Monday, August 13, 2012

A Healthier Coffeecake?

I just love coffeecake! When I was young, both of my grandmas would make coffeecakes, but I preferred cake with frosting back then. Now that I'm old, I understand...
This coffeecake has some whole wheat flour along with some oat bran and blueberries:

1 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup oat bran
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder-I like aluminum free, such as Argo brand
1/2 cup sugar
about 1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg
1/2 cup oil
3/4 cup milk-you can use water plus powdered milk
about 2 tsp. vanilla
Blueberries-about 1 cup-I had less than 1 cup today (also good with cut up strawberries)

Mix dry ingredients well. Make a well in the center and add egg, milk, oil, vanilla. With a fork, beat the egg with the wet ingredients. Then, gently but thoroughly, mix all together. I poured a little more than half in to a greased 10 inch pie plate, sprinkled my blueberries on top and topped that with the remaining cake batter. You could just fold the blueberries into the batter, or you could top off the batter with the blueberries.

Bake at 375 degrees F. Check after 20 minutes. Toothpick inserted in center should come clean. Edges will be golden brown. I usually sprinkle a cinnamon sugar mixture on top before baking, but did not do that this time. It looks better with the cinnamon sugar!  You can sprinkle powdered sugar on top just before serving.

I have made this with diced fresh strawberries. It reminded me of that strawberry quick bread recipe from years ago.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Stampfest-Altered Books

Lynette and I began a new stamping project today...Altering books. We found lots of inspiration on Pinterest boards showing altered books and art journals! It was therapeutic (relaxing) to play with the papers, inks and stamps,and also to work on these together!
These 2 "layouts are Lynette's creations:
..and these two "layouts" are mine:

Distress Inks by Tim Holtz
Stamps by Peny Black, Rubber Stampede, Studio K/Inkadinkado, Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous, and unknown stamps from Lynette's stash.
Perfect Paper Adhesive
Liquitex Basics Acrylic Gesso (used on cover-not shown in photos)


Sunday, August 5, 2012

Family Photos On My Wall

My daughter helped me re-arrange the photos on the wall in the living room. I plan to add more photos as time goes on. The above arrangement is a HUGE improvement from the previous arrangement.