Lemon Supreme Pie

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! I hope your Thanksgiving was full of happiness, friends, family, and food. Mine was filled with three of the four. We were stuck here at home for Thanksgiving which meant we weren't able to celebrate with any of our family, due to the fact that they don't live anywhere near us and I wasn't allowed to leave the region. Seriously. So, instead we celebrated with two couples from our ward. It was kind of a Thanksgiving potluck, where we were instructed to bring the rolls, dessert, and ice cream. This may be silly of me, but usually ice cream falls under the dessert category in my mind, so I am still pondering why ice cream was such a vital part of Thanksgiving that it had to be mentioned specifically. While talking about this with EC he said "Don't you always have ice cream at Thanksgiving? My family always does." Silly me, I was under the impression that you ate pie for dessert at Thanksgiving, not ice cream. Anyway, I digress.

So, we took my mom's Award Winning Rolls, cheapo WinCo ice cream, and this Lemon Supreme Pie. The pie is also a recipe from my mom and contains a layer of a lemon-y cream cheese base and then a lemon pudding type filling. I think I used too much cornstarch though, because my lemon filling cracked, sigh.

We had a good time and ate a lot of good food. However, without the family there it didn't quite feel like Thanksgiving to me, so hopefully next year we will be able to talk them into coming up here. Until then, only 26 more days till we fly home for Christmas!

Yeast Raised Glazed Donuts

Finally, the moment BFF has been waiting for...Donuts!

Recently I got it into my head that I wanted to make donuts. I think it came about like this:

Me - Hey, EC, what do you want for dinner tonight?
EC - Hmmm, I know, donuts!
Me - Hmm, what is we made them this weekend instead?
EC - Ok.
Me - So, what are we going to have for dinner tonight?

The donut recipe that I found said to cut out donuts using a donut cutter and since I like to follow my recipes as closely as possible, I had to find a donut cutter. This meant me dragging EC to Michaels, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and Walmart, and then later making EC call Macy's and Shopko for me, all to no avail. I was about to order one off the Internet and then I had a sudden burst of inspiration: TriState (sing it: We live in North Idaho, and it shows).

So EC called them up and apparently I wasn't the only one who's husband requested donuts for dinner, because they were out of donut cutters until Wednesday. WEDNESDAY - that meant I had to wait 4 days, and I hate waiting. But finally Wednesday came and I bought my little donut cutter. Then on Saturday I made the dough up for the donuts so the EC and I could make them together on Sunday.

Sunday came and making donuts was a family affair, even Petey got into it, by which I mean, sat in the dome box. I rolled out the donut dough, got out my new little donut cutter, pressed it into the dough....and the handle broke. I feel like that should be ironic. So EC used a cup and a large icing tip to cut out donuts and I used our newly acquired and newly broken donut cutter. We had fun, fried up the donuts, decorated them, and ate them. EC really liked them, he said they were better than store bought donuts. I am still slightly unsure of how I feel about them. I do know that they are much better fresh then they are the day after. The day old donuts were no good, ick. Thus ends the donut making adventure.

Yeast- Raised Glazed Doughnuts

1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup sugar
2 and 1/4 tsp instant yeast
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 large egg
1 cup milk
2 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
vegetable oil for frying

Glaze :
1/4 cup milk
2 cups confectioners sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Whisk together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine the egg, milk, butter and vanilla and stir into the flour mixture, mixing until well combined. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes, then knead for 8 minutes until you have a smooth, soft dough. Place the dough in a buttered bowl, turn it over to grease the top and let it rise, covered in a warm place for 1 and 1/2 hours or for better result let it rise in the refrigerator overnight.
Deflate dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Gently roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thickness and cut into rounds using a doughnut cutter. Place in GREASED baking sheet and let rise again for 1 hour until doubled again.
Fry dough in oil (with temperature of 350 F) until golden brown. This should take no more than a minute for each side. Over cooking will make doughnuts tough. Drain on paper towels.
To make the glaze, stir the milk into the confectioners sugar until it is smooth, then add vanilla.
When the doughnuts are cool enough to handle (but still warm) dip the tops of the doughnuts in the glaze, then place on a rack or plate to let glaze drip down.

