This week’s TWD recipe, Coco-Nana Bread was chosen by Steph of Obsessed With Baking. I was toying with the idea of skipping this week, but I heard so many great things about this bread, I decided to give it a shot. Really glad I did; it eats almost like cake- really moist and tender, and the banana is barely noticeable. The best part, though, is how chocolaty it is – the chocolate chunks throughout the bread make it super moist and gooey. Yum!
This bread is pretty much more of a dessert than a breakfast food, but genius that she is, Dorie is trying her best to make all things chocolaty accepted as breakfast food. I vote yes. And I’m betting that this stuff will taste pretty darn good with your coffee in the morning. If you’d like the recipe, check out Steph’s blog – she’s got it posted.
Do you ever have one of those nights? The kind where absolutely nothing goes right, to the point of just having to laugh it off, lest you get really, really upset? Seems like we have those kind of nights a lot. The kind of nights where an entire tray of boiling hot soup and a HUGE glass of tea is dumped into my lap; my husband choking on the not-so-delicious, romantic Valentine’s Day meal I made for him, thus ruining everybody’s evening (and appetite!); or most recently (like, last night) our dog, Izzy eating the remainder of my beloved Girl Scout Caramel Delite cookies while we were out. My cookies! My precious, delicious only-come-once-a-year Girl Scout cookies!! She’s snickering at me right now from across the room…. *Sigh*
Anyway…that really has nothing whatsoever to do with Italian Cream Cake, but it feels better venting a little bit. Right, so, on with the post…
Months and months ago, my dad made a cake request for his birthday, which is 3 days after Christmas. Italian Cream Cake. That’s one of his favorites, so for the past few months I’ve been searching for the perfect recipe. Finally, I decided on one – Billie’s Italian Cream Cake, found on The Pioneer Woman. The instructions were really easy to follow and the end result was nothing short of amazing. Everyone agreed that it was the best Italian Cream Cake they’d ever tasted – success! The only change I made was adding a little lemon juice to the cream cheese frosting to bring out the tangy-ness in the cream cheese; à la Ms. Dorie Greenspan. I think we’d all agree that the frosting, by far, was the best part.
Billie’s Italian Cream Cake
-found on The Pioneer Woman
For the Cake:
1 stick Butter, at room temperature
1 cup Vegetable Oil
1 cup Sugar
5 whole Eggs (separated)
3 teaspoons Vanilla
1 cup Sweetened Coconut
2 cups All-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 cup Buttermilk
For the Frosting:
2 packages (8 Oz) Cream Cheese, at room temperature
1 stick Butter, at room temperature
2 teaspoons Vanilla
1 package 2 Lb Powdered Sugar
1 cup Chopped Walnuts (I used pecans)
1 cup Sweetened, Flaked Coconut
1 squeeze fresh lemon juice (optional, but highly recommended!)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour three 9-inch round cake pans.
Beat egg whites until stiff. Set aside.
For the Cake:
In a large bowl, cream together butter, oil, and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the egg yolks, vanilla, and coconut.
In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking soda, and baking powder.
Alternate adding buttermilk and dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Mix until just combined, then fold in egg whites.
Pour evenly into the three prepared pans, then sprinkle the top of each pan with 1 (at least) tablespoon sugar.
Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes, then turn the cakes out onto cooling racks and allow to cool completely.
For the Frosting:
In a medium bowl, combine cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar. Beat until light and fluffy. Stir in chopped nuts and coconut. (Here is where you would add the lemon juice, if using). Spread between layers and serve.
Note: cream cheese frosting will soften at room temperature, so refrigerate if you won’t use it right away.
Sorry I don’t have any pictures of the inside of the cake – I took these before my parents came over; but trust me, it was beautiful! 🙂 I would highly recommend this cake to anybody; even those who think they don’t like coconut or nuts….I am one of those people, yet I gobbled up every bit of my (giant) slice! Make this cake! Make it TODAY!! I guarantee it’ll be gone before the weekend’s over!
