French Country Fall Decorating || Fall Pumpkin Cinnamon Swirl Pecan Muffins || Fall Decorate with Me

Hello everyone and welcome to the Little Blue Fly. In today's video we're going to have a quiet little early morning baking session with some tea and candlelight and some fabulous decorating with the wonderful French country feels that I so adore. The recipe is a pumpkin cinnamon swirl pecan muffin. Amazing by the way first time trying the recipe and we will also be putting together a fabulous citrus topiary. So I hope you're ready for some beautiful decorating. That being said let's begin shall we? So it's early in the morning in the kitchen. It's still super dark in the room. I thought to light a candle. There's just something so peaceful about early mornings. Everyone is still asleep and I just sort of have my time to myself. I'm going to make me a cup of chamomile. I will have a few cups of chamomile this morning. This is the first time I have been able to wear one of my sweaters in the morning. We were at a 69 with a very low humidity level. So I am going to enjoy this tea very much along with some candlelight in the kitchen this morning. So I like to place my candles inside my creamers and also the teacup and saucer I will make sure to share a link. They can be purchased through my Amazon storefront. Okay here's some of our ingredients. We have toasted pecans, egg, pumpkin, some milk and sugar, and cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. I love this little baking station. I did share a video some time back for those of you that are interested. I will post it at the end. It's a kitchen video. So at the end of all of my videos, at the very end, I always put up two videos that I think many of you would enjoy watching. So make sure at the end of this video, all you have to do is click on it and it will take you right into the video. And I will place the kitchen one up here where I put together spice jars and just made this my special little baking counter. I'm scooping out some of my flour from my Arthur Court canister. You know, working with vintage dishes, old dishes, or even new spode dishes, it's pretty special. Making sure to sift my flour and spices together. I can't even begin to share with you all how much I enjoy my peaceful morning hours. Everyone is still asleep. It's just good me time. And I love to bake. I was raised in a baking home, mama being German. We love to get our hands in all the baked goods, the flours, and the sugars, and the butters, and just how special, you know, to be able to work with these blue and whites as I'm putting together a first-time muffin recipe. Look at all that butter. Now that's a lot of butter. How can a recipe... Look, my mouth is all watering. I'm such a foodie, I need to quit it. But you know this recipe is gonna be amazing after you just watched all that butter just pouring out. And let's top it with some sugar. Why not? I will share this recipe in my description box. So I'm mixing just all of these ingredients together, just making sure to really get that egg and that sugar mixed in well with the other ingredients. I mean, fall is in the air here in the morning. For this upcoming week, we are in the low 70s all week. It's going to be amazing. I hope many of you experience cooler weather like we are this week. Many of us agree that it was it was a very warm summer this year, and even though we have not officially hit the first day of fall, it still feels like it. Now I'm going to add in the dry ingredients. So this is a recipe that you really don't want to use a mixer because you don't want to over mix these ingredients, which is fine with me. Anything to be able to work out of my blue and whites. We all have our different type of special dishes. We like bowls and plates or cups that we like to work with when we're in our kitchens. And since we're in here and you know we're baking or cooking for the family, you know we want to, if we can add in some extra enjoyment by, you know, using whatever, you know, like these blue and whites, whatever we desire. Some people, it's the iron stones, and it just makes it so much more enjoyable. Takes me into the times past. That's what I love. Brings me close to mom. So I got all the ingredients mixed in really good. I have some muffin pans, some muffins going on here. Now this recipe, it is to you, it's supposed to yield 12 muffins, but because I'm such a foodie, and I was just raised in a German home with fabulous baking going on all of the time, I make much larger muffins than normal. These paper cups, they can be found in my Amazon storefront. I love working with these. Nothing like having that brown paper, because again, it's all about bringing in the old-world feel of things for me and my home. So I'm doing a layer of the pumpkin mixture. I'm gonna take a sip of my tea. I love chamomile tea any time of the day. But for the muffins, I do a layer of the pumpkin mixture. Then over here to the left, this is the cinnamon swirl glaze. And basically it is brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon. This is a very buttery recipe. And just spoon a good teaspoon on top of the pumpkin. It smells so good. Oh, we're big pumpkin eaters here at the house. We like the sweet potato though, too. Okay, so we're starting with six. We'll see how many we get. I know it's not going to be 12. And then with a toothpick, I'm just going to swirl the cinnamon glaze mixture into the pumpkin. Buttery goodness. This is something you don't want to make every week. Or maybe you do. Okay, then I placed some more pumpkin on top. Just going to spread it out a little bit. And as you can see in the bowl, I can probably get a couple more muffins out of this. Not six more, that's for sure. But if you make, you know, smaller muffins, because you're being good, then yes, you should be able to get 12. But I'm not a good girl. I like big jumbo muffins. If I'm going to eat something sweet, it's going to be just that. Something quite large. And I was just going to spoon some more of the glaze mixture on top and then add in. Now the recipe did not ask for this. Make sure to subscribe and give a like if you enjoyed this video and would