Consider it all Joy......

Consider it all joy my brethren, when you encounter

various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith
produces endurance. James 1:2-3

This verse has meant more to me in the last two weeks than it ever has. I recently began studying the book of James and reading John MacAthur's commentary of James along with my Bible. I truly wanted to grasp what James was saying and man has God ever given me a chance to do that. You know we sometimes just don't know what we are asking for when we pray for things, I know I sure didn't. This past week and a half or so has been one of the most challenging periods of my life, ever. I don't want to go into too much detail, but it has been rough. But through this time (which I know will only continue) I have tried to stay focused on what God is trying to teach Jeremy and I. As I have done that the book of James has become my rules for living my life.

I do not think I ever truly understood what James was saying when he said "Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials...". Why joy? Trials are not fun, trials push us beyond our limits, trials are challenging and why do I need to be joyful during that time. Why would I want to be joyful when all I want to do is sit in a corner and cry? Why do I have to go through trials anyways? Are these questions you ask yourself, or am I the only one? As Jeremy and I entered this time of trials for us, we also began studying James and man does James have some wise words and answers for all of those questions.

John MacArthur talks about 8 reasons why God allows us to encounter trials (as explained in James 1. 1) So people will see the difference in Christians and non-Christians, 2) to humble us, 3) in order to wean us from our dependence on worldly things, 4) to call us to eternal and heavenly hope, 5) to reveal what we really love, 6) to teach us the value of God's blessing, 7) to develop in His saints enduring strength for greater usefulness, and 8) to enable us to better help others in trials. If I have to walk through this period of life for any one of those reasons I am more than willing. If because of the situation I am facing now God can help me be different from the world, wean me from my worldly dependence, teach me the value of his blessings, use me better, give me experiences I need to minister to someone else, or further his kingdom I am willing. Whatever the reason I know God is walking me down this path for a reason, as hard as it is and as challenging as it is I know He is right here with me, and through Him and His word I will come out of it on the other side better able to serve my creator. What an amazing place to be, what a truly joyful place to be!

John MacArthur breaks down what James says you need to persevere through trials. The first thing is a joyful attitude. Man this one has been a stretch for me, I have felt overwhelmed and broken, but just recently I have begun to see the joy and the benefit of this time. We also need an understanding mind. Right now I do not understand why I am where I am at, but I do understand that if I am willing to strive for joy every day and learn through this time and allow God to use me however He wants I know I will develop endurance for the life God has ahead of me. That is enough understanding for me right now.

I do not know what all of you are going through, and I know many of you are facing harder times than I am now, but know God is preparing you for a race, and to train for a race you must build up endurance. It is tough and not fun, but be joyful and understanding knowing God is building his everlasting endurance in you. Be excited about how God can use this experience later, who knows what He might do through you!

During this time Jeremy and I's main TV broke, it seriously just stopped working...and I never truly knew how attached I was to having a TV until it broke. But since the TV is broken we can only watch movies on our laptop. Jeremy being the amazing husband he is decided for our date night last week that he would do something really special. He took me out to McDonald's and brought me home to a new entertainment center! Yes it is simple, but we had more fun laughing about our "entertainment center" than we have in a long time. How blessed am I to have a laptop I can watch movies on and McDonald's to eat? And how grateful I am that God blessed me with an amazing husband who seeks joy with me and will laugh through trials with me while sitting on the floor watching movies. I am one blessed blessed girl. Could I really ask for more?

Recipe #2 Cookies'N'Cream Cupcakes

Merely the sound of these cupcakes made my mouth water! Now we are talking some serious cupcakes here people! Cookies and cream! Can there be anything better than oreos combined with cupcake batter? Simply heaven on earth! Ok I know what you are thinking...."Come on Whitney, these are just cupcakes!" No they are not! Cookie'N'Cream cupcakes, did you read the title? Now doesn't even the batter look heavenly? Don't you just want to reach into that bowl with a spoon and indulge yourself?

Well the cupcakes turned out just as delicious as they looked! This recipe started with a pretty general white cupcake recipe, then comes the yummy part, crushed oreos mixed into the batter! Talk about YUMM-O! After mixing the batter gently (so not to crush the oreos more than intended) you spooned the batter into the cupcake liners and let the house fill up with the delicious smell of baking cupcakes. And just when I thought these cupcakes couldn't get any better I saw the finished cupcakes! HEAVEN!

