may not use it soon, I'm dying to start designing it. :)

The third thing I've been looking into recently is Passion Fruit ads. I've considered suspending my ad swappage indefinitely, but I love being able to feature talented bloggers and friends each month. I've just gotten entirely too busy to keep up with it lately, as many bloggers who have joined Passion Fruit have. And with camp and student teaching coming up, I know the load isn't going to lighten anytime soon. So I'm hoping that by July, I will have my ads set up through Passion Fruit so that I can still keep offering free/affordable ad spaces without adding anything extra to my plate!

How has your life been this month? I really need to go catch up on my favorite reads. I'm sooo behind!

yarn juice

This is not spaghetti.

Even though that's what everyone who walked into the kitchen thought. I have some free time before I have to start my next project for class so I thought I'd tick some things off my crafty to-do list. One being kool-aid yarn dying! You may remember this post.

I can't wait to try other colors. I just have to unravel a few more skeins first. For my first project, I'm creating a color palette of the general kitchen decor to make a woven yarn rug. This flavor color is mango. As you can see the water is pretty much clear and all the color is absorbed into the yarn. Fun!

In the shot above you get a good idea of the original color vs. the kool-aid color. I need to pick up a few more packs now that I have a project in mind. I just grabbed these at random at the market one day so I'd have something to start with.

What projects are you tackling these days?

Have a great weekend!!

raspberry dark chocolate scones

I bought two containers of raspberries the other day for the raspberry syrup I made for iced coffee. I ate a bunch by themselves but wanted to use the rest up before they had a chance to go bad. And what better way to use them than to bake them into something! Scones, to be exact. I saw a recipe for these scones as I was browsing through foodgawker and knew I had to try them, especially since I had all the ingredients on hand.

They were pretty amazing. I've never baked with raspberries before and the flavor came through brilliantly. The bitter dark chocolate was the perfect addition to all the sweet. The only thing I noticed since I've made two different scone recipes before this one, was that the dough was extremely sticky compared to other ones. I'm not sure if it was just different ratios of wet to dry ingredients or because the berries add extra moisture, but it was a little harder to work with.

I still wanted to post the recipe though because they were absolutely delicious. So if patting the dough into a disc, cutting it into pieces, and moving those pieces onto a baking sheet isn't going smoothly, you may have to shape the pieces individually once they get there. That's what I did anyway, to make them look pretty.

I definitely recommend whipping these up for breakfast one day if you have extra raspberries and chocolate laying around. I might experiment with adding these two mix-ins into the other scone doughs I've tried to see if it's easier to work with but still tastes just as good. If not, sticky dough it is! :) I'll let you know what I come up with.


Have a great week! Is anyone else secretly enjoying this sudden cool weather? I know it's going to get crazy hot soon so I'm basking in the cool breeze while I can. :)

See link below for recipe!