FAIL BLOG!

Yesterday I made these really delightful almond cupcakes (I didn't have time to take pictures - I had a lot to do while making cupcakes... oh multitasking), and the recipe called for a salted caramel frosting. Anytime I hear "salted" and "caramel" together, it make me think of the salted caramel hot chocolate you can get from Starbucks (which is DELICIOUS). So I was all about trying this new caramel frosting.

 

I will shorten the caramel frosting story: 3 tries, 2 different recipes, and a text message later I finally asked a friend to buy me caramel frosting! I just plain fail to make my own caramel frosting, and I think I will stick to my own recipe I found last fall... you don't have to boil sugar.

Malcolm (the wonderful man that he is) asked me if I had taken pictures for the blog. He has asked me this before after fails, and whether I have or not their is a piece of me that wants to go, "Why on earth would I show the entire internet world (my 3 followers) what a failure I am? I have plenty of success that are way more worth the time to blog about." And almost every time, this wonderful man I married reminds me of what a great correlation their is between our failures in light of God's grace - I can't help but agree.

 (I will just post pictures of the fails I have documented... please enjoy.)

Ah yes, apple fritters. I don't think I had the oil hot enough, so they just soaked up a ton of it (as you can see the powdered sugar soaking it up). Malcolm and I felt sick after eating them.

I think all of us have at least a little portion of us that doesn't want to fail. We all want to show that we put together people who don't need help or don't mess up. We don't want people to see that we trip, slip, fall, dribble (I dribble water all over my face quite often) our way through life because that's simply not cool. 

But if we step back and take a look at the big picture we will see that EVERYONE has failed! Romans 3:10-12 says, 

"As it is written: 'There is no one righteous, not even one;there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.'"

I think I blogged about this one already, but it's alright. I made 5 jars of chicken broth and put them in the freezer. I didn't leave enough space at the top (like the directions told me to), so when they expanded in the freezer the jars cracked. We lost 3 good jars to cook's error that day...

And if that wasn't blatant enough, it goes on to say in verse 23, "...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..."

It doesn't matter how smooth we are (or seem to be), because we can never be smooth enough. 

It doesn't matter if we try to be really (even REALLY) good people - it's just never enough. I have a handful of examples, but one of my favorite examples is if all of human kind lined up on the east coast of the U.S. and we're all going to swim to Spain. Olympic swimmers could probably make it farther than any other, but could they make it all the way across the Atlantic Ocean? (Answer - NO) I would make it up to my knees in water before I would give up! Either way, it doesn't matter how much or how little good we do - we just can't be perfectly perfect that is required to get to God.

I was really into reading Chronicles of Narnia (still finishing the books), but I was inspired to make Turkish Delight after reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. It was suppose to be sticky, but solidified. After a week in the refrigerator, mine stayed runny. After some research, I found out that it is really hard to make, and homemade Turkish Delight is a rarity. I was bummed.

It's not enough that we have had Godly people raise us or even in our lives because in the grand scheme of things we are responsible for ourselves. The first part of Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death..." Just like if you work a job and earn wages for your time their, your money is yours. It may go towards and effect (or affect? I'm terrible with English) others around you, but the check is made out to you. It's the same with our wrongdoings (or sin). If you have sinned (which we all have), then you have earned death - which is a spiritual separation from God and an eternity headed to hell - to be honest and frank with you all.

Baking cookies usually require a dainty touch or even a hint of carefulness to hands - which I swear I just don't have! Here is a keen example of this. These were candy cane cookies I baked last Christmas. It is a lot harder to twist cookie dough to look all pretty like than it looks in the books! I don't know how my mom made so many beautiful cookies at Christmas.

Talk about a fail blog! We have failed miserably! But, it doesn't have to end there. Romans 5:6-8 says, "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

We didn't do anything to earn God's favor, or to even prove that Jesus should die for us. He just did it! 

You know Romans 3:23 I mentioned earlier? Want to see the verses that sandwich them?

