Lac St-Louis on a cool Winter Day

Looks colder than it was - but it was sure icy!


The look of the shore is so different from season to season!


Just love to walk on the bike path and look out at the water! (right now it's a ski path!)

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Made these cupcakes for Christmas. They were moist and so delicious!


The cream cheese frosting is to die for!


Made about 20 big cupcakes - would make 24 a bit smaller cupcakes


These red-velvet-cupcakes are from Martha Stewart, of course! :)

Red Velvet Cupcakes
(Martha Stewart)
2 1/2 cups cake flour (not self- rising), sifted (didn't sift)
2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar (used 1 1/4 cups)
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil (used Canola oil)
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon red gel-paste food color
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk (used low-fat milk with lemon juice)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together cake flour, cocoa, and salt.

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, whisk together sugar and oil until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Mix in food color and vanilla.

Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and whisking well after each. Stir together the baking soda and vinegar in a small bowl (it will foam); add mixture to the batter, and mix on medium speed 10 seconds.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

To finish, use a small offset spatula to spread cupcakes with frosting. Refrigerate up to 3 days in airtight containers; bring to room temperature before serving.





Cream Cheese Frosting

8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature (used low-fat)
1 pound (4 cups) confectioners' sugar, sifted
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Beat butter and cream cheese with a mixer on medium-high speed until fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add sugar, 1 cup at a time, and then vanilla; mix until smooth. Frosting can be refrigerated for up to 3 days; before using, bring to room temperature, and beat until smooth.

Blue Haired Santa Claus

Christmas eve - first time meeting a blue haired Santa Claus. I can understand why my youngest nephew was scared!!!

Tiny and Cute Cupcakes

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We did! Spend both Christmas eve and Christmas day with family, good food and lots of love and laughs!





I was in charge of bringing dessert at my sister's Friday night - and when I saw these - I knew my niece and nephews would love them!! colorful-cupcake-poppers.  My fave part of these were the icing in between - DELICIOUS!!



Cupcakes

1 box Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® white cake mix
Water, vegetable oil and egg whites called for on cake mix box
1/4 teaspoon each gel or liquid food colors (neon pink, neon purple, neon orange, neon green, classic blue)

Frosting
1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
Gel or liquid food colors (neon pink, neon purple, neon orange, neon green, classic blue) (didn't tint the frosting)

Directions

Heat oven to 350°F. Spray 60 mini muffin cups. Make cake batter as directed on box. Divide batter among 5 small bowls, about 3/4 cup each. Make 5 different colors of batter by adding 1/4 teaspoon food color to each bowl; blend well.
 
Fill each muffin cup with 1 level measuring tablespoon batter, making 12 cupcakes of each color.
 
Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes; remove from pan. Cool completely, about 10 minutes.

In large bowl, beat marshmallow creme and butter with electric mixer on medium speed until blended. Beat in powdered sugar until fluffy. Divide frosting among 5 small bowls, about 1/3 cup each. Using the same 5 food colors, lightly tint frosting in each bowl to match the cupcake colors.
 
Assemble each popper using 2 mini cupcakes. Cut tops off each cupcake horizontally (save bottoms for another use - I used the bottom parts too!). Spread or pipe about 1 tablespoon frosting on cut side of 1 cupcake top. Form a sandwich by placing cut side of second cupcake top on frosting; press lightly. Repeat with remaining cupcake tops. Store loosely covered.

Christmas Tree

I didn't make a Christmas tree at home - but we've got one in the lobby of our office!  It's huge and so beautiful!





My favorite part are the teddy bears - so cute!

Holiday Fudge

Of course Christmas = baking season!! So all weekend last weekend, I baked and baked and baked! 

Made fudge - so easy, wonder why I didn't make any sooner!


Made little care packages that I brought for my friendly coworkers today.


Made few changes to this recipe - added some candy canes to one batch and some fleur de sel in the other batch.


Here's the link:  dessertgirl's fudge

Mt-Tremblant at Night

After Ben's Christmas party a couple of weekends ago - we went for a nice walk in Mont-Tremblant Village. So beautiful at night!

Eggnog Cranberry Muffins

Hope you all had a good weekend! I had a weekend filled with baking! I am so tired right now - wish I could go to bed!!



