The End of a Blog

Hello, all. And by "all" I mean the four of you who have been following me. :)

I've enjoyed sharing my baking adventures with you, but I'm afraid I no longer have the time to post about them. It's been a fun few years. I share with you one last baking adventure.

Red Velvet Cupcakes 

with Cream Cheese Icing

This was a super simple one. I used the Duncan Hines red velvet cake mix. (For my money, there's no better cake mix than Duncan Hines. They can feel free to contact me for promotional purposes anytime.)

The icing is the same I used on my sister-in-law's carrot cake a few years ago. You can find it here.

If you want to follow my writing adventures, you can find me on my author website: www.ajcattapan.com. On this site, I review children's book, share grammar topics from my classroom, and discuss writing in general. Maybe every once in a while, I'll even be tempted to post about baking. :)

Homemade Fudge

I think this is the last of the Christmas cookies my friends and I made that I'll be blogging about. We needed something chocolate, and homemade fudge certainly fit the bill. The recipe originally came from allrecipes.com and was called "Aunt Teen's Creamy Chocolate Fudge."

Homemade Fudge

Ingredients:
7 oz. marshmallow creme
1-1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk chocolate chips
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1 teaspoon vanilla

The original directions called for an 8x8 pan, but we found a 9x9 pan actually worked better. Line your pan with aluminum foil.

In a large saucepan, combine the marshmallow creme, sugar, evaporated milk, butter and salt. Bring to a full boil over medium heat and cook for five minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and pour in both kinds of chocolate chips. Stir until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Stir in nuts and vanilla. Pour into prepared pan. Chill in refrigerator for two hours or until firm. Cut into bite-size pieces.

Black Forest Pudding Pie

I made two of these for a family potluck dinner. They were easy to make, didn't bother anyone's egg or nut allergies, and tasted pretty yummy. However, they were a little soft and sloppy when they were cut. If I made them again, I might try a little less milk so that the pudding becomes even thicker. 

Black Forest Pudding Pie

 
Ingredients:

Oreo pie crust (8-inch)
3 oz. chocolate instant pudding
1-3/4 cup cold milk
1/2 tub of Cool Whip
1/2 can of cherry pie filling

You can either make your own Oreo cookie pie crust or buy the prepared kind. If you make your own in a 9-inch pie plate, I'd recommend doubling the remaining ingredients.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the pudding mix and the cold milk for two minutes. Pour into pie crust. Refrigerate at least one hour.

While the pudding is setting, be sure to put the Cool Whip into the fridge to thaw it. Spread the Cool Whip on top of the chocolate pudding.

Spoon the cherry pie filling on top of the Cool Whip.

Yummy! You really can't go wrong with cherry and chocolate, can you?

Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies

On New Year's Eve, I wanted to make a small batch of cookies to take to a party. I started with a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe that said it made 30 cookies. Because I didn't really want leftovers, I cut the recipe in half. I figured if I did a half recipe with a small cookie scooper, I'd still get a decent number of cookies but not the 30 large cookies that the original recipe said I'd get.

So I made the necessary changes to the recipe and then started scooping the cookies with my small cookie scooper. Sixty-four cookies later, I was done! That's right. Sixty-four cookies. So much for not having leftovers.
  

Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1-1/4 cups oats
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup pecan chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

In a large mixer bowl, beat butter until creamy. Beat in both sugars. Then beat in egg and vanilla. Add as much flour mixture as possible. You made need to use a wooden spoon to finish the combining.

Stir in the chocolate and pecan chips.


With a small cookie scooper, drop onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes until edges are light brown. Cool one minute before removing to cooling rack.

Yields: about 60 small cookies

Rugelach

This will surprise some of my friends, but I had never heard of rugelach until they made some a couple years ago. I did a little history search on it and found out it's a Jewish pastry. So when did my friends and I make some rugelach? For Christmas, of course. When else do you make Jewish pastries? :)

 Rugelach 

Ingredients:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 cup butter, softened
2-1/4 cups flour
1 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon, divided
1/4 cup Solo brand raspberry cake & pastry filling

Beat cream cheese and butter on medium speed. Gradually add flour. Divide dough into four portions. Pat into 1-inch thick circle with flour hands and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line baking sheets with foil or parchment paper.  

Mix walnuts, 1/2 cup sugar, and 2 teaspoons cinnamon. On lightly floured surface, roll dough into 11-inch circle. Dough should be very thin by now. Spread each circle with a tablespoon of raspberry filling. Sprinkle with 1/4 of nut mixture. Using a pizza wheel, cut circle in 16 wedges. Roll up each wedge, starting from wide end. 

