Sherbet Cupcakes

Hello, my name is Mikaela, and I still write and blog...occasionally...every so often...sometimes. Oh dear! How do all you mommy bloggers do it? For five months, I've been thinking about posting a delicious cupcake recipe, but today is the day, my friends! Sarah, my best friend, flew out here over Easter (yes! I said Easter!) for a visit. We got to introduce Liam to her for the first time (definitely the highlight), show her the DC cherry blossoms, spend Easter together, tour a DC art museum, and make cupcakes!

I'm delighted to add another cupcake recipe to my arsenal--especially this one. We knew we wanted to do a bi-flavor fruit cupcake, and it was I who suggested grapefruit, and Sarah who thought of blueberry. We altered a recipe to suit our needs and ended up with an incredible cupcake--my favorite so far, actually!

Here on One Bright Corner, I'm presenting the recipe for the grapefruit flavor, but you'll have to click over to Sarah's blog The Lord's Lass, to get the recipe for the blueberry flavor (her post will be live on Monday)! They are the exact same recipe base, just with the flavor ingredients changed. I'll also show you how to combine both batters into each cupcake to make a beautiful two-tone, two-flavor cupcake, and I've got an incredible icing recipe (It's so fluffy I could die!) that we came up with after altering another recipe.

Please note: Just the grapefruit recipe will make about a dozen cupcakes (and it's brilliant by itself if you don't want the bother of two flavors!), but if you combine it with the blueberry recipe, as it's meant to be, then you'll have 2 dozen cupcakes. The icing recipe is meant to frost two dozen cupcakes, so keep that in mind depending on what you need!

Grapefruit Cupcakes

1 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/3 cup tapioca starch
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil
2 eggs
1/3 cup grapefruit juice (approximately half of one grapefruit)
2 - 3 tablespoons grapefruit zest
4 drops grapefruit essential oil, optional (but really brings out the grapefruit flavor! Make sure it's one safe for ingestion; I use Young Living)
2 - 4 drops red food coloring, optional
1/2 cup 2% milk

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Line a 12 -cup muffin tin with cupcake liners.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the brown rice flour, coconut flour, tapioca starch, baking powder, xanthan gum, and salt. Whisk until well combined, and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat the sugar and coconut oil together with an electric mixer on medium speed. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until a thick, smooth yellow mixture forms.
4. Combine the grapefruit zest, grapefruit juice, and grapefruit essential oil and food coloring (if using) with the milk in a small bowl. (The milk will thicken and "curdle" somewhat--this is normal.) Add half of the milk mixture to the egg mixture, and beat on low speed until just combined. Add half of the flour mixture and beat just until combined. Repeat with the  remaining milk and flour mixtures. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups. If you are making two-toned, two-flavored cupcakes, use a cupcake divider placed in the middle of the muffin
   
   cup, and fill one side with one batter and one side with the other batter. Slide the divider out and repeat with each muffin cup!
5. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the cupcakes spring back when the tops are pressed or until a toothpick tester comes out clean. Remove the cupcakes from the muffin tin and let them cool completely on a wire rack.

Fluffy Grapefruit Icing

Makes 3 Cups
2 large egg whites
1 cup (7 ounces) sugar
1 teaspoon grapefruit zest plus 1/4 cup juice
1 tablespoon corn syrup
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar

1. Combine egg whites, sugar, juice, and corn syrup in bowl of stand mixer and set bowl over medium saucepan filled with 1 inch of barely simmering water (do not let bottom of bowl touch water).
2. Cook, stirring constantly, until sugar is dissolved and mixture registers 160 degrees, 5 to 10 minutes. Remove bowl from heat.
3. Fit stand mixer with whisk and whip egg white mixture on medium speed until soft peaks form, about 5 minutes. Increase speed to medium-high and continue to whip until mixture has cooled to room temperature and stiff peaks form, about 5 minutes longer, adding zest, butter, and powdered sugar during the last minute of whipping.

I hope you enjoy these scrumptious cupcakes (without frosting, we called them muffins and ate them for breakfast)! Do let me know if you decide to make them! Since the time I've made these (and the pictures were taken), Liam has progressed to crawling and now (as of five days ago) walking. He's a big one-year old and the most delightful, cheerful guy you've ever met! Perhaps a Liam update is in order next.

Cupcake Party: Chocolate Edition

Lauren's Double Peanut Butter Chocolate
Sarah's Chocolate Chunk Lava Fudge
Mikaela's Hazelnut Mocha

Cupcake Party: Savory Edition

Lauren's Spinach Feta
Mikaela's Cupcakes & Croutons 
Sarah's Carrot Ginger Coconut Muffins 

Cupcake Party: Flower Edition

Lauren Hearts Lavender Chocolate
Sarah Tastes The World Through Rose-Flavored Cupcakes

Purposeful Easter

I ponder traditions a bit more, now that it's up to Joel and me to make them happen! Easter has so many fun traditions (dyeing Easter eggs, receiving Easter baskets, enjoying church breakfasts, and gathering with family and friends), but I especially cherish the more meaningful moments that point me back to Christ and His resurrection.

