Mmm...Cupcakes

I have a confession to make. I'm a blog stalker. Sort of. I've been reading this blog for quite a while. I found it through a link on my sister-in-law's blog and fell in love. All the color and all the super-fun things she does with her kids...it's pretty addicting. We've been in the Wichita area for the entire summer so I kind of feel like I should run into her or someone from her family at any time. It would probably be pretty awkward since of course she wouldn't have a clue who I am but I kind of hope I do get to meet her sometime.
While in the Wichita area, I decided to take her suggestion and tried out Sugar Sisters. It's a super cute bakery that specializes in cupcakes but has just about anything else you can imagine as well (like some very interesting coffee-drink concoctions that involve brown sugar...yum). Even though, it was much too early in the morning to try something with this much sugar, I went for the chocolate peanut butter cupcake. It...was...dreamy. The cupcake was moist and delicious. But it was the frosting that really sold it for me. I have difficulty even describing how good it was...peanut buttery but not overwhelming, creamy, magical. If you live in the Wichita area, you have to go try this place out. If not, you can stare at the picture and dream.

Strawberry Jam

Long ago, in college, one of my professors gave us the assignment to write a list of 100 things we would like to do before we die...a bucket list of sorts (although this is before the movie came out). I remember loving the assignment and coming up with all of those things. While I don't remember everything I wrote down...or even most...I do remember that learning to make jam was on the list. My grandma cans the best homemade jam and I always thought that would be a fun tradition to carry on. My favorite variety is her elderberry jam (my husband ADORES her peach) and since I have not a clue where to find elderberries we decided to use my mom's homegrown strawberries to start with. Let the adventure begin!
My mom washing and dehulling a whole lot of strawberries. This was definitely the most tedious part of the process and she did the lion's share. For that I say, "Thank you."

The strawberries, sugar, and pectin warming and preparing to boil. For this first batch we used the cooked strawberry jam recipe that came with the Sure-Jell. Boy it smelled good!

Unfortunately, it boiled over. The mixture grew so quickly once it started boiling that we weren't able to complete the full minute cooking time the recipe called for.

It also foamed up quite a bit but since we were trying to keep this allergen-free for my son, we didn't add the butter/margarine that is supposed to take care of that problem. We just tried to scoop the foam off and avoid what we couldn't skim.

We also were working without a canner so we tried my mom's canning technique. It involves filling the jar and putting the lid on very tight. Then you immediately flip the jar upside down and allow it to set for a few minutes. After those few minutes, you flip the jar right-side up and hope that you eventually hear the popping sound of it sealing. It can take a while for some of the jars, even a hour or more, as you wait for the contents to cool. Luckily nearly every jar sealed this way for us. Our back-up plan was to use paraffin wax to seal the jam.

The final product: the jam tasted good but our first batch didn't set up. For our second batch we tried the cooked strawberry jelly recipe instead (even though you aren't supposed to have whole fruit in jelly) which worked much better and set up quite nicely. Set or not set, it tastes great (and if we don't decide to recook the first batch will work really well as an ice cream topper)!