I am back!!!

Hello, my lovelies!! Are any of you still out there after my long absense? It has been so long since I have posted and I am sorry for that!

I have good news and then more good news! Which would you like first? The good news? Ok great!

We closed on our house and have been moved in since 11.17.09! It has been extremely hectic and busy with moving and the holidays so I havent really had much time to think much less focus on my cooking and blogging as I'd like. But I am back and the other good news is that I have a yummy recipe for you as well!!

Before I get to the recipe though I have more to share! Thanksgiving was *not* what I would say was a good food thanksgiving. It was good but mostly not homemade. We had just moved in and I couldnt find most of my pots and pans so we bought 99% of the food. I announced at dinner that I would be making a "from scratch" Christmas dinner and that was that.

Christmas dinner was wonderful! I was so pleased with how everything turned out. Fortunately Ethan was there to help me or I might have gone insane...well more insane! We had turkey, ham, cornbread sausage stuffing, mashed potatoes, garlic cheese grits, deviled eggs, brussell sprouts, corn casserole, spinach dip with homemade pita chips, sausage balls (that I forgot to put out!!), watergate salad, peanut butter pie, yule cake, and banana pudding. Oh and of course a huge relish tray to nibble on while I was still cooking.

Everyone said it was wonderful and that made me very happy. We had snow for Christmas too which was good and bad. Great to have a white Christmas (the first in DFW since 1926, I hear) but bad because my parents couldnt make it to dinner. We sent them lots of leftovers though.

Ok so I've rambled enough. Time for food. I wanted to attempt a yule log because they always look so darn festive. I found a recipe that looked like it would be a great beginner recipe and ran with it. Other then the cake breaking into 3 sections when I unrolled it from the towel it was great! I almost cried when it broke but Ethan cheered me on and said I could fix it and no one would even know. He was almost right. heh.



Chocolate Cake Roll
Recipe from Kraft

6 squares semi-sweet chocolate, divided
6 Tbsp. butter
1 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 cup flour, divided
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2/3 cup water
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup powdered sugar, divided
3 cups thawed whipped topping, divided

HEAT oven to 350°F.

SPRAY 15x10x1-inch pan with cooking spray. Line with waxed paper; spray with additional cooking spray.

MICROWAVE 3 chocolate squares and butter in medium microwaveable bowl on High 1-1/2 to 2 min. or until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Add granulated sugar; mix well. Beat eggs in large bowl with mixer on high speed 3 min. or until thickened. Blend in chocolate mixture. Add 1/4 cup flour and baking soda; beat just until blended. Add remaining flour alternately with water, beating well after each addition. Spread evenly into prepared pan.

BAKE 15 min. or until top of cake springs back when touched; sprinkle with 1/4 cup powdered sugar. Immediately invert cake onto clean towel; remove pan. Carefully peel off paper. Starting at one short side, roll up cake and towel together; cool completely on wire rack.

BEAT cream cheese and remaining powdered sugar in medium bowl with mixer until well blended. Gently stir in 1-1/2 cups COOL WHIP.

UNROLL cake carefully; remove towel. Spread cream cheese mixture onto cake, completely covering top of cake. Roll up cake; place, seam-side down, on platter.

MICROWAVE remaining chocolate and remaining COOL WHIP in microwaveable bowl on HIGH 1 to 1-1/2 min. or until chocolate is completely melted and mixture is well blended, stirring after 1 min. Cool 2 min.; spread onto cake. Refrigerate 1 hour.

Perfection Pound Cake

I actually squee'd when I was at the library the other day and saw they had "Baking from my home to yours" by Dorie Greenspan. As soon as I saw it I snatched it (well as much as you can snatch this large heavy book) off the shelf and new I was going to be doing some baking! My gosh this book has some heavenly recipes. I'll be buying my own copy at Border's very soon hopefully!

I've been craving pound cake so I flipped through and found her recipe for "Perfection Pound Cake" and it was exactly that. Perfection. I cut it into slices and brought some to work because I definitely would eat the whole thing if left at home. That would be a bad bad thing!

Perfection Pound Cake

from Baking from My Home to Yours pg 222

2 cups all purpose flour or 2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Note: I am not posting the entire ingredient out of respect for Ms Greenspan's hard work on her cookbook. Since I dont even own a copy of the book yet it wouldnt be right for me to post her recipes for free.

Coconut Cream Pound Cakes w/Vanilla Coconut Frosting and Chocolate Glaze

I altered this recipe slightly from allrecipes.com - My changes will be in red at the end.

Coconut Cream Pound Cakes w/Vanilla Coconut Frosting and Chocolate Glaze

INGREDIENTS
1 cup butter, softened
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
3 cups white sugar
6 eggs
1 teaspoon coconut extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups flaked coconut

DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease and flour a 10 inch tube pan.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and cream cheese until well blended. Add sugar, and beat until light and fluffy. Blend in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the coconut extract. Mix in flour and baking powder until just moistened, then stir in coconut. Spoon batter into the prepared pan.
Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before inverting onto a cooling rack.