{1} Good Friday Service

Growing up, Ron and Sandi (my grandparents in everything but blood relation) always took my siblings and I to a community-wide, midday Good Friday service. This is such a beautiful tradition, because it helps me to slow down and pause on Good Friday. In the midst of busy Easter preparations, it's a time to contemplate the sorrow and suffering my Savior endured on my behalf.

{2} Resurrection Cookies

Find the recipe here, which guides you through making meringue cookies in which each ingredient symbolizes an event in the arrest, crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. 

{3} Resurrection Eggs

I love how easy these eggs make it to focus on Christ's sacrifice for us in the days leading up to Easter Sunday! Each adorable egg has a miniature object inside representing a part of the story. Children love opening the eggs and finding the treasure inside! I saw them at Hobby Lobby this year, but you can also order them online. 

{4} Easter Garden

My Mom makes a lush miniature garden every year, usually incorporating hyacinths and pansies into her recreation of the tomb scene. Easter morning brought the excitement of waking up to find the stone had been rolled away--and the tomb was empty! Learn how to make one here and here. 

{5} Passion Play

Attending a local play is such a great way to refocus on the agony of Holy Week and the joy and hope of Easter Sunday!

{6} A Graveyard Walk

We're planning to begin this tradition this year, made all the more convenient by the fact that we live mere blocks from a 150 year-old cemetery which holds more than 34,000 graves. Cemeteries are sobering places, but did you ever consider how Jesus' disciples and followers spent a good deal of time tombside on the day Christ rose from the dead? Seeing so many markers representing so many souls now absent from their physical bodies is also a reminder of how our Lord conquered death--and the victory Easter brings to every person who trusts in Jesus Christ as his Savior!

What are your Easter traditions? I'd love to hear them!

Past Easter Celebrations:

• Resurrection Sunday in Color {2011}
• Celebrating Because He Lives {2012}
• My Favorite Celebration {2013}

Good Friday Blog Posts:

• The Final Chapter
• Once Dead
• The Worst Timing

Photo Credit

Ten Things I've Been Doing Besides Blogging

Our beautiful Christmas tree!

10. Lots of baking and cooking!  In the busy days leading up to Christmas and New Year's, we've been decorating gingerbread houses, baking cookies, attempting gluten-free cinnamon rolls (fail) and gluten-free pierogi (success!), preparing our favorite foods for Christmas dinner, and then enjoying eating all of that yumminess! 

9. Celebrating Jesus' birth with family.  My aunt and uncle came over for Christmas, and having them for a few days was a joy.  We went to Christmas Eve service, watched The Nativity Story, and then actually slept in on Christmas morning before opening presents.  We all missed having Mikaela and Joel with us, but we still exchanged gifts with them and skyped with them on Christmas day.

8. Ice Skating!  Papa took us ice skating the Saturday after Christmas, and after wobbling around on my first lap, my sense of balance thankfully returned.  I skated the whole afternoon without falling, and that's worth an Olympic gold medal to me!  

7. Staying up 'till midnight.  While this is more of a regular occurrence than I would like, I purposely stayed up on December 31st!  We had some friends over, and with games and snacks, the hours flew by until it was nearly midnight.  We poured sparkling cider and donned our crazy hats to welcome in 2015.  Melanie kindly pointed out that we are now just as close to 2030 as to 2000.  That is a strange thought.

My first selfie of 2015 with Susanna!

6.  Dancing.  Friends of ours hosted an amazing evening of English Country dancing.  I had so much fun getting dressed up, visiting with friends, and dancing these elegant and refined old dances.  Once a year is not enough for this sort of fun!

5. Family Reunions.  Somewhere in there we spent the day with my dad's side of the family, and for a first time in a long time, all of his siblings and his parents were together!  We ate the fruit of our pierogi labors along with feasting on other yummy Polish foods, caught up on cousin's busy lives, played games, and sang carols to our heart's content.  There is nothing like getting together with family and feeling like you were never apart!

4. Organizing.  You often realize the true meaning in life only when color-coding your sock drawer.  I'm being facetious, but I still get a certain satisfaction in starting the New Year with an organized room and an organized life.  Maybe I'll arrive there by the end of 2015!

Melanie and Emily at Seattle's gum wall

3. Visiting with friends.  Christmas break provided a wonderful opportunity to get together with friends with whom I don't get to spend much time.  Sleepovers, lunch, and coffee dates were filled with lots of laughter, stories swapped, life lessons shared, and deeper friendships forged.  I even got to go on an overnight trip to Seattle with Melanie, Sarah, and Emily!  I'm grateful to each and every friend God has placed in my life!