The Birthday Cake That Wasn't

Once upon a time there was a cake and it really wanted to be a birthday cake. So it got all dressed up, with special candles and went to a birthday party. Unfortunately the birthday girl was sick so she didn't come to the party, and so, after having it's candles compared to "ladders" the cake was eaten as just another cake. The End.

EC and I really enjoyed this cake. If you put the actual cake part in the fridge, it turn into a brownie-cake type thing, which is divine, and then, since I don't like real butter cream icings, I topped it with whipped cream. It was very yummy. It was fun to decorate too, although plain whipped cream is probably not my frosting of choice since it melts so easily. And I thought the candles and homemade chocolate chips were a nice touch too. All of this goes to show that I have way too much time on my hands and need someone to suggest a good book for me to read.

Devil's Food White Out Cake

From Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled
1/2 cup buttermilk or whole milk, at room temperature
1/2 cup boiling water
4 ounces semisweet or milk chocolate, finely chopped, or 2/3 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips


GETTING READY: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 8-x-2-inch round cake pans, dust the insides with flour, tap out the excess and line the bottoms with parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

TO MAKE THE CAKE: Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add the sugars and continue to beat for another 3 minutes. Add the eggs one by one, beating for 1 minute after each addition. Beat in the vanilla; don't be concerned if the mixture looks curdled. Reduce the mixer speed to low and mix in the melted chocolate. When it is fully incorporated, add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk, adding the dry ingredients in 3 additions and the milk in 2 (begin and end with the dry ingredients); scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed and mix only until the ingredients disappear into the batter. At this point, the batter will be thick, like frosting. Still working on low speed, mix in the boiling water, which will thin the batter considerably. Switch to a rubber spatula, scrape down the bowl and stir in the chopped chocolate. Divide the batter evenly between the two pans and smooth the tops with the rubber spatula.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the pans at the midway point. When fully baked, the cakes will be springy to the touch and a thin knife inserted into the centers will come out clean. Don't worry if the tops have a few small cracks. Transfer the cake pans to a rack and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unmold them and peel off the paper liners. Invert and cool to room temperature right side up. (The cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to 2 months.)
When you are ready to fill and frost the cake, inspect the layers. If the cakes have crowned, use a long serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion to even them.

Oreo-Chunk Brownies

So remember how last time I was talking about making the rolls to enter a door prize drawing? Well, I was talking to EC on the phone while driving home from work on Thursday, and he said I had gotten something in the mail from University Housing. I was curious, so I had him open it over the phone. In it was a letter thanking me for coming to the potluck and informing me that I was a winner of one of the door prizes! I was/am so excited to win, because I never win anything! We won a $5 gift card to Starbucks which, as BFF told me, means I can get the good kind of hot chocolate with Whipped Cream. So I think from now on I will call those rolls "Award Winning Rolls", I think it is fitting.
I found this Brownie recipe one day while I was looking for recipes of things to do with Marscapone cheese. I don't know why this recipe popped up, but it did, and I have been wanting to try it ever since. These brownies are delicious! I don't own a 12x18x1 pan, and even if I did that is WAY too much brownie for EC and I, so I split the recipe in half. Unfortunately, it was still too much batter for my 8x8 pan, so I ended up with really thick 8x8 brownies and a thinner, nicer 8 inch cake pan of brownies. I can't say enough how yummy these brownies were, fudgey, perfect with ice cream, and they had Famous Amos chocolate sandwich cookies in them (I am too cheap to buy Oreos), mmmmm.