Oh and by the way, Izzy is just fine after eating all those cookies – she was a little hyper last night, but she’s feeling just fine today!
Yikes! It’s been WAY too long since my last TWD post…I apologize to the TWD gods! But here I am, back on the wagon, ready to sing Dorie Greenspan’s praises once more! And these cookies are the perfect way to start. Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars (doesn’t that sound amazing?), chosen by Lillian of Confectiona’s Realm. Oh man, let me tell you..these were outstanding! They start with a layer of oatmeal-peanut cookie dough (delish on it’s own!), then you top it off with a chocolate-sweetened condensed milk-peanut layer and crumble a little more of the cookie dough over the top of that. Bake it off and you have sticky, crunchy, chewy cookie/candy bars! YUM!
Just look at that gooey chocolate center….oh man…. This was such a great recipe to get me back on the TWD wagon- a great treat! I can’t wait to take these babies to work with me sometime! If you’d like the recipe (trust me, you do), head on over to Lillian’s blog and she’ll have it posted for you.
Candy!
Monday, January 11, 2010
It sort of seems like I tend to follow in my great-grandmother’s footsteps a lot (no, not Baba – this is Gammy, my other great-grandmother). I ended up going to the same college that she went to (only 89 years later), she was musical, just like me; and now I’m trying to follow her lead and learn to make candy like she did. During the Depression, Gammy made and sold candy to earn money for her family. She made all kinds of different candies, and kept her recipes written down in notebooks. I was lucky enough to inherit these wonderful books full of her hand-written candy recipes. A few weeks ago, I decided it was high time I learned how to make candy -it’s in my blood, after all! I wanted to make some peanut brittle for my family (especially for my Grandaddy- he loves peanuts!), so I found an easy sounding recipe and went to work, hoping Gammy’s candy-making skills would shine through me. Lucky for me, I ended up with a beautiful batch of homemade peanut brittle! Turns out, candy-making isn’t too hard; maybe one of these days I’ll get out Gammy’s old recipe books and try my luck at one of her special homemade candies! I’m just glad I found one more thing she and I have in common!
Peanut Brittle
-adapted from Allrecipes.com
1 cup unsalted cocktail peanuts
2 cups white sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup water
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Lay out several sheets of greased foil to pour the hot peanut brittle onto.
In a large pot (I used my dutch oven) mix the sugar, syrup, and water together. Cook at a medium-high heat, stirring regularly. Heat until the mixture has a hard ball consistency. Heat to 250 to 265 degrees, or until a small amount of syrup dropped into cold water forms a rigid ball. If you don’t own a candy thermometer, occasionally hold spoon above mixture, allowing it to drip off spoon. When mixture is at hard ball stage, it will ‘hair’ off the spoon when falling, looking like a clear spider web.
Once mixture is at hard ball consistency, add peanuts. (They might pop a little.) When mixture starts to turn a light clear-brown, remove from stove. Add butter, vanilla, and soda and stir. Mixture will foam up.
Pour out onto the greased foil and let sit for 30 minutes to an hour or so until brittle is completely cool and hard enough to break into bite-size pieces.
*I found that it’s probably more helpful to have a second person on hand to hold the pot while you scrape out the mixture – the pot will be heavy (and hot) and it’s incredibly hard to do it all by yourself!
Mine didn’t spread much, so I only needed about 3 sheets of foil – but do make sure you grease your foil very well; it will stick!
Well, here in Texas, all anyone can talk about is the “Great Arctic Blast of 2010” (ok, so they’re not exactly calling it that…yet) – you’d think a deadly blizzard was on its way or something. A little cold breezes coming our way and we all panic. Yesterday at the store, people were buying up groceries like the apocalypse was coming. We Southerners really tend to overreact when a little bad weather hits, but hey, it usually gets me off work, so I’m not complaining. The point is, no one wants leave their house when the weather is freezing cold and icy like this – so what do you do when dinnertime rolls around and you haven’t got a plan? Raid your pantry and fridge and throw something together! By all means, don’t get out in the “deadly” weather – grab some pasta, canned mushrooms, make a little sauce and go from there. That’s what I did with this pasta, and I have to say, this was some darn tasty pasta!
