Award winning Banana nut bread!!!

So I just got into my very first baking competition and as excited as I was I didnt have real high hopes since I was going up some other great bakers themselves who have been doing this as long as I've been alive!

Beside the fact that I was the rookie for this competition I ended up bring home 1st Prize!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Theme: Banana Nut Bread

Rules: Must have bananas in it as little or as much as you want

and it must have some type of nuts in it 

And here was my entry........................................................................

As you see I didnt do as much of a classic Banana nut bread 

for first off I used pecans instead of walnuts

and then I added a caramel glaze

Felt Frenzy

So I have a confession I have been cheating on baking and cooking with crafting lately and I would say Ive had a bit of a felt frenzy. If you have ever seen felt food Im absoloutly in love with it!!!! Now I know actually zip about sewing and stitches and embroidering and all but I plan to learn more as I go.

I know as of right now my skills lack major but heres my first 2 items I have made with felt.......

This is my first felt food its an Apple pie stuffed toy!!!!

Below is something I worked on for my Iphone its a cover/pouch I have so many more 

Ideas and themes that I want to run with on more Iphone pouches.

On the front is an Octopus I named Milton and on the back I stitched some bubbles.

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Icosium Kafe

Hello Foodies!

Okay so I have decided Im going to start posting restaurant reviews and basically be a little mini food critic and write about all the places I go and try and share with you my experience at each one.

Now I live right in the city of Chicago so I def have over a million places to go and try but It wont stop only within Illinois I travel all the time and I love doing so and wherever I go I love finding 

cute cafes or dinners even sit down restaurants.  Im super excited to start sharing with you.

First one up...

Icosium Kafe

5200 N. Clark, Chicago, Illinois 

Price: $ (avg. Crepe was about $8)

Rating: 4 stars (great for Brunch or Dessert )

On the corner of Foster and Clark in a cute little Swedish neighborhood I found Icosium Kafe

I heard about this threw one of my friends, her boyfriends uncle had been here and he said the crepes were to absolutely to die for. So there was only one thing that I knew was to be done and that was 

to go on a Crepe date with my friend Noelle to go try out these Crepes.

Now I looked up some reviews on this place and I couldn't find much but a lot of talk about this tea called Algerian Mint Tea with Honey.

This was our trip....

                      

Okay so this one was called Crepe D'Amour

and I having french heritage run threw my veins know that in translation

it means Love...Let me tell you something It wasn't lying 

OMG was this delicious  the crepe was so soft and light and airy and on the inside it was filled with 

raspberries and nutella(you had the choice of nutella or Belgian chocolate)

So yummy I am so glad Danielle lives 2 miles away from this place!!!!!!!!!!!!!

            

Okay and this one was the Crepe Banana Foster and Clark

(get it its located on foster and clark) 

haha

Well although this was my friend Noelles we did share and exchange a piece of each

with each other and this one was just as good see all that syrup

thats no syrup that is pure butter and brown sugar YUMMY

It was filled with bananas strawberries and toasted almonds

I believe it had more but I know those 3 are for sure.

This was smothered in butter and topped with cream 

haha

I almost asked if Paula Deen was back there making this so yummy.

This would be the famous tea I kept hearing about and let me say I dont drink warm tea that often I like chai tea the best out of all warm teas but OMG the people were right this Tea was so good.

It also cam in the cutest tea pot and mini little shot like tea cups 

mMmMm good was it ever!!!!

All in all

This was a wonderful discovery and I loved the theme of the place with all the Moroccan decor.

As for the Crepes Im pretty sure there is no such thing as a bad crepe here

and If you do go to this place PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE order the Algerian Mint Tea with Honey.

Dreaming of strawberries

Strawberry Dreams

Been thinking up a lot of new recipes and heres on of the many 

these are what I call Strawberry dreams.

Light sugar cookies with white chocolate chips and strawberry chunks.

and then I had the idea to dip them into a ganache.

aka Chocolate covered Stawberry Dreams.

Your the bomb...Elvis Bombs.

This may be a record of the most often I've been blogging!!!!!

So the picture above was created in inspiration of Alton Brown who always knows how to rock the in oven camera, pictured is myself and my best friend/sister/baking assistant Danielle.

She was up home from college this weekend and we had no time for some retail therapy while we were to busy baking our brain out!! 

We had so many orders that it got to the point where if it keeps up like this we are going to start catering and charging!!! Which gave me the idea to create an etsy account possibly for Loyola college students that can order specific custom baked goods or choose from our most popular item chocolate chips and the "sugar clouds" aka Cest L'amours... between chips cookies and pastries we made everything this night!!!

First thing we made was a recipe that I wrote up and created 

with an inspiration from the king of rock and roll himself Elvis

Fact: Elvis favorite sandwich was a peanut butter banana sammie 

well heres what I call Elvis Bombs

and they were soo sooo sooo yummy just as they look =]

Want a recipe for these let me know glad to share the love <3

Created by Tiffany MacDonald and Danielle Fenn

<3

A Sunday Sweet!

Alright enough of this cookie crap, don't get me wrong I love making cookies and all but I feel like its all I have been making lately so to do something different I did a Donut Muffin and what a success it was very please with these results :)

A Sweet 16

We celebrated my brothers sweet sixteen last weekend and what a SWEET sixteen it was we stopped by Marianos bakery for a small 5" cake (sweeter part of this was it was $5) Well we got a chocolate on chocolate cake and OH MY GOODNESS!!!!! This cake is THE BEST CHOCOLATE CAKE EVER! that I have tasted anyways. The ganache was like a pure fudge Yummy! The cake was super moist and light and not overly rich especially with that ganache topping to rich of a cake would had been to much.            

HAPPY 16TH BIRTHDAY SEAN!!!