Cattapan's Cookies & Cakes

Cranberry Upside-Down Cake

2012-02-25T22:35:00.003-06:00

I found this recipe in Parade Magazine. You can also see it here. Although my version turned out to be a slightly flatter cake, it still tasted awesome. This will definitely be made again--probably during the holidays. It works as either a dessert or a brunch-time coffeecake.

Cranberry Upside-Down Cake

Ingredients for cake:
1-1/2 cup fresh cranberries
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts
1 teaspoon grated orange peel
1/2 cup butter, softened and divided
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons orange juice
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1/2 cup buttermilk

Ingredients for glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon melted butter
2 tablespoons orange juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9-inch cake pan with cooking spray and flour lightly.

In a small bowl, combine cranberries, walnuts, and orange peel.

In a small saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat. Add brown sugar, orange juice, and cinnamon. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Pour into prepared pan. Sprinkle with cranberry and nut mixture.

Whisk flour, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl.

In a large mixing bowl, beat sugar and remaining butter until creamy. Add vanilla, egg, buttermilk, and flour mixture. Spoon over cranberries.

Bake 40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes before inverting onto pan. Beat glaze ingredients and drizzle over cake.

Frozen Buttercream Transfer

2012-02-19T10:13:00.005-06:00

This cake was my first attempt at doing a frozen buttercream transfer. Usually, this method is used to create a character image that is later transferred onto a cake. I was making a birthday cake for a friend, and I wanted it to have a three-dimensional "picture frame" feel to it. Since buttercream transfers are rather thick and naturally stand out from the cake, I decided to use this method for the frame part of my decoration.

I'll give a brief description of what I did, but the best explanation I found for how to do a frozen buttercream transfer is on the Wilton website.

Frozen Buttercream Transfer

Supplies:
Buttercream Icing (recipe here)
Waxed paper
Desired design outlined on paper
Cookie sheet or flat board
Decorating bags and tips

To start, you'll need your design outlined on a piece of paper. For this cake, I measured the width and length of the picture frame I wanted. If you're doing a character for your cake, you'll want the reverse image (just flip over what you've drawn and trace it).

Tape the waxed paper down over your drawing. I taped both the drawing and the waxed paper to a cookie sheet so that I could easily move it all to the freezer later.

Take a decorating bag filled with your outline color and trace your design. Since I simply wanted the picture frame to be brown, I outlined with chocolate buttercream icing.
Then fill in your design using a tip like #4 or #5. Be sure to really fill in every corner since you want your transfer to be solid. You can smooth it with a spatula.

Once you've completely filled in your design, fill another decorating bag with icing the same color as the background of your cake. My cake was going to have a white background, so I used white icing. Outline and fill the entire design with your background color.
Place your sheet in the freezer for at least ninety minutes or overnight.

After icing your cake, pull the transfer out of the freezer. Quickly, flip it onto your cake and peel of the waxed paper. Finish decorating your cake with borders, lettering, or whatever else you desire.

White Chocolate Kahlua Balls

2012-02-12T08:32:00.005-06:00

These cookies have a taste similar to tiramisu. When I made them, I discovered that many of my friends don't like tiramisu. Oh well, more cookies for me!

White Chocolate Kahlua Balls

Ingredients:
20 mini Nilla wafers (about 1 cup), finely crushed
3 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 teaspoons Kahlua
6 oz. white chocolate
4 Wilton candy melts

Mix the crushed Nilla wafers with the softened cream cheese and the Kahlua. Roll into small balls and refrigerate on waxed paper for 10 minutes.

Melt the white chocolate in a small bowl. Roll the balls in the white chocolate and return to waxed paper to harden. Refrigerate one hour.

Melt Wilton candy melts (you could use chocolate chips instead) and place in a decorating bag with a small tip like #3 or #4. Drizzle chocolate over cookie balls.

Keep refrigerated.

Yields: 16 cookies

Superbowl Cookies -- Oreo Style

2012-02-05T09:50:00.005-06:00

These cookies will probably post too late for people to use it this year, but maybe they'll be useful next football season. :)

Superbowl Cookies -- Oreo Style

Ingredients:
20 Oreo cookies
2-1/2 ounces cream cheese, softened
7 squares sweetened chocolate
white icing

Finely crush the Oreo cookies. With a pastry blender, mash the cream cheese into the cookie crumbs.

Using a heaping tablespoonful at a time, shape the cookies into footballs. Placed on tray lined with waxed paper. Refrigerate at least ten minutes.

Melt the chocolate squares in a small bowl. Dip the football cookies into the chocolate until coated. Return the waxed paper.

When the chocolate hardens, use the white icing to decorate the cookies so that they look more like footballs. Refrigerate cookies until ready to eat.

Yields: about 12 cookies

Cranberry-Orange Scones

2012-01-29T11:00:00.006-06:00

A friend was kind enough to pass on her scone recipe to me. They were so fantastic--not dry and heavy like many other scones--that I was tempted not to bring them into work as promised. I did manage to get most of them into work, and I also tried making my own variation by adding some dried cranberries and orange zest. These turned out yummy, too!

Cranberry-Orange Scones

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon grated orange peel (a.k.a. orange zest)
6 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 cup milk mixed with 1-1/2 teaspoons lemon juice)
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix together flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and grated orange peel. With a pastry blender, cut in butter until mixture becomes coarse like cornmeal. Make a hole in the center and pour in the buttermilk. Mix until dough is sticky. Stir in dried cranberries.

Divide dough in half. Using one-half at a time, shape it into a 5-inch circle on a floured surface. Cut into pie wedges. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Brush with beaten egg. Bake in oven for 10 minutes or until golden brown.

For the plain scones, simply omit the dried cranberries and orange peel.

Chocolate Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies

2012-01-22T09:38:00.004-06:00

The original version of these cookies can be found here. I made a few changes based on the comments other bakers left. These are soft cookies that keep pretty well for several days if you store them in an airtight container.

Chocolate Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
4 (1 oz.) squares of chocolate*
1/2 cup butter
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1-1/4 cup sugar (divided)
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/3 cup red raspberry preserves**

*I used one square of semi-sweet chocolate and three squares of unsweetened chocolate. The original recipe called for all of them to be unsweetened. Many of the people who commented on the recipe said they used 2 semi-sweet and 2 unsweetened. I guess it depends on how sweet you like your chocolate. :)

**The original recipe called for jam, but the preserves seemed to hold up better.

Mix flour, baking soda, and salt. In large microwavable bowl, melt chocolate and butter for 2 minutes on high. Chocolate will hold most of its shape. Stir until smooth. Cube the softened cream cheese and stir into chocolate until melted. Stir in 1 cup of sugar, vanilla, and egg. Add flour mixture and combine thoroughly. Refrigerate at least fifteen minutes.

Heat oven to 375. Roll dough into 1-inch balls and then roll in remaining sugar to coat. Drop onto ungreased cookie sheet. Dip the end of a wooden spoon into sugar and depress in center of cookie to make a well for the preserves. (You can, of course, use your thumb for this, but the end of a wooden spoon makes a neater depression, which leads to less preserves spilling out the sides of the cookie.)

Fill each well with 1/4 teaspoon of preserves.

Bake 8-10 minutes. Cool one minute before transferring to wire rack.

Yields: about 4 dozen cookies.

Chocolate Truffle Pie

2012-01-15T09:55:00.004-06:00

I made this for a friend's party over the holidays. The dessert is very rich, so I suggest small pieces and add the Cool Whip topping. As with many of my recipes here, this one is from the Kraft website.

Chocolate Truffle Pie

Ingredients:
10 squares (1 oz. each) semi-sweet chocolate
1/2 cup whipping cream
4 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
Cool Whip and powdered sugar (optional toppings)

Preheat oven to 325. Melt the chocolate and the whipping cream in a bowl in the microwave for 2 minutes. The chocolate will retain most of its shape, so stir it until it's thoroughly melted and smooth. Let it cool for a bit, and then whisk in the eggs, sugar, and flour.

Spray pie plate with cooking spray and pour in the batter. Bake for 35 minutes. Center of pie should still seem a little on the soft side. Cool.

If desired, sift powdered sugar over the top of the cooled pie. If you want a cool design, place a stencil down on the pie first. Sift the powdered sugar over it and then carefully lift the stencil from the pie. I made my own stencil by finding some fun paper snowflake templates on this website.

Don't forget to add the Cool Whip when you're ready to serve!

Yields: about 12 servings

Chicago Public Schools Butter Cookies--Egg Free!

2012-01-08T19:52:00.006-06:00

A co-worker suggested I search the web for this recipe. She attended the Chicago public schools, and she remembers these cookies from her childhood. She said she'd found the recipe online was was surprised to learn there were only four ingredients.

The recipe intrigued me because there are no eggs, and I'm always keeping an eye out for treats my nephew with the egg allergy can enjoy.

Although I didn't find the taste of these cookies to be anything exceptional, they were probably the easiest cookies I've ever had to roll.

Chicago Public School Butter Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add vanilla extract. Gradually add in flour. Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and flatten with three fingers.
This will make the nice set of ridges the Chicago public school butter cookies are known for.
Bake until golden brown (about 12-15 minutes).

(You can see from the top photo that I sprinkled them with a little colored sugar before baking because I was making them for the holidays.)

Yields: 2 dozen

Holiday Cookies: Melting Snowman Oreo Balls

2012-01-01T14:24:00.007-06:00

The inspiration for this cookie came from this Kraft website. Their recipe used Nutter Butter cookies, but I decided to try this with the Oreo balls recipe instead. The only problem was that the white chocolate did pick up some of the dark Oreo cookie crumbs, but they seemed to melt right into the white chocolate eventually.

Melting Snowman Oreo Balls

Ingredients:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 package Oreo cookies, finely crushed
16 oz. white chocolate
about 48 mini Oreos
colored icing for decorating
(I used the Wilton Icing Writers.)

Finely crush the Oreo cookies. (You can use a blender, food processor, or--my personal favorite for letting out aggression--a Ziploc bag and a rolling pin.)

Mix the crushed cookies with the cream cheese. Line a couple cookie sheets with waxed paper. Roll the cookie mixture into 1-inch balls on placed on waxed paper. (You should get 45-50 of them.) Freeze for at least ten minutes.

Melt the white chocolate. (Follow instructions on baking chocolate box or white chocolate chip bag.) Working with just one cookie sheet at a time, dip the cookie balls into the melted white chocolate. Before the chocolate hardens, top each one with a mini Oreo so that it looks like a top hat for your snowman. (The mini Oreos come in the Snak-Saks as pictured to the left.)

Next, decorate the snowman's face by giving him a nose, a smile, and two eyes. You can use colored icing that you made or store-bought decorating icing. I used the Wilton icing writers for this. They worked pretty well, although I had to knead the little tubes first or they came out too runny. (Maybe my icing writers are getting old?) Also, I wish they had an orange one for the nose.

The decorating works best if the cookie is still cold when it is dipped in the white chocolate. That way the chocolate begins to harden fairly quickly but not too quickly. You'll want to get the little Oreo hats on right away, and then add the face as soon as the chocolate gets a firm surface. A goopy chocolate snowman means facial features that melt right off!

Yields: about four dozen cookies

Christmas Cutout Cookies

2011-12-25T21:02:00.004-06:00

Merry Christmas, everyone! I'm not going to post an entire recipe today. Instead, I'm simply going to refer you to the King Arthur Flour website, where you can find the recipe for the Christmas Cutout Cookies some friends and I tried this year.

The dough rolled and cut pretty nicely, but other than that, they were your typical butter/sugar cookies.

Here is a photo of a few of the ones we decorated:
Yes, that is a mini tree cookie inside the large snowglobe and a mini snowman cookie inside the middle snowglobe.

We used the King Arthur recipe for royal icing. While this recipe was a little easier to make than the traditional royal icing I make (using the Wilton recipe), it certainly wasn't any easier to work with. In fact, I found it to be rather a pain. My right hand cramped up so bad from squeezing the icing bag that I couldn't fully open my fingers for a half hour or so after decorating.

If I make sugar cutout cookies again, I think I'm sticking with buttercream icing. It takes longer to dry, but it goes on more smoothly and (in my humble opinion) tastes better.

Christmas Cookies: Candy Cane Snowballs

2011-12-18T09:26:00.005-06:00

I've made several different cookies over the years that require crushed candy canes on top. These are pretty good. I don't know if they are my favorite of the candy cane cookies (I think I may actually like these better), but I do like the white chocolate instead of the icing on top of these.

Candy Cane Snowballs

Ingredients:
2 cups butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 1/2 cups flour
1 cup chopped pecans
8 oz. white chocolate chips
1/2 cup crushed candy canes

Cream butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in vanilla and then gradually add the flour. Stir in chopped pecans. Refrigerate 3-4 hours for easier handling.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place two inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 18-20 minutes until lightly brown. Cool on wire rack.

Melt white chocolate in the microwave until smooth. (The package directions suggested one minute at 70% power, stir, and then 15 second increments as necessary.) Dip the top of each cookie into the chocolate and then the crushed candy canes.

Instead of always dipping the cookie in the chocolate, I tried putting the melted white chocolate in a decorating bag and squeezing it on top of the cookies. That was a little easier than dipping them. I also tried just sprinkling the candy canes on top, but I think dipping the cookies in the crushed candy canes actually resulted in better coverage.

Yields: about 5 dozen cookies

Chocolate Candy Cane Cake

2011-12-11T10:00:00.004-06:00

I adapted this recipe from the Kraft website. The original version had candy canes in the cake itself. I was worried about the cake ending up crunchy. They also suggested using cool whip for the icing. I used buttercream icing with peppermint extract.

The cake was made to celebrate a special occasion at work, so I didn't add the crushed candy cane decorations until it was time to serve it. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so the only photo I have is one of the last piece that was left and I was able to take home. (Update: a co-worker has sent me a photo she took with her phone--I've added it to the end.)

Chocolate Candy Cane Cake

Ingredients for cake:
1 Devil's Food cake mix
1 instant chocolate pudding packet
8 oz. sour cream
4 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Ingredients for icing and decorating:
1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening (e.g. Crisco)
1/2 cup margarine
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
2 tablespoons water
4 cups powdered sugar
about eight small candy canes, crushed

To make the cake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray cake pans with cooking spray. In a mixer, beat the first six ingredients until thoroughly blended. Stir in the chocolate chips. Pour into prepared cake pans and bake for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool for 10 minutes before inverting onto wire racks.

Once cake has cooled completely, make the icing by beating together the vegetable shortening, margarine, vanilla, peppermint extract, and water. Gradually add powdered sugar and beat until smooth.

To decorate the cake, I first iced the bottom layer and sprinkled a few crushed candy canes on top. Then I placed the second layer on top and iced the entire cake. The final candy cane decorations were not added until just before serving because I didn't want them to bleed into the icing.

Apricot Pinwheels

2011-12-04T17:23:00.006-06:00

I wanted to use up some apricot preserves so I used a recipe for "Sweet Jam Swirls" (which you can find here) as the basis for this recipe.

The cookies turned out pretty well, but I think they'd work better with a very thin layer of jelly as opposed to the preserves I used. Still tasty, though!

Apricot Pinwheels

Ingredients:
1 package (18 ounces) refrigerated sugar cookie dough
8 ounces cream cheese
3/4 cup flour
8 rounded teaspoons apricot preserves
2 tablespoons sugar

Soften cream cheese (an hour at room temperature or 15-20 seconds in microwave). Let cookie dough set out at room temperature for 15 minutes.

In large mixer bowl, beat together cream cheese, cookie dough, and flour until well blended. Divide dough into four equal pieces. Wrap each in plastic wrap and freeze for an hour.

Removing one piece at a time from the freezer, roll into a square about 5 or 6 inches wide. The dough should be about 1/4 inch thick.

