Treats: Brown Sugar Bundt Cake w/ Caramel Glaze

What happens when you don't have enough sugar to make a cake? But have brown sugar flowing out of the cupboards!? You make a brown sugar cake!

I wanted to make dessert tonight since my hubby and I have both been hankering for something sweet for like ever now. I was going to make cookies, but our oven is probably about half the size of normal ovens and our pans don't fit (apartment life for ya!) I bought a new bundt pan for my birthday and have yet to use it so what better time than now? :)

Ingredients:

• ¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter, softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 4 ounces sour cream
• 3 eggs
• 1½ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar

Instructions:
To start off, cream together the sugars and the butter. It should take awhile but just put your muscles into it (or if you are rich/have a mom who gave you hers, use a mixer to do so).

Then, add sour cream. Add your eggs one at a time, stirring in between each one and make sure they are well incorporated before putting another in.

Add the flour, salt, and vanilla to the batter. Stir really well :) You will then mix in the baking soda and finally the vinegar. It may sound odd to add vinegar but I promise this makes it taste super good! You can even try the batter if you don't trust me ;)

 

Spray your bundt pan with nonstick spray, or coat with shortening and lightly dust with flour. Be sure to remove all excess flour from the pan! Pour your batter into the pan and bake at 350 degrees until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean, which takes about an hour and a half.














Allow the cake to cool for at least 10 minutes before transferring it to a wire rack to cool :)
















Next comes the caramel glaze!!
Ingredients:

1 packed cup brown sugar
1/2 cup half-and-half
4 tablespoons butter
Pinch salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Sorry I couldn't really take pictures of this, my stove doesn't have a light over it so the pictures were really dark! But first, mix the brown sugar, half-and-half, butter and salt in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Cook while whisking gently for 5 to 7 minutes, until it gets thicker. Then, add the vanilla and cook another minute to thicken further. Turn off the heat, cool slightly and pour the sauce over the cake! Voila! 

And here is the finished product (It kinda looks like a donut here).

This cake is perfect for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. And is great with a cup of coffee (I am guessing, I don't actually drink coffee)! I think you are going to love it :)

xoxo
Samy

The TMNT Wedding Video

Our photographer and our friend recording us cutting the cake!

Hello everyone :D I am, once again, posting about my wedding. My husband and I's one year anniversary is coming up, so obviously I am getting all giddy about it!

For this wedding video, we had one of our friends record it using our own camcorder that we actually received from our flower girls family as an early wedding gift. My grandmother was in the hospital and could not go to the wedding, so I really wanted her to still feel part of our special day and get to witness it. As a side note, we had some remarkable people involved in our wedding and are the luckiest people in the WORLD!

We have a Sony HDR-CX220 Handycam which is small and lightweight! Perfect for recording a wedding because it would not be getting in the way of the photographer or anyone else for that matter! So our lovely friend recorded the boys getting ready, some shots of the reception and ceremony venue, our entire ceremony, the speeches/toasts, cutting the cake, and our introductions. It was awesome to be able to look back on everything and see stuff that I missed. I really loved seeing the boys get ready because you can see how nervous my sweetie pie was :p

To edit this video, I used iMovie. iMovie is great, you can add in transitions, music, special effects, change the audio and visual settings, but I kept getting the spinning wheels of death while editing and would have to force quit and pray that all the changes I made had saved. It was a long process to do and man, I wonder what else might have been better software to do it with or if I should have just asked a pro to edit it. Although those minor things had happened, I posted my edited version for you all to see :)

 

You can see there was some issues with random green spots and sometimes you could hearing yelling children in the background (people were hiking during the ceremony and not realizing a wedding was going on, it was super funny) but there is beauty in imperfections, they say! Enjoy :D

How to Deal with Not Finding A Coke With Your Name On It

Seriously?!

 I understand many people's feelings when they try to find something with their name on it, spelled exactly the way your name is spelled, but you just can't find it.

When I was little, I used to spell my name "Sammy" which is the more common way of spelling the nickname for my legit name, Samantha. But then another girl in my class also liked to be called Sammy and spelled it the same way. I have always been a person who strives to be different. So obviously, I was not having that. I began experimenting.

"Hmm, Sami!" Well, jk because some girl a year older than me spelled her name that way too. So I decided on something I had not seen before. Samy.

Now, people write my name whichever way they want to know and I really don't care either way. But when I was younger (let's say fifth or sixth grade) I was very keen on being different. I wanted to be the ONLY Samy Tracy in the WORLD. Well, I'm sure that is not true nowadays but I liked to think so in my twelve-year-old mind.

It is difficult (especially in this generation) when other people always have different spellings in their name. Calvyn. Whitknee. Cady. Are a few I have come across myself.

In regards to this Coca Cola thing...just get one that says "family" or "friends"on it and call it good. Or if you are like me, get one with a name you have secretly wanted since you were like five.

What I am trying to get at, is to embrace your differences! It's easy to complain that Coca Cola does not have your name on a bottle and you demand justice, but why not just love your name and yourself for who you are and how God made you. Come to terms with the fact that Jesus did not die on the cross for you to have your name on a Diet Coke. We need more praises and less complaints, world!

Peace & Love