Minty Chocolate or Vanilla Butter cream Frosting

*This post contains affiliate links*

 Note: This post contains affiliate links. I alternated a recipe from the following recipe found here.

Introducing...

Butter Cream Frosting! :D

But not just any butter cream frosting....

Minty Chocolate and/or Vanilla Butter cream frosting!

Lol, got your mouth watering yet?

Okay, before I share my amazing recipe, let me explain why I'm doing this post in the first place first. (optional reading, I'm sure 95% of you won't read it to avoid wasting time, and that's okay, If you have time feel free, but who cares, I like typing stories!)

When I go to bake something with frosting, I rack the internet for the perfect recipe for frosting. Even if I found something perfect last time, I always alternate it and then I always loose it. Now here I am, bookmarking it for myself, and sharing it with you! Its a win-win. :D

The recipe I alternated this time can be found here.

The reason I alternated this recipe was because I didn't have chocolate chips like they called for and even if I did, I probably wouldn't have wanted to mess with melting them and dirtying up another dish just to put it over the stove's eye when...I can just use cocoa powder!!

So looking for a decent recipe that follows these guidelines:

-Must have no more than one stick of butter (1/2 cup)

-Not more than 3 cups of powdered sugar

-Dairy Free? Depends. We have two in our family who are dairy free (and just while we're at it, four who are gluten-free so if you're gluten-free check back occasionally for random recipes) ;P

And now, finally, a truly delish butter cream frosting that does not require four sticks of butter. Here you will find what you have been looking for and can actually afford:

Butter cream frosting that only requires half a cup, or, one stick, of butter.

So here I have for you, like, four different variations of different butter cream frostings. Just watch the colorful headlines for the recipe that suits your fancy. It will pass the guidelines mentioned above! If you are not dairy-free, don't worry! Check out the recipes. ;)

Doesn't it look so good???!!! You know this is what you're going to make for your little brother's yellow birthday cake...

Each of these recipes allow you to frost a two layer cake made of eight inch round pans, with frosting in the middle and on the outside, with some leftover. Serves about 15 (one pound of frosting), I would say. Perhaps more, but we made a cake (like mentioned above) that served 12, and had just a little leftover.

For each recipe the method remains the same:

Put all ingredients in a medium sized bowl and use the beaters to blend together until creamy and as few lumps as possible.

***If you are dairy-free, simply replace the whole milk with almond milk, using same amount as mentioned for whole milk.

If you really don't want it to be minty, it will not effect the recipe if you leave it out. We just added it as a little twist. ;)

Here they are:

Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting

(With, or without diary)

1/2 Cup (one stick) unsalted butter

3 Cups powdered sugar

1/4 Cup whole milk*

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon mint extract

Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting

(With, or without diary)

1/2 Cup (one stick) unsalted butter

3 Cups powdered sugar

1/4 Cup whole milk*

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon mint extract

Simply Mint Butter Cream Frosting

(With, or without diary)

1/2 Cup (one stick) unsalted butter

3 Cups powdered sugar

1/4 Cup whole milk*

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon mint extract

Enjoy and let me know if you liked it or not! :)

Six Motivations to Cleaning your Room

Six Motivations to

Cleaning your Room!!

By Bree R.

(Sorry for no visual intro) :(

You roll around in your bed to face your alarm clock.

Its Saturday.

And that's the day your mom wants you to straighten up your cluttered room to the bone because you're so busy every other day of the week, with school projects, homework, sports practice, and such and such.

So she is giving you a bit of grace.

But to you, not enough.

Today is the day you face every week, one in which you have to stare at piles of dirty laundry, shoes strewn about the floor, papers piled to heaven on you your desk, and everything else you own that is “not in its proper home”.

Your first extinct when you look at this mess is, “I do not want to tackle this monster, and so I won't.”

Can you relate?

We all know that the want to clean your room is not something that comes naturally.

So how does it come?

I have come up with a list of things you can do to get you motivated to get rid of that monster you fear so much!

And enjoy it.

What?

Okay, so here they are, in order:

1. Let Everybody Know What You're Doing First

Go out to the living or wherever the people are, and announce, “I'm going to clean my room!” Ask politely if they can allow you to do this for however long you set your time (see step 2) without calling you out to do something else every ten minutes, which can distract you, or cause you to loose your motivation.