I didn’t measure anything; I just threw stuff in, so bear with me – I haven’t really got a recipe to go by here. Here’s what I did:
I started with these ingredients: one chicken breast, frozen peas, small can of mushrooms, canned chicken broth, spaghetti, heavy cream and parsley.
I started by sauteing my chicken breast in some olive oil, then chopping it into small pieces and setting it aside. In the same pan, I melted some butter (probably 2 or 3 tablespoons), then added a little flour to make a roux. I slowly whisked in a can of chicken broth, then a splash of heavy cream; then seasoned with salt and pepper and added the mushrooms and frozen peas. I cooked my pasta, then tossed everything together (the chicken, pasta and sauce) and topped with some parsley. Voila! Delicious pasta in less than 15 minutes! Simple as that!
If you’ve got the pantry staples on hand (pasta, canned goods, etc), it’s so simple to just throw something together when you don’t want to go to the store (or if the weather is “deadly”). Who knows, you may just invent a new family favorite – I know I did!
I hope everybody had a happy and safe New Year’s celebration – we certainly did! We aren’t exactly the kind of couple who like to go to the big, fancy New Year’s Eve parties (although, I’m sure they’re oh-so-fun!) – we’re the kind of couple who like to stay in, make dinner, watch the Twilight Zone marathon on the Sci-Fi channel (don’t make fun, it’s awesome and you know it! No one can resist watching William Shatner freak out about the scary-fuzzy-monster-monkey-man on the wing of the airplane!), pop open a bottle of champagne and bring the in new year with just the two of us. I can’t say in all honesty that I’m not completely relieved to have 2009 behind me, and hopefully (no, most definitely) 2010 will be much, much better; in fact, it’s already off to a great start. And I can’t think of a better way to bring my blog into 2010 than with this cake. Sure, from the picture above it may look like just an ordinary bundt cake…but trust me, it’s so much more. It’s called Yum-Yum Rum Cake, and it’s absolutely to die for. The recipe has been in our family for years – it came from a dear friend of my great grandmother’s and we all love it. It’s extremely simple – it uses a boxed cake mix and vanilla pudding, but it’s the topping that makes it special. It’s moist, slightly crunchy from the pecans on top and just dripping with sugary rum syrup (my heavens I’m practically drooling now!).
Yum Yum Rum Cake
1 box yellow cake mix
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
1 small package vanilla pudding mix
1/2 cup rum (not extract!)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/4 cup water
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease bundt pan and sprinkle with pecans; set aside. Mix all ingredients except the eggs in a large bowl on medium speed; then add the eggs one at a time until incorporated. Pour batter into the bundt pan. Bake for one hour or until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.
Yum Yum Sauce:
1/4 cup rum (again, NOT extract!)
1 cup sugar
1 stick butter
1/4 cup water
In a small sauce pan, melt the butter and sugar over medium heat; add the water and stir until you have a smooth liquid. Remove from heat and add the rum. Spoon over cake while still hot in the pan.
*I like to take a toothpick and poke holes all over the top of the cake, that way the glaze soaks in better.
Invert the cake onto a serving platter, cover with plastic wrap and store at least 4 hours or overnight before serving.
You’re absolutely going to love this cake. In fact, I’m sitting here craving a piece right now…I wonder if I could just have rum cake for dinner?…mmm…
I hope everyone had a wonderful, happy Christmas! We certainly did – we witnessed our very first White Christmas (in Texas!)!! It was totally wonderful (except the part where we had to drive home on frozen highways…not so much fun…). The weather lately has been totally unbelievable and completely wonderful – I’m sitting here typing this post watching the snow fall outside again! It’s SO cool! And this time I’m very thankful to be watching it snow from the comfort of my home, instead of driving in it.