Romans 3:22-24, "This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

(*gaping mouth*)

Now let's finish Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

These were some of my favorite cookies as a kid. (I will probably blog about them sometime, because they do turn out to be tasty.) But I feel like every time I make them I forget to grease my cookie sheets - which I have decided that if a recipe says you don't have to, I will ignore them. These cookies ALWAYS stick to the cookie sheet and then I'm forced to serve them in crumbles rather than cookies!

 We don't have to stay in the failure of our sin! God has a marvelous gift ready for us all, but we need to receive it. We must individually chose to open this gift.

Romans 10:9-13 explains how we open this gift,

"That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, 'Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.' For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile--the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'"

Opening this gift is not just agreeing with what I've been talking about intellectually. It's a personal choice to put your faith in Jesus Christ and to follow Him as an act of your will. Though emotions may follow your choice, opening God's gift is not a mere emotional experience. 

If you haven't made this choice to open this gift that God is presenting to you, you can make that choice today. Choosing to follow Christ doesn't mean every day will be rosy and perfect, but He does promise to give you a full life of meaning and purpose, filled with true peace, satisfaction,  and love that is beyond what anyone or anything can offer you.

I was into this big fresh fruit into cupcakes phase last spring (which I had some AMAZING outcomes), but after this fail I took a step back. These are blackberry mango cupcakes. I took a recipe for mango cupcakes and adapted them. I really am no good at trying to figure out my own recipes! As you see them here, they came out looking a lot like they do now, just more brownish (which made them look even worse)! They didn't even taste all that great. This is by far one of my biggest fails in cooking!!

If you want to make that choice right now, you can pray right now. Prayer isn't anything fancy - it's simply just talking to God. God knows your heart. He really isn't concerned so much with the right word combination as much as is with the attitude of your heart. Here is a suggested prayer:

Lord Jesus, I'm a failure when it comes to being good enough. I want to have a real relationship with you - one that I can know you personally. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I ask you to come into my life as Lord and Savior. Thank you for forgiving me and giving me eternal life with you. Please make me the kind of person you want me to be.

If you prayed that, you can know right now that your eternity is set! You have a relationship with Christ that can't be taken away, and you have entered into a big family of people that will love you - me being one of them! I also encourage you, if you have made this decision, please tell someone today - tell me if you feel comfortable doing so!!

Here are some links to help you get started:

•If you still have questions about making a decision or if you made this decision but have a lot of questions go to www.everystudent.com or http://eternityimpact.blogspot.com/p/god-solution.html

•If you want some resources to help you get started in this new relationship you have begun today, please visit www.startingwithgod.com

Joyfully Accepting Depression Cupcakes

Malcolm and I were away for 2 weeks traveling for support raising and Thanksgiving/family time, and we just got back on Sunday - just in time for Monday's couple's night!! I LOVE couple's night for multiple reasons, but one of them is that I get the chance to try out new recipes on a few guinea pigs.

Since we just arrived Sunday with not a ton of time to go shopping yet, I almost caved and didn't make my traditional cupcakes (I LOVE making cupcakes, which I can explain more of at a later time). But then I thought to myself,

"Hmmm.... maybe I shouldn't take this as defeat, but rather as a challenge...."

And, thus, I took the challenge!

If you haven't discovered allrecipes.com, you really, truly need to! Whenever I need to use up stuff in my fridge, or if I want to make something specific but don't have certain ingredients, I use this website. So I typed in for ingredients I didn't want: milk, eggs, sour cream, sugar. Ingredients I wanted: flour and brown sugar (I seriously pretty much had nothing). I wasn't expecting too many recipes to show up, but much to my surprise quite a few recipes popped up!

Quite a few recipes with "war" and "depression" in the title. During times where there were rations on food, or money was short  and what not, human ingenuity still thrived - if not greatly increased. Just because times were hard didn't mean that the sweet tooth stopped calling out, or that birthdays didn't happen. People truly used bleak times to still make delicious things.