2. Reading.  I've just started reading What's So Amazing About Grace? and I want to underline every single sentence.  Perhaps I'll share a full review here when I'm done with it, but God is using it to minister to my soul right now!

1. Getting ready to visit Mikaela!!! Believe me, inserting only three exclamation marks shows great restraint in this case.  God provided amazing tickets at just the right time, and I still can't believe that I get to give her a great big hug very soon!  My suitcase is already packed, and I am counting down until our visit!  

Now I want to catch up on your holiday season!  What have you been doing during the last weeks of 2014 and this the first week of 2015?

Why Joseph?

As Joel and I approach four months of marriage, I am more grateful than ever to be married to this man. God's design of marriage is a beautiful thing. So I'm not sure why it surprised me--but it did--to think about Joseph and Mary's marriage and to wonder, "Why did they get married in the first place?"

God didn't use the normal setting of marriage to produce a baby--instead, He miraculously caused a virgin to conceive a child. So Mary was pregnant with the Son of God and Joseph was betrothed to Mary, but he was neither her husband nor her baby's father. In fact, if Joseph was never born in some It's-a-Wonderful-Life alternate universe, Jesus would still have been born as the long-awaited Messiah. If Joseph was never born, God's salvation plan for the world would have continued. If Joseph was never born, Mary would have still been required to travel to Bethlehem, since this was also her ancestral town. If Joseph was never born, Mary very well could have raised Jesus as a single mother in her father's house.

But Joseph was born--and God did include him in the Christmas story for crucial reasons.

From the very beginning of time, God created family. He designed marriage and defined it as the union of one man and one woman; He designed children to be born from that union and raised by a mother and a father. This beautiful unit of the family--the "building block of society"--provides a haven of love, stability, and growth, but it also brings glory to God as it pictures the marriage of Christ and the Church and the Father-child relationship between God and us. 

So yes, Jesus very well could have been born into a single-parent home. After all, God is His Father. But Jesus was miraculously born into a two-parent home, through a series of events so perfectly orchestrated and timed, that only God could have brought them to pass. Far be it from me to sum up the magnitude of God's purposes for Joseph, but I marvel at the importance of his role as simply husband and father. Far from being an add-on to the Christmas story, Joseph is a wondrous emphasis on the importance of the family--the man God chose to complete Jesus' earthly family and to illustrate a picture of marriage and fatherhood to the world for the glory of God.

Merry Christmas!

Photo Credit. Used by permission.

Over the River and Through the Woods

Any day spent with people you love is a day for thanks, so our Thanksgiving was doubly wonderful spent with my grandparents at their lake house.  Thanksgiving dawned blissfully peaceful.  We went for a snowy walk along the lake shore in the morning, and then mashed potatoes in the afternoon!

 Grandma prepares the turkey while its delicious aroma draws everyone to the kitchen!

Grandpa carves that bird! 

When the feast was spread out on the table, we held hands and Grandpa led us in prayer, thanking God in his heartfelt, cracking voice for God's gifts in our lives.  We each followed suit, and as three generations thanked God together we shared in our united love for Him.

 After dinner, there were Risk tournaments to be played...

 and pies to be eaten!

 We were able to talk to Mikaela and Joel for a little while on Thanksgiving.  They were spending a wonderful holiday with friends in Maryland, and it was so good to get to share in it with them on that day!

 All day Friday I kept glancing out the window at the storm, and Grandma would ask, "Do we really want to do this?" But we gathered our fortitude and ventured out into a blustery, rainy night to attend the Christmas parade.  We started by warming our hands with coffee and took advantage of a photo op with Frosty!

 

We were soaked to the skin by the end of the parade, but the Christmas carols and fireworks and memories were worth it! 

 

 On Sunday afternoon, we were able to spend the afternoon with some wonderful family friends who live near my grandparents.  As you can see, they made us feel instantly at home as they always do when we see them!

 

 The next day it was time to drive home the way we had come: over the rivers and through the snowy woods, with stomachs and hearts and memories full of Thanksgiving! 

American Pie Love

Here is an enlightening insight into the way my brain reasons:

1. It is a fact that Pie is the best food known to man. 

2. The Fourth of July would not be the Fourth of July without Pie.

3. Logically, the only thing better than saluting a flag and singing about your flag and eating Pie is…eating Pie that is a flag! 

With this logic, and inspired by this idea, I rolled up my sleeves and dubbed myself Betsy Ross on the morning of the Fourth of July.  Since I am certain that all of you are as pie-crazed as myself, I'm taking you along for the ride! 

