Mini Angel Food Cake

I made mini angel food cupcakes.

And when I say 'made', I mean I used a boxed mix.

Simply because I haven't had angel food cake in forever.

Any one remember that zingy feeling the batter makes on your tongue?

I love that.

But I also like the feeling of chewing on tinfoil.

I ate white glue in Kindergarten.

Leave me be.

Needless to say whipping up a simple angel food cake made me all nostalgic.

So I dug out my old Joy of Cooking book and found an old fashioned boiled icing recipe to top it off...

Get it?

  TOP it off...

I'm funny. 

Speaking of funny, look at my little peanut.

What a card.

And then there's this little bug!

She's not looking adoringly up at me.

Nope she's got her eyes on the cupcakes!

Here's what you need to make 

Mini Angel Food Cupcakes with White Mountain Icing.

1 box of angel food cake mix

Water 

1. Follow the instructions on the back of the cake mix box.

2. Line your muffin tins with papers, I used mini, but in hindsight, it made a buh-gillion of mini cupcakes.

I suggest making normal sized cupcakes.

3. Fill your paper liners with batter and bake according to box instructions.

4. When done, remove and place on a cooling rack. Cool completely.

Icing:

1 tablespoon of white corn syrup

1 cup of water

1/3 cup of water

1 egg white

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1. Place the first 3 ingredients in a medium small sauce pan, cook until the the mixture boils rapidly.

2. In a medium mixing bowl, beat egg white for 2 minutes on high speed.

3. Add 3 tablespoons of the boiling syrup to the mixing bowl and continue beating.

4. Continue to boil the remaining syrup until mixture reaches 238-240 degrees.

5. Pour the remainder of syrup to the egg white mixture, gradually.

6. Add vanilla

7. Beat at high speed for another 4-6 minutes, until smooth and spreadable.

 Spread a small amount onto your cooled little cupcakes.

And I mean a little.

These puppies are SA-WEET.

I dunked mine in some shredded coconut.

Then sprinkled them with some disco dust.

I really only want to make things that I can dust with my sparkles.

Go and make some angel food cake.

You'll thank me.

Banff Springs Family Weekend

With part of stucco season over, Ben and I decided to take the girls away for the weekend. 

Destination: Banff!

We got to the Banff Springs hotel on Friday evening and got checked in. Venice was promptly presented with a tiara and was crowned Castle Princess! The look on her face was SO stinking cute!

We took the girls out the next morning, first stop? Candy store!!

I captured the stunned silence on Venice's face when Ben turned her around to see the window full of candy.

We spent a TON of time in the hot tub and pools. Yep, I said pools. They had a huge inside pool, a children's pool and a huge outdoor pool. Even though it wasn't super warm outside, we spent most of our time in the outdoor pool which was so warm! It was a little awkward though, with the tourists above us on the balcony taking pictures....

 There was an aquarium at the sushi restaurant in the hotel, and 

Venice had to see Nemo every time we walked by, which was about 4 times a day, as it was on the way to the pool.

I'm loving my new camera and can't believe the quality of the pictures it take!

The view from our room.

My favorite little (ha! little, right) nook, I don't know if it's the color, the view or a combination, but I could sit in this corner with a coffee and read a good book all day!

I think this is my favorite picture from the weekend. Venice wanted to twirl the moment we got to the hotel, we had taken her to the banquet room the first night, but I had told her that this castle had a real ballroom. Well, we found it and she twirled to her hearts content! Then she told Ben that she's going to be married here. Uh Oh!

Here's my little bug! All bundled up and ready to go.  I must say that Banff is not exactly stroller friendly, we had to carry the stroller up various flights of stairs in town and in the hotel. But over all it was worth having it along.

Carriage ride for the Princess Venice! It was so cold, but we had blankets and each other to keep warm. 

We took the girls bowling for the first time (can you imagine, our hotel had it's own bowling alley?!)

I love this picture!  

She was so funny! She had to do it all by herself, and the ball rolled SO slowly. When the ball hit the gutter she'd slap her leg and say "Oh Man!"

What a character!

The mountain pictures are from the first morning we were there and the morning we were leaving.

We just made it out of the park before it got bad, except that when we came home, there was more snow at home than in Banff!

We had such a great time, and it was so nice to have a whole weekend together as a family. I can't wait for when stucco season is really over!