Tails’ Blography

I made these yesterday for our Halloween Gym party I wanted plaastic fake spiders, but couldnt find any, but luckily with a bit of digging and help from my sister, we found these gummy bugs. They were actually chcolate muffins, but I passed them off as cupcakes hehe

Today I happily got busy in the kitchen with my new set of muffin trays. I mixed up a batch of Snowflake’s Easy Mix Choc-Mint Muffin mix (sorry they didnt have a pic of the choc-mint packet) and eagerly spooned it out into the freshly washed silicone trays. One batch made 12 medium muffins and 12 mini muffins.

I put the individual cups onto a baking tray along with the tray of minis, and popped that into the oven. I set the timer for 10 minutes as I was unsure of how long the minis should bake for. When the timer beeped, I breezed through to the kitchen to have a peek through the glass and they were rising nicely! At this point I squealed the words, “Awwww they’re sooo cute!!!” and promptly called the oh-so-patient bf to come and see the minis rising. He came to look and thoroughly agreed they were cute (and whilst walking back to his PC, laughed and said that only I would be so excited about half-baked muffins, mini or otherwise…and he’s probably right!). I set the timer for another 5 min, then another 5 min, and after those went off I took them out to cool and put in the next batch of six from the big tray. Set the timer for 20 min now that I knew my precious goods would be fine.

While the second batch was baking, of course we had to try a mini while it was still warm – and it was so light and fluffy and cute! It tasted really good (and they even had little mint chips in them!). Of course, the rats got one mini muffin each, and they were so pleased about that, almost melting themselves through the bars of their cage to get to me when I brought them near.

And of course, I took some photos. Let me know what you think!

The large muffins

Large and mini muffins galore!

Isn’t that the CUTEST muffin you’ve ever seen!

And of course I simply had to post pics of the rats enjoying their treats!

“We want! We want! We want!”

Ramoth doing an impression of an alligator (wish this was in focus haha)

Orlith eagerly clinging on

Wirenth looking ominous that I’m taking a photo of her eating

So yesterday the bf and I went grocery shopping, and we were discussing warm winter treats and desserts.

Flapjacks came up, as did muffins and hot chocolate. So, making our way through the baking aisle, we came across some muffin trays. Now, I’ve always wanted a silicone muffin tray (I have muffin mix at home already, as seen in picture) but they always seem too expensive or I see them when I have no money and so on and so forth. You know the story.

Anyway, so we’re debating buying a 6-cup muffin tray (R60), when just above the muffin trays, I spot a whole silicone baking set (R99)! {cue angel choir} It has everything I wanted and more: 12-cup muffin tray (light blue), 6 medium individual cupcake cups (red, neon yellow, & neon green), and (eeeek! *excited squeal*) a 12-cup MINI MUFFIN TRAY (darker blue. F.R.I.E.N.D.S made me fall in love with them! Episode clip below)!

So, I look over to the bf with a huge smile on my face, and say with glee how much of a better bargain the set is (it already wins the bargin-debate by having double the amount of cups than the original tray for less than half the price more) when he replies, with a smile, a simple, “ok.” Ok!?! Yay! He then informs me I better make him some muffins soon…how ominous! Hehe.

So we came home with the cutest, most cheerful looking baking set ever! I cant wait to use em…of course, that will be this weekend! Yay! Its been making me smile all day thinking about them, so I figured I had to blog about it.

The F.R.I.E.N.D.S clip is really funny, and features the mini-muffins (you even get to see one briefly! It’s cute!!):

So during my phase of baking, I decided for Christmas I wanted to make Gingerbread Cookies (as I’ve probably mentioned before). So I set out to find the cliche gingerbread man shape. Not the one with a fat body and tiny head, not the one with spindley arms, not the one with hands and feet…just your typical American 3″x3″ gingerbread shape.

I searched high and low through all the shops in my area…and then the ones outside of my area…and I even went so far as to ask an online friend to source one for me from America (thanks, Christy )…and then I found it!!! Hidden in an obscure location was a catalog on a baking website….the Wilton’s 101 Piece Cookie Cutter Set!! {cue Hallelujah choir singers)
Only one problem…its in Pretoria. I’m in Cape Town. To make a long story short, eventually after a lot of thinking, I managed to find someone who was willing to collect it for me, and post it to me They arrived today!!!! I hastely unpacked the 101 pieces, found the gingerbread man (right at the bottom!) and sighed in relief. This Christmas shall be complete with Gingerbread Man. Of course now I have 100 extra cookie cutters hahaha. Not to worry, with extras like dog bones, I plan on making doggie biscuits (for dogs), with the pumpkin/ghost/bat/scaredy cat cutters I can make halloween cookies, with the snowman/Christmas trees/stocking/candy cane/gingerbread men (there are actually 4: two small, two large – male and female of each) I can make Christmas cookies, and then there are some random themed ones like footballs and helmets (American Superbowl…not really our thing here though), hands and feet (for baby shower), transport (I assume for a bon voyage gift), animals like ducks, eggs, dinosaurs, etc for random cookies, and then the numbers and letters of the alphabet (and a question mark…hahaha I’ll wait for the “Will you marry me?” baking expedition from my bf….LOL)

Then I had to rush off to a Canon EOS Roadshow talk (very entertaining and believe it or not, R-18 what with the vaginal flatulance jokes and all! Dont ask haha). Came back, went through the cutters more slowly to check they were all there, and then……I couldnt pack them back into the bucket they came in. Whoops!

But, no fear, I’ll survive with my 101 cookie cutters haha.

So finally the day of my new babies’ arrival dawned upon us, and after a short wait this morning, they arrived at around 10:30!! After chatting to Ang of Wheatfields Rattery (now online!!), their breeder, I settled them into their temporary cage to wait out the day until they could come home with me (they were delivered to my office).

Of course, after spoiling them with morsels of almond and apple pieces, I took some photos!

And then for my mother’s gym halloween party, I made some “Spooky Witch Fingers” which tasted and looked great!! Just a basic butter cookie recipe, molded into fingers with almonds for the fingernails (with some red icing under the fingernails for “blood”). Apparently they were the hit of the party and people even took them home for their families!