Place point side down on prepared cookie sheet. Sprinkle with extra cinnamon and sugar. 

Bake 25 minutes until lightly browned. Remove to wire rack for cooling.   

Chocolate-Cherry Bonbons

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. A good number of cookies have been baked in the last two weeks, so I should have some good blog content for the next month or so. 

I'll start off my Christmas cookie wrap-up with a cookie I made in early December. It's a variation of Rachel Ray's Chocolate-Orange Bonbons. Since I had no candied orange peel around, I used dried cherries instead. Yummy! 

Chocolate-Cherry Bonbons 

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened 
1/4 teaspoon salt 
1 egg 
1 teaspoon vanilla 
1 egg white 
1/2 cup cocoa powder 
1-1/4 cups flour 
1 teaspoon baking powder 
1/2 cup chopped dried cherries 
1/3 cup white chocolate chips 
1/4 cup powdered sugar 
4 ounces semisweet chocolate 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

In mixer, cream sugar, butter, and salt until well blended. Add egg, vanilla, and egg white. Beat for one minute. 

Add cocoa powder and blend at medium speed. Add flour and baking powder. Blend until thoroughly combined. Stir in half of chopped dried cherries (save other half for topping) and white chocolate chips. 

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Shape dough into balls and roll in powdered sugar. Place on prepared pans. Bake one pan at a time. If you have a second pan ready, place it in the refrigerator until first pan is finished in oven. Bake 15 minutes. Cool two minutes before removing to wire rack. 

Melt semisweet chocolate in microwave-safe bowl, stirring occasionally until chocolate is smooth. Top cookies with melted chocolate and chopped dried cherries. Let set (about 1 hour) before storing.

Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake

I know that it's rather late in the season for pumpkin, but here's one more recipe. Maybe you can save it for next year. :)

The original recipe came from the Kraft web site. I adapted it slightly so that it would fit in a regular pie plate instead of a springform pan.

(P.S. Don't my friends have very elegant dinnerware? You can tell this classy photo wasn't taken at my house!)
 

Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake

Ingredients:
1-1/3 cup finely crushed ginger snap cookies
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 can pumpkin
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Mix ginger snap crumbs, chopped pecans, and melted butter. Press into bottom and up sides of pie plate.

In large mixer bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar. Mix in pumpkin, spice, and vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time. Mix on low speed until blended. Pour into crust.

Bake 35-40 minutes. If cheesecake starts to crack, take it out right away. Cool. Refrigerate about 3-4 hours before serving.

Cookies of Christmas Past

I don't have a new recipe for this week yet, so I thought I'd post links to some of my favorite Christmas cookie recipes from past Christmases. Imagine you're Ebenezer Scrooge, and you've just been visited by . . .

Cookies of Christmas Past!

First up is Melting Snowman Oreo Balls.

Next is a recipe I've made several times in different variations: Candy Cane Snowballs.


The slightly difficult but definitely yummy Egg Nog Cups.


If you're Italian, you might enjoy some Cucidati.



Want something easy and simple? How about some Holiday Rice Krispie Treats?

And who could forget Mom's famous rum balls!

Stay tuned to see what I'm baking up this year!

Caramel Pumpkin Mousse Tart with Pecan Crumble

A few weeks ago, I posted an entry asking people to vote for what I should make for a special Thanksgiving dinner party with friends. After some fiercely close voting, the winner was . . . 

Caramel Pumpkin Mousse Tart 

with Pecan Crumble

 
I will not post the recipe here since you can easily find it on the Kraft website, and I didn't make any changes to it. Instead, here's a quick pictorial description of what I did. 

Step #1--Crush Nilla wafers. This is also called "Having fun with a rolling pin." 

Step #2--Press the crushed wafers and melted butter into the tart pan, and in a pie plate mix together the ingredients for the pecan crumble (basically: pecans, more crushed wafers, brown sugar, butter, pumpkin pie spice). Bake. 

Step #3--Beat pumpkin, cream cheese, more pumpkin pie spice, vanilla pudding and milk. Pour into tart pan and top with Cool Whip. Refrigerate. 

Step #4--Plate it. Before you serve it, top it with pecan crumble and drizzle with caramel sauce.

Yummy!

Pumpkin Bars

I know it's getting toward the end of pumpkin season, but I'm going to have at least two more pumpkin recipes for you. This week I'm bringing you Pumpkin Bars. My version is a mixture of several online recipes I found.