Spread two rounded teaspoons of preserves on the square. Leave a half inch bare at the end you will roll toward since the preserves tend to ooze.
Roll into logs, wrap in plastic wrap, and freeze for 3 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray cookie sheets with baking spray. Cut logs into 1/4-inch slices. Place on greased sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool on sheet for one minute before removing to cooling rack.

Yields: about 4 dozen.

Homemade Butterfinger Bars with Only Three Ingredients

2011-11-27T22:12:00.007-06:00

A friend told me about this recipe, so of course I looked it up online and it's all over the web. In case you haven't seen this yet, here's how to make your own Butterfinger Bars with only three ingredients.

This recipe is so good it literally got a round of applause at work.

Homemade Butterfinger Bars

Ingredients:
1 lb. bag of candy corn (about 2-1/2 cups)
1 small jar (16 oz.) of peanut butter
about 12 oz. of chocolate for melting (I used 12 1-oz. squares of Baker's semi-sweet chocolate, but you could also use chocolate chips or Wilton candy melts)

Line an 8x8 pan with parchment paper or waxed paper. (You can also use a 9 x 9 pan; your pieces will just end up thinner.)

In a medium-sized bowl, microwave the candy corn for one minute on high. Stir. Microwave another 30 seconds and stir again. Continue microwaving and stirring at 30 second intervals until thoroughly melted. (This should take a total of 2-3 minutes.)
Immediately add the peanut butter and stir until smooth. Turn into prepared pan and press smooth with rubber spatula. (Do this quickly because it hardens fairly fast. Do not be tempted to lick the bowl--it's hot!)
Let cool for an hour or two. Remove from pan and set on cutting board. Cut into small pieces.

In a small bowl, microwave the chocolate until melted. Use the same technique as you used for the candy corn (one minute on high; stir; 30 seconds; stir). Use a fork to dip the candy corn/peanut butter pieces into the melted chocolate.
Let harden on sheet lined with parchment paper or waxed paper. Once chocolate cools and hardens, store in airtight container.

Kahlua Orange Fudge

2011-11-13T20:28:00.003-06:00

This fudge recipe is extremely sweet! A small bite is all you need. My recommendation is to make it only when you are having many people over for dinner. :)

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Kahlua Orange Fudge

Ingredients:
2-1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup butter
2 tablespoons Kahlua
1 package (12 oz.) white chocolate chips
1 jar (7 oz.) marshmallow fluff
1 tablespoon grated orange peel

Line a 13x9 inch pan with foil, leaving some extra foil over the edge. Lightly butter the foil.

Lightly butter large microwavable bowl. Combine sugar, sour cream, butter, and Kahlua in prepared bowl. Microwave on high for 10-12 minutes, stirring every 2-3 minutes. Continue microwaving until mixture reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer.

Add white chocolate chips, marshmallow fluff, and grated orange peel. Stir until smooth. Pour into greased and lined pan. Use a buttered spatula to smooth it into corners.

While the fudge is still warm, score it into small pieces. When it has fully cooled, lifted it out of the pan using the excess foil on the sides. Place it on a cutting board and slice it along the scored lines.

Store in airtight container.

Yields: about 80 small squares

Mudslide Cookies

2011-11-06T19:50:00.003-06:00

A friend gave me a recipe box called Chocolate Bliss (Music Cooks) as a gift. Inside are ten recipe cards and a music CD to play while you are making or enjoying the recipes.

I made only one minor change to this recipe. I used milk chocolate chips instead of the semisweet ones in the original recipe. If you are a huge chocolate fan, you will love these cookies because they are what the name implies: a whole mudslide full of chocolate.

P.S. If you want more recipes like this, you can buy the Chocolate Bliss recipe box online at Barnes and Noble or Amazon.

Mudslide Cookies

Ingredients:
1/2 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a small bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter, the unsweetened chocolate, and the bittersweet chocolate. It is best to cut the chocolate into smaller pieces (I cut the 1-ounce squares in half) and then melt them on high for 30 seconds. Stir and melt again for another 30 seconds. Stir again. If they are still some unmelted chocolate pieces, continue cooking and stirring every 30 seconds.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs and the sugar on high for 3 minutes. The mixture should become pale and somewhat fluffy. Add the chocolate mixture and the vanilla. Beat on medium speed for one minute. Gradually add flour mixture and beat until just blended. Stir in walnuts and chocolate chips.

Use a small cookie scooper to drop batter onto prepared cookie sheet. The batter will be rather runny so don't expect perfectly rounded scoops of dough.

Bake for 12-14 minutes. Let cool on pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack.

Yields: about 36 cookies.

Get Updates Via Email!

2011-10-30T21:32:00.002-05:00

You can now get an email notification every time I update my blog! Just add your email address in the box in the left sidebar. You'll get an email alert every time I add a new post.

Enjoy!

How to Stripe Your Icing

2011-10-30T19:58:00.007-05:00

Ever wonder how bakeries get more than one color in their icing decorations? The trick is called "striping," and it's actually pretty easy to do. All you need are decorating bags, clean paintbrushes, icing, and gel icing colors.

These cupcakes were for a birthday party for two of my nephews. The theme of the party was Cars. I couldn't find any good Cars muffin cups or cupcake decorations, so I just used these generic car and truck muffin cups I found at JoAnn's and then striped the icing. The older boys said they looked cool. :)

How to Stripe Your Icing

What You'll Need:
1) decorating bag(s)
2) gel icing colors
3) icing
4) clean paintbrushes (ones that you've never actually used with paint!)

There are two ways you can do this. If you've got good quality gel icing colors, dip your paintbrush in the color you want to strip your icing. Run your paintbrush up the inside of your decorating bag. You can repeat this process on the opposite side of the bag with the same color or a different color. Then fill the bag with white icing. As you push the icing through the bag, the color you striped along the inside of the bag will transfer to your icing.

If you have the liquid kind of food coloring instead of gel colors, you can still create the same effect with a slightly different procedure. In small bowls, mix some icing with the color you want. Then use a small spatula or knife to spread some of the icing along the inside edge of the decorating bag. Repeat again on the opposite side. Fill the rest of the bag with white icing.

For the above cupcakes, I didn't have the right kind of gel icing color, so I used this last method with small amounts of blue and green icing.

Apple Crumble Squares

2011-10-23T09:37:00.006-05:00

This recipe was originally in a Family Circle magazine. I cut it out over a year ago. I meant to make it then, but I think I got caught up in making too many pumpkin recipes last fall. Now that apple season is here again, I finally found a chance to make them when we were asked to bring treats into work to celebrate Boss's Day last week.

Apple Crumble Squares

Ingredients for cake:
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
3/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
4-6 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
1/4 cup apricot preserves

Ingredients for topping:
2 cups flour
1 cup light brown sugar
1 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, melted
2 tablespoons powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a jelly roll pan with cooking spray.

For the cake, beat together the butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time. Beat well after each. On low speed, beat in almond extract, flour, and salt. Spread into pan.

Spread apple slices over top of cake. Put apricot preserves in microwave-safe dish and melt on 50% power for 30-40 seconds or until it is easy to spread. Brush apple slices with melted preserves. Bake for 25 minutes.

In medium-sized bowl, mix together the flour, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice and salt. Stir in butter until mixture is thoroughly moistened and becomes crumbly. Sprinkle evenly over cake. Bake another 35 minutes.

Cool on wire racks completely before dusting with powdered sugar. Cut into squares.

Yields: about 24 squares

Baked Stuffed Apples

2011-10-16T09:32:00.005-05:00

Years ago, I watched a Rachel Ray episode where she made these baked apples. Since I love apple crisp, I quickly jotted down this recipe as best as I could remember it. The recipe has remained on a scrap of paper for years now. Every year I think, "I'm gonna make this!" Well, last night, I finally did.

According to my scribbled notes, it looks like Rachel Ray recommended using McIntosh apples or anything crisp. All I had at homes was a Braeburn apple and some Granny Smith apples. I'm saving the Granny Smith apples for my next recipe, so I used the Braeburn for this one.

The apple turned out fairly well, but I wonder if it would have been better with a different type of apple. Also, I must admit I prefer good old apple crisp to this. In fact, after I finished eating the baked apple, I was really in the mood for some apple crisp!

Baked Stuffed Apples

Ingredients:
4 apples
6 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 cup oats
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup walnuts (I substituted pecans, and it turned out O.K.)
1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Trim the top of the apple. If the apple doesn't stand upright on its own, you can trim the bottom as well. Scoop out the center of the apple with a melonballer. (I don't own a melonballer, so I ended up using my grapefruit knife.)

Blend the remaining ingredients together with your hands. The mixture should become crumbly. Fill the cavity in each apple with the mixture.

Place the apples in a shallow pan. (I used a pie plate.) Add a little water to the bottom of the pan.

Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes.

Butterscotch Bliss Cookies

2011-10-10T20:04:00.003-05:00

This week's cookies are a re-vamping of my very first entry. This time I used butterscotch chips in place of peanut butter chips.

The best part about these cookies is how soft and chewy they are, even days after baking them.

Butterscotch Bliss Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup melted butter (2 sticks)
1 ½ cups white sugar
¾ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs (beaten)
2 ½ cups flour
¾ cups chocolate chips
¾ cups butterscotch chips
2 cups coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt the butter in a large microwave-safe bowl.

Then mix in the white sugar and the brown sugar. Add the salt, baking soda, and vanilla. Mix well.

In a small bowl, beat the two eggs. Add the beaten eggs to the mixture in the large bowl and stir thoroughly.

Add about half of the flour and incorporate it into the dough. Then add the chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and coconut. Stir until the chips are evenly distributed.

Finally add the remainder of the flour and mix well. Drops by teaspoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet.

Bake cookies at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. To make sure your cookies remain moist, remove them before they start to really brown.

Cool cookies for two minutes before transferring from cookie sheet to cooling rack.

Yields about 5 dozen cookies.

Wedding Cake

2011-10-09T21:43:00.004-05:00

I didn't make this wedding cake, but I couldn't help but post the photo. The cake is from my friends' wedding this weekend. It was a lovely cake, a beautiful ceremony, and a fun evening!

I'll be back tomorrow with a new cookie recipe.

Waiting and Waiting and Waiting

2011-10-03T21:38:00.007-05:00

Fives years ago, I had an article accepted for Hopscotch for Girls magazine. Guess what arrived in the mail today? The October 2011 issue with my article in it!

So how did a five-year-old article end up in a new magazine? Well, let's just say the publishing industry is as glacial-paced as the rumors say it is. :)

Actually, I knew when it was accepted that it would be published in the October 2011 issue. Hopscotch is part of the Fun for Kidz Magazine Group. All of their issues are based on themes, and I had written my article on the history of women's marathons specifically for their issue titled "Foot Fun," which had been planned five years in advance.

When they sent their acceptance postcard back in 2006, I followed their instructions for submitting the manuscript via email. For five years, I didn't hear anything further from them. I was beginning to think it wouldn't be published after all. Then on October 1, a mysterious check arrived in the mail. I ran to my local library to see if they had the new Hopscotch issue yet, but no luck. Their most recent copy was the August/September issue.

And then today . . . my author's copy was in mail. :)
It was my very first accepted manuscript. And now I can add it to my slowly growing pile of publication credits.

Oh, and I'll be hounding all of my local public libraries to make sure their October issue is prominently displayed. :)

(If you know a girl between the ages of 8-12 who might like a fun, wholesome magazine, you can check out Hopscotch here. There is also a boys' magazine called Boys' Quest. Samples of both magazines can be found in most public libraries.)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Squared Cookies

2011-10-02T09:26:00.003-05:00

These cookies have twice the chocolate and twice the peanut butter, so some friends and I decided we should call them Chocolate Peanut Butter² Cookies. (I couldn't get the number 2 in superscript in the title.)

This recipe is adapted from the September issue of the King Arthur's Flour catalog. I added a bit more water than they called for, and substituted both peanut butter chips and chocolate chip for the mini peanut butter cups in the original recipe. I also used salted butter instead of unsalted.

Chocolate Peanut Butter² Cookies

Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup salted butter, softened
1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2-1/2 tablespoons water
3/4 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 375. Grease cookie sheets.

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.

In a mixer bowl, beat together the sugars, butter and peanut butter. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and water. At a slow speed, gradually add in the dry ingredients until thoroughly incorporated. Stir in both kinds of chips.

Scoop onto greased cookie sheets. Bake for 7-8 minutes. You should be able to smell the chocolate. Cool for one minute before removing to wire racks.

Yields: about 50 cookies

Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake

2011-09-25T15:46:00.003-05:00

I made this for a party at work a couple weeks ago. It disappeared even faster than the Black Forest Gateau, even though it came out a little more "done" than I would have liked. If I make it again I'm going to watch the baking time very carefully.

Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake

Ingredients:
1 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons cold butter
2/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup sour cream

Line the bottom of a 9-inch square pan with wax paper. Spray paper and sides with cooking spray. Preheat oven to 350.

In a small bowl, prepare the crumb filling and topping by mixing together the brown sugar and cinnamon. Cut 4 tablespoons of cold butter into small pieces and then mix into sugar and cinnamon using a pastry blender. Add the walnuts. Set aside.

In a large mixer bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, beating well after each addition.

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Alternate adding flour mixture and sour cream to the butter, eggs, and sugar.

Pour half of butter into prepared pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar mixture. Top with remaining batter and then remaining cinnamon and sugar mixture.

Bake 50-60 minutes. Let stand in pan for 5 minutes before removing from pan.

Black Forest Gateau

2011-09-18T21:21:00.003-05:00

When I saw this recipe in a cookbook, I had to look up the word "gateau." (French words and I just don't get along.) It turns out that "gateau" simply means "fancy cake." I guess that's fitting for this cake.

I love black forest cake, and someday I'll have to post my high school German teacher's super easy recipe for black forest cake. (It's truly a cake, and not a fancy "gateau.")

Here is my version of the Black Forest Gateau.

Black Forest Gateau

Ingredients:
5 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa
6 tablespoons butter, melted
15-ounce can of dark sweet cherries, pitted
2-1/2 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
4 tablespoons kirsch/cherry brandy (optional)
a few maraschino cherries with stems (optional)
chocolate sprinkles (optional)

Cut a piece of wax paper into 2 circles to match the bottom of two 8-inch cake pans. Place a wax paper circle on the bottom of each pan and then spray the pans with cooking spray.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a mixer bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar for 10 minutes. Mixture should become thick and pale. Sift together the flour and cocoa. Fold gently into egg and sugar mixture. Melt the butter and fold in gradually.

Pour batter into cake pans. Bake for 30 minutes. Cake should spring back when touched lightly. Cool for 5 minutes and then turn onto wire rack. Peel off wax paper.

While cake is cooling, drain and chop cherries. Whip cream until soft peaks form. Add powdered sugar and incorporate into whipped cream. Take two-thirds of the cream and mix with chopped cherries.

Split each cooled cake horizontally. (If desired, you can sprinkle each layer with a tablespoon of cherry brandy.) Place one layer on cake plate. Spread one-third of cherry whipped cream on top. Place another layer on top. Spread with cherry whipped cream. Repeat one more time and then place finally layer on top.

Use reserved whipped cream to frost cake.

To achieve the decorated version in my photo. Place some of the plain whipped cream in a decorating bag with a star tip and make rosettes along the top and stars along the bottom. Drop chocolate sprinkles inside circle of rosettes. Make three large rosettes in center of cake and place a maraschino cherry in each rosette. Sift powdered sugar over top for frosted look.

Yields: about 16 servings

How to Make a Dora Cake

2011-09-11T11:11:00.004-05:00

Buying a character cake pan is always an option when your child wants their favorite cartoon character on their birthday cake. But what if you can't find that cake pan or you're worried that you'll spend $13 only to use the cake pan once because next year your child has a new favorite? This is when I use my old transfer technique!

Dora Birthday Cake

I found this photo of Dora online. Then I copied it into a Word document and made the picture big enough that it would cover most of a 9 x 13 pan. Then I used my transfer technique which you can find on this blog entry.