Anyway, this post is all about a wonderful tradition. Coffee cake. The coffee cake my family has eaten for breakfast every Christmas morning since the 80’s (at least!). It absolutely wouldn’t be Christmas without it. Yuuuuummmm. And yes, I realize Christmas is over, but I wanted to share the recipe because really, there’s nothing “Christmasy” about this cake. It’s just a simple, normal coffee cake that can be enjoyed any day of the year – we just choose to eat it on Christmas. But that doesn’t mean you have to!
(If you’re wondering why only half of it has pecans, hubby hates nuts, so I made it half and half….silly boy!)
This couldn’t be easier to make – 5 ingredients total. Just assemble the night before, let it sit out overnight and bake it the next morning, and you’ve got delicious, gooey, coffee cake! Too easy! You’ve got to try this one!
Overnight Coffee Cake
1 package frozen white dinner rolls (I use Rhodes brand)
1 package butterscotch pudding (not instant!)
1 cup chopped pecans
1 stick butter, melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
Spray a bundt pan with cooking spray and sprinkle chopped pecans over the bottom of the pan. Arrange the frozen rolls in the pan and sprinkle with the butterscotch pudding mix. Mix the melted butter and brown sugar together in a small bowl and pour over the frozen rolls. Grease a piece of foil and cover the pan; let sit out overnight (do not refrigerate).
The next morning, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake the coffee cake for 30 minutes, covered loosely with foil. Let sit out for 10 minutes before inverting on to a platter and serving.
I really don’t recommend omitting the nuts – it just doesn’t turn out the same (as you can see on the left side of the cake…) – they’re really necessary, in my opinion. This is a wonderfully delicious breakfast treat – give it a try this weekend! It would make a great New Year’s Day breakfast!
This weekend, we had a our friends Michael and Andrea over for a little while and Andrea and I decided to get in the kitchen and do some cookie decorating (a first for both of us!). Luckily I had some gingerbread dough already chilled in the fridge, so we set out to decorate gingerbread men – so much fun! I used Katie’s recipe for her Soft and Spicy Gingerbread Cookies – SO good!! I’m only sorry I didn’t double the batch…these were the best tasting gingerbread cookies I’ve ever had! Here’s the recipe:
Soft and Spicy Gingerbread Cookies
-seen on Good Things Catered, adapted from Allrecipes.com
1 c. butter
1 c. sugar
1 c. molasses (I didn’t have enough molasses, so I used half honey)
1 egg
4 c. sifted all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground nutmeg
In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Stir in molasses and egg.
Combine the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg; blend into the molasses mixture until smooth.
Cover, and chill for at least one hour.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Place cookies 2 inches apart on cookie sheets.
Bake for about 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until firm. Let cool for 10 minutes on pan. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.
Frost or decorate when cool.
I’m quite proud of my little gingerbread boys!
So is Andrea! Hers were super cute – she actually made little outfits for her cookies; including a cute little bikini! I decided to play it safe (and boring) and keep all mine the same (snoooooooooze….).
I do love the pearl buttons, though – we had a ton of fun with those pearl non-pareils! And no, these aren’t the most professional-looking gingerbread men, but I thought it was pretty good for our first try!
All of Andrea’s cute little outfits…
And Michael destroying it….. 😉
We had a really fun time, and I can’t wait to learn more about decorating cookies and hopefully get better one of these days! This will probably be my last post before Christmas, so I want to go ahead and wish everybody a happy and wonderful Christmas! Enjoy your time with your family and friends, and don’t forget the reason we celebrate – the birth of our Lord! Merry Christmas!