Basically, it's just a pumpkin cake that you smother in cream cheese icing and cut into bars. I made it for a Thanksgiving pot luck lunch at work. Yummy! 

Pumpkin Bars

Ingredients for bars:

4 eggs

1-2/3 cup sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

15 oz can pumpkin

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (or use 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, ½ teaspoon ground ginger, and ¼ teaspoon ground clove)

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

(1 cup raisins, optional)

Ingredients for icing:

8 oz cream cheese, softened

½ cup butter, softened

3 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly coat a 13x9 pan with cooking spray.

In a mixer, combine the eggs, sugar, oil, and pumpkin until light and fluffy. 

In a different bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, salt, and baking soda. Hand mix the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture. (Stir in raisins if desired.)

Spread into prepared 13x9 pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

When cake is cool, make the icing by beating the cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Beat in the sugar, vanilla, and milk. Add more milk if the icing is too thick. Spread over cooled pumpkin bars.
 

Muppet Baby Shower Cake for a Science Teacher

When I told one of my sisters-in-law my idea for this baby shower cake, she looked at me with a raised eyebrow as if I were crazy. 

However, cake baking is a lot like writing: you've got to know your audience. This would not have been the right baby shower cake for any of my sisters-in-law. However, this cake wasn't for them. It was for the male science teacher at my school. I'll admit I was a little worried about what his wife would think, but it turns out she's an elementary school teacher and enjoys the Muppets, too.

I got one of the best compliments ever on this cake. The day after the shower, the science teacher told me it reminded him of the cakes from Jarosch Bakery. If you're not familiar with this bakery, let's just say this is a high compliment indeed!

Muppet Baby Shower Cake

(Congratulations on your latest creation!)

To make this cake, I stacked two 9x13 chocolate cakes on top of one another and used a raspberry mouse filling (see basic recipe here).

Then I used the frozen buttercream transfer method for the design. Here's a quick recap.

First, find a picture of your chosen image. I find coloring books, greeting cards, and the internet very helpful.

Next, flip your picture over so that you're looking at the reverse side and trace over the pattern with a black marker. You'll want the reverse side because you'll be flipping it over onto your cake later.

Tape the picture onto a cookie sheet (or other flat surface). Tape a sheet of waxed paper over this. With black icing and a small decorating tip (#4 or #5 is fine), outline the entire picture.

Using colored icing and more small tips, fill in the outline until you've covered every bit of the image.

Fill a decorating bag with whatever color icing you will use for the background. In this case, I used white. Pipe a layer of this icing over the entire image.

Freeze for several hours or overnight. After you've baked, cooled, and iced your cake, take your decoration out of the freezer. Flip it onto the cake and carefully peel off the waxed paper.

I must have used some pretty strong colors on this cake because the icing left a nice ghostly image on the waxed paper after I pulled it off. Kind of cool, huh?

After you've moved your frozen buttercream transfer, you can add writing and borders to your cake. I also piped a series of small dots around the edge of the image to make it look a little like a picture frame.

My favorite part of this design is that it looks a little like Beaker is horrified at the idea of having a baby, and Bunsen is laughing over what the expecting couple has to look forward to. :) All in good fun, my friends, all in good Muppet fun.

The next day I received a lovely thank you card from the science teacher. He even used a card created by his very talented mother. Isn't this a lovely fall card she made?

Chocolate Raspberry Brownies

Warning! These turned out super rich. Consume in small quantities.

Chocolate Raspberry Brownies

Ingredients:

4 oz. unsweetened chocolate, divided

1/2 cup butter

1-1/3 cups sugar

2 eggs

2/3 teaspoon vanilla

2/3 cup flour

1 can raspberry cake and pastry filling

4 oz. semisweet chocolate

2/3 cup heavy whipping cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 9x9 pan with foil, leaving enough to hang over the sides. Lightly coat the foil with cooking spray.

Microwave three ounces of the unsweetened chocolate with the butter about two minutes. Stir until smooth. Add sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Mix well. Add flour into mixture and pour into prepared pan.

Bake 30 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Spread a thin layer of the raspberry cake and pastry filling over the cooled brownies.

Chop the remaining unsweetened chocolate and semisweet chocolate. In a small bowl, microwave the whipping cream until it boils. Add the chopped chocolate and stir until smooth. Spread over raspberry layer.

Refrigerate one hour. Place a few tablespoons of the remaining raspberry cake and pastry filling in a decorating bake with a small piping tip. Drizzle raspberry filling over brownies. Cut into small pieces.