like to come on future adventures here at the Little Blue Fly. Okay, so I'm just going to continue on. And I have everything mixed. So you can see I yielded six, I mean eight. That's it. And that's okay. So I have the pecan and the cinnamon glaze all swirled in to the pumpkin batter. And now I'm going to place it in the oven on 350. I'm going to cook them for a little bit longer because they are a larger muffin. It did ask for 20-25 minutes, but I'm gonna push like 30, about 30 minutes. We'll check and see. I freshened up my cup of tea. And now what we are going to make is just, the recipe called it a cream cheese glaze. However, I just don't agree with that. This is not a cream cheese glaze. This is just your simple powdered sugar glaze. I use this also during Christmas time when I bake my lepkugen cookies. And this is just powdered sugar. And what I'm doing, I didn't sift it. And I really need to sift this or I'm going to have a problem. So things are about to get a little bit messy here because you don't want all these lumps in your powdered sugar. You end up having to stir things up quite a bit in order to work them out if you don't sift. Okay, so I'm just going to tap the side. I have a smaller one. However, I have no idea where it is since we moved. So now I'm just going to make a mess and that's okay. But just sifting the powdered sugar so that it makes it easier when I mix things up for the icing. I also do have a sifter somewhere where you just put it in and and you turn the handle. But I just didn't quite know where that was at because I haven't been doing too much baking. But now that it's starting to pick up, I will make sure that I know where all of my baking is at. Look, it's getting all over the countertop. Just don't judge me. I'm messy. I'm having fun. Everyone's asleep. It's quiet. It's cool. And I'm going to have a sweet treat. We all are later on today. And there's nothing like a homemade sweet treat. See, look. Look at that. It's all over. I'm so messy. Okay, so I'm just adding in a teaspoon of vanilla. The recipe does ask for a half a teaspoon, but I am double batching just because I know my family and we all really like icing. So the recipe at, well, it said two to three tablespoons. I did just go ahead and fill up this measuring cup and we'll just pour the milk out as needed. This is really a personal preference here. However thick or thin you want your icing. We tend to like ours a little bit on the thicker side. Probably because that's what we're used to eating with the lepkugan and on tops on top of cakes. So you just stir it about until there's no lumps. Because it doesn't look very nice when you put icing on top of a baked good and you just see a clump of powdered sugar that was not completely mixed in. It's sort of one of those things like when I always say, okay ladies iron your linens, right? I do not like a wrinkled, no, a wrinkled linen and I definitely don't like lumps in my glaze. There's just certain things that mom just put in all of us girls. So it looks good. It's just about done here and I'm going to clean up and put things to the side. I have to taste it and yes has a wonderful vanilla flavor and I can already tell I will be adding in more powdered sugar. I need more glaze. Okay so I cleaned up the station and now we're just going to stay here and decorate. We have toothpicks. We have an 18-inch styrofoam cone that was purchased from Hobby Lobby. Then we have the other items are from Hobby Lobby as well. This is a boxwood garland. It was on sale this week too so that was great. I believe it was, I don't, they don't do 50% off anymore. I don't think. I think it's just 40%. I don't know. I could be wrong but it was one or the other. 40 or 50% off which was great and then the oranges. I have a big bowl of oranges here for this project. They were purchased from Hobby Lobby. They're smaller bags and five are needed for this project. Then I have my hot glue gun and scissors off to the side. Now I'm going to, I'm gonna keep the plastic on this cone. Here I have a toothpick in the orange and I will add a I don't want them falling out and again the plastic will stay on this cone because I just to keep the mess down. Foam can get so messy so make sure your cone is flat on the counter and your orange and push it straight in to the cone so that it will be even. You want your base even. Although we are going to move some up a little bit but we want to get that flat surface at the beginning. So this is the largest orange in the small bags and I will be going all around the cone and again making sure that the orange is touching the surface as I push it into the cone so that it just has a good again flat base. Toothpicks go in the oranges no problem and I'm spacing them apart probably about a finger's width. Yeah so I placed all the largest oranges down at the bottom and now we're going to work with the medium-sized ones and again you just and I could add hot glue on the end and then push it into the orange but I just didn't bother with that. I'm just putting it on the tip and again no need to remove the plastic. It really cuts down on the mess and cleanup. I want to lift it up a little bit, want to keep just a little bit of room between my oranges. I'm going to do the same thing just going around with the medium ones. I can't believe my family is still asleep. This is wonderful. So again five bags are needed of oranges for this project. An 18 inch cone or if you want a smaller one you can go smaller. Okay this is the whole you know when I work with floral how I share you know keep everything at like a diamond. That's what we are doing here. So I have two large oranges at the bottom then I have the medium-sized one on top and then going up a little bit more I will put another large one and that gives like the the triangle the diamond point. I just burnt myself. That hurt really bad. I don't have any gloves right now. Yeah hot glue burns. They hurt. And then I have some small ones and I'm just going to tuck them in here on the side. Now when you make your own orange topiary you don't have to use as many oranges if you don't want to. You can do because as you're gonna see here in a moment