Yes, that’s right – I’ve been truffle-making! Last night I realized I had everything on hand to make 4 kinds of chocolate truffles, and things like that tend to excite me…it almost never happens that I have everything on hand to make anything. So I turned on my Harry Connick, Jr. Christmas music (love me some HCJ..), got busy and came up with 4 very tasty assortments of truffles:
Peppermint Crunch Truffles
Orange Truffles
S'Mores Truffles
And lastly…
Raspberry Truffles
Truffles are really so simple. Start by making a chocolate ganache (chocolate and cream melted together), let it chill, then roll out little balls and voila! Here’s how I did mine:
Chocolate Truffles
1 cup heavy cream
12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup sugar (I like mine a little sweeter)
Bring the cream and sugar to a boil over low heat, pour over the chocolate and stir until smooth. (At this point I separated mine into 4 different bowls; one for each flavor.)
For the Peppermint:
Add 1 or 2 drops peppermint extract to the ganache and stir to combine.
For the Orange:
Add a sizable splash of Grand Marnier orange liquer and stir to combine.
For the S’Mores:
Add 1 or 2 drops pure vanilla extract (I used vanilla paste) and stir to combine.
For the Raspberry:
Add a sizable splash of Chambord Raspberry liquer and stir to combine.
Cover and chill the bowls for at least 4 hours or overnight. Roll into walnut size balls, roll in desired topping and chill until ready to serve. As far as toppings, I used crushed up candy canes for the peppermint, powdered sugar for the orange, and cocoa powder for the raspberry. For the S’Mores truffles, I chopped up marshmallows and placed a small piece inside of each truffle, then rolled them in graham cracker crumbs.
So simple! I think I might take these to my hubby’s office for his co-workers this afternoon….I thought it might be a nice surprise for everybody. I hope they go over well!
I love chocolate and peppermint together! That’s why I’m willing to try any cookie/brownie/ice cream recipe that calls for chocolate and peppermint – you just can’t go wrong with that combination. And yes, I know I’ve been doing a lot of desserts (mainly cookies) lately, but hey, that’s what I DO at Christmastime…I bake. I bake a lot. Those extra 10 holiday pounds aren’t gonna put themselves on, you know?? And I have my Christmas fat-pants just waiting for me in the closet…so bring on the sugar, butter and flour!
I found these cookies on Two Peas in Their Pod (and I must say, theirs look waaaaay better than mine!) and knew I had to try them. That day. I mean, just listen to that title – Chocolate Peppermint Crunch Cookies….ahhh, beautiful. Doesn’t that sound like heaven? Well, it tastes like it, too – and that’s not just me saying that; I took them to work and all the other voice teachers, choir directors and choir students loved them. Really loved them! For me, it’s the crunchy outsides and the soft, chewy insides, followed by the flavor of deep chocolate and the coolness of the peppermint. A delicious cookie! However, I will say that these are the messiest little buggers I’ve ever worked with. Talk about a sticky dough! But worth it in the end.
These are absolutely beautiful before baking – lovely little balls covered with chunks of candy cane, but after baking, unfortunately, they lose some of their outer beauty. Mine really spread a lot, which I can’t figure out, because I chilled the dough thoroughly; oh well. They still taste good, though, and that’s all that matters in my book! Happy Baking!!
Chocolate Peppermint Crunch Cookies
-Two Peas in Their Pod
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup canola oil
4 ounces 99% unsweetened chocolate, melted
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
5 candy canes-crushed up
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the oil, chocolate and granulated sugar and blend on medium speed. With the mixer running, add the eggs, one at a time, followed by the vanilla, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. There may be some small clumps of sugar in the batter at this point. Add the dry ingredients and mix on low speed, stopping once to scrape down the sides. Mix until just incorporated, 2 to 3 minutes. The dough will be sticky.
Gather the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours or overnight.
Position the racks in the lower and upper thirds of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with Silpats or parchment paper.
Pour the crushed candy canes onto a plate or into a shallow bowl. Roll the dough into 1-inch balls and roll each ball into the candy cane pieces, so that all sides are covered. Place 2 inches apart on the prepared sheets.
Bake for 10 minutes for soft, chewy cookies, or 12 minutes for crisp cookies, rotating the pans halfway through baking. The cookies do set up, so if you want them soft, take them out at 10 minutes. Let cool completely on cooling racks. The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for 3 to 4 days.
