Flashback Friday – Egg-Free Dairy-Free Nut-Free Chocolate CupCakes

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Today I’ve chosen my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe to share on this Flashback Friday.
I hope you try it and like it as much as we do.

The recipe is called “Egg-Free Dairy-Free Nut-Free Cake“.
Wow! Isn’t that a tempting lure of a name for a cake recipe. It was more than this ol’ gal could resist.

This recipe is listed at Allrecipes.com. Here’s a direct link:
Egg-Free Dairy-Free Nut-Free Cake

I made a few miner adjustments to the recipe,
I used olive oil instead of the vegetable oil,
I used lite-salt instead of regular salt
and also I didn’t put chocolate chips in it.

I made the mix into cupcakes, so I can freeze most of them for snacks for another day. The first time I made these, I didn’t think they would look like a normal cupcake. I figured they’d be rather flat looking and flat tasting because the batter is somewhat thin. When I put them in the oven, I thought they may be a waste of time… I even frowned a moment or two… I’m pleased as peaches that these cupcakes proved me wrong and rose quite well.
They have a nice texture and taste really good too. I’m so nicely surprised.

edited in: *It occurs to me that a person could use a sweetener like Stevia and make this an even healthier snack
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If you try this cake recipe, let me know if
you made changes and how it did for you.

Here’s wishing you a weekend of yummy treats.

chef
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Shades of Purple

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IMG_9920Here’s the colors for my next project. Even though they may look more like blues in the photo, in real life they’re 3 shades of purple. I’m not going to say what I’m making or if I’m going to make more than one item because I haven’t totally decided yet. There might be a crochet hook involved and/or a knitting loom. The only thing I’ve decided for sure is that these are 3 of the colors of yarn I’m going to use. You’d be surprised how hard it was to find 3 shades of purple in one brand of yarn. I thought I was going to have to order the yarn online and get different brands of each color plus pay monster shipping fees to get some, but thankfully I found this brand with 3 shades at a Hobby Lobby store. ~happy dance~

I’ve never used  ‘I Love This Yarn‘ brand before. It’s a soft acrylic yarn with a nice spring to it.
My Bff knows a lot about yarn and she suggested I make a swatch, and wash & dry it, to get a proper-sizing on the yarn.
That made sense to me, so that’s what I did.
I didn’t think to look on the yarn band for washing instructions until after I had washed and dried my swatch. Then my Bff reminded me of the manufacturers directions on the band when I sent her a photo of the after-wash. She said she usually gives the recipient of her creations a copy of the directions from the band. My Bff has the most awesome ideas.
I used a single crochet, double crochet and a crazy stitch to make my swatch. I figure these are 3 of the main stitches I’ll probably be using. I washed and dried it like it was a regular piece of clothing. I’m happy to report that the swatch washed up really well. Shrinkage was minimal and the yarn didn’t pill.IMG_9919

I splurged the other day and bought a couple of afghan crochet hooks. (I saw the hooks and my ECD kicked in. lol ) I’ve been wanting to try Tunisian crochet and it requires a long hook. I haven’t tried to use these yet. I’m busy with other things, but someday I’ll sit down and give them a try.01-IMG_9940Here’s a link that might give an idea about the Tunisian technique.
Tunisian crochet on Pinterest

Have you ever used long crochet hooks?
Have you ever tried the Tunisian technique?

I hope you all have a pleasant rest of the week.

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Just A Quick Post

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IMG_9878I just wanted to pop in and say Hi and tell you all that thankfully it was a gorgeous weekend. The weather was really nice. We stayed outside as much as possible.
IMG_9859My husband made a new flower bed by the back porch.
It’s charming right now, hopefully it’ll be really pretty when the flowers take root and start growing.

This all for me at the moment. 😉

Wishing you all a wonderful week.
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🙂

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Flashback Friday – An Easter Gift For children (& adults)

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For this Flashback Friday, I chose to re-post my free to print-off coloring pictures in honor of Easter. I hope you all or your children enjoy them. 🙂

Here’s a gift from me to you. It’s a few coloring pictures from my collection (that I drew and had posted on my ex-website many many years ago.)

I hope you’ll print these pictures off for a child or children, to color to celebrate this special weekend.

Before you print these off:
Click on the images to open a separate picture.
Do a print preview to check to see if you may need to set it to ‘landscape’ to print these off properly.
At the top of your browser on the far left hand side choose ‘File’, then choose ‘Print Preview’
At the top of the print preview page is an option for ‘portrait’ or ‘landscape’
Try both and choose the one that fits the picture to the page best.

Happy Easter my Dear Blogging Buddies & Readers!

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God Bless You All!
I wish you all a Safe & Pleasant Easter Weekend.
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