I did the best I could matching the colors and then added a couple buttercream flowers in the corners since I noticed Dora is often pictured with bright orange flowers around her. I used tip 2D to create the flowers on some waxed paper. Then I threw them in the freezer to harden for a few minutes. After I arranged them in the corners, I added a few silk leaves that I bought at the craft store.

Because there was little room to write "Happy Birthday," I decided to make it look like Dora was saying it. On a purple index card, I wrote the Happy Birthday message. I glued it to the back of another purple index card and taped a lollipop stick in between the two. Then I inserted the stick end into the cake so that the message would stand up.

Presto! A Dora birthday cake!

Book Review: The Me Project by Kathi Lipp

2011-09-06T17:20:00.005-05:00

Do you long to make baking or perhaps food photography your career? Or do you just have a dream to take your food obsession to the next level? :)

If you've got a goal to accomplish (food-related or otherwise) but have no idea where to start, you might want to check out Kathi Lipp's book The Me Project: 21 Days to Living the Life You've Always Wanted.

If you've been following my blog, you know I started reading this book several weeks ago. I had originally planned on reading the book as intended--one "project" at a time for 21 days--but life never goes as planned, so I flew through the last seven chapters yesterday to post my review on time.

This book was almost exactly what I thought it would be. Yes, it reminded me of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. Both books talk about following your passion one step and one day at a time, and both talk about your passion being from God.

Cameron emphasizes that God is the Creator, and thus all creative acts and thoughts come from Him. He wants us to be creative! We shouldn't feel guilty about our artistic endeavors. God is the ultimate artist. Why wouldn't He want us to be artists, too?

Kathi Lipp has a similar belief. If we pray and we listen to Him, God will always lead us down the right path. We shouldn't feel guilty about following our dreams; our dreams were planted in our hearts by God. Our goal is to use our God-given talents as God intended, in whatever life He has uniquely designed for us. (Sounds a lot like what I used to tell my Catholic school students!)

As I also predicted, Lipp's book at times reminded me of Catholic author and speaker Matthew Kelly. In chapter 3, Lipp tells us to start a 50/50 journal, basically a journal in which you write down 50 goals you want to accomplish in the next 50 years. When I read this, I thought, Hey, wait a minute! I've done this before.

I hopped up, ran to my nightstand, and sure enough, there it was. A folded piece of loose-leaf paper numbered 1-50. Last year when I heard Matthew Kelly speak, one of his requests was that we all go home and write down 100 goals for ourselves, a task he made all his employees do.

I unfolded my piece of paper. Only 29 goals. Yikes, I was behind! For the next few days, I tried to add more goals. I'm still only at 43, but maybe that's a good thing. The truth is, I think I could come up with a longer list of goals I've already accomplished.

So who should read this book? Busy moms who feel unfulfilled.

I wouldn't recommend this book to men. The intended audience is clearly women.

And to be perfectly honest, I'd have hesitations about recommending it to single women. As someone with a lot of experience in this area, I cringed after the first few chapters. It's clear the author is expecting moms to read this, and it feels like, once again, the single woman got shafted.

You see, Lipp talks at length about using her husband for support while at the same time explaining that women need to take time for themselves. They can't devote all their time to their husbands and children, letting their own dreams fall to the wayside.

While I wholeheartedly agree with Lipp, I can't help thinking of those women whose dream might be to become a wife and mother. To hear a woman with a husband and kids complain her life isn't all she thought it would be could be a little stab in the heart to some women. Let's fact it, some women never find their soul mates no matter how many times they ask God for a life partner. And even if they are lucky enough to find a man who loves them and is willing to marry them, the woman still might not be able to have the children she wants.

And then there's the kind of single woman who is perfectly content to be single. She's come to terms with the unmarried vocation God is calling her to. (See this book by Catholic author Beth Knobbe for an example of that.) Even that kind of self-assured woman might get a little squirmy during the opening chapters of this book. Lipp seems to be saying that husbands and kids can take up most of a woman's time, keeping her from working on her dreams.

Gee, is that all that gets in the way? If that's true, I should be J.K. Rowling, Agatha Christie, and C.S. Lewis all rolled into one by now! I've got so much free time on my hands because I'm not caring for a husband and kids, why haven't I made more of my life?

O.K. I'm exaggerating, but you see how guilt can quickly set it. All I'm saying is that I think there's room for another book in this market, one aimed at single women who want to accomplish whatever plans God has intended for them.

The good news is that Lipp delivers her 21 steps with a lot of humor and a realistic perspective on life. She isn't a preacher on a soapbox telling you what to do. She seems like the kind of woman you want to chat with at the coffeeshop--and she'd be more than happy if you paid for her latte. :)

Lipp deftly weaves in inspirational quotes from everyone from Walt Disney to Samuel Johnson while still tying in plenty of scriptural passages. Her ideas are do-able and she provides practical examples from people who have followed her advice.

So if you know a busy mom who needs a jumpstart to following her dreams, consider sending her The Me Project. It's a little spiritual booster shot for creative women.

Kathi Lipp is a busy conference and retreat speaker, currently speaking each year to thousands of women throughout the United States. She is the author of The Husband Project and The Marriage Project, serves as food writer for Nickelodeon, and has had articles published in several magazines, including Today’s Christian Woman and Discipleship Journal. Kathi and her husband, Roger, live in California and are the parents of four teenagers and young adults. For more information visit her website: www.kathilipp.com

Cranberry Walnut Brownies

2011-09-04T10:30:00.005-05:00

Sometimes I make a dessert with the intention of posting it on this blog, and then I almost forget to snap a photo before the dessert disappears!

Such is the case with these brownies.

I brought them into work. My team loved them, and I brought home a few leftovers. Then what? Yesterday I realized there were only two left, and I hadn't taken a picture yet! So the photo you see below is of the last two remaining brownies. They aren't as moist as they first were, but I have to say that the dried cranberries seemed to keep the brownies moist longer than usual.

Cranberry Walnut Brownies

Ingredients:
10 tablespoons butter
5 oz. semisweet chocolate
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup flour
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line a 9 x 9 inch pan with foil. Spray with cooking spray.

In a microwave-safe bowl, melt chocolate and butter 2 minutes on high. Stir every 30 seconds. If necessary, continue to melt at 30 second increments.

Stir in both kinds of sugar, eggs, salt, and vanilla. Add flour and stir. Mix in dried cranberries and walnuts. Spread into pan.

Bake 25-30 minutes until knife comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.

Are you crafty?

2011-08-30T17:11:00.007-05:00

If you are crafty and like to make jewelry, you should check out my my sister-in-law's business, Studio 66. In fact, she was just featured on the blog Mom Invented! It's a blog about moms who've started their own businesses. Cool, huh?

Check it out!

Shower Dessert: Flower Petit Fours

2011-08-28T08:37:00.011-05:00

This afternoon I'm off to a bridal shower with a floral theme, and that reminded me of these flower petit fours that I made last year for a baby shower. (I can't believe it's taken me this long to get this recipe on the blog!)

Because of the mini muffin cups, these petit fours are easier to make than the traditional style of baking a large pan and then cutting it into a bunch of tiny cakes. Plus, they're cute and darn tasty! :)

Flower Petit Fours

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line mini muffin pan with mini muffin cups.

In medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In mixer bowl, beat together butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat thoroughly. Add lemon zest and vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with sour cream. Mix well. Scoop into mini muffin cups.

Bake for 10-15 minutes. (To be honest, it's been a while since I made these, so keep an eye on your cupcakes as they bake. Use the good old toothpick test.)

Decorating:

To make the flower design, you'll need about 1/2 cup green icing, 1 1/2 cups icing tinted in whatever color you want your flowers to be, and Wilton Sugar Pearl Sprinkles.

I started the decorating by putting three sets of leaves (tip #68) around the edge of each mini cupcake.

Then I used pink and peach icing to make rosettes on top of each cupcake. You can use a star tip like #21 or #32. For the center of each flower, I dropped 3 Wilton Sugar Pearls in the middle of each rosette.

As you can see from the picture below, I served this petit fours with some homemade chocolate-dipped strawberries.

Yields: about 40 petit fours

Book Club Anyone?

2011-08-23T19:23:00.004-05:00

In a couple weeks, I'm going to be doing something completely new for me on this blog. I'll be participating in a Book Blog Tour!

As many of you know, I follow a lot of publishing and writing blogs. One of the blogs I follow (Literary Agent Rachelle Gardner) had a guest post by Christian author and speaker Kathi Lipp. She was offering a free copy of her latest book The Me Project: 21 Days to Living the Life You've Always Wanted to the first 35 people willing to review her book on their blogs.

Free book? Well, sign me up! :)

I look forward to comparing this book to Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, which my sister-in-law recommended last year. I've already read the first few chapters of The Me Project, and I can also see similarities between Kathy's message and that of Catholic speaker and author Matthew Kelly.

Anyway, if anyone else out there has already read The Me Project or would like to "read along" with me over the next couple weeks, drop me a line. I'd love to compare notes before I post my review on Sept. 6.

Here's what the back cover of the book has to say in case you might be interested in snatching a copy of the book yourself. (The book's only about $10-12, and yes, you can get it on your Kindle or your Nook.)

"Have daily demands caused you to set aside your goals and dreams? How might your life be different if you took a few minutes every day for 21 days to put your dreams on 'project status'?

The Me Project provides fun, creative, and doable daily steps for you to actually live out the dreams God has planted in your heart. Kathi Lipp's warm tone and laugh-out-loud humor will motivate you to take action each day toward bringing purpose back into life. And it will give you the confidence you need to accomplish your dreams in the midst of your already busy schedule."

Let me know if you've read the book or plan on reading it!

No-Bake Cookies: Chocolate Peanut Butter Drops

2011-08-21T09:32:00.003-05:00

The weather is starting to cool off here a little, but it still felt a little too warm yesterday afternoon to turn on the oven. That's why I decided to try a "no-bake" cookie. The cooking part is done on the stove top, so your kitchen doesn't get so hot. These were pretty fast and easy to make, and they disappeared just as quickly.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Drops

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 cup milk
4 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
dash of salt
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
3 cups quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup butterscotch chips (optional)

In a saucepan, mix the sugar, cocoa, and milk. Add the butter and cook over medium heat until butter melts and mixture begins to boil. Stir occasionally. Boil for one minute.

Remove from heat and add vanilla, salt, peanut butter, and oats.

Use a small cookie scooper to drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto waxed. Press a few butterscotch chips into cookies, if desired. Cool for at least an hour.

Yields: about 40 cookies.

Blueberry Cream Pie

2011-08-16T09:01:00.004-05:00

My mom has made this pie for as long as I can remember. This was my first attempt making it, and I have to say it was fairly easy to make.

I like this pie better than a straight blueberry pie because the pudding layer helps to sweeten any tartness from the blueberries.

Blueberry Cream Pie

Ingredients:
1 baked 9" pie shell (graham cracker crust works too)
1 package vanilla cook and serve pudding (not instant pudding)
2 cups milk
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups blueberries
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Prepare your pie shell. You can use my mom's recipe here.

Once the pie crust is cooled, you can start to make the cream layer. Cook pudding in saucepan as directed with 2 cups milk. Add butter and vanilla to hot pudding. Stir until butter melts. Let pudding cool 2-3 minutes. Stir again. Let cool another 2-3 minutes and stir once more.

Pour slightly cooled pudding into pie crust. Put in fridge while you make blueberry topping.

In another saucepan, stir cornstarch and sugar together. Add 1 cup of blueberries, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Cook over low heat, mashing and stirring until mixture thickens and clears. (You can use the back of a wooden spoon to do the mashing or an old-fashioned potato masher.)

Turn off heat and add last cup of blueberries. Cool 15 minutes before spooning over cream filling. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Of course, Cool Whip always makes a good bonus topping. :)

Butterballs

2011-08-11T19:19:00.003-05:00

I made these cookies a while ago, but never got them on the blog. I can't say they were my favorite, but if you like nutty cookies, you'll probably enjoy these.

Butterballs

Ingredients:
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter, softened
3 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon almond extract
1 cup flour
1 cup finely chopped pecans or walnuts
3/4 cup powdered sugar

Cream butter. Beat in honey, salt, and almond extract. Gradually add in flour and then stir in pecans or walnuts.

Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Roll dough into balls and place two inches apart on greased cookie sheet. Bake 35 minutes.

Allow to cool for a few minutes before rolling in powdered sugar. Allow to cool fully and then roll in powdered sugar.

Yields: about 3 dozen cookies

Summertime Dessert: Frozen Chocolate Cheesecake

2011-07-31T09:15:00.003-05:00

This is adapted from another Kraft recipe. My niece and nephews said it tasted like "an awesome chocolate cheesecake." So there you have it - another awesome summertime dessert!

Frozen Chocolate Cheesecake

Ingredients:
16 Oreos, finely crushed
5 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
2 tubs (8 oz. each) cream cheese spread
14 oz. sweetened condensed milk
4 squares semi-sweet chocolate, melted
1 1/2 cup thawed Cool Whip

Line 9-inch square pan with foil. Leave some extra hanging over the edge for easy removal later.

Mix crushed Oreos with melted butter. Press into bottom of pan.

In large bowl, beat cream cheese spread until creamy. Gradually beat in milk. Melt chocolate and mix into cream cheese. Fold Cool Whip into mixture and spoon over cookie crust.

Freeze 6 hours. Remove from freezer about 15 minutes before you want to serve. Use foil to lift cheesecake from pan.

Summertime Treat: Chocolate Pudding Cupcakes

2011-07-25T13:35:00.005-05:00

I came up with this quick dessert idea when I was looking for a way to use up some supplies around the kitchen without having to turn on the oven.

You can serve these straight from the fridge or freeze them. However, the refrigerated version is creamier than the frozen version.

Chocolate Pudding Cupcakes

Ingredients:
10 Oreos, crushed
6 Oreos, whole
2 tablespoons butter
2 chocolate pudding snack cups
1 1/4 cup Cool Whip, thawed and divided

Finely crush 10 Oreo cookies. I like to put them in a plastic bag and crush them with a rolling pin.

Melt the 2 tablespoons of butter and mix them with the crushed Oreos. Push these into the bottom of muffin tins that have been lined with paper or foil cups.

In a small bowl, mix the 2 pudding snacks with 3/4 cup of the Cool Whip. Spoon over Oreo crusts.

Top with an extra dollop of Cool Whip and one of the whole Oreos.

Yields: 6 servings

Apple Oatmeal Cookies

2011-07-18T13:26:00.002-05:00

After playing around with a recipe I found online, I baked my first batch of these cookies. Oops, they cooked a bit faster than expected. O.K. on to round 2! These I took out a couple minutes sooner, and they seemed fine, but they were very thin. I decided that perhaps the batter was too runny, so I added some more flour and oats before trying a third batch in the oven. The result was higher cookies that kept their rounded shape from the cookie scooper.

I took samples of both the flatter cookie and the higher, rounder cookie to a friend's house. There was good news and bad news. The good news is that everyone liked the cookies! The bad news is that the vote was split as to which was better--the flatter cookie or the higher cookie! I'll give you directions for both and you can decide which you like better.

Apple Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons apricot brandy (you can substitute vanilla extract for this)
1 cup flour*
1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3 cups quick oats*
1 1/3 cup peeled and diced apple (about 2 small apples)

*for the higher, rounder cookies add an extra 1/2 cup flour and an extra 1/2 cup oats

Preheat the oven to 375 and grease your cookies sheets or line them with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, white sugar, egg, milk, and apricot brandy until well blended.

In a small bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, and nutmeg. Add to butter mixture and beat at low speed until thoroughly combined. Stir in oats and apples. Scoop onto cookie sheets and bake 10 minutes. Cookies should be slightly browned around the edges.

Cool for a minute before remove to wire rack to cool completely.

Yields: about 36 cookies

How to Make an Easy Ice Cream Cake

2011-07-12T11:08:00.007-05:00

I got this idea from a co-worker and turned it into a treat for a friend who was expecting a baby (hence, the baby-themed candles on top).

