Carrot Cake

I wish I were about to show you some really beautiful cake, covered in fondant, with gum paste flowers, edible gold and other fancy decorations.

But no.

Here is a carrot cake. The same way My mom's been making it for years. This cake is heavy, dense, very filling (and satisfting) if you eat too much. The cake is so good you could eat it on it's own, without the frosting! Of course, I'd say the same thing about the frosting...I can't remember how many times I've licked the bowl out! It's creamy, rich, thick and smooth.

But it's sloppy. The whole cake, whenever I make it, it looks sloppy. It's just not a naturally beautiful cake. But it's whats inside that counts, right?









This is one of my favorite cakes. My sister claims she could this off of this, eating nothing more. I tend to agree with her...(If we did, we'd all get really fat! )

Carrot Cake recipe:

2 1/2 cups of flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt

2 cups sugar
1 cup oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs

2 cups shredded carrots
8 oz. crush pineapple (from a can)
1 cup rasins or walnuts (optional)

Greese and lightly flour a 13 X 9 pan. *

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl beat together sugar, oil, vanilla and eggs. Add the flur mixture and beat together just until combined. Do not over beat. Add the shredded carrots, crushed pineapple, and raisin/walnuts. Gently combine together,on very low speed with hand mixer for a few seconds or with a large wooden spoon.

* My mom and I always double the recipe and use 2 9-inch pans. If you do this, you'll have a little leftover which can be baked in a loaf pan.

Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz. cream cheese, soft
2 1/2 cups powder sugar
6 tbls. butter, soft
1 tsp. vanilla

Throw all the ingredients in a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy. Warning: powder sugar likes to fly out of the bowl and mess up all you counters and measurments. Be sure to use a large bowl, especially if doubled!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie :0

It's a chocolate chip coookie. It's a pie. It's a chocolate chip cookie pie! (and it tastes almost like cake!)

When I found this chocolate chip cookie pie recipe on Bakerella, I knew I had to make it. I love chocolate chip cookies. Believe it or not, I'm not a huge fan of pie, mainly because I'd rather have chocolate or cheese(cake!) than fruit. But chocolate chip cookie pie? That's my kind of dessert.



I still don't have chocolate chips, so I did the same method as my previous post and piped them by hand using fudge frosting.



It doesn't look as good as Bakerella's, but it tastes amazing!!
I used this recipe for the pie crust. It's "yum-o!" >.<

Pecan Upside-down Cake & Cream Cheese Frosting &

I made a cake today! Pecan upside-down cake, with the best ever cream cheese frosting! Now, I love Cinnabon Cinnamon buns, and they have the best cream cheese frosting. It's light, fluffy, sweet but not too sweet, melts on top of the hot cinnabon and it's Oh so good!
So I wanted to duplicate that, and this time I've come the closest I've ever gotten, and it's delicious!


The upside down part stuck a bit to the bottom of the pan, so it turned out a bit like brown sugar crumbs! =3


Cinnabon-ish Frosting Recipe

1/2 cup sugar
2 large egg whites
1 stick butter, room tempature
6 ounces cream cheese
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Bring a pot of water to a simmer on the stove. Add egg whites and sugar to a large heatproof bowl. Place the bowl over the pot of water and whisk constantly until sugar dissolves, and mixture feel hot , about 2 minutes. Remove from heat beattil cool for 4 minutes, or until mixture turns white like thick marshmallow cream and it's slightly bigger. Add butter and beat till smooth, then add cream cheese and beat until smooth.
Recipe frosts the top of two 9 inch cakes.

Easter Brunch & Dessert at Auntie Regina's

Yesterday was the brunch and I had so much fun! Me and my mom got up at 5:45 in the morning to prepare everything and get ready for Easter Mass. I pulled my dinner rolls from the fridge and shaped them, mom boiled the ham so she could bake it later. We straightened the house a bit and got ready for mass, which was at 7:30. By the time we got home it was already 8:30 and we had work to do!

First, we got all the meats cooked:
Ham-


Roast Beef- I didn't get a close up, since I'm not a roast beef fan...

And mine, Roast Pork-



All the meat on the table:



Then we had to set the cinnamon rolls out:


Bake the French toast casserole(bad picture alert! Mom kept yelling at me because the guests were hungry...and it was SOOOO good, definitely one of my favorite!!):


The rolls didn't come out looking as good as I'd hope, but they tasted delicious. We had a lot of other thing in the oven, the doors were being opened and closed a lot to check on the other things, so I blame that, partially. You can see the tops didn't brown very well:


Even after we were totally stuffed from our own food, (which we had at 11:00 AM) We went to my amazing aunt's for dessert!
She served a torte cover with whipped cream and layered with coffee icing:


A delicious Babka, which I'm pretty sure is from my new favorite book by Carole Walter ^_-



A Banana bundt cake with chocolate chips, whic I didn't have the pleasure of trying because I was to stuffed:


And strawberry cupcakes, cute and delicious!


Overall I think the guests had a great time. The really, really loved the food and everyone went back for seconds, some thirds. I enjoyed everything and it's sad it has to end. We have a tone of leftovers though, so it'll last for a few days! Haha....I think I'm going to skip cereal for breakfast today and eat a cinnamon bun, since it's still sort of a holiday...<3

But wait! I can't leave without giving the recipe for the Blueberry Cream cheese Coffee cake, since I was asked. It was YUMMY by the way. Everyone loved it, especially my brother and sister, and cousin Maria...lol

Taken from Sunset magazine, 2005:

1 cup fresh blueberries, rinsed, or frozen blueberries
1/4 cup apple juice
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1 tsp. cornstarch
2 tsp. water
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2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 stick cold butter, cut into chunks
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1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
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3/4 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
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1/4 cup sugar
6 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 egg
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1/2 cup sliced almonds

In a small saucepan, bring the blueberries and apple juice to a boil. Lower heat, and cook until blueberries pop, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix the cornstarch with 2 tsp. of water. Add to the popped blueberries, and stir until blueberries are thick.