2. Set a Time Limit

Look around your room and estimate how long it might take. My room usually takes about 30-60 minutes to tidy if I include some deep cleaning and I keep at it. But I used to get distracted and dawdle a bit. :/ I'm glad that won't happen anymore! Anyway, say you think it will take 45 minutes, according to your usual timing. Now shrink it down 10 minutes. You can do this without dawdling. Add that number to the time right now and set your alarm clock for 35 minutes from now. This will make you want to “beat the beep”. LOL, I do this with the shower too, just for the record. I like to take long, hot showers, which was not good for our water bill. With a timer in there, I hurried to beat it and usually was out with 3 minutes still on the timer. Anyway, thought you might like that tip if you have trouble with this too, LOL.

3. Put on Some Fun Music!
Put on some music. I have a really great suggestion. Click: Jamie Grace playlist to listen to some very bubbly, fun, get-you-moving beats. (quick bite: White Boots is one of my faves!! Which surprises me because I'm not a country fan) XP I find that when I have this on, I unconsciously start putting things away in the living room or wherever its on. LOL! Its not rock-n-roll, and usually when I have on Britt Nicole, tobyMac, or something harder like that, I want to stop cleaning and just dance in front of the mirror. (There. Its out.) ^.^ But with music from Jamie Grace, I enjoy singing along and cleaning. I don't know why, and I don't know about you, but this is my #1 motivation! You should definitely try it. If you don't have a laptop, you can download the awesome Spotify app on your phone and play her album either “Ready to Fly” or “One Song at a Time”. They're both really great. And if you don't have a phone, you can ask to borrow your mom or dad's phone or laptop, and if they don't have an iPhone, well, then you're just down on your luck. XD


4. Have Something Good to Munch on
Get something like crackers or chips, but make it something healthy. Like...trail mix. A finger food is something you can easily grab here and there when you need a second. Have some sort of healthy refreshing drink. I like water, but you can have, like, vitamin water, a protein shake, anything that will boost your system. If you keep shoving Doritos or sour gummy worms in your mouth, or chugging down a soft drink with 50 grams of sugar, you are not going to want to clean your room. You'll find yourself nodding off in a lounging chair, not feeling good, and if you're not doing that, you'll find yourself either bouncing off the walls dancing along to the music or getting distracted. And even later you won't feel good, probably with a headache (I have learned a lot in the three-year journey of our healthy food conversion). XD So some really good snacky foods will do these two things: Make you feel fresh and energized, and just having a snack in there will give you the impression that you don't have to be so strict about having breaks. Have I gotten the point across? ;)

5. Change Your Clothes

This may sound weird, but it helps me. If you're wearing something tight like skinny jeans with a studded belt or a tight tank top with a vest, and a scarf, and a bunch of other accessories like you were about to go to the mall, you might find it hard to move around. Your clothes might get uncomfortable or in the way. Change into a big T-shirt and sports shorts, which are much comfortable and, of course, easier to move around in.

6. Set a System
You might even consider sitting down with a piece of paper and a pencil. Or the laptop, and you can print this out and put it up on your pin board or wherever so you can use it next time. Look around for the most stressful or biggest part of the mess. Say, laundry. Write it down. Here is an example according to my messes:

1. Put dirty clothes in hamper and wash
2. Put all shoes on shelf
3. Put away yarn and needles/hooks
4. Clean up trash and/or unneeded papers

…....

One day I went to clean my room and didn't know where to start. \oOo/ So once I thought of something (What do I own the most of...? CLOTHES.) I took care of that, wrote it down and how long it took. I did this with every single other little step, including how long it took to find all my hair elastics and put them away, and at the end, I found it took me about 62 minutes. One hour! (Actually, I was in there for five, trying to write it all down and coming out a few times and such. AUGH!) I added ten minutes to this, and planned on diminishing my clutter in 70 minutes next time, but trying to get it done in 60. I typed it up and printed it out so I can easily see how long this took me last time, or what  I did in order. Makes it a billion times easier. You might even want to clean your room next time to test and see how your schedule works!

So you can make up your own list, this was just an example. This is something that will help you relax instead of turning around, ready to win, with your hands together and then loosing hope.

~

So, I hope these tips have helped! I know they did me.

Let me know how it helped you below, 'kay?

Thanks for reading!

~

(Psst, two more followers-right now I have 28-and hopefully in the next post you'll hear something about a.....contest...? Yes! A contest! My very first one! I'm really excited about it. If you like taking pictures and/or drawing/painting, I'm going to host a big double contest-two at once-so hopefully everyone can do something.) ;)

I'd like to thank Large Family Logistics for helping me get motivated to write this, but I tried not to copy anything exactly. :)

 

Unfortunately, this was the only picture I had to display. :( Sorry for any trouble if this pops up on Pinterest. :P