Blueberry Coffee Cake

It is blueberry season around here! The kids and the hubby love blueberries, I do not. Well, I love stuff with blueberries in them, I just cannot seem to eat them as they are!  I was getting ready to make some blueberry muffins and decided to make a coffee cake instead. I'll make the muffins another day!


Blueberry Coffee Cake

10 tbs  (1 stick & 2 tbs) Butter
1 1/2 cups Sugar
2 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla 
4 cups Flour
4 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt
1 1/2 cups Milk
3 cups Fresh Blueberries

TOPPING:
1 1/2 sticks (12 tbs) Butter

1 cup Sugar
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 cup Flour
1/2 tsp Salt

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt. 

In a mixer, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla until mixed.  Add flour and milk until combined.

Grease 2 - 9 x 13 inch baking pans. Pour in batter.

In a separate bowl, combine topping ingredients and cut together using a pastry cutter or knives. Sprinkle over the top of the cakes.

Bake for 40 to 45 minutes at 350 degrees, or until golden brown. 

Cinnamon Dessert Pizza

The kids LOVE dessert pizza! They love any pizza but if they had to vote, dessert pizza would obviously be their favorite!   When we order in pizza from a certain pizza place with the initials PJ....they know they are getting a yummy treat!

Well, I hate ordering in pizza, to me, homemade is the BEST!  So, I make my own dessert pizza!  And the kids love it just the same!

I make mine in a cookie sheet and cut them into sticks

Cinnamon Dessert Pizza

Pizza Crust (you can find one here)

1 cup flour

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1 tbs cinnamon

8 tbs (1 stick) butter

Filling:

1 cup powdered sugar

1-2 tbs of milk or water

Mix flour, sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl.  With your hands or a pastry cutter, combine the cold butter with the flour mixture.  You want to crumble them leaving fairly large crumbles. Spread on the pizza dough.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or until the crust is light brown and cooked through.

Stir together the powdered sugar and water and drizzle over the cooked pie.

Marble Fudge Cake

So, I had to make a cake a while back. It had to feed at least 30 people.  The hubby's Uncle was turning 50 and seeing I am affectionately known by some as The Cake Lady, naturally I would make his cake! 

To please everyone (or no one...who knows!) I chose an old stand by...Marble Fudge Cake.

• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
  1 1/2 cups flour
  1 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
  1 Tbsp baking powder
  1/2 tsp salt
  1 3/4 cups sugar
  4 eggs
  2 tsp vanilla
  1 1/4 cups milk
  
  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  
  Into a medium bowl, sift together flours, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
  
  Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes, scrape the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then vanilla. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the milk and beginning and ending with the flour; beat until combined after each addition.
  
  Pour the mixture in your prepared pan, reserving 1 cup of the batter.  Add 1/4 cup cocoa powder to the reserved batter and mix thoroughly.  Spoon chocolate batter on top of whats already in the pan and swirl with a knife. 
  
  Bake 25-30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
• Cool for 15 minutes in pan.  Remove from pan and place on wire rack to cool all the way. Ice the cake with your favorite icing and enjoy!

Strawberry Shortcake

My mom made the best strawberry shortcake when I was younger.  Just delicious!  When I moved out on my own, moved to a new state and got married, my days of homemade shortcakes were over. Or so I thought!  it seems that everyone around here settles for those gross spongy cake things for their strawberry shortcake! Not me! You don't have to settle for those...make your own biscuits!  Using this recipe I posted the other day...Homemade Biss-Qwick you can make an awesome desert!

Strawberry Shortcake

1 quart of strawberries, sliced and crushed
1/4 cup sugar

2 1/3 cups Homemade Biss-Quick
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
3 tbs butter, melted

Slice up strawberries and crush them slightly to release the juices.  Mix 1/4 cup sugar with them and set aside.

Pre-Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix the Biss-Qwick, milk, 1/4 cup sugar and melted butter together to form a soft  dough.  On a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, spoon 8 mounds of dough.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Split warm shortcakes (I prefer to break them up a little), spoon strawberries over the shortcakes and top with Cool Whip or whip cream of your choosing and enjoy!!

Homemade Caramel Sauce

If you never try any of my recipes, you have got to try this!  I LOVE caramel! I don't think I could bring to words how much I love it.  On my ice cream, on apples or on a spoon! Delish!  And for me, few things are more rewarding in the kitchen than making my own caramel sauce!  Sure, it is easy to just go pick up a jar from the grocery, but this takes 10 minutes, if that, and you do not have to subject yourself to all the "extra" stuff in your fancy shmancy store bought jar of ice cream topper!  You must make this sauce today! Go ahead...do it!

