Carl Bloch

So as you may (or may not) know, there's currently a Carl Bloch exhibition at the BYU Museum of Art. He was a truly inspirational figure and amazing painter. The painting above is a really well known one, and one of my personal favorites. He has such an amazing way of capturing emotions and has a unique view of Christs emotions.

Me, my mom, my sisters, my aunt Leslie and cousin Kim went to it yesterday and absolutely loved it! It's free, you can go online to reserve tickets (which I'd recommend doing, there were a lot of people "standing-by" because they didn't have tickets). You can rent an i-pad for three dollars which guides you through the paintings, various analytical views, and meanings. Afterwhich, we stopped at the Creamery on 9th. It was lovely, even Blake (who really didn't want to go) ended up enjoying it.

It's a great, cheap date! You should go!

Tie-Dye Cupcakes!

How would I describe these scrumptious little concoctions?

YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMY!!! 

Very cute.

SUPER easy.

Crowd Pleaser.

Could it get any better?

My family has been making these little morsels for a while now. We call them Tie-Dye Cupcakes because we like to color the batter and frosting fun and crazy colors (as you can see!).

Here's what I do:

1. Prepare a white cake mix without egg yolks according to package directions. If you want to color the batter, keeping the egg yolks out will ensure the batter is true to color, and the yellow in the yolks won't make your colors funky.

2. Add an entire, 8 oz package of cream cheese and mix until well blended.

Keep in mind, the batter will be lumpy because of the cream cheese. Don't worry, it's totally worth it. The cake will turn out very moist and won't crumble apart because of the lumpy cream cheese.

3. (Optional) Divide the batter into three bowls and add correlating colors-this is the tie-dye part. :)

4. Drop batter into lined cupcake tins. Bake according to package instructions

Having a good frosting recipe is also key. In the picture above I piped the frosting on, but it looks yummy and homemade if you just spread it on.

Frosting

1/2 cup Butter (room temperature)

4 cups powdered sugar

1 tablespoon milk

1/2 teaspoon extract (I usually go with either Almond extract or Lemon extract, but you could use any extract, vanilla included.)

Using an electric mixer, mix the butter and sugar until smooth. Add extract and milk until it reaches the desired consistency (1 tablespoon does it for me, but you can add more or less if necessary.) It's also noteworthy that if you are piping the frosting onto the cupcakes, you'll likely need more frosting than you'd need if just spreading it on-double this recipe.

Enjoy!