In another bowl, whisk together flour and sugar. Add the butter chunks and cut in butter, with either a pastry blender or 2 knives, until the mixture looks crumbly. Save half a cup of this mixture and set aside for later use.
To the larger half of the mixture, add baking powder, baking soda, salt and grated lemon peel.

In a seperate bowl, mix together yogurt, 1 egg and vanilla until well blended. Stir into flour/baking powder mixture just until incorperated, and the flour is all moisterized. Spread batter in the buttered 9-inch springform pan evenly.

Nows the time to take that 1/2 cup of the flour mixture. To the mixture, add cream cheese, 1 egg, sugar and lemon juice. Mix well with a fork. Spread cream cheese mixture over batter. Spread blueberry mixture over cream cheese mixture, leaving some of the cream cheese visible. Bake for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees. About 30 minutes through, or when the cake only has 10 minutes left, open the oven on spread streusel around the edges of the pan, with only a thin layer in the middle. Bake the rest of the way.

Streusel topping (from Carole Walter, because the part in the magazine made NO sense!! Tjis way it came out great)

3-4 tablespoon melted butter
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/2cup sliced almonds, if desired

Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt in a bowl using a whisk. Add almond, floding well until incorperated. Melt buter in a saucepan of med-low heat, keeping an eye that the butter doesn't burn. Let butter cool slightly. Add flour mixture to the butter and use a fork to stir until crumbly.

Easy & Yummy Chocolate Bread Pudding

I feel awful having not updated my blog in over a week! I kept thinking about my poor blog, being neglected. I decided I needed to give it some love today, so I had to make some something chocolaty...ya'know, for the blog. -cough-

This bread pudding is yummy and chocolaty. It's slightly crisp on top, and pudding-like on the bottom, with melted chocolate all over and cinnamon-sugar goodness.







The recipe follows:

Easy & Yummy Chocolate Bread Pudding
Serves 2 (or one, if you're hungry!)
Calls for 6-inch round baking pan

3-4 slices white bread, such as Wonder Bread
2 1/2 - 3 tbs. butter, melted
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1/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup white granulated sugar
1 tsp. cocoa powder (add 1/4 tsp. more for extra chocolate-ness)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
3 Chips Ahoy Chocolate Chip Cookies, finely crumbled (Or a similar crunchy CC cookie)
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2/3 cup milk
1 egg, beaten with a fork
1 tsp. sugar
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Semi-sweet choclate chips, as desired. (About a handful)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 6-inch baking pan with butter or margarine.

In a bowl whisk together sugars, cocoa, cinnamon and cookie crumbs, until well distributed. Set aside.

Melt the butter. Using a toaster, toast the bread slices, then cut each piece of bread into fours.
One at a time, dip the first four mini-slices into the butter, then place in the bottom of pan. Sprinkle with sugar mixture, and about a tablespoon of the chocolate chips. Continue this until you've used all your bread.

In another bowl, beat the egg, then add the 1 tsp sugar and 2/3 cup milk.

Pour milk mixture into pan, letting it fall over each piece of bread. Place the pan on a baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for about 23 minutes.

(You may have leftover sugar mixture, but it tastes very good on toast!)

And just because I haven't posted in a week it doesn't mean I didn't bake anything! Last saturday I made a delicious coffee cake from my new book. Unfortunately the camera wouldn't cooperate with me and I couldn't get a good, clear picture. Here's an idea of what it looked like though. You can tell it sunk in the middle a bit. It certainly didn't take away from the taste!



Happy ST. Patrick's day everyone!

New favorite recipe of an old time classic.

As I've previously stated, Chocolate Chip Cookies are my favorite cookie. Ever. I could probably eat 2 dozen and still want more. Whenever I made chocolate chip cookies, I always use the Toll House recipe on the chocolate chip bag. I've never, ever tried a different recipe. But since I've starting to really love baking I decided I had to try at least one other recipe. I don't think I need to try another! The "Best Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie" recipe is my new default. It's all summed up into those words, with the addition of "Gooey" My favorite part. Yum. Yum!





In this case, bigger really is better. The texture really makes it, with just the perfect amount of crispness, but so chewy and gooey, and so big and fat. The cookies looked big even in my Dad's hands!

Best Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
(Taken from Allrecipes.com, RECIPE HERE)

INGREDIENTS

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.
4. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

(Following directions from other reviewers on AllRecipes, I chilled my dough in the refrigerator before baking. They came out perfect! And Don't be afraid to make them big!)

Blondies and Easter candy~

So today I made Blondies for the first time in my life. I've never made them, never tasted them. Let me say, I was certainly missing out. They were good. Really good.I used Mark Bittman's recipe, which I tripled, and put in semi-sweet chocolate chunks and walnuts. Just like a thick, chewy, moist chocolate chip cookie! (my absolute favorite cookie)

Smitten Kitchen's Blondies look better than mine, but you can find the recipe on her blog.


Me and my mom were out today, and we had a chance to run into the Candy Barn before picking up my brother from college. As soon as you walk in you get this intense chocolatey smell. It was so tempting me and Mom had to get a few pieces of chocolate to sample, as well as a few things to start our Easter baskets.



Next time I'll get pictures of the actual Candy Store! If I'd known we were going I would've brought the camera.

We also got these adorable candles from Target for our Easter Brunch.



Aren't they cute?