Chinook Book

Inspired by two lovely friends, Amber and Wendy, we decided to purchase a Portland Chinook Book. It's basically an Entertainment book, but designed more for local businesses. It sounded really great, but I still had a fear that it wouldn't be worth the money, so... I thought I would see just how much money it would save us. If any. Here is the first day of Chinook Book savings.

A **FREE** French Baguette from New Seasons? Why yes, thank you!

What? A **FREE** Sausage link of any flavor? We will take the Hot and Spicy please! Tonight's meal... sausage and veggie shish-kabobs. After leaving New Season's, we headed to our normal grocery store to pick up some other items for the week, and used a $10 off coupon. After the first day, the book has almost paid for itself!

Total Chinook Book savings day 1 = $14.85.

Cadbury Cream Egg Cupcakes

So, I woke up randomly in the middle of the night with a brilliant idea. Why not make a cupcake that is made from Cadbury Cream Eggs? I thought I was awesome, and decided to see about making this delicious thought a reality. The next morning, I was disappointed to learn that thousands of other people also had this incredible idea... So, after figuring out which recipe to try, I opted to try "Homemade by Holman", and since I am all about giving credit to the right people, here is the blog: http://homeiswheretheholmansare.blogspot.com/2010/04/cadbury-cream-egg-cupcakes.html

Now that you have seen the recipe as well as her professional photos and baking skills... here is my lack thereof version :o)

The annoying process of separating the Cadbury Cream Eggs, and the difficulty of NOT eating one, was more challenging than I thought..

These cupcake papers are awesome. Pastels out. Bright in.

Butter and Cream centers are a good start for the frosting..

Melted Cadbury ganache goes in the center of each Dutch chocolate cupcake.

The finished product, with a mini egg on top. Not as pretty as hers, but delicious none the less. I ran into a few problems, like the ganache soaking into the cake, and the frosting separating a bit. I have an idea to make this cupcake even better, and the nice thing about it, is it will be an original recipe. I'll give it a try for Easter :)