Practically Dairy Free Coconut Overnight French Toast

French toast. It can be a sweet and simple breakfast, snack or even dessert in our house. But the recipe that I am going to share with you all today deserves a spot at Saturday breakfast, Sunday Brunch, or for dessert any day of the week, served with vanilla ice cream of course (DE-LICIOUS!). And the best part is, it's practically dairy free!

Healthful Beauty // Homemade Toner

Hey all! Happy Thursday :) Today I am sharing with you my first recipe installment of my "Healthful Beauty" series! We girls have been using this recipe for homemade toner for several months now, and love the light, refreshing, even-ing effects that it has on our complexions. It's super easy, being composed of only 3-4 ingredients; and it's construction is basically like making tea. Enjoy!

How We Eat (Video)

Hello everyone!
Today is a big day! Do you know why? We just finished filming our How We Eat (Video)! So sit back and relax as you "drink in" another ounce of our flavor of life. Enjoy!

Hope Chest // Glasses

Hi everyone!

Can you believe it? This post marks the very last of kitchen related Hope Chest items! I am only so glad that Mom came up with the idea of my doing this blog series with you all, even more so that I took her advice – I have learned a great deal from your welcomed thoughts and ideas, as well as past experience from older young women who have stopped by to comment from time to time. My heart goes out to you all, and I give you my heartiest of thanks for all of your participation in this series!

Now as I sit here thinking of what to type out for this post, my thoughts keep wandering back to one of our girls' favorite lines from "Little Bear" when Father Bear asks the silly question, "Has anyone seen my glasses?" For those of you who, like us, grew up with that sweet TV show, ought to remember that Father Bear was wearing the glasses right on top of his head when he made the hilarious inquiry (oh sweet childhood, where have you gone?). But at one point I too was asking myself when looking over my selection of Hope Chest things, "Where are my glasses?".

Hope Chest // Dishes

Hello everyone!
Brrrrr! It is frightfully cold outside today! We had a terrific winter storm blow in sometime last night and now the ground has a fresh coating of snow. The wind blows right through our warm winter coats, and despite the furnace's efforts in keeping our house warm today, we are still walking around a bit stiffishly.

Anyhow. Today we get to review the plates found in my Hope Chest. Lets take a little look, shall we?

Hope Chest Series // Kitchen

Hello again everyone!

I am so excited to share with you all this post! #1 Because I am so thrilled with how well the photos turned out, just wait till you see their simplistic beauty (We have finally found the best place in our house for indoor, still life shoots! All kudos to my brilliant youngest sister! Thanks Lottie!) #2 Because this post marks the second to last (I think) post in the series having to do with all things food! #3 I get to show you some of my favorite Party Gift items! Hope you all have fun! Lets begin.

Hope Chest Series // Antique China Set

Hello Ladies!
Its good to be back again from taking a wee break after completing the Flower Parlor Series! Brr! Tis the season for staying indoors! To cold to do anything else besides, so I decided to begin a series around my hope chest and its numerous treasures. However, because Charlotte and I have yet to do photo shoot of my actual hope chest, and because I happened to have just bought this charming tea set at an auction in town recently, I thought it would be best to share it first. Tea any one?

The Banana Nut Bread Recipe

This Banana Bread recipe is something that has been in our household forever. If I could remember the time that it was introduced to us, that would be a very strange thing. Anytime a new, differing recipe of this famous bread shows up out of the blue, I never feel I can trust it to be half as good, with just a pleasantly balanced flavors. This scrumptious bread with its moist crumb and banana flavor has always been one of those "go-to" recipes that pops out when I want to bake something. Simple, easy, not a ton of baking expertise needed. So, it just didn't seem right not to share it here on the blog :)

Best All-Bran Muffins

I just want to start off this post with a huge THANK YOU to all a our readers for getting us to 100! You all are truly amazing, and we couldn't have gotten as far as we are now with out you to motivate and encourage us in our little ministry. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Bran muffins have to be one of the biggest muffin-staples there is. They are healthy, taste delicious (especially hot with butter melted on the inside...), and aren't one of those overly-sweet breakfast foods. They are also very customizable in that you can add in dried fruits and seeds to spunk up the flavor a bit. My mom tried out this recipe (adding in her own alterations and touches here and there) a few weeks ago, and I thought it might be nice to share on the blog, so here you go :)

Ginger & Apricot Scones

We are big scone eaters over here in the Boyer household; and apricots and ginger have always been a classic for us as a family; so combining the two ingredients just seems natural.  These scones are perfect breakfast food, and we always enjoy them with a steaming bowl of oatmeal or cold cereal. They have a nice moist consistency, and the tangy chunks of apricot here and there are simply delightful, while the ginger adds a nice zing.

The Flower Parlor // Sunflower Edition

Hello my friends!
It is officially the first day of October, and the beginnings of Autumn, so... Lets talk about Sunflowers!

The World's Best Cookies

I'm not one for your typical sugar cooky– don't get me wrong! I love a good sweet, though it has to have just the right balance of sweet and salty/blandness to win me over. These delightful treats do just that. I mean seriously, they're like candy cookies. First you'll eat one, then another, and another... They have a delightful crunchiness that complements their salty/sweet taste scrumptiously.

Lately // Canning

Lately we've (Mom mostly, actually) been doing quite a bit of canning. Peach jam... peach jam... greeeeeeen (and yellow) beans; and with tomatoes ripening fast we should have more to preserve soon (can you say tomato sauce?). The good thing about all this food preservation (other than getting to eat it later on, of course ;) is that glass, metal, water, and produce just so happen to be very photogenic... so of course, instead of helping can I was well... just look below :)

Jessica's Curiosity // Browning Bananas

Hello everyone!