Start with your favorite pie crust recipe.  (Mikaela shared the best gluten free pie crust recipe in the world here!)  After chilling, roll it out and place in your pie pan.  Next, fold a strip of aluminum foil and place in the pie pan to section off about a quarter of the pan for the blue part. 

Now, measure out 5 cups of freshly-picked-from-your-garden raspberries and 2 cups of freshly-picked-from-your-friend's-garden (with permission of course) blueberries. 

In a separate bowl, combine sugar, cornstarch, nutmeg, cinnamon, and lemon juice (See full recipe at the end for amounts).  Add 2/3 of this mixture to the raspberries and 1/3 to the blueberries. 

Add another 1/4 to 1/2 cup of sugar to the raspberries, to taste (and taste, and taste!). 

Now for the fun part!  Pour the raspberries into the large section of the crust, and don't worry like I did when some juice seeped through.  When it's all done, you won't even be able to tell--I promise! 

Now pour the blueberries into the smaller section, and then don't forget to remove the aluminum foil!

Next, roll out your chilled top crust.  Cut 3 or 4 strips of dough about 1/4 inch wide. 

Use a star shaped cookie cutter to cut several stars. 

Place the stars over the blueberry section first, then lay the strips down, pinching the edges into your pie crust edge.  When it looks all purty, crimp your pie crust edge to take it over the top!

Now pose it for the camera!

 

After chilling the pie while the oven preheats, bake it at 400 for 15 minutes, then 375 for 45 minutes, or until the crust browns.  (Helpful tip alert: I was grateful that for once I remembered to put a cookie sheet under the pie in the oven, so I didn't have a mess to clean up!)

I'm fairly certain that first face means: Hold the bus--that is the best pie I have ever tasted!  

After adding a little of this and a little of that to create the pie I wanted, I was pretty pleased with my concoction if I do say so myself!

 With our bellies full of pie, we headed off to our park to watch the 20 minute fireworks spectacular along with some friends plus everyone else in town!

I hope you had a wonderful Fourth of July!  Beneath the joy of celebration and delicious food, this holiday always brings me to tears when I contemplate it.  For the reason I am free to worship Jesus, free to eat a pie with my family, and free to celebrate without fear is because of God's providence and because of patriots no older than me who loved freedom more than comfort. 

The Recipe
1 pie crust (both top and bottom crusts)  Recipe here
5 cups raspberries
2 cups blueberries
1/2 cup sugar
5 Tbs cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4-1/2 cup sugar, to taste

Spread one chilled pie crust in pie pan and keep the other one in the refrigerator.  Section off 1/4 of pie with aluminum foil for the blue section.  

Measure berries into two separate containers.
Combine sugar, cornstarch, spices, and lemon juice.  Add 2/3 of mixture to the raspberries; add the remaining 1/3 to the blueberries.  Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup more sugar to the raspberries, to taste.  Mix well.

Pour raspberries into large section of pie.  Pour blueberries into the smaller section.  Remove aluminum foil.

Roll out remaining crust and cut about 4 strips about 1/4 inch wide.  Cut about 5 stars with a star shaped cookie cutter.  Place the stars over the blueberry section first, then lay the strips down, pinching the edges into your pie crust edge.  Crimp pie crust edge.  

Chill pie in refrigerator while oven preheats to 400.  Bake at 400 for 15 minutes, then at 375 for 45 minutes or until golden brown.  

Let cool, then enjoy!

Easter the Gift

Christmas is synonymous with the Gift and, consequently, any and every gift. The holiday is all about giving and receiving, and so many traditions are centered on these actions of love. On Christmas the world was presented with a Gift in the form of a Babe, but there was no reckless ripping of wrapping paper followed by squeals of joy and "it's just what I always wanted!" Instead, there were curious looks as we held the odd-sized gift and examined it. It didn't make any sense to us, still under the shackles of the Law. And so we held that present all these 30 years between Christ's birth and resurrection--we shook it and felt it and inspected it and began to guess at what it was.

Hardly any guesses were correct, however. Indeed, it wasn't until the curtain rent in two, the stone was rolled away, and the scales fell off our eyes that, with delirious ecstasy, we finally understood the Gift.

The gold, frankincense, and myrrh weren't the Gift. Even the Christ Child Himself wasn't the fullness of the Gift. Easter is really the Gift, for there is no greater gift than the sacrifice Christ made for us and the salvation He offers to us. And His resurrection on the third day means that His Gift is not only one of sacrifice and love but also life and hope. Now I understand the Gift!

{These pictures are from our egg-decorating adventures this year using the time-honored Polish tradition called pisanki. We applied beeswax using a "stylus"--shown in the second picture--then dyed the eggs to a royal blue or emerald green, and then melted the beeswax to reveal the white eggshell underneath which formed a beautiful design!}