Now I believe the icing is what truly makes a yummy yummy cupcakes. You can make an absolutely delicious cupcake and if the icing is not perfect it ruins the entire thing. Perhaps that is a little dramatic, but come on, yummy icing makes for yummy cupcakes. The icing for these cupcakes was intended to mimic the cream filling of an oreo. It was a mix of white chocolate, cream cheese, a little whipping cream, and a little butter. You then whipped all of this together until it made a fluffy icing. The directions then said to top with small oreos and let the icing harden, well, being the rebellious baker I am I decided to top the cupcakes with crushed oreos instead and made my frosting a little more whipped so it did not harden quit so much. The finished result was beautiful!

You know you want one don't you? They were absolutely delicious! I ended up selling these cupcakes at a bake sale we had for my nursing class. We sold every last one of them! I truly hope everyone enjoyed them just as much as I did. This has to be my favorite recipe so far (although I have only baked 2 recipes this far) but I know there will be plenty more favorites to come. Let the baking adventure continue!

Recipe #1 Earl Grey Cupcakes

As many of you know I began my cupcake adventure a couple of weeks ago. Sorry about taking so long to post pictures of the finished cupcakes, I had some technical difficulties. :)

The first cupcake recipe Jeremy picked out was Earl Grey cupcakes. Yes, earl grey like the tea, which makes for an interesting cupcakes. You began the recipe by steeping 2 earl grey tea bags in warm milk for at least half an hour, you then mixed all the ingredients together and added the milk and baked the cupcakes. They actually turned out to be more of a cornbread consistency than a cake batter consistency. When they came out of the oven they looked yummy and golden brown!

After letting the cupcakes cool, you are suppose to steep 2 more earl grey tea bags in milk to mix with the frosting, but I decided to be rebellious and left the tea out and just mixed up the chocolate ganache (chocolate, butter, and milk).

Jeremy actually loved these cupcakes! Which surprised me, he really is not much of a sweet eater and would take steak and potatoes over sweets any day. But these cupcakes he really liked. He said they were not as sweet and had an intriguing flavor which is why he liked them. Now I am not so sure "intriguing" is a compliment or not, but that is definitely how I would describe them. They tasted different from any cupcake I have ever had. They had an orangey tea flavor to them, the earl grey flavoring was more pronounced than I expected. It was fun to try something different and bake with new ingredients I have never tried baking with before.

A Delicious Adventure

As most of you know, I LOVE baking! So I decided to start a new challenge. I recently bought a new baking book called Cupcakes Galore and I have decided to bake through this book and share my adventure with all of you. Hoe fun does that sound? And guess what! You as my friend as family will get to taste all the yummy cupcakes! Yay! It doesn’t get much better than that does it?

I will be baking one-two recipes a week and since there are 112 recipes it will take me around a year and a half to complete. I would love to bake through a cook-book but I don’t like sea food so I would have to skip the entire fish section which would be cheating so I decided to settle on cupcakes instead! I mean seriously who doesn’t like cupcakes?

The recipes include:

Grandma’s Favorites:

1. Zucchini Pine Nut

2. Chocolate Coconut

3. Black and White

4. Blue Blueberry and Cream

5. Brownie Cupcakes

6. Chocolate Peanut Butter

7. Lemon Meringue Pie

8. Apple-Cranberry Crumble Cupcakes

9. Maple-Walnut Delights

10. Three-Gingerbread

11. Strawberry-Filled Oatmeal cupcakes

12. Persimmon Nut Harvest Treats

13. Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp Cupcakes

14. Yogurt Cupcakes

15. Poppyseed and Lavender Honey Cupcakes

16. Sunshine and Vitamin C

Kid’s Cupcakes:

1. Yeti Cupcakes

2. Chocolate Hazelnut cupcakes with Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

3. Root Beer Floats

4. Birthday Beauties

5. Chocolate Sundae Cupcakes

6. Cookies N Cream cupcakes

7. Hot Chocolate and Marshmallow Cupcakes

8. Jelly-Filled Cupcakes

9. Peanut Butter and Jelly Swirls

10. Rocky Road cupcakes

11. Banana Split Cupcakes

12. S’Mores Cupcakes

13. Chocolate Malted Milkshake

After Dinner Cupcakes:

1. Burgundy Blues Cupcakes

2. Rum Raisin Cupcakes with Butter Rum Frosting

3. Beer and Peanuts Cupcakes

4. KIR Cupcakes

5. Cappuccino Cupcakes

6. Cuba Libre Cupcakes

7. Irish Coffee Cupcakes

8. Mint Julep Cupcakes

9. Mezzo-Mezzo cupcakes

10. Margarita Cupcakes with Lime Glaze

11. Midnight Madness Cupcakes

12. Pina Colada Cupcakes

13. PASTIS Cupcakes with Anise Frosting

14. After Eight cupcakes

Gourmet Cupcakes:

1. Tarte Tatin Cupcakes with Caramelized Apples

2. Bourdaloue Cupcakes with Caramelized Almonds

3. Cevenol Cupcakes with Crème de Marron icing

4. Crepe Suzette Cupcakes

5. Chocolate Mousse Cupccakes

6. Earl Grey Cupcakes

7. Crème Brulee Cupcakes

8. The Arlesienne

9. Peche Melba Cupcakes

10. The Languedocienne

11. Ricotta Lime Cupcakes with Lime Glaze

12. Tiramisu Cupcakes with Mascarpone Cream

13. Linzertorte Cupcakes

14. Mendiant Cupcakes with Fig Topping

15. Marrakech Moments

16. Pineapple Surprises

17. Macadamia and White Chocolate Cupcakes

18. Orient Express Cupcakes with Yin-Yang Frosting

19. Mini-Financier Cupcakes

20. Poire Belle Helene

21. White Chocolate and Raspberry Cupcakes

22. Gateau De Savoei (Savoy Cake)

23. Saffron and Orange Cupcakes

24. Strawberry Cheesecakes

Holiday Cupcakes:

1. Valentine’s day Cupcakes

2. Epiphany Cupcakes

3. St. Patrick’s Day Pistachio Yogurt cupcakes

4. St. Patrick’s Day Irish Soda Bread Cupcakes

5. Mother’s Day Filled Rose Cupcakes

6. Easter Lemon Chiffon Cupcakes

7. Easter Lavender Butterfly Cupcakes

8. July 4^th Red Velvet Cupcakes

9. July 4^th Blueberry and Raspberry Cupcakes

10. Thanksgiving Carrot and Cranberry Cupcakes

11. Thanksgiving Apple Cider Cupcakes

12. Halloween Orange Juice Cupcakes

13. Halloween Pumpkin Pecan Cupcakes

14. Day of the Dead Choc Cinnamon Cupcakes

15. Chanukah honey Hazelnut Cupcakes

16. Christmas Peppermint Chocolate Cupcakes

17. Christmas Fruit cupcakes with White Fondant

18. New Year’s Eve Pink Champagne Cupcakes

19. New Year’s Eve Confetti Cupcakes

Cupcakes Plus:

1. Dessert Rose Cupcakes

2. Almond and Hazelnut Mini-Meringues

3. Deep-Dish Apply Pie Cupcakes

4. Chocolate Cupcake Pies

5. Cherry Almond pit cupcakes

6. Baklava Cups

7. White Chocolate Pana Cotta Cupcakes with Passion Fruit Sauce

8. Baba Au Rum Cupcakes

9. Blueberry Tart Cupcakes

10. Strudel Cups

11. Boston Cream Cupcakes

12. Caramel Vermicelli Cupcake Flans

13. Clafoutis with Crème Anglaise

14. Charlotte A La Fraise Cupcakes

15. Black Forest Cupcakes

16. Cupcake Kebabs

17. Rosemary’s Summer Pudding Cupcakes

18. Choc and Nut Dacquoise

19. Gelee of Fruit with White Wine in a Cupcake

20. Dessert Cups

21. Special Occasion Cupcakes

22. Far Breton Cupcakes

23. Laminton Mini-Cupckaes

24. Party Sundae Cupcakes

25. Opera Cupcakes

26. Chocolate Charlotte Cupcakes

27. Aunt Florence’s Frozen Lemon Cupcakes

So today starts the beginning of my cupcakes journey. Some may be delicious and some may not work out so well, either way it will be a delicious adventure and allow me some stress relief along the way. If you are interested in trying any of the cupcakes please let me know! Jeremy is going to pick the first recipe tonight with the very scientific “see which page you land on” technique. I cannot wait to find out what it is! I will let you all know how the first recipe goes this week.