Mini Dutch Apple Pies

 Mini Dutch Apple Pies are the perfect fall treat.  I have made these twice in the past few weeks for pot luck dinners.  They were a hit!




These will take about 1hr 45 min to make and 30 min to bake.


Crust:
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 TBS sugar
6 TBS cold unsalted butter
6 TBS Crisco
3 TBS cold water

In a large bowl mix together the flour, salt & sugar.  Cut in butter and shortening.  Blend with a pastry cutter or fork until the fat (butter & Crisco) resemble baby peas.  Don't overmix, your dough should still be very dry and crumbly (if it starts to get greasy looking you are mixing too much).

Sprinkle the water over the mixture 1 TBS at a time and blend with a fork.  Gather the dough together and knead for 5 min.  Again, do not over mix.  Dough should just be holding together but not greasy or shiny looking.

Split dough into two pieces.  Flatten into thick discs,wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

While your dough is chilling time to work on the apple filling.

Core, peel and cut into small pieces 5 golden delicious apples.  If the apples are very large or small adjust the quantity, you need about 5 generous cups of cut raw apples.

Place into a heavy skillet with 2 TBS unsalted butter, 2 TBS brown sugar and 2tsp. cinnamon.

Cook over medium heat until all apples are covered with the sugar and butter.  Cover and simmer for 5 minutes until soft.  Uncover and cook until all the moisture is gone.  Stir to help coat apples with thickening sauce.

While my apples were softening I made the topping for the pies.

Topping:

1/2c. old-fashioned oats
1/2c. packed brown sugar
1/4c. flour
1/4 tsp salt

Cut in 4 TBS. unsalted butter.

Mix with a pastry blender or fork until crumbly but holds together when pressed.

Back to our crust!  Take one disc of dough out of the fridge.  Roll your dough out between two pieces of plastic.  This will keep it from sticking to everything and needing more flour.  Using a 4" diameter guide cut circles in the dough.  I used the outer ring of a tuna strainer.  It worked great!.   Each disc of dough should yield 5 muffin tin crusts.

Place your cut dough into an ungreased muffin tin.  Press in with a pastry tool (the wooden tool pictured here) or your fingers.

Fill each pie crust with the apple filling.

Spoon topping over the filled pies.  I try to get some dry topping and cover with small balls of coated butter and press it down gently to make sure the pies are completely covered.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Let cool in the pan 15 minutes.  Then gently remove.  I found that by gently spinning each one I could loosen them, then I tip the pan upside down with a cooling rack against the pies.  After they come out of the pan I gently turn each one over and let cool completely.

The pie crust will be tender and flaky and very delicate.  Handle them gently.  I served these with rich vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.  They were FANTASTIC!

Disney Magic Bands

If you look in Pinterest for decorated magic bands you'll find a whole new way to express your Disney side.

For our trip to the great Mouse House I decided to use nail polish to decorate our bands and make them unique.

 If you are a huge Disney fan then you'll know just how exciting it is when these babies arrive.


For those that don't know, these are your ticket to everything.  Disney has changed over to a RF wearable wrist band.  Inside that little Mickey head is a chip that lets you into your room, has your park tickets and fast passes, photo package and even can be used as a payment method if enabled with your resort.  Basically the only thing you really need to carry to the park now is this wristband!


If you plan ahead you can choose your colors and they come with your family names on them.  I've changed ours to post here.  You can choose nicknames or the actual name of each traveler.

 To get started I found a sketch of the magic band online and stretched the dimensions to precisely match the dimensions of the magic band.  I then printed four copies and made a sketch for each band's design.  Erasing pencil is much easier than erasing nail polish.

I started with a clear coat on each band.  This was a recommendation from another band decorator that would allow you to remove the nail polish easier if you made a mistake.

Next I used a nail art pen to make the racing stripe detail on Lil' Boy's band and the swirls on Mommy's band.  I used a silver nail art pen to make the details on Lil' Girl's band.

I let them dry between each coat.  The racing stripe on Lil' boys and the color base on Mommy's eventually cracked from flexing.  Paint them in the shape of your wrist to reduce this (I used a bathroom cardboard tube).

Some other bloggers suggested using acrylic paints to avoid the cracking.  The final part was to put on a clear or sparkle top coat to seal the paint.

Here it is in process.  Lil' Girl wanted a frozen band so I had to add silver sparkles and shimmering nail polish.

Lil' Boy wanted a race car band.  His black details were done with a sharpie marker.  This does not like nail polish top coat and was left exposed.

Daddy wanted plain but I talked him into Tigger.

I went with a Tinkerbell inspired design.

 Many of the rides in Disney use black lights.  I found another great idea for using glow-in-the-dark nail polish so the bands react on the rides with black light.

Each band was decorated with "hidden magic".  Lil' Boy's checkered flag and stripe lit up.  Lil' Girl's had more swirls and dots.  Mommy's had hidden mickey's (an awesome scavenger hunt tradition in the parks).  Daddy's had stripe accents.

Besides reacting in black light (like pictured) they also glow in the dark.  This was a great distraction for Lil' Boy (5 yrs old) on the few rides where they shut out the lights completely.  He could look at his "magic" on his band and not worry about the dark.

After trip update:

How did they hold up?

I had to detail Lil' Boy's each day.  The pool erased the sharpie that was not sealed.  Thankfully I had some with us for signature books.  Mommy's band had paint cracks but held up well. Daddy and Lil' Girls were perfect the entire trip.