Tuesday in my quiet time, I came across Matthew 9:27-31, and for some reason it made me think about how it's like making depression cupcakes. Two men cry out to Jesus to help them in with their blindness. I can only imagine their life to that point to be bleak indeed - stumbling around in darkness with no real way to take care of their needs. But in their despair, they had the sweetest thing of all. They had faith that Jesus, the Messiah, could heal them.

While I was reading this, I thought, "Gosh! These guys could see more clearly than I can!" I get so wrapped up in myself, my circumstances, my issues - but I don't give them back over to the Lord. I don't see Jesus as healer and completer always. I have so much, but lack everything in those moments because I don't trust my Savior! Another thing that got me was how Jesus, after healing the men, told them not to tell anyone. But the men couldn't keep what happened to them to themselves! Jesus tells me to tell THE WORLD about Him, and yet I get scared and keep Him to myself. What the heck?!

So this is what I decided: I need depression cupcakes. I need to see every day that I can lose everything, barely have anything to live on, have my rights and liberties taken from me and I would still have the sweetest thing in the world - JESUS!! 

Mark 8:36 says, "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" 

Lord, help me to continue to rely on you. Help me to realize daily my need for you, and that you are my sweetness in every situation and in every circumstance.

Depression Cupcakes

(from allrecipes.com Depression Cake II recipe)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups packed brown sugar
• 2 cups hot water
• 2 tablespoons bacon grease (I used butter since I haven't made bacon in a long time, but isn't that cool how resourceful they were in the day?? I love it!)
• 2 cups raisins (I have a thing about dried fruit, nor do I keep it on hand. So I didn't use it. I reading some comments on allrecipes that someone just added a bad of frozen fruit and it turned out good. May be worth experimenting to you adventurous folk.)
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves (You may want to cut this down because you can definitely taste it. I didn't mind it really.)

Put your brown sugar, hot water, bacon grease (or substitute), and raisins (if using), over medium heat. Bring to a boil for 5 minutes, then set aside to cool. 

Either preheat your oven to 325º, or plug in your cupcake maker (since I use my cupcake maker, and I forget to count how many that makes... you're on your own). The website says this recipe can make two 8x4 loaf pans, and I also saw that someone would make this in a bundt  pan. The batter is a bit sticky, so much sure you use baking cups, or grease and flour your pans.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves. Add the ingredients from the saucepan and mix until well blended.

If you do this cake, it says it takes 45 to 50 minutes. Each set of cupcakes in my cupcake maker took about 10 minutes or a little less since it was a little thicker batter. What I liked about making these in the cupcake maker it that it made the edges a little crispier than a normal cupcake since I didn't use baking cups. I like spice cakes to be a little crispy.

While I was cooking up the cupcakes, I made this super easy caramel frosting. 

Okay, it may not be technical caramel, but it tastes like it and it doesn't include melting sugar (I tried to do the melt sugar way... I failed, needless to say) or boiling sweetened condensed milk for hours (which I wanted to try, but I'm usually so short notice on what I'm going to bake, so I never have time to try it).

Caramel Frosting

(From Yahoo Answers - yes, I'm one of those people who type in their question into Google instead of using key word searches. Hey! It works, and it gets the job done.)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup evaporated milk
3 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

In a saucepan over low heat, heat butter and brown sugar, stirring until smooth.

Stir in evaporated milk.

Let it cool like Luke's hand. (Get it? Cool Hand Luke? BAHAHA! Alright, bad pun.)

Gradually, add powdered sugar and vanilla. If you have a sifter or some way to sift it, the frosting will turn out a lot smoother. I did it for the first time this last time make this frosting, and I must say it made quite a difference. I just used a wire strainer thing and it worked... I did get more powdered sugar on my stove top than usual though.

Beat till a soft spreading consistency. I think it spreads better after it gets to room temperature. But if you're last minute baking like I do, I usually just put it on top anyway and it tastes great. I'm not one who cares too much about how it looks. I care more if it tastes awful than looks funky. Anyway, it will just be drippy and not stay right on top of the cupcake.

The most joyful depression cupcakes you ever did make!