Introducing: Chummies!

For those of you that faithfully follow Frilly Milly, thank you!  I know I haven't done a great job keeping up in the past few months, but trying to juggle a "real" job, life and parties/events...well...sometimes I get a little overwhelmed :).  I have some things coming up around the corner that I promise to blog about soon, but for now I wanted to introduce you to one of my latest endeavors...Chummies!

I haven't set up an online ordering of any kind quite yet, but if you are interested in ordering chummies, just shoot me an email and let me know!  I'm still working on gift packaging for chummies-by-the-dozen, but right now you can purchase a variety of designs in the silver tin shown above for $8/tin (plus s&h...unless you are local to the Franklin/Nashville area).

What are chummies?  Well, by my own definition they are a "delicately decorated hand dipped sweet" - or in this particular case, a chocolate dipped oreo with a decorative topping.  A standard chummy is just made with a regular oreo, but I can also do any variety of oreo flavor (or double stuff!) for an additional cost.  The design pictured is for a Superbowl event, but imagine sending a box to your friends for Valentine's day, a birthday, a "congratulations on your new bundle of joy!" new baby gift, or even a simple "just because".  The possibilities are endless!

Tell your friends about chummies today! :)

Christmas Brunch

The photos for this are not the greatest, so I apologize. It was a pretty "by the seat of my pants" brunch in comparison to my typical "planning" nature. I think I had just come back from a nice Thanksgiving break and rather than get organized and plan, I dove right into work and spent the rest of my free time socializing with everyone I missed while I was out of town! So, I'm ashamed to admit that as of 2am the morning of the brunch, my Christmas tree was up in my living room - with no lights or decorations, my table wasn't set and I didn't even have napkins! I did, however, have all of the food prepared (with the help of my amazing roommate!) and in the fridge...ready to pop in the oven. That's my kind of brunch :).  So, I went to bed at 3:30, slept until 7:30 and then got up to get to work!  In 3 short hours we decorated the tree, purchased napkins, decorated the table and put the food in the oven so that by the time the guests arrived - it was ready to go!

I should have taken better pictures of the centerpiece...although in the moment it wasn't my proudest work, so I didn't feel the need to focus on it.  Well, regardless of that, it's a good concept to use when you just need to "use what you have" and make it work.  I took a bouquet of flowers from Wal-mart and cut the stems off of each bud.  I then used my water glasses/tumblers, placing the flowers underneath (somewhat of a "magnify" effect) and around them - and then put some votives on top.  You could do this with stemware or any type of glassware (colored glass would be even more amazing!) and it gives a nice, simple, and most importantly...cost-effective centerpiece.  Not the most glamorous, but it worked!

Pilgrim Hats

While visiting my family in Arizona over Thanksgiving, my cutie-patootie nieces and nephew had only one request...to bake with Aunt Trishie. Now, I'll be honest, I was a bit "baked out" from my own Thanksgiving the previous week and then the "real" Thanksgiving while I was visiting...but seriously, how could you say no to those sweet faces?! I was more than happy to do a fun little baking project with them. We created "Pilgrim Hats" of sorts. I'm sure if you used a chocolate cookie it would be a little more realistic, but I'm a sucker for a peanut butter cookie (and it also washes out of clothes a little easier ;)). We all tied on our aprons and went to work...dumping, mixing, rolling, smashing...meanwhile trying desperately not to lick the cookie-dough-goodness off our fingers. Seeing them enjoy their "hard work" after those cookies came out of the oven...priceless.

Thanksgiving Dinner Party

Before I left for Thanksgiving with my family, I decided to host my own dinner party with friends.  Rather than trying to prepare the full meal while working a 40-hour week, I was in charge of the turkey and desserts and each guest brought a side dish.  Sadly, I don't have any photos of the food other than the pies (but let me tell you - it was all delicious!), but thought I'd share a few pictures* from the table spread.  Enjoy!!

 

*all photos courtesy of Lauren Blair photography

Candy Corn Cuppycakes

Pumpkin Sticky Rolls Recipe

Better late than never? :)  Enjoy!

Pumpkin Sticky Rolls

For those of you that are fans on facebook, I'm a little embarrassed to finally be posting this after such a long delay! (hanging head in shame.)  I apologize for disappearing for so long as well.  Unfortunately Frilly Milly is just an "on the side" gig and quite often my full-time job takes up, well, my "full time" :).  We've been in the midst of a major project and although I've enjoyed it, I have to admit that it's been consuming any "creative juice" I might have.  The good news is that my absolute FAVORITE season has (finally!) arrived after a blistering hot summer, and with Autumn comes not only my favorite colors and smells, but some of my favorite foods too!

In honor of the beginning of fall (and my new bread maker :)) it was absolutely necessary to bake something that contained pumpkin.  Mmm, mmm, mmm!!  There are SO many options of things to create with pumpkin, but for whatever reason I've had a slight obsession with cinnamon rolls as of late.  I'm going to go ahead and tell you that this may be the first of many varieties to come (that is, if any of the others turn out :)).  I'm particuarly a fan of the "sticky roll" version of a cinnamon roll because I love the caramel-like goey-ness to it.  I would even go as far to say that I would not be opposed to putting cream cheese icing on TOP of a sticky roll and making the best of both worlds!  I may very well collapse in a sugar coma upon the first bite, but it would be totally worth it.

Totally.

Anyway, back to pumpkin. Pumpkin goes great with a lot of things, but cinnamon, caramel and pecans definitely have a love affair with it.  So...I went to work and created a pumpkin dough that is not necessarily a "sweet" dough to make up for the fact that it will be covered in brown sugar, butter, cinnamon and pecans.

Yum.
Yum.
Yum!

Let me just tell you, it worked.  It worked so well in fact, that I've made them twice already!  Hey, I had leftover pumpkin from the first batch, what was I supposed to do?? :)  I typed up the recipe but haven't laid it out in a printable form yet, so check back in the next day or so and I should have that up (although as you can already see, I'm a "wordy" person, so I need to go back and simplify it so it doesn't look quite so overwhelming - it's really not!).  Also, as I mentioned before, I let my bread machine do the bulk of the word, so my recipe is geared toward that, but I will write up a little "if you don't have a bread maker...here's how to change the recipe to work" blurb to help you out!