We've Been Domestic

We really have. 

Well technically, I suppose I'm domestic every day.  But changing diapers, reading books, and cooking dinner doesn't usually make it into the glamorous side of domesticity.  It's the extra stuff that gets the attention. 

Last month I bottled up some delicious vanilla vodka.  I was hoping it would be strong enough to use for baking, but it mixes well for sipping too.  The vanilla beans had been marinading in vodka for 14 months.

Then last week I made a cake.  A Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Salted Caramel Coconut Mocha Cake for our church dinner last week.  (Recipe found here.) This was, perhaps, one of the most frustrating culinary experiences of my life.  The cake actually turned out great.  As long as you didn't notice the little clumps of baking powder that didn't mix well.  But the frosting... oh, the miserable frosting.  After almost two hours in the kitchen, I had completely ruined two attempts at making frosting.  The spatula turned out not to be made of silicone, and didn't hold up very well to the heat of the first batch of caramel.  Oops.  And with the second batch, the meringue buttercream ended up more like caramely scrambled eggs.  Double oops.

So I just made the salted coconut caramel and used that.  Not the prettiest cake I've ever made, but it turned out alright in the end.

I've been doing various artsy crafty stuff, too.  I saw a cute idea on Pinterest to make some pretend miniature tea bags out of cloth, but I figured I'd make them a little more realistic.  So a couple of days ago I used a coffee filter, some brown paper, a threaded needle, and a little glue.  Voila.

They fit perfectly into Chloë's tiny porcelain tea cups.

Aaand I made lots of jam. Five batches of it, actually.  I unloaded the bags of frozen berries from my freezer, and got to jammin'.  I know it doesn't look like much, but those pint jars hold a lot of jam! One batch of raspberry, and four batches of cherry raspberry mix. Chloë and Elaina eat a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Thus concludes my domestic post for this month. I'll spare you pictures of the dirty diapers. But don't worry. I really don't have any pictures of dirty diapers. From this month, anyway.