Fratelli Bakery

Sometimes I wish I were a size 0. Or I'd even take like a size 3-4.

But then I remember I'm 5'7. And that I come from a long lineage of Amazonian type women.
Who eat size 0's for breakfast.

I also remember, when gazing wishfully at lovely petite clothing that-
I love carbohydrates. And sugar. And butter.

Seriously, have you ever had real butter slathered on a warm piece of bread?

Enter Fratelli Bakery. About a year ago my beau brought me home eclairs from this bakery. Don't get me wrong, I like an eclair now and again but they really aren't my thing so the bakery at the time was not memorable for me.
So last night he proudly brings home this box of treats for me.


And I open it.


Cheesecake heaven.


This cake. I will have dreams about this cake forever. It has a wonderful amaretto flavor with a pinch of pistachio. It is so light and fluffy, the texture is divine.



And the finale. Nanaimo Bars from heaven.


Hello, lover.

I feel a bit bad as this Nanaimo bar was my beau's. And when he arrives home tonight it likely will not still be around to greet him.

Here's the bakery's website. If you live locally (Vancouver, B.C.) - go check them out.
http://fratellibakery.com/
The beau brought home 6 of these treats, 2 of each the Pistachio cake, Nanaimo bars and of course the Cheesecake heaven wee cakes and the total for everything was 15$. I'm a gal that loves amazing treats on the cheap.

Loves,
Amber

Brown Sugar

I love brown sugar.
The qualities I love about brown sugar are (in no particular order):
Color, it's such a lovely color.
Consistency
Sweetness
Depth of flavor - go ahead try it in your tea or coffee instead of white sugar, you will love it.
The way it tastes in a good cookie recipe. So decadent.
Versatility, sweet, savory, brown sugar always brings the flavor.
Oh, I could go on.

My love of brown sugar inspired this soap:

I am madly in love with this soap. I'm debating leaving all of my Tea inspired soaps, and running away with this one. Instead of using a traditional soap mold I cleaned an empty cream container and used it instead. I love the way the bottom of the container made the soap look, such a lovely imprint.



The Brown Sugar Goat's Milk Bar.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/67314756/the-brown-sugar-goats-milk-bar
Divine!

Amber

Get Excited and Make Things!

My name is Amber, and I am a constant crafter.
I attend monthly Card Making Classes that feed my scrap booking addiction. I sew, I embroider, I work with felt.. oh it goes on. I can never really sit still for that long, I feel like I'm always working on something new.

Lately my new obsession is working with M&P Soap. I've gone so far as to open an Etsy shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/milkandhoneysoaps (forgive me for not embedding a link I still have no idea how to do that). I've been enjoying working on this endeavor so much so I thought I would share with you some of my creations. I'm also going to put in a widget with my Etsy shop because I figure I may aswell shamelessly promote as much as possible.

So this is brand new today to the shop:

Goat's Milk and Honey Soap Sampler


The Cranberry Plum Bar


The Coffee Bar


So that's a little bit of what I've been up to!

Also here's an awesome download to print out the Get excited and Make Things Poster:
http://www.leblahg.com/2009/04/get-excited-and-make-things.html

Amber

The Space Where you Create

Happy Monday!
I was reading a great post in the Forums on Etsy yesterday where a few people posted their work spaces. All of them were so beautiful I immediately felt a little self conscious of mine. We are still renting a creaky old 2 bedroom duplex and don't have a lot of space to be creative. We share an office (the only other bedroom in the house) where we each have a desk on opposite sides of the wall where we both create. Some of my fondest memories in this house are those days in the evening where we both take cups of tea and back to back sit at our desks and create.

Once I have a bigger home I dream of my creative space being something a little different but this is my space right now, it is where I for the most part create.










The desk and white storage unit are both from Ikea as is the filing rack that sits on top of the white storage unit. The chair is from a thrift store that I purchased years ago for 10$. I love having the filing rack as it does double duty as a filing system for us as well as it holds my shipping materials for my Etsy shop (http://www.etsy.com/shop/milkandhoneysoaps). You can see more shipping materials in between the desk and the storage unit as well. When you have a small place you have to be creative about storage!

Well that's it, the place where I create.
Lots of love<3

Snow Pug

No words required.

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

A long overdue blog entry. Yes I still blog!

A big part of summer to me is canning. This is my fourth year canning and every year I can feel my confidence growing. I am a testament to anyone who says they can't can (I'm such a nerd) as I am self taught/I read a bunch of books until I just tried it one day. I've had some horrible results (my best buddy will remember the year when I did raspberry jam so thick that you had to melt it down into a saucepan to use...) and I've had some great successes. Getting to know different methods such as the long boil (no pectin needed) and traditional pectin has been very interesting to me. Today I used liquid pectin for the first time with wonderful results. I decided to make this recipe off of Tasty Kitchen:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/canning/strawberry-rhubarb-jam/
I was at a local farmers market this past weekend and couldn't pass up a basket of wonderful local strawberries as well as a bundle of fresh rhubarb (seriously where else but a farm market can you find rhubarb anymore..)


This year our strawberry season locally was hit hard by the spell of cold weather then sudden shock of all the heat we've been having. Nature has a funny way of ensuring that some seasons you will be paying extra for local strawberries. Honestly though I have canned and made jam out of imported fruits and it just isn't the same. If you can buy local. Canning isn't always economical, you will find however that after a few years you will be reusing glass jars which always delights me because I am a frugal lady. Over all though canning, like most hobbies costs money. You are making a product for those you love (or perhaps even to resell) so buy the best you can find. I really liked this recipe and really liked using liquid pectin.


So much so that I would consider using the liquid stuff in place of boxed pectin. I have 10 lbs of local blueberries nestled in the freezer which will be providing me with oodles of jams and pancake sauces, perhaps if I stop being lazy I will blog about that endeavor.


This was my result after doubling the recipe. Please note that you can't double a recipe in the pot all at once, the jam wont gel properly. It's best to do one batch at a time to ensure that you get a good gel.


So there's my first day on a staycation. Somewhat productive if I do say so myself!
Happy Summer!

Am

Pickled Peppers

Happy June! I'm going to be posting some canning recipes over the next week or so chronicling my ventures with pickling. Today I used a very basic recipe canning peppers. I used red, green, orange and yellow locally grown peppers. I really wanted to achieve a great spicy condiment to adorn hotdogs and burgers this summer. I think I achieved the look I wanted, however I'll have to wait a few weeks before I know if I got the taste, these babies have to pickle still!


Here's the recipe:

3 of each red, green, yellow and orange bell peppers sliced into strips
about 5 jalapeno peppers chopped coarsely
1 clove of garlic for each jar (I used 10 cloves)
6 c vinegar
2 c water

This yielded me 8 2c canning jars

Heat up hot water bath canner, bring to a boil. Sterilize jars. Bring water and vinegar to a boil. Pack peppers and jalapenos tightly into jars and top each jar with a garlic clove. Ladle in vinegar. Process in hot water bath canner for 15 minutes. That's it, very easy.

Lotsa love,
Am