I am not a big fan of eggnog - rarely buy the stuff - but when I saw it at the supermarket this weekend - had to buy it to try these muffins!


I made Annie's eggnog-cranberry-muffins


They are soooooo good!!



Eggnog Cranberry Muffins



For the muffins:
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
1 cup plus 2 tbsp. granulated sugar, divided
2 large eggs
¾ cup eggnog (used 2% eggnog)
5 1/3 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp. almond extract (added 2 tsp because I love almond!)
1½ cups coarsely chopped cranberries (added 1 cup fresh and 1/2 cup dried cranberries)

For the topping:
½ cup sugar
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, slightly softened
½ cup chopped pecans (optional) (didn't use)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400° F. Line 14-16 muffin cups with paper liners. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt; stir to combine. In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 cup of the sugar, eggs, eggnog, melted butter and almond extract. Stir until well combined. Mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Toss the chopped cranberries with the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar, and fold into the batter. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared muffin liners, filling them about two thirds of the way full.

To make the streusel topping, combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon and butter. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients until a coarse, crumbly mixture forms. Stir in the pecans if using. Sprinkle the mixture evenly on top of the muffin batter.

Bake for about 18-22 minutes, or a until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.

WW - 0 point soup

Finally had a good week at WW!!! Yeah!! Lost 1.6 pounds!!  It helped that I didn't have any Christmas parties to attend!  The big test will be the weeks to follow though! I want to enjoy the holidays but I don't want to go overboard!!



I have been on and off WW for about 4 years and one of the secret to my "success", are the WW 0 point soups.  I just love having a nice veggie soup before my meal.  It fills me up and there are some great ones out there!



My favorite one (and I have tried quite a few!), is this ww-0-point-favorite-vegetable-soup.  I always double this recipe and freeze a few in containers to have on hand when I run out!


0 Point Favorite Vegetable Soup
1 cup diced onion

6 chicken bouillon cubes or 3 -4 teaspoons broth, seasoning mix
6 garlic cloves, minced
6 cups thinly sliced zucchini
2 cups thinly sliced carrots
1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes
3 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon basil leaves
1 teaspoon Italian spices
salt & pepper (to taste)
Tabasco (a few drops to give it a kick!)

In a large nonstick saucepan, combine onion, broth mix and garlic; cook stirring occasionally, until onion is translucent.

Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine; cover and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes.

Add 4 cups water and bring to a boil. reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook until vegetables are soft, about 20 minutes.

Using slotted spoon, remove about 2 cups of vegetables from saucepan and set aside.

In blender, in a few batches, puree remaining soup, return pureed mixture to saucepan, add reserved vegetables and heat.

 

Mt-Tremblant

Ben's Christmas party was in Mont-Tremblant - a couple hours away from Montreal - beautiful place to ski and to visit!

WW - Granola and Birthday

Today is a special day.  It's my big brother's birthday.  Happy birthday Gil!! xoxo


We celebrated last Saturday by going out to a nice restaurant.  One of my gifts was homemade granola.  Even though he has no problem with his weight (lucky guy!!), I decided to make this WW granola again!


Granola is so easy to make - and so much cheaper than buying it in the store!! And so yummy too!


Bought a nice big container - and filled it up with the yummy granola.  Gues my brother enjoyed... he asked me for the recipe!! :)


I had saved the recipe on food.com. Made a few changes - never make it the same way - depending on my mood! 



WW Down To Earth Granola

4 cups old fashioned oats

1/2 cup sliced almonds  (didn't use this time)
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup cooking oil
1/4 cup honey (used maple syrup)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups raisins or 1 1/2 cups dried cranberries (I used dried blueberries this time)

In a bowl, mix oats, almonds, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon. In a sauce pan, warm the oil and honey. Whisk or stir in the vanilla. Carefully pour liquid over the oat mixture. Stir gently with wooden spoon, finish mixing by hand.

Preheat oven to 300°F Spread granola in a 15x10x1? pan. Bake 40 minutes, stirring carefully every 10 minutes.

Transfer granola-filled pan to a cooling rack. Cool completely.

Stir in raisins or dried cranberries. Seal granola in an air-tight container or self sealing plastic bags.

Store at room temperature for 1 week or the freezer for 3 months.