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May 17, 2009
When I received my June issue of Cuisine At Home magazine and saw the recipe for Pink Champagne Cake, I knew that I simply had to try it. And my mother-in-law would be the perfect recipient. I set off to make the cake for her for Mother’s Day. Somewhere along the way, something got messed up somewhere and the cake just did not turn out – the cake was way too sweet, the frosting was lumpy and runnyand didn’t taste very good, and I couldn’t get the frosting to stay put. Needless to say, IT ended up in the trash and I ended up scrambling to pull something together.
That’s when I stumbled across this – Tiramisu Cake. Perfect! This cake ended up coming together fairly quickly – a lot quicker than it looked like. The recipe also calls for boxed cake mix, but I made a from-scratch version instead.
This cake, like good wine, only gets better with age. The flavors get to mix and mingle and soak into each other and it is absolutely delicious the first day you make it, but divine the day after. I think that next time I’ll make it at least 24 hours in advance of when I want to serve it, just so the flavor fairies can do their thing.
Continue reading Tiramisu Cake >>
May 10, 2009
I know what you’re thinking…what the heck are you going to bake with carrots, parsley, and ground BEEF?? It’s simple, really. You see, my best friend’s dog celebrated his 9th birthday today, so Aunt Steffy here decided to celebrate his last single-digit birthday with some homemade dog biscuits.
They’re SUPER easy to make. I was dreading seeing how the dough would roll out and cut, but geez, I wish that all of my cut-out cookies would roll out and keep their shape like that! And they’re quick, too. I had planned on being stuck in the kitchen half the day making these but we ended up with time to spare.
 I looked everywhere for cookie cutters and finally had to order them from Amazon. The set came with 7 cutters – three different sized bones, two different sized fire hydrants, a paw, and a dog house.
Now, I can’t attest to the taste of these dog biscuits myself. They are safe to eat of course; there’s nothing in them that I haven’t eaten myself before. It’s just that by the time I realized that, hey, maybe I should taste these!, it was already after Fred had licked all over the whole ball of dough. (Hey, he was standing down there looking at me with those puppy-dog eyes and begging for a sneak peek! What was I supposed to do??)
But I can attest to the fact that dogs go absolutely nuts for them. We took them to my parents house for Mother’s Day (sorry mom, no cake). We set up a test panel of 6 dogs and they received an average rating of a 9.8 out of 10. Seriously, one of my parent’s dogs bit one of his puppies when she accidentally came in between her dad and the treat. That being said – proceed with caution!
Continue reading Happy Birthday Fred! >>
May 3, 2009
Ok, I have a confession to make…drum roll please…I have never made a cheesecake before. In all of my years of baking, I have never attempted this revered treat. I guess it was all of the horror stories I’ve heard about fallen cheesecakes, soggy cheesecakes, shrunken cheesecakes, dry cheesecakes, lumpy cheesecakes, and cracked and split cheesecakes. With a laundry list of problems, you can’t blame me for putting it off for so long.
And here’s my second confession…I don’t really like cheesecake. I know, I know, oh, the horror!, how could you?!, and all that jazz. But really, most cheesecakes that I’ve tried are too sweet, too rich, too dense.
But this one is different. This one caught me by surprise, not only by how easy it was to make, but by how good it was. I loved the chocolate cookie crust – a welcome change from graham cracker. The raspberry sauce was still just tart enough to outweigh the sweetness of the cheesecake. And the cheesecake itself was just perfect – light and airy (well, as light and airy as a cheesecake can get!) and not too rich.
This discovery was completely accidental, of course. After trying to figure out how to use up my cream cheese mush from the Hummingbird Cake I made last week, I reluctantly decided that maybe it was time that I tried my hand at cheesecake. I randomly picked one from Allrecipes.com and the rest is history.
Continue reading White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake >>
April 26, 2009
 Ah, Hummingbird Cake. The quintessential Southern dessert. You knew it wouldn’t be long before I’d make one – I don’t think my blog could be complete without it. Hummingbird Cake is a 3 layer cinnamon cake with bananas, pineapple, and pecans, topped with a heavy dose of cream cheese frosting and a sprinkling of pecans on top. It is rich and heavy – absolutely heavenly.
 Now, this particular recipe actually hails from Turner’s Corner Cafe in Dahlonega, Georgia. My parents used to own the cafe, so I inherited all of the recipes. And thank my lucky stars! I’ll be posting a few goodies from this gem of a pit-stop in the North Georgia Mountains over time, so stay tuned.
 Now before any of you start planning a road trip to visit yourself, I have to tell you that, sadly, the cafe is closed (at least for now). After a successful tenure with my parents and the preceding owners, the 2 succeeding owners both completely revamped the menu, upped the prices, and renovated the charm right out of the 1928 building. The first set of owners made it about 8 weeks before closing. The second set made it almost 6 months. People, don’t mess with a good thing!
 As I was sitting down to write this post, I got to wondering about the history of Hummingbird Cake and found out that there’s evidence that the cake may have actually migrated to the South from Jamaica. The first published Hummingbird Cake recipe was in the February 1978 issue of Southern Living magazine and was submitted by a woman named Mrs. L.H. Wiggins. Turns out, the recipe that Turner’s Corner Cafe was known for is the exact same recipe that Mrs. Wiggins published in the 1978 Southern Living issue. Go figure.
Continue reading Hummingbird Cake >>
February 23, 2009
 My brother just celebrated his 15th birthday. He is in the JROTC at his high school and really enjoys it, so I decided to make him a military cake. He requested a marble cake for his birthday, so I used half yellow cake and half chocolate cake. I used the Cake Mixes From Scratch and Variations recipe from allrecipes.com.
INGREDIENTS:
2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbs baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbs cocoa powder
Special Buttercream Frosting
DIRECTIONS:
Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Cut in shortening until fine crumbs are formed. Add eggs, milk, and vanilla. Beat at low speed for 1 minute, then high for 2 minutes, scraping the bowl frequently. Pour half of the batter into a smaller bowl and add 2 heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder. Blend thoroughly.
Spoon batter randomly into 2 greased and floured 9″ round pans. Cut through the batter with a knife, making swirling patters to “marble” the cake. Bake in preheated 350° oven for 25 to 30 minutes.
CREDIT: Submitted by “Nancy Dorman” on Allrecipes.com
 DECORATE:
To decorate the cake, I divided the Special Buttercream Frosting and tinted it using Wilton Gel Icing Color. I used a pair of Hubby’s camo pants to try to match the colors for the camo as close as I could.
Using a star tip, I covered the cake with piped stars, much like you would do for a Wilton character shaped pan. This method makes it look like you spent a ton of time on it, but it’s actually relatively quick and easy. The most time-consuming part of decorating the cake was tinting the icing.
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