Checking more things off my list!!
I made two varieties of cupcakes for the holiday potluck we went to. I actually had decided to make two flavors so that I could send some to some good friends in the Midwest that we miss hanging out with. I got rave reviews when I did that for some family member’s birthdays a couple months ago AND this will help me to start to mark another item off my list. One of the things on my list is to send baked goods to friends or family members at least three times in the next 6 months.
I did hear that everyone’s cupcakes stuck to the lid when they opened the jars. In an effort to fix that problem, I placed a piece of waxed paper between the frosting and the lid. I just used the lid as a stencil to cut the paper. I’m hoping that will help prevent the frosting from pulling half of the cupcake off when the lid is opened.
I sent them two of the chocolate peppermint cupcakes, and two spice cupcakes with white chocolate cream cheese frosting. For the chocolate cupcakes, I decided that Swiss meringue buttercream probably wasn’t stable enough for traveling. I decided to use up the leftover white chocolate cream cheese frosting. I added some peppermint extract and again added red stripes. As you can see in the picture, the food coloring “sticks” to cream cheese frosting much better than it does to Swiss meringue buttercream. Of course that makes sense. The buttercream is very slippery. These stripes are very intense, but I like them!
1 Order Denver trip plane tix by 12/31 (finished 12/20)
2 Order Europe trip plane tix
3 Start kitchen remodel
4 Make creme brulee
5 Work out 3x/wk for 6 wks (one / two / three / four / five / six)
6 Eat no french fries for a month (and I LOVE french fries)
7 Read my D40 manual, and start applying what I’m learning from it – started
8 Finish the major craft project I started 2 years ago
9 Go to a dr about my wrist
10 Send baked goods to family/friends (one sent 12/27 / two / three) – started
11 Read 1 book/month (Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / June)
12 Learn to ski
13 Plan/Host a girls night (in or out)
13.5 Send at least 5 birthday cards (one / two / three / four / five)






I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 






baked donuts are fun but they don’t really taste like donuts (as much as I tried to convince myself). Making regular fried donuts is fun and pretty easy!
You made me laugh…a lot!!!ahahahah hugs..and have a nice week
I loved seeing your hot cocoa and peppermint marshmallows featured as a finalist on PW’s food photos! Good luck!
You know you are my 30 by 30 mentor, right? I’ve started working on two of the items on my list right now but it is going to be interesting to see if I can get it all done in a year!
I love this list! I’m totally going to do a 30 by 30…once I turn 29 (very soon!) The fiance and I actually started a google doc list of our to do list and this reminds me of it! Thanks for the motivation to do more.
What a great list, wish I would have thought of doing this a few years ago! Good Luck!!
This is such a great thing to do! I’m hoping I can do the same on my 29th birthday!
You are making amazing progress on this list! I wish I was this good!
OH WOW! Fab list and Fab accomplishments.
you are on a roll! i think it is funny that you can’t visit your bro because he moved into a fraternity. wise call.
wow, such great progress! i wish i was more on top of it when i turned 29… maybe i was too scared 😉
Just starting the projects is half the battle! I finally did my own painting “touch ups” in the living room last week. I used the canister that said “dining room white,” because they’re the same color, right? Nope. When it dried, it was very obviously NOT “living room white.” *Sigh.* So much for getting that project done – I just made it worse!