Oreo-Chunk Brownies
From Recipegirl.com

1 lb (4 sticks) unsalted butter
1 lb semi-sweet chocolate chips or chopped semi-sweet chocolate
6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 Tbs instant espresso powder (I used hot chocolate powder)
7 large eggs
2 Tbs pure vanilla extract
2¼ cups granulated sugar
1¼ cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 Tbs baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 cups broken Oreos (about 40 cookies- 1 package)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour 12x18x1-inch pan. Line with foil or parchment that hangs over the sides for ease in getting them out (butter the foil/parchment).

In a heatproof, medium-bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, heat butter, and chocolates until melted and smooth; cool slightly.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, espresso powder, vanilla and sugar. Stir the egg mixture into the slightly cooled chocolate mixture. Cool to room temperature.

In a medium bowl, sift together 1 cup of flour, baking powder, and salt, then add to batter. In a small bowl, stir Oreos and remaining ¼ cup flour. Stir cookies into chocolate mixture. Then pour into prepared baking pan and smooth top with a rubber spatula.

Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean with a few crumbs attached; do not overbake! Let cool completely, then cover tightly and chill overnight. Chilled brownies are easier to cut. Dump the chilled brownie pan onto a large cutting board, peel off the foil and cut into squares.

My Mom's Rolls

On Saturday we came home from doing something, I don't remember what, and there was a flyer on our door announcing a Thanksgiving Potluck at the Family Housing Community Center. There would be three different types of turkey available, steamed, BBQ, and deep fat fried, and if you brought a Thanksgiving-ish side dish you would be entered to win a door prize.
In true poor college student form, EC and I rarely, if ever, turn down an offer for free food. So I was left with the dilemma of what side dish I should make. Being indecisive, I couldn't decide. Luckily, EC was there for me and suggested my mom's rolls. Mind you, these rolls may look a little funny, but they are the best tasting things EVER. Especially if you make a turkey sandwich with leftover Thanksgiving turkey, mmmmm.
I think this picture looks a little funny, like the roll is gushing something, which it is, homemade blackberry jams made from the times we picked a plethora of blackberries. But, the rolls turned out awesome, EC and I hid two in his pockets before we went so we would be sure to get one, and it is a good thing we did, because by the time we got through the line they were almost gone. Victory is mine!

Mini Cupcakes

The problem with it only being EC, Petey, and I is that whenever I make a cake, there is always WAY too much for the three of us, especially since Petey only likes dairy, not cake. So when I had to make my final cake for class, I still had way too much batter, so I made mini cupcakes, because I believe most things are cute in miniature form: cats, cakes, cupcakes, dogs, children, etc. But then I was left with the dilemma of what to do with these cupcakes.

Luckily for me, "rent" was due at work - which means I give a baked good to my coworker and she takes care of a plant for me, this is the only way that I can get a plant to stay alive - and one of my other coworkers was especially helpful in a stressful situation at work, so I took these little guys to work with me and gave them to two well deserving people.

These cupcakes have taught me that I need to buy purple food coloring because my red and blue don't mix very nicely.

Marbled Cake

From MarthaStewart.com

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for pans
1 3/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising), plus more for dusting
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup milk, room temperature
1/3 cup heavy cream, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup best-quality unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup boiling water
2 tablespoons instant espresso powder, for mocha layers

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter pans; line with parchment paper. Butter lining; dust with flour, tapping out excess. Set aside. Sift together cake flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
Combine milk and cream in a small bowl; set aside. Cream butter and sugar on medium speed in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time; mix well after each addition. Mix in vanilla. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with the milk mixture and beginning and ending with flour.
Combine cocoa and the boiling water in a medium bowl; for mocha cake, add espresso powder. Stir in 1 cup cake batter.
Fill prepared pans with spoonfuls of vanilla and chocolate batter to form a checkerboard pattern. Run the tip of a paring knife or a wooden skewer through batter in a figure-eight motion to make swirls. Bake until tops are golden, and a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes. Let cakes cool completely in pans on wire racks.