This ice cream cake is easy to make and super sweet so be sure to share with friends. :)

Ice Cream Cake

Ingredients:
9 ice cream sandwiches
hot fudge sauce
Cool Whip, thawed
Peanut Butter Frosting (2 cups powdered sugar, 3 tablespoons peanut butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 2-3 tablespoons milk)

On a large sheet of aluminum foil lay down two ice cream sandwiches side-by-side. Take a third sandwich and cut it in half. Place the two halves down so that the first layer is the length and width of a loaf pan.

Make the peanut butter frosting (originally posted in the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake post. (Basically, you mix the ingredients listed above.) Spread a layer of the frosting over the ice cream sandwiches.

Then spread a thin layer of hot fudge sauce over the peanut butter frosting.
Repeat those three layers (sandwiches, peanut butter, fudge sauce). Finish with one last layer of ice cream sandwiches.

Wrap the cake with the aluminum foil and freeze for a couple hours. When you're reading to serve, frost with Cool Whip.

The cake has some pretty cool layers when you cut into it.

Serves about 10.

Fourth of July Dessert: Berry Brownie Shortcake

2011-07-05T18:57:00.005-05:00

I know I'm posting this recipe too late for this year's Fourth of July, but you can keep it in mind for next year. :) Or you can do the Fourth of July Shortcake I made last year. That photo is still one of my favorites. I swear the blueberry in the lower left corner is smiling at me.

This recipe is yet another adaptation of a Kraft Food recipe. The original version was called Easy Brownie Shortcake Dessert. It called for strawberries and kiwis on the top. I switched the fruit to strawberries and blueberries to give it a Fourth of July flair. After tasting the frosting, I also added more powdered sugar because I was tasting too much of the sour cream and not the Cool Whip.

Berry Brownie Shortcake

Ingredients:
1 package brownie mix (plus the ingredients listed on the box)
8 oz. sour cream, divided
1 cup Cool Whip, thawed
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
about twenty-five strawberry slices and at least fifteen blueberries

Preheat oven to 350.

Make brownie batter according to the package direction, but add in 1/2 cup of the sour cream. Pour batter into greased and floured 9-inch pan. Bake for 40-45 min. Cool 10 minutes before removing to wire rack. Allow cake to cool completely before frosting.

For frosting, mix remaining sour cream with Cool Whip, powdered sugar, and vanilla.

Cut brownie horizontally in half. Put one layer on cake plate and spread with some of frosting. Gently top with the other layer. Frost again and then decorate with the strawberries and blueberries.

To go with the patriotic theme of the holiday, I arranged the strawberry slices into five-pointed stars and then placed the blueberries in the middle.

Serves about 12.

Cookies and Cream Brownies

2011-06-30T22:06:00.003-05:00

I made these for work before the school year ended. Now, several weeks later, I'm finally posting this super easy way to dress up some plain brownies.

Cookies and Cream Brownies

Ingredients:
1 batch of brownies for a 9 x 13 pan
1 can of cream cheese frosting
10-15 Oreos
about 1/2 cup of Wilton chocolate candy melts or semisweet chocolate chips

Make the batch of brownies. When they cool, frost them with the cream cheese icing. Place the Oreos in a sealed plastic bag and crush them with a few passes with a rolling pin. Sprinkle the crushed cookies on the brownies.

In a disposable decorating bag, melt the chocolate candy melts or chocolate chips in the microwave. Drizzle the melted chocolate over the brownies. Keep refrigerated.

Cookies and Cream Dessert

2011-06-23T16:33:00.006-05:00

Confession: I think I've become addicted to the Kraft food website. That's where I found the recipe for this dessert. They call it "Cookies and Cream Freeze."

This is the second dessert I made while down in Atlanta. The original recipe called for a loaf pan. Since we didn't have one down there, I improvised a smidge so that I could use a lovely white bowl my sister-in-law had. The base of the bowl was a square perfectly sized to fit 9 Oreos. I think you could use whatever size pan or bowl you'd like, just make sure you adjust the proportions accordingly and remember that the bottom of this dessert will become the top since it gets flipped upside-down before you serve it.

Cookies and Cream Dessert

Ingredients:
about 14-20 Oreos
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 tub (8 0z.) Cool Whip, thawed
4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate

Line your pan with foil. Leave enough to hang over the edges. Then put one layer of Oreo cookies on the bottom. As you can see from the finished product, I made 3 rows of 3 cookies each because that's what fit this bowl. If you use a loaf pan, you'll probably use 4 rows of 2 cookies each.

In a mixer, beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla. Fold in Cool Whip. Take out 1-1/2 cups of the cream cheese mixture and reserve it in another bowl for the chocolate layer.

Spread remaining cream cheese mixture over top of Oreos as shown in picture to the right.

Crumble 8-12 Oreos and sprinkle over cream cheese mixture. (The original recipe called for only 6 Oreos, but I think I could have used a bit more cookie in my dessert!) Press down lightly so that cookie crumbs sink slightly into cream cheese.

Melt the four ounces of chocolate and stir into the reserved 1-1/2 cups cream cheese mixture. Spread over cookie crumb layer.

Freeze for at least 3 hours.

Remove from freezer 10-15 minutes before serving. Invert onto serving plate and remove foil.

Serves 8-10.

Mississippi Mud Cake

2011-06-16T21:22:00.006-05:00

While down in Atlanta, my sister-in-law came in the house after picking up the mail and called to me, "I have something for you!" It was a recipe card she had received free in the mail from Southern Living magazine. After a trip to the grocery store the next day, we had the goods to make this very sweet treat.

We decided it was more of a brownie than a "cake." :)

Mississippi Mud Cake

Ingredients:
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup butter
4 oz. semisweet chocolate baking bar, chopped
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 tsp salt
1 10.5 oz. Bag miniature marshmallows

Place pecans in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 8-10 min or until toasted.

In a large bowl, microwave butter and chopped chocolate for 1 min, stirring every 30 seconds or until melted and smooth. Stir in sugar, flour, cocoa, eggs, vanilla, and salt. Pour into greased jelly roll pan.

Bake at 350 for 20 min. Remove from oven, and sprinkle evenly with marshmallows. Bake 8-10 more minutes or until golden brown. (Note: It will seem like too many marshmallows, but go ahead and put on the whole bag. I mistakenly only put on some of the bag. They did cover the cake as seen in the picture below, but afterward my sister-in-law and I agreed that it could have used more marshmallow.)
While the marshmallow layer is baking, you can make the chocolate frosting.

For that, you'll need the following:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup cocoa
1/3 milk
1 16 oz. package powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Stir together first three ingredients in medium saucepan over medium heat until butter is melted. Cook, stirring constantly, for two minutes. Remove from heat. Beat in powdered sugar and vanilla.

Drizzle frosting over warm cake. (You may have more than you really need. Save the rest for some other cookies.) Sprinkle with toasted pecans.

This dessert makes enough to serve at least 16 people.

Fudge Butterscotch Cake

2011-06-09T21:02:00.004-05:00

This recipe is a variation of the Betty Crocker poke cakes. You can find many poke cake recipes here.

Fudge Butterscotch Cake

Ingredients:

1 German chocolate cake mix (plus eggs, oil, and water as specified by recipe on box)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 jar of fudge sundae topping
1 tub of Cool Whip, thawed
1 cup butterscotch chips

Bake the German chocolate cake in a 9x13 pan as directed on box. Allow to cool for twenty minutes. Then poke top of cake with end of wooden spoon. Holes should be about 1 inch apart.

Pour sweetened condensed milk over top of cake. Allow to soak in. Heat fudge topping and drizzle over top of cake. Refrigerate cake for two hours.

Spread thawed Cool Whip on top of cake and then sprinkle with butterscotch chips.

Date, Walnut & Chocolate Cookies

2011-06-02T18:42:00.003-05:00

My mom makes a dessert that she calls "Date & Walnut Dessert," or something like that. It's basically a 9 x 13 chocolate cake with lots of yummy goodies like dates, chocolate chips, walnuts, and extra sugar on top. I decided to try to make a similar sort of cookie, so here's what I developed:

Date, Walnut & Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients:
1 stick of butter, softened
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup chopped dates

Cream the butter with both types of sugar. Beat in eggs, milk, and vanilla.

In a small bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Slowly blend flour mixture into butter-sugar mixture.

Stir in oats. Then add chocolate chips, walnuts, and dates. Refrigerate dough for an hour.

Then preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease cookie sheets. Scoop dough onto cookie sheets. Baking 8-10 minutes until lightly browned. Cool on sheets for 2 minutes before removing to wire racks.

These cookies are great warm!

Yields: about 3 dozen cookies

Chocolate Cranberry Walnut Cookies

2011-05-23T20:28:00.005-05:00

These cookies were kind of a "what do I have at home that might make a good cookie" type of recipe. Enjoy!

Chocolate Cranberry Walnut Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 small package (3.9 oz.) chocolate or chocolate fudge instant pudding
2 eggs
1 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1 3/4 cups flour
1 cup Craisins
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat butter and sugar with electric mixer. Add pudding and beat again. Add eggs, baking soda, salt and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour.

Stir in Craisins, walnuts, and chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto baking sheets covered with parchment paper. Bake 10-12 minutes.

Cool for 2 minutes before removing to wire rack.

Yields: about four dozen cookies

Savory Monkey Bread

2011-05-15T09:48:00.009-05:00

I made this for a co-worker's birthday last week, and it disappeared pretty quickly from the faculty lounge. Unfortunately, I was in such a hurry when I took it out of the oven that morning that I forgot to snap a photo of the finished product. I guess that means I'll just have to make it again some time. :)

I recommend serving this with some warm marinara sauce for dipping. It makes a great appetizer or side dish to go with a pasta meal.

Warning: Your house will smell like garlic! When I transported this to work, my car smelled like garlic for the rest of the day!

Savory Monkey Bread

Ingredients:
2 loaves of Rhodes frozen bread
3 tablespoons finely chopped green onions
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 1/4 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons butter, melted
2 eggs
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

About 16 hours before you want to make this, take the two loaves of frozen Rhodes bread and place them on a plate in the fridge so they can thaw.
When the dough has thawed, grease a Bundt or tube pan.

In a medium bowl, mix together the green onion, parsley, minced garlic, salt, melted butter and eggs until well blended.
Using a pair of kitchen shears, cut the bread into small pieces and dip each piece into the egg mixture.
Place coated dough balls into the Bundt pan. When you have a layer of bread at the bottom, sprinkle with 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese. Add another layer of coated dough balls and sprinkle with another 1/3 cup of Parmesan cheese. Add your last set of coated dough balls and sprinkle remaining 1/3 cup of Parmesan cheese on top.
Cover the pan loosely with Saran wrap and let rise at least 45 minutes. (I put the pan in the fridge overnight and then baked the next morning.)

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Then bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Let cool for 5-10 minutes. Then invert onto serving plate. Monkey bread can be pulled off into sections and dipped in marinara sauce. (However, my co-workers decided to be very neat and used a knife to cut the bread into slices.)

Citrus Cream Cake

2011-05-08T16:29:00.010-05:00

If you are seeing this blog post before 7:00 P.M. on May 8, 2011, you are seeing my mother's "Mother's Day" cake before she does. :)

The recipe comes from the Kraft food website. I made no real alterations to it. In place of the orange zest, I did use some fancy dried orange peel that my sister-in-law gave me for Christmas. Based on the directions on the orange peel, I used 1/3 of the recipe's original amount.

Citrus Cream Cake

Ingredients:
1 yellow cake mix
1 small package (3.4 oz) Lemon Instant Pudding
1 1/3 cups sour cream, divided
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup oil
3 eggs
2 tablespoons orange zest (or 2 teaspoons orange peel)
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tub (8 oz.) Cool Whip, thawed
1 can (11 oz.) mandarin oranges, drained

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and lightly flour two 9-inch cake pans.

Beat cake mix, dry pudding mix, 1 cup of sour cream, water, oil, eggs, and orange zest/peel in large mixer bowl for one minute on low speed. Then beat on medium speed for two minutes.

Pour into prepared pans and bake 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Then remove to wire racks to cool cakes completely.

Beat remaining sour cream (1/3 cup) and powdered sugar in large bowl with whisk until thoroughly blended. Stir in Cool Whip.

Place one layer of cake on cake plate or cake board. Spread half of Cool Whip mixture on top. Spread a little less than half of mandarin oranges on top.
Then place second layer on top and repeat with remaining Cool Whip mixture and mandarin oranges.

Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

Peanut Butter Chip and Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-05-01T18:44:00.003-05:00

These cookies are rather crisp but have a chewy center. Although I made them with peanut butter chips and chocolate chips, you could really substitute any chip and/or nut combination you like. I've also made them with white chocolate chips and chopped hazelnuts.

Peanut Butter Chip and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg yolk
1 egg
1 tablespoon vanilla
2/3 cup chocolate chips
2/3 cup peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Combine the flour, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl. In a small microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter.

In a larger mixer bowl, beat the melted butter with the brown sugar and white sugar. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. Beat again.

Slowly add the flour mixture and mix on low. Then stir in the chocolate chips and peanut butter chips by hand.

Using a small cookie scooper, drop the dough onto the parchment paper. Bake 13-15 minutes. Let cool 2 minutes before removing to cooling rack.

Yields: about 3 dozen cookies.

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

2011-04-25T21:36:00.004-05:00

I've tried two different recipes for white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. I think I prefer this one. The first time I tried making them I couldn't find any macadamia nuts. Guess where I found them? Target! They were pricey, but on the bright side, they were already chopped. :)

White Chocolate
Macadamia Nut Cookies

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 3/4 cup flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped macadamia nuts

Preheat oven 350 degrees.

Melt butter. (You can do this in the microwave or on the stove top.) In mixer bowl, beat brown sugar and melted butter.

Add egg. Beat again. Add milk and vanilla extract. Beat.

In small bowl, combine baking soda, flour and salt. Slowly add flour mixture to butter/sugar mixture. Beat on low until thoroughly incorporated.

Stir in white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts.

Scoop onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake 9-10 minutes. Allow to cool for a few minutes before moving to cookie sheet.

Yields: about 3 dozen cookies

Mom's Legendary Peach Pie

2011-04-17T09:39:00.010-05:00

This peach pie recipe is legendary in my family because it comes with not one, but two, important stories. It is an absolutely true statement that without this peach pie recipe, I may never have come into existence. Now that's one amazing peach pie!

The first story takes us back to my mom's early adolescence (a topic I'm studying right now in my grad school class!). My mom says she thinks she was in ninth grade at the time. As was common, she had been sent down to their butcher, a Mr. Seybold, to buy some meat. After wrapping up the purchases, Mr. Seybold totaled the bill by doing a little addition right on the butcher paper. (Ah, the days before cash registers and computers!) When my mom got home, she realized Mr. Seybold had made a mistake, and she hurried back to give him the extra money my mom's family owed him.

When my mom showed Mr. Seybold his mistake, he was so impressed--not only with her honesty, but I'm sure her mad math skills as well--he gave her a free can of peaches. On that can of peaches was this legendary pie recipe!

Now you might be saying, "Well, that's a very lovely story, Amy. But what does that have to do with your existence?" For that, we speed forward about sixteen years to story number 2.

My mother had been dating my father for about a year when her parents took a very unusual vacation out of town. While her parents were gone, my mother decided to have my father over for dinner. Being the proper young lady that she was, she invited her own brother and his recent bride to join them.

When dinner was over, my mother brought out this peach pie, a dessert she had been making since she was the fourteen-year-old girl who had corrected the butcher's math. She was very proud of her baking skills and was eager to impress her boyfriend.

However, while eating the pie, my father became engrossed in a machinery discussion with my uncle and didn't seem to be paying any attention at all to what he was devouring. After my aunt and uncle had left, my mother asked my father if he had enjoyed his meal.

"Oh, yes, very much," he replied.

"And dessert. Did you like dessert?"