Today I am going to talk about a favorite fruit of almost all Americans- the banana. Bananas are very versatile in baking, cooking, and can be incorporated into many culinary delights as a healthful fat replacer and tenderizer, examples: cream substitute in ice-cream, butter sub. in cookies and bars, and they are extremely complementary in almost all fruit salads! Yummy!

Crumbcake Muffins

* Crumbcake Muffins *

Recipe from Mostly Muffins (a wonderful mini book of 75 muffin recipes)

Charlotte calls these churro muffins. Delish!

TOPPING: 

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup lightly salted butter or margarine, softened

1/3 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

MUFFIN BATTER

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

1/2 cup lightly salted butter or margarine, melted and cooled

1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

3 tablespoons confectioners sugar

TO MAKE:

Preheat oven to 400 F. Prepare 12 muffin cups pan (grease or line with paper cups)

In a small bowl, stir together topping ingredients (flour, butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon) until mixture resembles coarse crumbs; set topping aside.

In a large bowl, stir together flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl stir together milk, melted butter, egg, egg yolk, vanilla, and almond extract until blended. Make a well in center of dry ingredients; add milk mixture and stir just to combine.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups; sprinkle an equal amount of crumb topping over each muffin

Bake 20-25 minutes, or until cake tester inserted in center of one muffin comes out clean.

Remove muffin tin to wire rack. Cool 5 minutes before removing muffins from cups; finish cooling on rack. 

Sift confectioners sugar over muffins. Serve warm or cool completely and store in an airtight container at room temperature.

These muffins freeze well (if frozen, thaw before adding confectioners sugar).

Makes 12 muffins

Soup Night // A Little Bit of Rarebit

Welsh Rarebit Soup. 

This soup is a take off of the Rarebit classic which is basically cheese sauce on toast. "Thick, rich and smooth, this soup has all the tangy, wonderful flavors of classic Welsh rarebit."

Baking Tips // Egg Whites Won't Whip?

     A chilly greeting to you all today!

     During these cold Winter months we women tend to bake up a modest amount of deserts for our family, and enjoy many an hour practicing the wonderful art of baking. Every once in a while our creations (such as a rich Double Chocolate Fudge Cake) need a quite few structure building proteins coming from a dairy-family-member, eggs. And sometimes these eggs (particularly the whites) do not always whip up properly, and a little bit of un-whipped egg can get left in the bottom of the bowl. Yikes! What to do?

     I learned just recently, that whole eggs contain 76% moisture, 12% protein, 10% fats and emulsifiers (which are bonders for water and oil), and 2% sugars and ash. Egg whites contain 10% protein 88% water, and egg yolks contain 17% protein and the 10% fats. Now I only typed out all of the %(s) for the people who, like me, love every little fact they can get their brains on. The biggest thing I would like to point out is how much egg protein is in both egg whites and yolks. This protein is the the most helpful characteristic in eggs when used in baking (other than their lovely rich dairy flavor), for the reason that protein is a structure builder and aerator in baked goods.

     Back to Whipping eggs... Because egg whites are packed full of protein and water they are easily whipped and hold thousands of tiny air bubbles which can produce quite a bit of volume in cakes and many meringues.

     But why is it that sometimes egg whites don't fully whip up?

     Well, if you have noticed when handling eggs, the whites have two thicknesses, and it is the thicker portion that is key in helping get all of the whites whipped. You see, as an egg ages, the thicker portion of the white begins to thin, and thus as it thins, the white loses its stability to hold up when whipped, or even, not whip up all the way.

     Here is a helpful hint: when you are desiring to bake a cake that is supported mostly by the whipped egg whites called for in the recipe, such as in angel food cake, be sure to buy grade AA eggs. These are the freshest eggs you can find at the supermarket and are only a few days old, and all other grades (A or B) can be a week or two old. I suppose if you have laying hens you have really fresh eggs!

     Hope this helps all of you home bakers!

Good bye for now!

Jessica (the eldest singer and sister)

Baking Tips // Soggy Pie Crust

Hello all!

    Hope your Wednesday is going swimmingly and hope your fruit-pie crusts aren't swimming away with it! Huh?

L.W.B- Day 7 + 8

Okay, so I've been really inconsistent about when I do this post, but things have come up which have kinda prohibited me from posting... Sorry about that! :P

So here is today's. Hope you enjoy!

Day 7

Your Christmas Baking

So we didn't really do any Christmas baking this year *horrified gasp!* but these are what my Mom made for our Christmas singing recital last night, so we supposed these would have to do :D

They are the most incredibly delish, award winning double lemon bars! Maybe I'll post the recipe sometime soon... hmmm.... ;)

Day 8

A Wrapped Christmas Present from You to Someone Else

I wanted to do something special this year with my Christmas presents, so I used this tutorial and some string and red lace to spruce up my packaging :) I'm super excited with how they turned out, but mind you, these are not the type of present you just tear open! Oh, no, these are the type that you gently untie the string, and unfold the crinkly paper to reveal the surprise. The reason? Well, you'll just have to find that out after they are opened ;)

TTFN,

L.W.B

The Kitchen- The Boyer Family's Favorite Pizza Breads

Hello all! I just wanted to share a recipe with you for our family favorite lunch: Pizza Breads!!

They're basically just slices of bread with all the toppings of a pizza.