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
8 tbs (1 stick) of unsalted butter, cut up
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt

Pour sugar into a small heavy sauce pan.  Pour water evenly on top of sugar. With the stove on med-high heat, hold the saucepan handle and swirl around until sugar is dissolved all the way.  Once dissolved, turn heat to high, cover pan and boil for 2 minutes. 

Remove cover and continue to boil until syrup turns brown around the edges and turns to a nice amber color.

Keep going....When the syrup starts to smoke, it is done!

Perfecto!  Now, you want to remove from heat and whisk in the pieces of butter until all butter is melted and mixed in.  Be careful! When you put the butter in, the syrup will bubble and start to foam up.

Once butter is combined, stir in the cream.  If mixture gets lumpy, place back on heat until smooth.  Stir in the vanilla and salt.

This stuff is like molten lava! Be careful before putting any in your mouth!  It will be hard to resist temptation, but for the safety of your mouth..wait a bit!



Horrible lighting, I know! Im working on it!



Store in a mason jar in the refrigerator.  This makes enough for 1 pint. I do not know the exact shelf life of this.  I have had some last int he frig for several months. It does not happen too often as it usually gets eaten up in a week or 2!

Whoopie Pies - Valentine's Day Edition

Well 2 things are certain, the Yankee's that are reading this will know what I'm talking about and the Hoosier's will have no clue! Well, most won't!  You see, whoopie pies are non existent here in the Midwest. Every time I talk about them, people ask me what I am referring to. I explain, they say yummy! Then I have to make them some. If you have never had a whoopie pie, you must make them now! Yummy! Yummy! That's all I have to say!  While there are many varieties, this is the standard version.

Anyways, Hubby will be home tomorrow! Yay!  Super excited about that! We are having Sunday dinner at my house.  Baked Ziti  = Yummy!  Hubby likes whoopie pies and I just so happen to have a a cute little heart shaped pan.  Dessert for Sunday dinner solved!

Before I give you the recipe, please make sure you have a good  mixer as mine is, well was, a hunk of junk and mid-way through mixing the filling it caught on fire. Yes, CAUGHT ON FIRE! I had a minor heart attack and my filling was ruined!  Thankfully Hubby has a super cool grandma who lives not that far from me and was on her way to church! She brought me her hand mixer so I could finish the job!

Okay so back to the task at hand...the recipe...

Whoopie Pies

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk

In large bowl, beat butter and sugar with mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; beat until well combined. Add flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt and mix on low speed. When combined, add buttermilk and continue to mix on low speed until all ingredients mixed together.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray pan with non-stick spray. Bake for 10-12  minutes or until the top of the cake springs back when touched. To assemble pies spread filling on one cake and sandwich with another cake. I then rolled in Valentine non-perils.

Filling

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 cup marshmallow cream such as Marshmallow Fluff

1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat together butter, powdered sugar, marshmallow, and vanilla in a bowl with electric mixer at medium speed until smooth, about 3 minutes.

I am a failure!

Well, not really but it sorta feels that way!  I have finally found something I am bad at!  And I really dislike doing it as well. 

While at the store the other day I picked up a candy making kit. It looked really cute. A complete kit from Wilton for making Valentine's Day chocolate lollipops and candies. I figures, what the heck, I can do everything else why not give this a try! How cute would that be to give the kids homemade chocolate pops from momma!

Boy was I wrong! A little tedious and time consuming.  Time being something I lack in my life.   The kit came with 2 plastic molds for pops and 1 for candies. After letting my masterpieces harden up I popped them out. HORRIBLE is one way to describe them! Some of the "chocolate" stayed stuck in the molds. The "chocolate" looks all frosty. NOT at all like the pictures on the box.

So there you have it. I cannot make candies! I will probably give it another try another day when I'm not in such a cranky mood. And yes, I will be giving the kids these for Valentine's Day and they wont care what they look like as long as they taste yummy!

Strawberry Valentine's Day Cereal Treats

I made these a few weeks ago as a trial.  They went over wonderfully!  So, I decided to make them again for my son's snack day at preschool. These are not hard to make, can get a little messy if you aren't careful but they wonderful to eat!

(sorry for the crappy cell phone picture quality)



Strawberry Cereal Treats

1 bag of strawberry marshmallows

3 tbs butter

6 cups of rice cereal

Melt butter in pot. Add marshmallows and stir on med-low heat until melted. Stir constantly to prevent burning. Once melted, remove from heat and add cereal. Stir until well combined. Dump into a buttered 13x9 pan. Allow to cool. Spray a heart shaped cookie cutter with non stick spray and cut out treats.  Melt candy melts in a candy making squeeze bottle, disposable icing bag or ziploc baggie. Drizzle over the treats, allow candy to harden.

And there you have it! Delicious and addictive treats!