"Oh, yes, it was very good."

"What did you have?"

At this point, I imagine my father breaking into a cold sweat and gulping. "Uh . . . pie?"

"What kind of pie?"

"Uh . . . apple?"

My mother shook her head.

"Cherry?"

Another shake of the head.

"Blueberry?"

The poor guy must have named every fruit known to man before my mother informed him that it was a peach pie.

Legend has it that my father felt so bad about not remembering what kind of pie my mother had baked for him that he proposed to her just a few weeks later.

So you see . . . if my mom hadn't corrected Mr. Seybold's math, she never would have received this pie recipe. And if she hadn't made this pie for my dad and he hadn't become engrossed in conversation with my uncle, he may never have proposed to my mother, and I wouldn't be typing this blog entry to provide all of you with yet another fabulous dessert recipe. :)

Mom's Legendary Peach Pie

Ingredients:
1 large can sliced peaches in heavy syrup
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons margarine
1 pinch of salt
2 tablespoons brandy or sherry (I like apricot brandy)
1 baked pie crust, 9" (Recipe here)

Drain peaches, but reserve the syrup.

In a saucepan, combine the sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Stir in 1 1/3 cups juice from the peaches. Stir until cornstarch is dissolved. Bring to boil. Cook until clear and thickened, stirring constantly.

The liquid should go from looking like this:

To looking like this:

Add butter and brandy or sherry. Cool.

Arrange peach slices in baked pie shell.

Pour cooled sauce over peaches. Chill until firm.

Serve with whipped topping. Attempt to get marriage proposal, if desired.

Chocolate Banana Cream Pie

2011-04-09T20:38:00.008-05:00

What do you do when your pie shell cracks? Toss it away? No way!

When I had a pie shell crack on me recently, I decided to use it for a cream pie, something that wouldn't soak through a crack in my crust. I knew pudding mixes could be used to make pies, so I checked out what was in my cabinet and whipped up this little treat.

Chocolate Banana Cream Pie

Ingredients:
1 small box of chocolate fudge pudding
1 small box of banana cream pudding
3 1/2 cups cold milk, divided
1 baked pie shell
a few chocolate chips (optional)

In a small bowl, combine a small box of chocolate fudge pudding with 1 3/4 cups cold milk. Whisk for five minutes, then pour into baked pie crust. Refrigerate for an hour.

In another small bowl, combined the small box of banana cream pudding with the other 1 3/4 cups cold milk. Again, whisk for five minutes. Pour on top of chilled chocolate pudding and smooth evenly. Refrigerate for at least another hour or two.

When it's time to serve, sprinkle a few chocolate chips on top for decoration.

Personal-Sized Yellow Cake from Scratch

2011-04-03T10:15:00.004-05:00

For the Thomas the Train cake party (see below), I was also asked to bake a smaller cake for the one-year-old birthday boy. Not wanting to end up with a lot of leftover cupcakes, I decided to make the cake from scratch instead of using a fraction of a cake mix.

For the six-inch round cake, I had to do a lot of math to take the basic recipe I found down to size. Let's just say I'm really glad I learned my fractions back in school. :)

Personal-Sized Yellow Cake from Scratch

Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 egg
13 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon flour*
2/3 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
9 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
6 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon milk

*This is a little more than 2/3 cup flour if you don't want to do all the measuring.

Take out butter and egg about 30 minutes before starting.

Grease and flour your cake pan. Preheat oven to 375.

In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In mixer, beat softened butter for thirty seconds. Add sugar and beat for 2 minutes. Add egg and beat for another minute. Beat in vanilla.

Gradually add in flour and milk, alternating a bit of each at a time. Spread batter into prepared pan.

Bake at 375 for 20 minutes for a six-inch pan. Cake is done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool on rack for ten minutes before removing from pan. Cool completely before frosting.

Another Character Cake

2011-04-01T22:18:00.007-05:00

If you missed the first character cake I did on this blog, check this entry.

This time I did a Thomas the Train cake for a friend's son.

I used the same technique of tracing and copying using piping gel as I did for the Elmo cake. Below is the pattern I followed for the Thomas drawing. Luckily, I had saved it from one of my nephew's cakes years ago. I think I sketched it off a Thomas toy I had bought for a gift.

Other character cakes I've done in the past:

Angelina Ballerina
Dora the Explorer
Big Bird
Bob the Builder
the Cars movie logo
Blues Clues

Sugar Cream Pie

2011-03-27T09:28:00.008-05:00

I found a recipe for "Indiana Sugar Cream Pie" in one of my mother's magazines. After reading through the ingredient list, I couldn't figure out how that could possibly make a pie, so I started doing some research on the internet. It turns out there are several variations on the sugar cream pie, but they all stick with the same key ingredients: sugar (brown, white, or both), cream (or half and half), and some spice on top (nutmeg, and/or cinnamon).

Here's the variation I came up with. It does make a rather low, dense, custard-type pie that is very sweet. I easily served ten people with this pie.

Sugar Cream Pie

Ingredients:
1 unbaked pie shell
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups half and half or light cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons butter
ground nutmeg
cinnamon

If you are making your own pie crust, prepare it and crimp the edges. Do not bake it. If you're looking for a pie crust recipe, you might want to check out this blog entry.

In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, flour, and salt. Spread this mixture evenly in the bottom of the pie crust.
In a medium bowl, mix together the half and half with the vanilla. Pour this over the sugar mixture in the pie crust.
Cut up the two tablespoons of butter into small pieces and distribute evenly over top. Sprinkle with nutmeg and cinnamon.
Cover edges of pie with foil to prevent overbrowning of crust. Bake in 350-degree oven to 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 30 minutes. Top should be lightly browned and bubbly. Cool on wire rack. The pie will set as it cools. Within two hours, cover and store in refrigerator.

Pie is served cold.

Chocolate Mint Brownies

2011-03-20T09:24:00.006-05:00

This dessert is all butter and sugar. Prepare yourself for something extra sweet. I recommend cutting it into tiny bite-size pieces and sharing with many people.

In other words, I recommend not cutting into large pieces like you see below. I think I gave a sugar-high to the round of guinea pigs who tried the slices in the photo. :)

Chocolate Mint Brownies

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) plus 6 tablespoons butter or margarine, divided
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs
3/4 cup cocoa
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 2/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon mint extract
green food coloring
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 13 x 9 inch pan. Microwave 2 sticks of butter (1 cup) in large bowl until melted (about 2 minutes). Stir in sugar and vanilla. Add eggs and beat well. Stir in cocoa, flour, and baking powder. When well blended, pour into greased pan.

Bake 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely on wire rack.

Once bottom layer has cooled, you can make the mint layer. Combine powdered sugar, 1 stick butter, water, and mint extract. Beat until smooth. Add about 4 drops of green food coloring and blend. Spread over top of brownies. Cover and refrigerate for an hour or two.

To make chocolate glaze, microwave 6 tablespoons butter and chocolate chips in small bowl for one minute. Stir until mixture is smooth. Allow to cool slightly. Then pour over mint layer. cover and return to refrigerate. Chill at least 1 hour before serving.

Kiss the Blarney Stone Cookies

2011-03-13T09:36:00.004-05:00

I know many people are holding St. Patrick Day parties this weekend, so my post may be a smidge late for them. However, if you're celebrating on the real St. Patrick's Day, here's a fun, chocolaty cookie I found at allrecipes.com. It comes from the Hershey's people.

Kiss the Blarney Stone Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 baking cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
about 36 Hershey's Kisses

Ingredients for glaze:
3/4 cup powdered sugar
3 1/2 teaspoons milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
3 drops of green food coloring

Beat together the butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Gradually add the dry mixture to the butter mixture, beating until thoroughly blended.

Divide dough in half. Place each half on a piece of waxed paper and shape into a log with square sides. You can make the log any size you want. The original recipe suggested 7 inches long and 2 1/4 inches wide. Wrap the logs in the wax paper and refrigerate until firm, at least 8 hours.

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Cut logs into 3/8 inch slices and place onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 15 minutes. Cool for 1-2 minutes and then remove to wire rack to cool completely.

Stir together powdered sugar, milk, 3/4 teaspoon vanilla, and green food coloring. Using a small round tip (like #3), drizzle the glaze over the top of the cookies. Place an unwrapped Hershey's kiss on top.

Yields: about 3 dozen cookies, depending on size

Chewy Butter Pecan Cookies

2011-03-06T09:48:00.005-06:00

I found a recipe for Butterscotch Macadamia Nut Cookies in a catalog a friend gave me last weekend. Since I didn't have any macadamia nuts at home, I decided to try a version with pecan chips instead. The result reminds me a bit of butter pecan ice cream.

Chewy Butter Pecan Cookies

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
1 cup butterscotch chips (about 1/2 a 12 oz. package)
2 oz. pecan chips (about 2/3 cups finely chopped pecans)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Beat butter, salt, baking soda, brown sugar, and vanilla until creamy. Beat in eggs. Gradually add in flour.

Stir in oats, butterscotch chips, and pecan chips. Using a small cookie scooper, drop onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes at 375. Remove immediately to wire rack to cool.

Yields: about 4 dozen small cookies

Short Story Published!

2011-03-04T17:14:00.017-06:00

It has arrived!

Yesterday was a big day for me. When I opened my mailbox, there was a nicely padded envelope which held my author copies of the April issue of Pockets magazine. And you know what that means--my first published short story!

Here is the title for my story. If you look closely (or click on the picture to enlarge), you'll see my name in the byline. :)

The story appears to be 98% the way I submitted it. The magazine obviously made a few editorial changes, but nothing major. I was very excited to see my story on page 2, the very first thing in the magazine after the table of contents.

The drawings of my two main characters, twins Erik and Espy, are very cute, and they are pretty much as I imagined them.

Erik is supposed to look like their Puerto Rican father, and Espy takes after their Swedish mother.

This second picture of them is when they meet their new friend Val, who is going through chemotherapy. The theme of this month's issue is hope; that's why I named the girl Espy. (It's short for Esperanza which means "hope" in Spanish.) Espy is the optimistic one in the family. Erik is the pessimist. Val is the one who helps Erik remember that when times get tough, you have to pray to God and row for the shore (hence the story's title).

All in all, I'm very pleased with my short story debut. Unfortunately, I can't reproduce the story here, but if you know me, I'll let you borrow my spare copy. :) Or you can order your own subscription. Check out the Pockets website here.

Black-Bottom Raspberry Cheesecakes

2011-02-27T09:23:00.005-06:00

I'm posting this recipe without having actually tasted the results yet! Yikes, maybe I'll have to re-post after I've served them this evening. :)

(Note: I've tasted them now. They were yummy!)

Black-Bottom Raspberry Cheesecakes

Ingredients:
1 cup of finely crushed Oreos or chocolate wafer cookies
3 tablespoons butter, melted
8 ounces of cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
6 ounces Greek yogurt
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup Solo brand raspberry cake and pastry filling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line regular muffin tin with 12 foil baking cups. Spray the cups with cooking spray.

If you haven't already crushed your Oreos, do so now. You can use a food processor or just smash them in a ziploc bag with a rolling pin like I do.

Drop the cookie crumbs into a small bowl. Add the melted butter and stir until butter is completely incorporated into the cookie crumbs. Spoon crumb mixture into muffin cups evenly. Use bottom of a glass to press them down.

Bake for 5 minutes at 350. You can leave the oven on after you pull them out.

In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese and the sugar until smooth. Beat in the Greek yogurt. Then add the eggs and vanilla and beat again.

Pour or scoop the batter into the baking cups. They should be about 3/4 full.

Bake the cheescakes for 15 minutes at 350. They should be soft in the center still. Warm the raspberry filling in the microwave for 20 seconds. Then spoon no more than a teaspoon on the top of each cheesecake.

Transfer muffin tin to freezer and chill for at least 15 minutes. Remove tin from freezer and peel foil baking cups off cheesecakes. Place cheesecakes on a platter to serve. The cheesecakes can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.

Yields: 12 cheesecakes

Writing News!

2011-02-26T18:41:00.006-06:00

Hello all! I've had an article published by a Catholic kids online magazine called My Light. You can click here to read my article on Saint Cecilia. I didn't get paid for this one, but it's still a publication credit to my name!

I wrote this article for a writing class last summer. It was accepted awhile ago, but then the magazine seemed to falter for a bit. It's back on track now, and my article is in their January/February issue--complete with a lovely illustration by Candace J Hardy!

And for those of you who have been following along--yes, I'm still waiting for my short story in Pockets magazine. That will be a good, old-fashioned hard-copy magazine. Only one more month until my story comes out in their April issue! :)

Banana Pudding Dessert

2011-02-20T20:15:00.004-06:00

I had some leftover vanilla wafers from the rum balls recipe, so I decided to make some banana pudding. I combined a few different recipes to come up with this very rich and creamy version.

Note: This recipe is basically egg free, but if you are really trying to avoid eggs because of allergies, be sure your vanilla wafers are egg-free. I've found some with eggs and some without.

Banana Pudding Dessert

Ingredients:
70 vanilla wafers, crushed
1 stick of butter
4 bananas
1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
1 package (5.1 oz) vanilla instant pudding
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups cold milk
1 tub of Cool Whip, thawed
a few extra vanilla wafers for garnish (optional)

Be sure to thaw the Cool Whip in the refrigerator and soften the cream cheese before starting.

Preheat oven to 350.

Crush the vanilla wafers. (I just use a Ziploc bag and a rolling pin.) Put them in a 13 x 9 inch pan. Melt the stick of butter and mix it into the crushed cookies. Press into bottom of pan. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Beat the softened cream cheese until fluffy. Add the sweetened condensed milk, pudding mix, vanilla, and cold milk. Beat for 2-3 minutes until creamy. Fold in half of the Cool Whip.

Slice the four bananas on top of the baked cookie crust. Smooth pudding mixture on top of bananas. Finally, top with remaining Cool Whip. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

If desired, garnish with extra cookie when ready to serve. (I wish I had taken a picture of this because the slices looked really cute with the little vanilla wafer sticking up on top.)

Serves about 20 people.

A Blogging Award!

2011-02-14T18:14:00.005-06:00

Thanks to Ginny Marie over at Lemon Drop Pie for sending me this beautiful blogging award. :)

Upon receiving this award, I am supposed to write seven things about myself that you may not know. Since the foodie blog roll requires that I keep this blog about food, I will try to tie in my seven things to baking.

1) In the first grade, two friends and I lip synced the song "If I Knew You Were Coming, I'd Have Baked a Cake" for our school talent show. We had an Easy Bake Oven (sadly, not mine) on stage with us, and at the end of the number we magically pulled a finished cake from the oven. I'm sure the junior high kids must have been rolling their eyes at us.

2) The first thing I remember baking on my own was a batch of corn muffins. Not the Jiffy kind, although I've made those, too. These I made from scratch! I was probably in junior high then, and I was very proud of myself. For a while there, all my mom had to say was, "How about some corn muffins with dinner tonight" and I'd grab the cornmeal!

3) Years later, I saw the musical Of Thee I Sing with some high school friends, and when the lead character started singing the song "Corn Muffins" I cracked up because all I could think about were all those corn muffins I made back in junior high. Luckily, the play is a comedy, so my laughing fit in.

4) I was inspired to decorate cakes because of my Aunt Dorothy. She made ALL the cakes for family parties: birthdays, first Communions, Confirmations, weddings--you name it. The woman is a cake-baking fiend! :)

5) I've taken all three Wilton cake decorating classes offered at Michaels.

6) Because of the cake decorating classes I've taken, I could theoretically make a wedding cake, but the closest I've come is a two-tiered wedding anniversary cake for my parents. Maybe I'll scan a photo and post it.

7) I'm really hungry for some corn muffins right now. ;)

Note to my writing friend Mary: I think you deserve this award for your blog on writing. Right click on the photo and add it to your own blog. Then tell us seven things about yourself.