Final Cake

Since June I have been taking cake decorating classes at Michael's. It has been something that I have been interested in doing, and so while EC was gone during the summer and I was bored out of my mind, I happened into Michael's and saw that they were offering the beginning course, and I signed up. I have had the same teacher for all 4 classes I have taken, and she is wonderful! She is a professional cake decorator, as I have mentioned before, and I aspire to be like her. Wednesday was the final class of the final class and an adventure it was! I learned how to make carnations (as you can see) and with a little help from my blow dryer, I think they turned out very nice. We also learned these really ugly fantasy flowers and other basic fondant stuff that I probably could have figured out on my own, but enjoyed watching others in my class struggle with (wha ha ha). The spirals may have given me some issues and I had to take them home and finish them at home. The actual cake turned out amazing. It is a checkerboard cake with blackberry filling. I would like to mention that this is the first time that my checkerboard cake actually looked like a checkerboard, but since I took the cake to work and gave it to B, and I didn't have a camera at work, you can't see the checkerboard-ness, but trust me, it looked cool, and I am super proud I have finally figured out how to make checkerboard cakes.

I will post the recipe later!

Mazurkas

This past summer our friends took us to their sweet blackberry picking spot and EC and I went blackberry crazy! We ended up going out there to pick blackberries three times and ended up with gallons of blackberries, no joke. So with a freezer full of blackberries, I set out to find blackberry recipes, like my tart. The same friends who showed us the blackberry pickin' spot also gave me a recipe for Mazurkas.
I had never heard/seen/tasted Mazurkas before, and I lost the recipe a couple of times, so it has taken me quite a while to get around to cooking them. But once I did, I can honestly say they are the best looking Mazurkas I have ever seen, and also the best tasting.

We thought they were going to be a treat, since it has 3 cups of brown sugar in them, but it turns out that it also has 3 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour in them, so they aren't sweet at all, so we eat them for breakfast. However, it is a possibility that to the normal person they are sweet and my tolerance for sweet things has increased greatly in these past few months. Interesting thought. Either way, we still will be eating them for breakfast because they made A LOT and we are still trying to get through them.

No recipe for these, because I haven't gotten permission from my friend to post it, so if you want the recipe, you will have to talk to her.

Cheesy Jalapeno Bread

When my older sister was here visiting during Labor Day, we went to the Farmer's Market (in a lame attempt to show her everything there is to do here, it took 10 minutes) and we bought a jalapeno bread. It was really good, very spicy. EC and my sister really liked it, and I liked it pretty well too. Not too long ago I was perusing a website looking for bread recipes and I stumbled upon a recipe for such a bread. I decided that Cheesy Jalapeno Bread was something that I needed to conquer, so I set off to do just that.The bread is just a basic white bread recipe. Things got exciting when I was supposed to knead in 3 cups of cheese and 2 tablespoons of jalapenos. The recipe made it sound like the cheese chunks would incorporate nicely into the bread dough, and maybe it did for them, but my experience was not smooth. There were cheese chunks flying in all different directions, with me trying to shove them all back into the bread dough. Then when I baked it it rose A LOT. And since there was so much cheese in the dough, cheese began to drip off the bread and into the bottom of my oven, later causing a small oven fire and the smoke detector to go off. Then I didn't let one of the loaves cool enough before I took it out of the pan, and since it was top heavy and had cheese for an interior, it collapsed on itself.
But in the end, it was DEFINITELY worth it. This bread is pretty amazing, especially straight from the oven, all warm with warm, gooey cheese. I think my older sister will approve.

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Cheesy Jalapeno Bread

From Cast Sugar

Ingredients:
2 c. warm water (~110 F)
1/4 c. white sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp. active dry yeast

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 c. vegetable oil

6 c. bread flour, sifted
1 c. cheddar cheese, cubed
2 c. Monterrey Jack cheese, cubed
2 Tbsp. chopped jalapeno

In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar in warm water, and then stir in yeast. Allow to proof until yeast resembles a creamy foam (about 10 minutes).
Mix salt and oil into the yeast. Mix in flour one cup at a time. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth, about 10 minutes. Place in a well oiled bowl, and turn dough to coat. Cover with a damp cloth. Allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 90 minutes.
Punch dough down. Add cheese and jalapeno to dough and knead for about 5 minutes, until the cheese chunks are dispersed throughout (you will have some seriously bumpy dough!). Then divide dough in half. Shape into loaves, and place into two well oiled 9x5 inch loaf pans. Allow to rise for 30 minutes, or until dough has risen 1 inch above pans.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes.