Lemon Coconut Cake

I made this for a work party, and it turned out really yummy. Two of my coworkers said they dreamed about it afterwards. Definitely on the "keep this recipe" list.

Lemon Coconut Cake

Ingredients for cake:

one Duncan Hines Lemon Supreme cake mix

1-1/3 cups water

1/3 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

Ingredients for lemon filling:

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 cup water

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1-1/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup water

6 tablespoons butter

shredded coconut (optional)

Ingredients for icing:

1/2 cup butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon zest

5 tablespoons lemon juice

about two cups shredded coconut

Bake the cake according to package directions. However, if you want to torte it into three layers as I did, you can either bake it in three eight-inch cake pans or use one 8x3-inch cake pan. I used an 8x3-inch cake pan that Wilton makes. The cake took about 55 minutes to bake, and then I used my cake leveler to split it into three layers.

As your cake cools, make the lemon filling. In a small bowl, blend two tablespoons cornstarch with 1/4 cup water until the cornstarch is dissolved. Whisk in 2 eggs until blended. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan, combine 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1-1/4 cup sugar, 3/4 cup water, and 6 tablespoons butter. Bring to a boil. Whisk in the egg and cornstarch mixture and return to a boil. Continue whisking and boiling until mixture is thick. Remove from heat and cover with plastic wrap.

At this point, your cake should be cool enough to cut into layers if you chose to use the 8x3-inch pan instead of three separate eight-inch pans. When the filling has cooled, spread half of it onto the bottom layer. Sprinkle with some shredded coconut, if desired. 

 Place the middle layer on top, and spread it with the second half of the filling and more coconut. Add the final layer of cake on top.

To make the icing, beat 1/2 cup butter until smooth. Add two cups of powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest and 5 tablespoons lemon juice. Beat until smooth. Ice the cake and cover with a layer of shredded coconut.

Homemade Twix Bars

This recipe comes from the Kraft website. They called them Chocolate-Caramel Cookie Bars, but basically they are homemade Twix bars. Pretty simple and definitely yummy.

Homemade Twix Bars

Ingredients:

1 box of Lorna Doone shortbread cookies

1 package of caramels (the kind you use for making caramel apples)

1 tablespoon milk

3 oz. semi-sweet chocolate

3 oz. white chocolate

Line 9x13 pan with foil, leaving enough to hang over the sides for a handle later. Use the Reynolds non-stick foil if possible. If not, give the foil a light dusting of cooking spray.

Create a single layer of shortbread cookies on the foil. I had to break some cookies in half to make them fit.

Melt the caramel and the milk in the microwave for two minutes, stirring every thirty seconds. Pour over shortbread cookies and spread until even.

Microwave both types of chocolate in a small bowl for two minutes, again stirring every thirty seconds. When chocolate is smooth, pour it over the caramel layer.

Refrigerate for two hours. Before serving, take it out of the refrigerator and let it soften for fifteen minutes before cutting into bars.

Favorite Fall Dessert?

With fall now officially upon us, I thought I'd ask a question for you to answer in the comments below . What's your favorite fall dessert?

Mine is apple crisp. I blogged one apple crisp recipe two years ago, but I've got another recipe I use when I want a little apple crisp just for me. Maybe I'll blog that recipe soon.

In the meantime, let me know your favorite fall dessert. If it's something I haven't made yet, maybe I'll give it a try and post the results on the blog.

Happy fall, everyone!

Another Dora Birthday Cake

What can I say? My friend's daughter really likes Dora, so this is her second Dora birthday cake in a row. To see last year's, check out this post. Since this year's cake needed to be a small 8-inch one, I decided just to do Dora's face and used a frozen buttercream transfer.

Dora Birthday Cake

 

Luckily, I still had my Dora face pattern from a previous cake. I taped this to a cookie sheet and then taped waxed paper over it.

Then I outlined her face using the dark chocolate icing I was used for her hair. After outlining it, I can began to fill in all the features until I had a solid decoration.

Next, I covered the entire pattern by piping white icing over everything. The cookie sheet went into the freezer to solidify over night.

The next morning, I baked and iced the cake. The Dora face was turned upside down onto the cake, and the wax paper was peeled off. I used a star tip for a swirly border on top and shells along the bottom.

Since Dora is about five shades of brown, I decided the cake needed a bit more color. So I used some purple icing to make little star flowers with yellow centers. I froze these for a bit and then pressed them into the side of the cake with a dab of icing as "glue."