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Heart Cookies

2011-02-13T09:23:00.012-06:00

Looking for a last minute cookie to make for someone you love this Valentine's Day? Grab a heart-shaped cookie cutter (I got mine at Target) and have some fun!

The idea for this cookie came from a friend of mine who's been asking me to make them for ages. He didn't have a recipe for me to follow, just a description for a cookie that someone else used to make for him: a peanut-butter heart-shaped cookie half dipped in chocolate.

I couldn't find anything like this online so I made up my own recipe. When I gave him some to try, he said I got it right--yippee!

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Heart Cookies

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 squares of semi-sweet baking chocolate

Beat together the butter, peanut butter, and both sugars until creamy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat again.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the peanut butter mixture one cup at a time and beat again. The dough should be pretty thick.

(I put the dough in the refrigerator for an hour before rolling it out, but I don't know if that was really necessary.)

Roll out half the dough at a time. If it crumbles, you may need to kneed it in your hand for thirty seconds first. When the dough is rolled out to 1/8 inch, use heart-shaped cookie cutters to cut them out. Place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 375 for 9 minutes. Remove immediately to cooling racks.

When cookies have cooled completely, melt three of the chocolate squares in the microwave. (Follow package directions) Dip half the cookie into the melted chocolate and let dry on waxed paper. When you've run out of chocolate, melt the three remaining squares and continue dipping the cookies.

My cookie cutter set came with four different sizes. I used the smallest two and ended up with about 40 cookies.

Filled Football Cookies

2011-02-05T19:55:00.009-06:00

I realize this cookie recipe will be posted too late for most people to make it for this year's Superbowl, but as we all know, what's put on the Internet, stays on the Internet. So this will be around for plenty of future tailgating parties. :)

If you're like me and don't have a football-shaped cookie cutter, you can improvise by making a pattern for yourself. Just cut a piece of cardboard in the shape of a football. Cover it with aluminum foil so that it won't stick to the dough. When you're ready to cut out your footballs, place the pattern on the dough and cut around it.

I've made these cookies in three different sizes. The first time I made a pattern that was 3 1/2 inches long. The cookies were too big. The second time I used a 2-inch pattern; this was better, but it took a long time to cut out these bite-size cookies. The third size I tried was 2 1/2 inches. If I make these cookies again, I think I'd use the 2 1/2-inch size.

In case you're wondering, the flavor is a nice mix of chocolate and cinnamon--kind of reminds me of Mexican hot chocolate.

Filled Football Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup butter or margarine (2 sticks)
1 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 or 2 batches of the Perfect Icing for Piping

In a small dish, microwave the butter for 30 seconds at 50% power to soften it.

In a mixer, cream together the softened butter and the brown sugar. Add the sugar and cinnamon. Beat until fluffy. On low speed, blend in the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and almond extract.

Split dough in half. Wrap each half in waxed paper and refrigerate for an hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

On surface dusted with flour, roll out dough to 1/8 inch. Cut out dough with cookie cuter and place on cookie sheet that has been greased or lined with parchment paper. Bake cookies at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet and cool on rack.

When cookies have cooled, make at least one batch of my Perfect Icing for Piping (click here for the recipe). If you like lots of filling in your filled cookies, make two batches.

Pipe the filling onto the backside of one cookie. Top with another cookie. Use a small tip to pipe laces onto the top cookie.

Perfect Icing for Piping

2011-01-30T15:22:00.008-06:00

Last weekend, I was looking for a new kind of icing to do the lettering on the Chocolate Layer Loaf Cake. I was hoping to find a knock-off recipe for the icing used on Mrs. Field's giant cookies online. However, no one seemed to have one. The closest I came was an icing that was used for sugar cookies.

So I decided to come up with my own idea. Instead of adding milk, cream, or water to the icing, I used a dollop of Cool Whip. The result was just what I wanted! A yummy icing that pipes letters and borders beautifully and dries to a semi-hard finish--strong enough to hold its shape, but not as rock hard as royal icing. You can see the result on the finished Chocolate Layer Loaf Cake below.

Perfect Icing for Piping

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons butter
2 heaping tablespoons Cool Whip
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter. Then add the Cool Whip and stir until combined. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla. Add food coloring, if desired.

As with other icing recipes, feel free to add more powdered sugar if the icing seems too thin. If it's too thick, add more Cool Whip.

Icing will start to harden fairly quickly (faster than normal Wilton icing recipe but not as fast as royal icing). If it hardens on you, stir until it softens again. You might try a few seconds in the microwave, too.

Chocolate Layer Loaf Cake

2011-01-23T21:35:00.008-06:00

The inspiration for this came from the Kraft foods website. The original recipe was for a cake roll. However, when I attempted it, I ended up with a mess that fell apart in my hands.

Now if you’ve followed my blog since last October, you know I’ve made one cake roll before (the Pumpkin Cake Roll), and that one turned out great. So when I had difficulty with this one, I went to the online reviews for the Kraft Chocolate Cake Roll. Although a lot of people said it tasted great, they also had problems rolling it.

So for attempt #2, I decided to forget rolling the cake. Instead, I layered it into a very yummy, chocolatey, loaf cake.

Chocolate Layer Loaf Cake

Ingredients:
6 squares semi-sweet chocolate
6 tablespoons butter
1 cup white sugar
4 eggs
1 cup flour, divided
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2/3 cup water
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup powdered sugar, divided
3 cups of Cool Whip, thawed (You'll need to buy two tubs.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a jelly roll pan (10 x 15) with cooking spray. Line the pan with waxed paper, and then spray it again.

Microwave three of the chocolate squares and the 6 tablespoons of butter in a medium bowl for 1½ minutes. Butter should be melted. Stir until chocolate is also melted and well blended. Add white sugar and mix until no lumps remain.

In large bowl, beat the four eggs about 3-4 minutes on high speed until thickened. (I recommend really making sure you have the eggs thickened before proceeding.) Beat in the chocolate mixture.

Add the baking soda and ¼ cup of the flour. Stir until thoroughly mixed. Then alternate adding in some of the water with the rest of the flour. Beat well after each addition. Spread evenly into prepared jelly roll pan.

Bake for 15-17 minutes or until cake springs back when touched lightly.

As soon as you’ve removed it from the oven, sprinkle it with ¼ cup of the powdered sugar. Place a piece of nonstick aluminum foil over the pan and immediately invert onto a cooling rack. Remove the pan and slowly peel off the wax paper. Allow cake to cool completely.

When the cake is cooled, cut into three equal pieces (about 10 x 5 inches).

In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese and the remaining ½ cup of powdered sugar. Gently fold in 1½ cups Cool Whip.

Place one slice of cake onto your cake plate. Spread one half of cream cheese mixture evenly onto cake. Place second slice on top. Spread remaining filling on this layer. Set final cake piece on top.

In medium bowl, microwave remaining three chocolate squares about 1½ minutes on high. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Fold in 1½ cups Cool Whip until thoroughly blended. Frost top and sides of cake evenly.

Leftover Christmas Candy Cookies

2011-01-16T09:19:00.003-06:00

It's time to start emptying the home of any leftover Christmas candy--for some of you, this may also include Halloween candy. :)

These cookies don't look like much, but they're pretty tasty. They have a nice chewy consistency that one of my taste testers said made them rather addictive.

Leftover Christmas Candy Cookies

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups of cut-up leftover Christmas candy

Preheat oven to 375.

Make sure your candy is cut into small pieces. You can leave M&Ms as they are.

In a medium-sized bowl, stir together flour, salt, and baking soda.

In a large mixer bowl, beat together the butter, both kinds of sugar, and the vanilla extract. Add the eggs one at a time and beat thoroughly. Slowly, beat in the flour mixture. Remove bowl from mixer and fold in the Christmas candy. Drop by tablespoonful onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 9-11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for three minutes before removing to wire racks.

Warning: If you use candy with caramel in it, the cookies may stick to your cookie sheet some. Don't allow to harden on cookie sheet for too long.

If this recipe looks familiar, it's because it's basically a chocolate chip cookie dough with candy pieces instead of chocolate chips. Enjoy!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

2011-01-09T22:17:00.004-06:00

Some friends helped me test these this past weekend. The cake part received mediocre reviews--good but not great--however, a couple friends wanted the recipe for the frosting so they could eat it by the bowl! :) (See below for frosting recipe.)

I have to say the peanut butter frosting reminded me of the peanut butter balls my mom used to make for Christmas. Yummy!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Ingredients:
½ cup milk
1 ½ tablespoons lemon juice
2 cups flour
2/3 cup cocoa
1 ¾ teaspoons baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix the milk and the lemon juice. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Then add in the eggs and vanilla.

Alternately fold in the flour mixture and milk mixture. Stir in peanut butter chips.

Spoon into muffin cups lined with baking cups and bake for 20-22 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

Yields: 16-18 cupcakes

Peanut Butter Frosting

Stir together 2 cups powdered sugar, 3 tablespoons peanut butter, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add 2-3 tablespoons of milk until desired consistency is achieved.

King Cake

2011-01-02T10:17:00.005-06:00

I made this for a New Year's Eve party, but many people make it for Three Kings' Day or Mardi Gras. From the research I did online, most people hide a plastic baby in the cake. Whoever finds the baby receives good luck, becomes king or queen for the day, and/or has to throw the next party.

I found the plastic baby in the baby shower department of a craft store. They come six in a pack, so I guess I can still make plenty of King Cakes.

King Cake

Ingredients for cake:
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 package active dry yeast
1/3 cup warm water (110-115 degrees)
1 1/2 teaspoons white sugar
4 tablespoons white sugar (these two amounts are used separately)
1 egg
3/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 3/4 cups flour

Ingredients for filling:
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup raisins
1/3 cup pecan chips (or chopped pecans)
2 tablespoons melted butter

Ingredients for icing:
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons softened butter or margarine
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2-3 tablespoons milk

Heat the milk over medium-high heat until small bubbles form around the edge. Do not let it get to a full boiling. Remove from heat and stir in the 2 tablespoons of butter. Set the mixture aside to cool to room temperature.

Warm 1/3 cup water to 110-115 degrees. If you get it too hot, just give it a minute to cool. Pour the water in a large bowl and dissolve the yeast with 1-1/2 teaspoons of white sugar. Let stand about ten minutes.

When the ten minutes are up, the yeast mixture should look dreamy and a little bubbly. Add the cooled milk mixture. Whisk in the egg. Stir in the 4 tablespoons of sugar, the salt, and the nutmeg.

Transfer this to a large mixer bowl and beat in the flour one cup at a time. When the dough is all combined, turn in out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead it for 8-10 minutes. The dough should be smooth and elastic.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled large bowl. Turn the dough over once so that is it coated in the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place for two hours. The dough should double in size.

After the two hours is over, punch the dough down. Then roll it out to a large rectangle, about 10 x 16 inches.

In a small bowl, combine the ingredients for the filling. Mixture should be rather crumbly. Sprinkle the filling over the rolled-out dough. Then roll like a jelly roll, starting at the wide side. Bring the ends together to form an oval shape.

Place the ring on a cookie sheet that has been greased or lined with parchment paper. Let is rise for 45 minutes.

Bake in 375 degree oven for 20 minutes. While the cake is baking, make the frosting by combining the ingredients listed above. After you take the cake out of the oven, push the doll into the bottom of the cake. Frost while warm. Sprinkle with green, purple, and yellow sugar crystals for that Mardi Gras look.

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T18:58:00.002-06:00

Happy 2011, everyone!

I'll be back in a day or two to show you how my King Cake turned out for New Year's Eve. Here's to a happy, healthy, and delicious 2011!

Eggnog Cream Cups

2010-12-26T14:05:00.004-06:00

This recipe came from a friend, who doesn't remember where she got it from. If you like eggnog as a drink, you will definitely like it as a cookie!

Eggnog Cups

Ingredients for “cookie cups”:
1 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened

Ingredients for filling:
¾ cup cold whipping cream
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons egg substitute
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon rum extract

Lightly grease 24 mini muffin cups with cooking spray.

Combine flour, ½ cup sugar, salt and ¼ teaspoon nutmeg in large bowl. Add butter and beat with electric mixer on medium speed until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Scoop and roll dough into 1-inch balls. Press into bottoms of muffin cups (I used a shot glass for this). Then press up the sides of the muffin cups. Refrigerate 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Bake cups 13-15 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes before removing to wire racks.

For the filling, beat cream and 3 tablespoons sugar in another large bowl with electric mixer at high speed until soft peaks form.

Add egg substitute, ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, and rum extract. Beat until stiff peaks form. Do not overbeat. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

When you’re ready to serve, pipe or spoon the filling into each cup. Sprinkle with extra nutmeg.Yields: 24 cookies

Mom's Rum Balls

2010-12-22T11:19:00.009-06:00

Everyone who celebrates Christmas probably has a cookie that makes them feel like the season has really arrived. For me, my mom's rum balls are one of those cookies (I actually have several cookies that scream, "Christmas!" to me).

Warning: these cookies will make your hands very messy. I remember the first time I helped my mom make them. I couldn't believe how icky my hands got as I rolled the balls. "You mean, this is how they're made?!?" I'm surprised I ever ate them again after that. :)

Mom’s Rum Balls

Ingredients:
1 cup pecan chips*
1 package of vanilla wafers
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon cocoa
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup light corn syrup
3 tablespoons rum
1 teaspoon vanilla
sifted powdered sugar for rolling balls

*If you can’t find pecan chips in your store, buy any other type of pecans (e.g. halves) and chop them until you have 1 to 1-1/2 cups finely chopped pecans.

Break the vanilla wafers into smaller pieces and drop them into a blender—about eight cookies at a time. Chop them in the blender until they are very fine, like graham crackers crushed for a graham cracker crust.

Continue crushing vanilla wafers until you have 1 ¾ cups crumbs. You’ll use a little more than half the package of wafers. Turn the cookie crumbs into a bowl with the pecan chips.

Add powdered sugar, cocoa, and salt. Mix well with pastry blender.

Add syrup, rum, and vanilla. Mix well. Put bowl in freezer for 5-10 minutes to make rolling easier.

Roll the balls using a tablespoon or a small cookie scooper to measure out the dough. Roll balls in powdered sugar. Let rum balls dry several hours before storing in air-tight container in refrigerator.

To keep hands from become too messy, try using powdered sugar on the palms of your hands while rolling.

Yields: about 40 rum balls

Holiday Rice Krispie Treats

2010-12-20T12:29:00.004-06:00

Looking for a really fast, really easy Christmas treat? Here's an easy way to "holidayize" your rice krispie treats.

Holiday Rice Krispie Treats

I won't even bother putting the whole rice krispie treat recipe on here since you can find it on every box of Rice Krispies, not to mention most marshmallow packages.

Here's how to "dress them up." First, cut up some red and green maraschino cherries into quarters. I found the green ones at Target.

Then make the treats as usual. As soon as you've pressed them into a greased pan (I think I used a 9 x 13 pan), press one red cherry quarter and one green cherry quarter together into the treat before it cools. Do this every two inches or so, depending on how big you want your treats to be.

Once the treats have cooled completely, cut them up so that the cherries are at the center of each piece. Immediately store them in an airtight container if you don't want them to dry out. I've also found that using a little more butter and marshmallow than the recipe actually requires also helps keep them moist.

If you want to dress up your presentation of the treats, use muffin cup liners like I did in the photo above. Enjoy!

Cucidati (Italian Christmas Cookies)

2010-12-19T09:32:00.006-06:00

I learned how to make these cookies by taking an Italian Christmas Cookies class. The instructor was named Dora, and her website can be found by clicking here. She was born in Italy and now teaches many different Italian cooking classes in my area.

Dora explained that the filling is different in each region of Italy, so I decided to play around with the filling recipe she gave us to come up with my own. I actually left out the figs, which are generally the main ingredient in the filling. Below is what I came up with for the filling, but I also tried using the fruit varieties of Solo Baking and Pastry Filling, and those worked out as well. I guess the moral of the story is: Try whatever filling you'd like.