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

So, awhile ago I was talking with my BFF and she mentioned that she kinda missed the pink on my blog background (this was right after EC helped me give my blog a face lift). So I thought to myself, I should make her something pink, in remembrance of the background.So then we were talking earlier this week and I told her I would make cupcakes in her honor. She then told me that I should send them to her, so a conversation ensued about if mailing cupcakes would actually be possible or if they would just show up all smooshy and man handled. Well, I mailed them this morning, so I guess we will see in 2-3 business days how mailing cupcakes actually turns out.

These little gems are different. I wouldn't exactly call them sweet, but I wouldn't exactly call them not sweet either. They are pink lemonade cupcakes, so they have the tangy, lemonade taste, but not too tangy. I can't really describe them, so in order for you to get the full effect, you either need to make them or guilt me into making/mailing them for/to you. They are pretty good tasting, but as EC says, they aren't something you can sit down and eat 4 of at once (although I NEVER eat 4 cupcakes at once, NEVER). They didn't raise very high in the oven, which is possibly why you are supposed to fill the cupcake liners so full. I think they would be cute as mini cupcakes and was going to make some out of the leftover batter, but there was only enough for 12 regular sized cupcakes.

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

From Cast Sugar

Ingredients:
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
Pinch salt
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/4 c. vegetable oil
2 egg whites
1/3 c. thawed frozen Pink Lemonade Concentrate
1/4 c. buttermilk
2 or more drops red food coloring

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line muffin pan with liners.
In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, egg whites and lemonade concentrate. Alternately whisk in flour mixture and buttermilk, making three additions of flour mixture and two of buttermilk, beating until just smooth. Add just enough food coloring to turn the batter a light shade of pink.
Scoop batter into liners (fill about three-fourths full). Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until tops of cupcakes spring back when lightly touched. Let cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely on rack. Top cooled cupcakes with frosting (see below).

Lemonade Buttercream:

3 c. + 3 Tbsp. confectioner’s sugar
1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1/8 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. pink lemonade concentrate
Red food coloring

Add the butter, confectioner’s sugar, salt, lemon juice, and a few drops of food coloring to the stand mixer and mix on low using the paddle attachment until combined. Turn the speed to med-high until the buttercream is fluffy and uniformly pink. Pipe or spread onto cooled cupcakes.

Broomstick Cheeseball

Happy belated Halloween everyone! I hope you had a safe, fun night. EC and I definitely did. And so did the cat, after we took off his costume and he sulked for a little while.
This year for Halloween I decided to be creative. OK, that is a lie. I decided once again to copy someone's creative idea and pass it off as my own. My cake decorating class teacher mentioned how she was going to make the Broomstick Cheeseball that is in one of the catalogs she gave me in the last class and I thought to myself, what a good, festive idea, I can do that! So I did. This is how mine turned out. I am sure hers is exponentially better, because she is a professional cake decorator and I aspire to be her, but I was pleased with the results. The cheeseball was pretty good too, although SUPER garlic-y. No joke, your breathe alone would kill Dracula.
Olive, Green Onion, and GARLIC Cheeseball
From my Mom!

2 packages cream cheese
6-8 green onions
1 small can chopped olives
2 cups cheddar cheese
1/4 cup garlic salt

Mix all ingredients until blended. Divide into three parts. Place on wax paper and shape into a ball. Wrap wax paper around ball and wrap the whole thing with Saran Wrap. Refrigerate until use. Eat with crackers, bread, or other cheeseball sides.