My two little ones are still wearing their bands as accessories some days.  It may be years before we go again but these little magic bands are still fun to look at.  Maybe eventually I'll get them back from the kids and put them in a shadow box with a family trip photo.

Valentine's Crafts and Gifts

Some fun Teacher and student Valentine gifts.


Here is the finished product for a kindergarten teacher.  I included 3 plastic bowls (dollar store) because she is always setting out supplies for the kids.  Inside I include lots of fun ideas from other valentine gifts.  The final tag says "It takes a special (heart) to shape young minds".

 Included in teacher gift.  Lip balm wrapped like candy.  All the tags were inspired by Pinterest but I created using my digital scrap-booking and paper scrap-booking supplies.

 This is a picture of all the things before wrapping.  I included some kisses and hugs (by Hershey) too.

 For the extra staff (secretary, principal, para-professionals) that we wanted to thank I got mini hand sanitizes at the Bath shop on sale.  The extra cute label was from Somewhat Simple.

This mini take-out container was for a 3rd grade male teacher.  I couldn't get too mushy so I gave him cootie cleaner, hugs and kisses.

For the kids I used my digital scrap-booking kits to make this cute little label.

"I am so glad we are in the same school!"

These are small snack size zip-bags filled with Goldfish (an approved safe snack in our school).

For my daughter we made bookmarks.  We hit the jackpot on this one.

The big blue discount store had a paint sample strip with "love" themed colors!

We used a heart-shaped hole punch to accent each color and then tied a silver ribbon on the top.

She signed the back of each one.

This one only cost me $1 for the silver ribbon!!

Countdown to Disney!

I'm not sure who is more excited, me or the kids?

We will be taking our two children to Disney World for their spring break and I just can't wait.

I have a countdown app on my phone.  I've downloaded the Disney World app.  I've read hundreds of blogs and message boards for ideas and tips.

I even have a Pinterest board dedicated to Disney Ideas!

By far the most fun we've had so far is creating our very own countdown paper chains.


Here we have 78 days until Disney.  Each Mickey Mouse theme chain is 20 days.  Each Princess chain is 14 days and the Woody theme chain is 10 days.

You can make your chains as long or as short as you need.  We had fun mixing and matching different characters to make our countdown.

To hand in the hall near the kids room I just used some clear command hooks that will come up super easy when our countdown is finished!


I found wonderful directions and templates for the Mickey Mouse countdown.

I was inspired by Making the World Cuter for my Princess chains.

I was determined to make my son's favorite character Woody and just made it up as I went.

Here's what we did:

Elsa:

All paper links were cut 1.5" wide and 8.5" long from colored construction paper.

2 Peach links for the face and neck.
12 Peach links for the dress.
White construction paper for hair.
White copy paper for accents.

Once all cut and pasted together I made white snowflakes from copy paper.

I cut one 2"x 8.5" white link into thirds.  Then with my daughters help we braided the three pieces.  With a staple at the top and the bottom to hold them we used a scrap piece of paper to glue a hair tie over the staple and embellished with a snowflake.  I then stapled the braid to the side of the top link and then glued a 1.5"x 4" white construction paper band over the top of the top link and braid to make the hair.

Anna:

All paper links were cut 1.5" wide and 8.5" long from colored construction paper.

2 Peach links for the face and neck.
4 black links for the bodice of dress.
8 green links for bottom of dress.
Glitter glue pens.
Brown construction paper for hair.
White construction paper for hair.

The second black ring of the dress we used glitter glue pens to create a decoration like the dress that Anna wore.  This needed some time to dry.

Once all cut and pasted together I made white snowflakes from copy paper.

       I cut two 2"x 8.5" brown link into thirds (discard one length).  I used a scrap of white the same size for the white stripe in Anna's braid.  Then with my daughters help we braided the three pieces into two separate braids.  With a staple at the top and the bottom of each to hold them we used a scrap piece of paper to glue a hair tie over the staple .  I then stapled the braids to the each side of the top link.  Next I took another brown link, folded over a portion of the edge and cut a fringe into it.  I glued this on for Anna's bangs and then glued a 1.5"x 4" brown construction paper band over the top of the top link and braid to make the hair.

 Woody:

All paper links were cut 1.5" wide and 8.5" long from colored construction paper.

2 Peach links for the face and neck.
2 yellow links for shirt.
1 custom cut link for shirt collar.
3 blue links for blue jeans.
2 brown links for cowboy boots.
Scrap of red construction paper.
White construction paper
Scrap of brown construction paper.


The custom cut yellow link is 1.5" x 8.5" but has two triangular tabs on it with a 1.5" gap between the tabs.  This allows the last peach link to sit between them and when folded down it looks like Woody's shirt collar.

The small scrap of red construction paper is wrapped around the second peach link to be Woody's bandanna.

The scraps of white paper are rounded to look like Woody's vest and using a black pen I colored spots on it for the cowhide look.  These were glued to the side of the custom yellow link but left unsecured at the bottoms so they hung over into the blank space for the next ring.

I made the hat by just drawing a general shape on brown paper and then folding over a brim and gluing to the first peach ring.

You could lengthen this chain by increasing the yellow, blue, and brown links but remember that Woody is tall and thin.

It's sad that we'll be taking these apart, but it's a fun way for the kids to keep track of how many days we have left.  They had a great time making them and are thrilled to have them in their hallway to remove a link each morning!