Still more Christmas Cookie recipes to come this week. Tomorrow I'll post a quick way to "dress up" your Rice Krispie Treats for the holidays. Then on Wednesday or Thursday I'll post my mom's rum ball recipe. Finally, I've got a recipe for Eggnog Cups, a delicious little cream-filled cookie if you like the drink. I'll post those next Sunday, in plenty of time for New Year's Eve.

Cucidati
(Italian Christmas Cookies)

Ingredients for dough:
2 cups flour
¾ tablespoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
¼ cup sugar
½ vegetable shortening
2 large eggs
½ tablespoon vanilla extract
¼ milk (add more if needed)

Ingredients for filling (my version):
12 ½ oz. can of dates with walnuts (Solo brand)
¾ cup raisins
1 tablespoon orange juice
2 tablespoons rum

Ingredients for icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk

For the dough, add all ingredients to a mixer and mix for three full minutes. Dough will be soft.

Remove dough from mixer and knead by hand for five minutes. (I had to flour my hands several times during this process to keep the dough from sticking to me.)

Divide the dough into two equal pieces. Wrap each with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 45 minutes. Dough can be made ahead of time and stored for up to five days.

For the filling, stir all ingredients in a bowl. This can also be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge.

When you are ready to make the cookies, flour your working surface and roll out one section of the dough at a time until it is 1/8 inch thick. Spread a long row of filling about an inch for the edge of the dough. The picture below is with the raspberry Solo Baking & Pastry Filling.

Roll the edge of the dough over the filling. Cut the rest of the dough off. Then cut your “log” into slices and place on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper.

Repeat this process until you have used up all of your dough and/or filling.

Bake for 12-15 minutes (mine seemed to take closer to 20) or until cookies are golden.

Remove from oven and transfer to wire rack to cool. Be sure they have completely cooled before icing.

For the icing, mix together all ingredients, add or subtracting milk to achieve the right consistency. Spread the icing on top of the cookies and decorate with sprinkles. Let icing set completely before storing in an airtight container.

Red and Green Cherry Cheesecake Brownies

2010-12-18T09:54:00.003-06:00

The red and green maraschino cherries in this cheesecake brownie make it a fun Christmas treat! I found them a little tricky to cut, so I think if I make them again, I might stick them in the freezer for ten minutes before cutting.

Whether or not they turn out a little messy, they are definitely delicious if you like cheesecake and brownies!

Red and Green Cherry Cheesecake Brownies

Ingredients for crust:
4 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate, broken into pieces
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
2 cups sugar, divided
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour

Ingredients for cheesecake topping:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
½ cup sugar
½ cup green and red maraschino cherries, chopped
½ teaspoons almond extract

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 13 x 9 inch baking pan.

Place unsweetened baking chocolate and two sticks of butter in large microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at 50% power for 2-3 minutes, stirring after each minute, until mixture is smooth.

Beat in 2 cups sugar, 3 eggs, and 1 teaspoon vanilla until blended. Stir in 2 cups of flour. Spread batter in greased pan.

Beat cream cheese, ½ cup sugar, and 1 egg. Stir in red and green cherries and almond extract. Spread over top of chocolate batter in pan. Bake 35-40 minutes or just until set. Remove from oven. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars and cover. Refrigerate leftover bars.

Yields: 36 bars

Peppermint Drops

2010-12-12T09:59:00.006-06:00

Here's a fun Christmas cookie that will help you use up a few of those old candy canes you have lying around!

I developed this recipe by messing around with the Ricotta Cookies recipe and then changing the glaze on top. Enjoy!

Peppermint Drops

Ingredients for cookie:
2 ¼ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
½ cup butter, softened (1 stick)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 cup ricotta cheese
¾ teaspoon peppermint extract

Ingredients for glaze:
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons butter, softened
¼ teaspoon peppermint extract
2 tablespoons milk
2-3 drops red food color
about 10-12 mini candy canes, crushed (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray cookie sheets with nonstick cooking spray.

In medium-sized bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together. Set aside.

In a mixer, beat butter and sugar until blended. Add egg, ricotta cheese, and peppermint extract, beating until combined. On low speed, add flour mixture slowly.

Use a small cookie scooper to drop the dough onto cookie sheets.

Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes. Watch cookies carefully. They won’t brown on the top, but they should be lightly browned around the edges. After three minutes, remove to cooling racks. (Warning: bottoms can brown quickly without seeing much browning around the edges.)

Let cookies cool for fifteen minutes before making glaze. While you are waiting, crush the candy canes with a rolling pin and put them in a small bowl.

Stir powdered sugar, butter, peppermint extract, milk, and red food color in a small bowl. Dip top of cookies into glaze and then crushed candy canes. Allow glaze to harden before storing.

Yields: about 60 cookies if you use a small cookie scooper.

Cherry Chocolate Macaroons

2010-12-05T09:40:00.005-06:00

Holiday cookies are on their way, and with the cherry red centers on these macaroons, this recipe could certainly join the party!

Many more holiday cookies to come this month!

Cherry Chocolate Macaroons

1 bag (14 oz.) of sweetened coconut flakes
½ cup cocoa
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon maraschino cherry juice
about 24 maraschino cherries, cut in half

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease cookie sheet or spray it with Pam.

Stir together coconut and cocoa in a large bowl until the coconut is coated by the cocoa. Stir in sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract, and cherry juice.

Drop by rounded teaspoons onto prepared cookie sheet. Shape with your fingers as necessary. Press cherry half onto center of each cookie.

Bake 8-10 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet immediately. Let cool completely on wire rack. Cookies can be stored loosely covered at room temperature.

Yields: about 48 cookies

Perfect Pie Crust

2010-11-28T09:29:00.007-06:00

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! I've been in charge of making the pumpkin pie for my family's Thanksgiving feast for about eighteen years now. After years of practicing Mom's pie crust recipe, I think I've finally got it down.

Perfect Pie Crust

Ingredients:
1 cup sifted flour
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons cold milk

Sift together flour and salt in medium-sized bowl. Pour oil and milk into measuring cup, but do not stir. Add oil and milk all at once to the flour mixture. Stir lightly with a fork. Form dough into a ball and flatten slightly.

Roll between two 12-inch squares of waxed paper. (I find it helpful to dampen the surface of the table below the bottom sheet, so the paper won’t slip on me.) Roll spoke-fashion, going from center to edge of dough. When dough is rolled to edges, it will be the right thickness and size.

Peel off top sheet of paper and flip over onto pie plate. Remove last sheet of waxed paper slowly. Fit crust onto bottom and sides of pie plate.
Use handle of wooden spoon held in right hand and press between thumb and index finger of left hand, going around the edge of the pie plate.

For the pumpkin pie, that’s all I had to do! I used the recipe of the Libby pumpkin can for the filling.
If I were making a different kind of pie that required a baked pie crust, I would have needed to prick the bottom and sides of the crust with a fork dipped in flour before baking it at 450 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

For a double-crust pie, double the ingredients and roll out half at a time.

Caramel Brownies

2010-11-21T10:02:00.007-06:00

The students at one of my previous schools liked to call these “Speech Contest Brownies,” as I always brought them to the final round of the spring speech contest so that the finalists would have something to look forward to after they performed.

The recipe came from a guy who was in a class I was taking years ago. He brought these several times, and people begged him for the recipe. Here it is with a few of my personal hints for optimal enjoyment.

Caramel Brownies

Ingredients:
1 ½ sticks margarine, melted
1 German chocolate cake mix with pudding
1 small can of evaporated milk
1 package of caramels (like the Kraft kind pictured below)
1 12-oz. package of chocolate chips

Unwrap all the caramels and put them in a small microwave-safe bowl. Then preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt the margarine in a microwave-safe bowl. Then add the cake mix and 1/3 cup evaporated milk (that’s about half of the small can). Spread ½ mixture in bottom of an ungreased 9 x 13 pan. You will have a very thin layer of batter, and you may want to use a buttered spatula to help spread it out.

Bake at 350 degrees for six minutes. Meanwhile, melt caramels and 1/3 cup evaporated milk (the other half of the small can).

After the six minutes are up, take the pan out of the oven and spread the chocolate chips over the cake. Then drizzle the melted caramel mixture on tops of this. Finally, drop the rest of the cake mixture by teaspoonfuls on top.

Bake another 15-18 minutes at 350 degrees. Let cool completely before attempting to cut them. I find it helpful to refrigerate them or even throw them in the freezer for 15 minutes before cutting them. That way the caramel mixture has a chance to solidify and they won’t be quite as messy to cut.

A Non-Baking Post

2010-11-20T13:35:00.003-06:00

I hope you all don't mind a non-baking post, but I'd like to share some fun news and this blog seems as good a place as any. :)

I just had a short story accepted for publication in a kids' magazine! My story will appear in the April 2011 issue of Pockets magazine, a Christian publication for kids aged 6-12. You can find out more about them by visiting their website: http://pockets.upperroom.org/.

While out an a walk earlier today, I had a sudden realization about my story. Every short story in Pockets is accompanied by pictures--either artists' renderings or photographs of real people. Somebody is in charge of either finding photos or drawings to match my story! I wonder how the characters from my imagination will turn out when they make their publication debut. I don't know if soon-to-be thirteen-year-old twins Erik and Espy will turn out anything like I had in mind, but I'm eager to find out! Guess I'll have to wait until April.

By the way, the magazine is always looking for articles on "real children involved in environmental efforts, peacemaking, and helping others for our Kids with a Mission feature." (Quote taken from their website) If anyone knows any kids who deserve recognition for the good work they do, let me know. I'd love to do an article on them and submit it to Pockets.

Smiley Face Cookies

2010-11-14T09:55:00.007-06:00

This recipe originally came from the book Peach Cobbler Murder. The book was written by Joanne Fluke and is part of a series of cozy murder mysteries about a coffeeshop owner that shares her recipes as she solves the murder. If you’re not familiar with the term “cozy murder mystery,” just think of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple or the TV show Murder She Wrote (as opposed to something “hard-boiled” like Law and Order or CSI). In fact, Joanne Fluke’s website is www.murdershebaked.com. Cute, huh?

In the book, the recipe is called Doll Face Cookies. I’ve changed it only slightly so that it makes fewer cookies and the faces actually smile. The original instructions call for three raisins (two eyes and a mouth). Instead of using a third raisin for a mouth, I replaced it with a quarter of a maraschino cherry. Now the faces can smile back at me. ☺ Besides, how can I pass up an excuse to use maraschino cherries?

Oh, and did I mention these cookies are egg-free?

Smiley Face Cookies

Ingredients:
¼ cup melted butter (1/2 stick)
¼ cup molasses
½ cup tightly packed brown sugar
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon lemon juice
¼ cup milk
1 ¼ cups flour
about 50 raisins
6-8 maraschino cherries (quartered)

Melt the butter in a large microwave-safe bowl. Let the butter cool to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Spray a measuring cup with nonstick cooking spray and measure out ¼ cup molasses. Add the molasses and the brown sugar to the melted butter. Next, stir in the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and lemon juice.

Add the flour and milk slowly, mixing as you go. Stir until all ingredients are incorporated thoroughly.

Use a small cookie scooper or rounded teaspoons to drop dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Put two raisins on top for eyes and a quarter of a maraschino cherry for the mouth.

Bake for 10-12 minutes at 375 degrees. Let the cookies cool for two minutes on the sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Yields: about two dozen

If I ever meet Joanne Fluke, I’d love to know how she gets these cookies off her cookie sheet. I must confess that I have problems doing it without the “face” getting stretched or pushed into another shape. Sometimes my cookies turn out more like Edvard Munch’s painting Scream.

And other times, they look more like Jack-o-lanterns.
Oh, well. They always taste yummy.

Pumpkin Cake Roll

2010-11-07T09:10:00.006-06:00

The last of the pumpkin recipes for this year! This recipe comes from Libby’s, too. One of my nephews described the taste as being like “a super awesome carrot cake.” True enough—it wasn’t overly pumpkin-y, and the cream cheese filling does evoke a carrot cake taste.

This was my first attempt at doing any kind of “roll cake,” but I think it turned our fairly well. I had a few problems with the cake sticking at times, but at least the cake didn’t have any major cracks in it. Since I’m used to regular cakes, it was weird to work with a cake that was so thin!

Pumpkin Cake Roll

Cake Ingredients:
¾ cup flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 15 x 10-inch jelly roll pan. Line the pan with wax paper and then grease and flour the paper.

Sprinkle a thin, cotton kitchen towel with powdered sugar. I recommend not using a terry cloth towel that might leave fuzzies on your cake later. I also recommend being very liberal with your powdered sugar.
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt in a small bowl. Beat eggs and sugar in a larger mixer bowl until thick. Beat in pumpkin. Stir in flour mixture. Spread evenly into prepared pan. It will be a very thin layer. Sprinkle with nuts, if desired. (I used only ½ cup of walnuts, even though the recipe suggested a full cup.)

Bake for 13-15 minutes or until top of cake springs back when touched. Immediately loosen and turn cake onto towel sprinkled with powdered sugar. Carefully peel off paper. Roll up cake and towel together, starting with narrow end. You might want to sprinkle with more powdered sugar as you roll the cake so that it doesn’t stick to either side of the kitchen towel. Cool on wire rack while you make the filling.
Ingredients for filling:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
6 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter and vanilla extract in small mixer bowl until smooth. Carefully unroll cake; removed towel. Spread cream cheese mixture over cake, leaving an inch or so on the sides (this will give the filling a place to ooze when you reroll it). Reroll cake. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least one hour. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving, if desired.
Note: Many people had posted online about how long they let the cake cool before filling it. I guess if you let it cool completely, it may crack when you try to roll it. I let the cake cool about twenty minutes. It was still quite warm when I went to fill it, but at least it rolled pretty nicely.

Iced Pumpkin Cookies

2010-10-31T10:18:00.006-05:00

Happy Halloween!

I looked at many pumpkin cookie recipes online before settling on this one. I found many of them had comments by “reviewers” who tinkered with the recipe this way and that until my head was spinning about which way was best. All I wanted was a simple recipe for a great pumpkin cookie.

This one came straight from the Libby pumpkin people on the verybestbaking.com website. I didn’t mess with it at all, and I think the cookies turned out great.

Iced Pumpkin Cookies

Ingredients for cookies:
2 ½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups sugar
½ cup butter (1 stick), softened
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease baking sheets.

Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a medium bowl. Beat sugar and softened butter in large mixer bowl until blended. Then add the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla extract and beat until smooth.

Gradually add in the flour mixture and beat until thoroughly mixed. Drop by rounded tablespoon (or my favorite—small cookie scoop) onto greased baking sheets.

Bake for 15-16 minutes or until edges are firm. Cool on baking sheets for two minutes before removing to wire racks.

Ingredients for glaze:
2 cups sifted powdered sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine ingredients for glaze in a small bowl. Then drizzle over cookies. I snipped the end of a decorating bag to make the drizzling a little easier. I also put waxed paper under the cooling rack to catch any glaze that dripped.

Yields: about 3 dozen cookies

Pumpkin Loaf

2010-10-24T16:26:00.004-05:00

One of my friends says that pumpkin is only to be served during the fall holidays (Halloween and Thanksgiving)--NOT at Christmas time! :) To honor her request, I will be bringing you three pumpkin recipes in a row.

This week it's Pumpkin Loaf, a really moist bread that makes your house smell great. In the next two weeks, I'll have pumpkin cookies and a pumpkin cake roll. So don't worry when you see this recipe uses only half a can of pumpkin. Save the rest for the cookies or the cake roll. :)

Pumpkin Loaf

Ingredients:
1 cup of canned pumpkin (this is a little more than half a 15-oz. can)
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup applesauce (I used the kind already flavored with cinnamon)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (325 degrees for dark-coated pans). Grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan or line it with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin, eggs, oil, applesauce, vanilla, and both kinds of sugar.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until blended. Pour into the prepared pan.