we will be working with some greenery and you can add more greenery and less oranges if you want to. It's all personal preference. So see I have a large gap down at the bottom because I plan on putting some greenery. I have the diamond point going and now we will just continue with the process and trying when but it will change when we go up to the top but lower here we want to stay true to that diamond point when working with these oranges. So it was basically the first two layers here is you know I stuck with the technique and then just switched it up and randomly started putting oranges here and there but making sure to keep little gaps in for when I decide to add in the greenery. And you don't have to use the faux boxwood. If you wanted to use preserved boxwood that would be gorgeous. Very costly. This right here did not hurt the pocketbook at all. It was it was great. See I have the triangle going with the medium-sized oranges. You could even put moss in between them if you wanted to. So now I'm going to add in another large orange and this is where the pattern starts changing. I want to twist it over to the side now. You don't want to go all the way up your cone doing the same diamond point. You want to move it to the side to the left or to the right a little bit to draw that visual interest because too much of one thing is just so matchy-matchy and in my book I don't too much care for that. So see I placed one down here and then two up at top and it's much different of a pattern. So I'm just going to keep filling things in. So here we have quite a bit of the lemons on here. Again five bags, not lemons. How many times have I said lemons? I don't know. Oranges. Oranges. And I have my boxwood. I'm just grabbing it and just pulling off each little cluster and then the tips I just I'm cutting them off. At first I was just gluing them like this and placing them on but I later went in pulled them out because it was just they were too long. I needed them to be shorter. The ones down at the bottom I did leave those as they were but the ones going up I did remove those and cut down the stems. And we're just tucking in however much greenery you like in between the oranges. Again you could use moss. You could put moss in there and then use some boxwood or any other type of greenery. You could put ivy in between the oranges if you wanted to. It's just having the warmth of the green with this vivid orange. It's just a beautiful pairing. This was the part that took the longest was adding in all of the boxwood. If you used moss it would definitely be faster but you wouldn't have all the wispy branches coming out. You know it gives it that the French country a little bit of the whimsical look and feel when you let things just come out. So again this was the longest part adding in all of the greenery. So if you're someone that's not very patient you might not want to use this type of boxwood. You just might want to go with moss. And here we have it it's all finished and she's so pretty. I just I love I'm in love with oranges bringing the oranges back into the home. And this has to be the sweetest topiary. And we could keep it right like this but we are going to change things up just a little bit. And again if you have not already subscribed you just might want to do that because we have so much fall and Christmas right after decorating coming up this year. And make sure to check your bells for notification and if you enjoyed the video to give it a like. And of course I always love hearing from all of you in the comment section. I haven't been hearing too much from you all lately. I guess we're all a little bit busy but just know that I love to hear from you guys. Okay if I can share anything this I love this vessel it's just oh it's that beautiful you know lime or apple green and it just pairs perfectly with the oranges. I don't care what you decide to do if you decide to go with more greenery or not put your money towards a nice vessel because it makes all the difference if you are going to place your topiary up on top of a vessel. Because again you could just keep it flat on a tabletop but if you are gonna go in a vessel invest in a very nice one. So we're gonna go up up up and what a beauty this I have not measured it but she is quite tall but we're not ending there. I want to continue to have this you know French country feel continue on the oranges and the greens and then the pops of the black. Now this piece will not be staying here I am just decorating here on this countertop but I have this delicious ribbon orange ribbon and I so I found this and the pot at a florist and they didn't have any more pots and they didn't have any more ribbon. I tried finding the ribbon and I couldn't but any orange check will do just fine. So the icing has sat for a little bit it got thick and so I'm just gonna thin it out a little bit as you can see I did add in some more powdered sugar and stir things up because the muffins they have finished they're ready. I think I'm gonna keep this a thing on Sundays when I share decorating videos and if you notice this week you did get tea videos didn't you? I'm gonna try to start bringing in that second video and here's the muffins okay they're they're scrumptious. Now this is a muffin the tops it's very thick and dense the tops are like a crunchy with the brown sugar and pecans it is a fabulous recipe. Again how can you go wrong when you have all that butter it's not possible. Now when I do my baking the butter I love to work with is challenge unsalted challenge butter. Now look we're going to peel this back and look at all this buttery goodness all over this paper cup oh my goodness we have to cut it open don't we we have to cut it open so the family's awake now they came down sniffing and they're wanting this and they just have to wait they know how it goes for the video then you can eat and look at that beautiful pumpkin oh this is going to be incredible so we're going to put some icing on top and I will make sure to share this recipe and my description box and this is a recipe that you must try because it is absolutely fabulous have a beautiful day everyone and I will see you again soon