Bake for about 50 minutes. Loaf is done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Orange Dream Cupcake

2010-10-17T20:24:00.003-05:00

I almost made these for Cattapalooza, but the chocolate cupcakes won out. :) This recipe was adapted from a full cake recipe. The frosting was the best part. With some dark chocolate decorations, these cupcakes could be really fun for Halloween.

Orange Dream Cupcakes

Cake Ingredients:
1 yellow cake mix
1 (3 ounce) package vanilla instant pudding
¾ cup orange juice
½ cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons orange zest

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin pan with cupcake liners.

In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients for the cake. Beat on medium speed for two minutes. Scoop into muffin pan. Bake for 16-20 for full-size cupcakes. Bake for 10-13 minutes for mini cupcakes.

Icing Ingredients:
1 cup cold milk
1 small package vanilla instant pudding
2 teaspoons grated orange zest
2 cups Cool Whip

Whisk milk, pudding, and orange zest for two minutes. Fold in the Cool Whip.

Chocolate Cool Whip Icing

2010-10-13T19:57:00.008-05:00

This is the second recipe from "Cattapalooza." This icing made a really nice topping for the cupcakes. I put it in a decorating bag with a star tip and just made a rosette on top of each mini cupcake.

Chocolate Cool Whip Icing

Ingredients:
1 small (3.9-ounce) package of chocolate instant pudding
3/4 cup milk
1 8-ounce container of Cool Whip, thawed

Mix the milk and pudding together. I ended up using the wire whisk on my mixer. Then fold in the Cool Whip. (I had a little problem with the pudding not blending well with the Cool Whip because the smaller amount of milk made the pudding thicker than typical, so I used the mixer with the wire whisk to really smooth out the icing.)

The chocolate cross decorations were made with Wilton Candy Melts. I simply melted about 10 of the chocolate candy pieces in a decorating bag in the microwave. Then I snipped off the end and piped the crosses onto a sheet of parchment paper. An hour in the fridge was enough to harden them.

Mini No-Bake Cheesecakes

2010-10-12T20:27:00.006-05:00

Due to "Cattapalooza" this past weekend, my entries for this week are a little late. On the bright side, I baked a lot, so I’ve got two recipes to share!

First up are these mini no-bake cheesecakes. I looked at a lot of recipes online before I decided on this one. It’s basically Martha Stewart’s recipe with the amounts adjusted to fill mini muffin tins versus a springform pan.

The good news about this cheesecake recipe is that it tastes great and contains no eggs. That bad news is that, like many other no-bake recipes, it didn’t get really firm, so it really needs to stay refrigerated until you’re ready to serve it.

No-Bake Mini Cheesecakes

Ingredients for crust:
1 package (10 sheets) graham crackers
5 ½ tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon sugar

Ingredients for filling:
2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Put the graham crackers in a resealable plastic bag. Crush them with a rolling pin until the crumbs are very fine. (When I got near the end, I used a sifter to help me find the larger crumbs that needed some more smashing.)

Pour the crumbs into a bowl. Stir in the sugar and melted butter. Press the crumbs into mini muffin cups. I used the end of a shot glass to help me press the crumbs down.

Chill the crust in the freezer for at least 10 minutes.

To make the filling, beat the cream cheese at a medium-high speed until smooth. Slowly beat in the condensed milk, scraping the bowl as necessary. Then beat in the lemon juice and vanilla.

Scoop the filling into the muffin tins and refrigerate at least 2 ½ to 3 hours.

Yields: about 40 mini cheesecakes

A few extra hints:
*Instead of using spoons or a cookie scooper to get the filling into the mini muffin tins, I put the filling in a decorating bag and just squeezed it right in.
*In the picture, you’ll notice that some of the mini cheesecakes have a pink topping. I added a Cherry Cool Whip topping just before the party. It was simply the “Strawberry Mousse Filling” with the cherry cake and pastry filling instead of strawberry.

Chocolate Buttercream Icing

2010-10-03T10:10:00.007-05:00

I was originally going to use this post to talk about how to stack a cake, but I was so nervous about getting this cake done in time for the party that I forgot to take pictures as I went along!

Some of you have already heard of my "cake disaster" ☺ with this one. I accidentally picked up an older cake mix at the store. When I took the cake out of the pan, it started to fall apart. It wasn’t until after it was in pieces that I looked at the “Best by” date and realized this cake was past its prime by several months.

After a quick dash across the street to my local Target, I bought another cake mix and tried again. This one was definitely fresher than the last. I still had a few problems with some of the cake falling apart when I went to torte it, but I managed to salvage the cake in the end. I think I may have been trying to torte the cake a bit too soon because I was running so short on time.

Anyway, here’s the recipe for Chocolate Buttercream Icing.

Chocolate Buttercream Icing

1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons water
1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening (e.g. Crisco)
1/2 cup butter
4 cups powdered sugar
2/3 cup cocoa powder
brown icing color (optional)

In a mixer, cream vanilla extract, shortening, butter, and water. Gradually add powdered sugar. Mix on medium speed until all ingredients have been thoroughly blended. Add cocoa powder a bit at a time. Keep mixing until smooth and creamy.

If you want the icing to look darker, add some brown icing color. I used an entire container of Wilton brown icing color to get the shade of brown in the photo to the right! The cocoa powder doesn’t make the icing very dark at all. It’s a very soft brown, and I wanted something that looked like chocolate!

Carol's Apple Crisp

2010-09-26T19:53:00.002-05:00

The title for this recipe may have some of you scratching your heads and thinking, "Who's Carol?" Well, the truth is, that I have no idea who Carol is!

The recipe came from a Pfaltzgraff calendar my mother gave me. Each month features a new recipe baked or served on some kind of Pfaltzgraff dish. "Carol's Apple Crisp" is the dish for September. It was quite a hit at Sunday dinner. Enjoy!

Carol's Apple Crisp

6-8 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and sliced
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg
¼ cup butter, softened
cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sift flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder into bowl. Add 1 egg. Mix well until crumbly.

Place apples in 9 x 13 baking dish. Sprinkle crumbs over apples. Dot with butter and sprinkle with plenty of cinnamon. Bake at 350 for one hour.

Apple Coconut Bars

2010-09-19T16:30:00.004-05:00

Let's hear it for apple season! This recipe won't use up all your apples, but it is a nice way to usher in the fall season.

Apple Coconut Bars

Ingredients:
½ cup melted butter (1 stick)
½ cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs
1 cup peeled and chopped apple (1 large Gala was enough)
2 cups flaked coconut
½ cup rolled oats
1 ½ cups flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 pan.

Melt the butter in a large microwave-safe bowl. Add the white and brown sugars. Mix in the baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and vanilla.

In a small bowl, beat the two eggs with a fork. Then add them to the rest of the cookie dough. Mix well. Then add the chopped apple and 1 ½ cups of the coconut. (Keep ½ cup for later.)

Add the oats and flour. Mix everything thoroughly.

Spoon the dough into the greased pan. Sprinkle the remaining coconut on top. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes. The top should brown slightly.

Let cool and then cut into bars.

Italian Wine Cookies

2010-09-18T16:21:00.000-05:00

I almost didn't post this recipe since I wasn't overly thrilled with the results. My niece and nephews were willing to eat the cookies even though they weren't particularly sweet. The recipe came from allrecipes.com.

Italian Wine Cookies

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons white sugar
1 cup dry red wine (I used a semi-dry red wine.)
½ cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup granulated sugar for decoration

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray your cookie sheet with cooking spray.

In a large bowl combine the flour, baking powder and sugar. Add the wine and oil. Mix with a large fork and then with your hands.

Roll small pieces of dough between hands to make "logs" then shape into circles. The circles should be no bigger than the 2 inches in diameter. Roll top of cookies in extra sugar and place on cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes or until slightly brown. After cookies cool they should be hard and crisp.

Chocolate Ganache

2010-09-12T09:24:00.006-05:00

I needed some frosting for some cupcakes, and I decided to try something new. There are many recipes for chocolate ganache on the internet, so I combined a few ideas and came up with a recipe I think worked really well.

Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients:
2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup heavy whipping cream
1 ½ teaspoons dark rum (optional)

Put the chocolate chips into a medium-sized bowl.

In a small saucepan, heat the cream just until it starts to boil. Don’t let it boil away. Then pour the cream over the chocolate chips, and whisk them together until the chips have melted.

If you want, you can stir in the rum after the chips have all melted and you have a nice smooth consistency.

For the cupcakes, I just dipped the tops of them into the ganache. For a cake, you can pour it over the top and let it drip down the sides.

How to Draw Cartoon Characters on Your Cakes

2010-09-06T15:44:00.015-05:00

You really don’t need to be a great artist to draw any of your (or your kid’s) favorite cartoon characters on a cake. The only skill you really need is the ability to trace, and we all learned that back in Kindergarten, right? ☺

Character Cakes

What You’ll Need:

• A picture of the character you want on the cake
• Parchment paper
• Piping gel
• Tape
• A cake that you've already iced

1. First, get a picture of your character to trace. Black and white drawings work best. The drawing of Elmo I used for the above cake came from a Google search for an Elmo coloring page. I’ve also traced right out of picture books. One nice advantage of taking your picture from the web is that you can adjust the size to fit your cake.

2. Next, lay a piece of parchment paper over the drawing you want to trace. Tape the parchment paper down so it doesn’t slip on you.

3. Take a small decorating bag (or make one out of some more parchment paper) and fill it with a few tablespoons of piping gel. This is a clear gel that can be found in small tubs in the cake decorating aisle of your craft store. Use the piping gel to trace over the drawing.

4. When you’re done, carefully peel the tape off the parchment paper. Then lift the parchment paper off the drawing. Below is the clear piping gel outline for the Elmo cake.

5. Next, flip the parchment paper over onto your iced cake. Be sure the piping gel side is down. Trace over the wrong side of the outline with your finger as shown below. (Hint: This transfer works best if the icing on your cake has had a chance to dry a bit so that it has a slightly crusty edge. If your icing is too soft, you’ll end up with icing on your parchment paper instead of leaving the piping gel on your cake.)

6. Carefully, peel off the parchment paper. You should now have a clear outline of your character on your cake!

7. Now it’s time to color inside the lines (another skill you learned back in Kindergarten ☺)! Using regular buttercream icing, color your drawing by filling in your outline. I used star tip #16 for his nose (orange icing) and face (red icing). For the whites of his eyes, I used tip #5. Then I filled a bag with black icing. I used tip #3 for the mouth, the pupils, and outlining.

I have a lot of nieces and nephews, so I’ve used this tracing trick on many different characters.

Strawberry Mousse Cake Filling

2010-09-03T19:34:00.007-05:00

Here's the filling I used for the Graduation Cap Cake. I wanted a strawberry filling, but I also wanted something light. So I came up with this idea, and it worked even better than I had hoped! (Don't you love it when that happens?)

Strawberry "Mousse" Filling

Ingredients:
1 can of Solo brand Strawberry Cake & Pastry Filling (you can find it in the baking aisle of your grocery store)
1 tub of Cool Whip

Move the Cool Whip from the freezer to the fridge one day before you want to use it.

On the day you make the cake, gently mix the Cool Whip with the strawberry filling. The result is a creamy, fluffy filling that tastes sort of like a mousse without all the fancy prep work.

Unless you are making a very large cake, you will not need all of the Cool Whip and filling. For the Graduation Cap Cake (which had a total of four layers), I used about 2/3 of the Cool Whip tub + 2/3 of the can of filling.

To fill the layers, place your first layer of cake on your cake plate or cake board. Put some buttercream icing in a decorating bag and pipe a nice tube of icing around the edge of your layer. (This will act like a dam to hold your filling in.) Then put your strawberry mousse filling in another decorating bag and fill in the area. If necessary, you can spread the filling with a knife to even it out. Place your next layer on top. If there are more layers, repeat the process.

I had some filling left over, so I stored it in a plastic tub in the fridge. It lasted for a while . . . I can't say exactly how long it would last because I ate it all in just a few days. :-)

Solo makes a ton of different flavors for their cake and pastry filling, so you could mix up all sorts of "mousses" with these. In fact, I'll be making a raspberry mousse for a cake this weekend.

Here's what the Graduation Cap Cake looked like after we cut into it. I'm pretty sure one of the guys at the party polished off all of what you see in this picture.

Graduation Cap Cake

2010-08-30T21:19:00.011-05:00

I made this cake for a surprise party for a friend. She had just finished her master's degree. I'll talk about the cake building and decorating in this entry. For the recipe for the strawberry mousse filling inside this cake, click here.

Graduation Cap Cake

I started by baking two oval pans of chocolate cake. While those were cooling, I worked on the mortar board. For this I cut a cardboard cake board into a square (about 9 inches by 9 inches). I also used the point of a pair of scissors to cut a hole in the center of the board. This hole became important later.

Then I cut two pieces of rolled white fondant: one the exact size of the board and another slightly larger. The larger one was put below the board, so that when I flipped it over later the seams would be on the bottom. Using buttercream icing, I "glued" the fondant pieces to the board. Then I used a lollypop stick to poke a hole through the fondant where I had already cut a hole through the board.

I sealed up the edges by adding a bit more icing on to the edges of the larger piece of fondant and then folding the edge over the side.

While the fondant dried, I cut each cake into two layers and then filled and stacked the four layers. I pushed two lollypop sticks (cut to the same height as the cake) into the cake to stabilize it. Then I frosted the edges with enough white icing to cover the chocolate cake. I only put a light layer of icing on the top since it would be covered by the mortar board.

I piped small dots of icing along the border (I used tip #3 for those of you who are cake decorators). Then I added some pink roses and leaves that I had made out of buttercream icing.

When the fondant mortar board had dried, I put it on top of the cake and shoved one last lollypop stick through the center. I left this lollypop stick longer so that I'd have something to tie the tassel to. I made the tassel myself with some string and a bit of ribbon.

After tying the tassel to the center stick, I rolled another small piece of fondant into a ball and dropped it over the stick so that it was covered completely.

And that was it!

Cherry Ranger Cookies

2010-08-27T18:04:00.005-05:00

I made these just before the Michigan trip. I stashed them in Ziploc bags so we could enjoy some homemade goodies right away. On the first night of the trip, we bought some black cherry ice cream, and a few of us made ice cream sandwiches with these cookies. The cookies were pretty good on their own, but I thought they were even better with the black cherry ice cream.

Cherry Ranger Cookies

Ingredients:
½ cup butter, softened
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 ¼ cups flour
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1 cup coconut
1 cup cherry-flavored Craisins

In a large bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer until smooth. Add granulated sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, and baking soda. Beat until combined. Beat in egg and vanilla.

Add flour gradually and continue beating. If your mixer can’t handle all the flour, you can stir the rest by hand. Mix in the oats, coconut, and Craisins.

Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Baking at 375 degrees for 8 minutes or until edges are golden brown.

Cool on cookie sheet one minute before transferring to a wire rack.

Sticky Buns

2010-08-20T17:33:00.004-05:00

This isn't really a cookie or a cake, but a lot of people have asked for this recipe. I got it from a co-worker who makes it every Christmas. She prepares it at night, lets it refrigerate overnight, and then puts it in the oven in the morning. It smells really good while baking!

Sticky Buns

Ingredients:
2 loaves of frozen Rhodes bread (Packages come with three loaves)
1 stick of butter
2 tablespoons milk
1 large package vanilla pudding
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Thaw two loaves of frozen Rhodes bread. (I put the two loaves on a plate in the fridge for six hours). After thawing, cut up the loaves with scissors into walnut-sized pieces. Put pieces in a large bowl.

Melt the stick of butter. Add milk and stir. Pour over bread and stir.

In a smaller bowl, mix vanilla pudding, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Add mixture to bread and stir until bread is fairly well coated.

Put in a 9 X 12 inch pan. Cover with saran wrap and put in refrigerator overnight.

Heat oven to 350 and bake for thirty minutes until golden brown.

Mix some powdered sugar with water or a little milk to make a frosting and pour over warm rolls.