I used 2 loaf pans instead of a tube pan. Additionally it needed to be cooked about 20 minutes longer then the 1 hr 20 min which I am assuming is because I used loaf pans instead of the tube pan. I frosted one with a mixture of vanilla frosting and coconut. The 2nd I "frosted" with

Satiny Chocolate Glaze

INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS
In a double boiler over hot, but not boiling water, combine chocolate chips, butter and corn syrup. Stir until chips are melted and mixture is smooth, then add vanilla.
Spread warm glaze over top of cake, letting it drizzle down the sides.

Cream Cheese Poundcake

I am moving over some posts I'd made back when my cooking blog was on livejournal. Unfortunately I wasnt the best at crediting back then so if you recognize a recipe as your creation please please please let me know so I can give appropriate credit!

Cream Cheese Poundcake

1.5 c butter, softened
1 (8oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
3 c sugar
6 lg eggs
3 c all purpose flour
1/8 t salt
1 T vanilla extract

Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy; gradually add sugar, beating well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating until combined.

Combine flour and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating at low speed just until blended after each addition. Stir in vanilla. Pour batter into a greased and floured 10 inch bundt pan.

Bake at 300 for 1 hr and 40 min or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 to 15 minutes; remove from pan, and let cool completely on wire rack.

Pineappley Goodness and Chicken that........

Ron's favorite cake is a Pineapple Upside Down cake and when I stumbled across this recipe for one over at No Special Effects I knew I'd make it for him.

Wow! Uber yum! I'm not going to post the recipe here because I followed exactly how it was originally posted but here's the link : Pineapple Upside Down Cake. The directions are laid out in a way that even a beginning baker could follow them and it was just fun to make!

Ron liked it so much that when I woke up this morning I saw he had eaten half of the cake while I slept. heh. That's a good thing!

On the other end of the cooking spectrum, the chicken & dumplings I made were horrible. The recipe called for entirely too much thyme, especially considering it was the only spice it used, so when you took a bite that was all you tasted. I was extremely disappointed but I am not giving up on that cookbook (Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2000.)

Tonight we are going out to The Melting Pot for our anniversary. I've been wanting to go there for eons and no one has wanted to go with me. I had joked that since I got him tickets to Cats that I got to pick the restaurant we went to next and voila, now we will be dining with fondue fantasticness tonight. YAY! I'll let y'all know how it was!

Rum Glazed Banana Cake

mMm. This is not a cake for kiddies or those with an alcohol issue. The glaze gives it a very strong rum taste but it's sooooo good.

Rum Glazed Banana Cake
from Cooking Light: Annual Recipes 1998

1 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup stick margarine, softened (I used unsalted butter)
3/4 cup egg substitute
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (I used 3 medium size bananas)
1/2 cup vanilla low fat yogurt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
vegetable cooking spray
3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar
2 tablespoons dark rum or 1/4 teaspoon imitation rum extract plus 2 tablespoons skim milk (I used dark rum)
1 tablespoon stick margarine, melted

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Beat brown sugar and 2/3 cup margarine at medium speed of an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg substitute, beating until well blended.

2. Combine banana and next 3 ingredients in a bowl; set aside. Combine flour, baking powder, and baking soda. With mixer running at low speed, add flour mixture to sugar mixture alternately with banana mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture.

3. Pour batter into a 10 inch tube pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 375 for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pan 10 minutes; remove cake from pan. Let cool completely on a wire rack. combine powdered sugar, rum, and metled margarine; stir mixture until smooth. Drizzle over cake.

Yield: 16 servings.

Calories: 285, Fat: 8.7g, Protein: 3.6g, Carb: 47.5g, Fiber: 0.9g, Chol: 0mg, Sodium: 180mg

This is the 2nd recipe I am including in my challenge to make at least 1 recipe from each of my cookbooks in 2009!

Better Than Sex Cake

Ok first off, this is not better than sex. No way no how. It is good though. VERY VERY rich. VERY VERY sweet. Not a good cake for diabetics. *LOL* I made this for a birthday spread for a co-worker. Everyone loved it to say the least. I had a tin full of crumbs to take home.

Better Than Sex Cake

16 servings (smaller pieces are better because this is such a rich cake)



1 (18 1/2 oz.) pkg. German chocolate cake mix
1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 jar caramel sauce
12 oz. carton frozen whipped topping, thawed
3 Heath bars, crushed

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 9x13x2 inch pan. Prepare cake mix as directed on package; pour into prepared pan. After 10 minutes of baking, sprinkle with chocolate chips. Continue baking until cake is done.

2. While cake is still hot, poke holes in it with handle of wooden spoon. Pour sweetened condensed milk over cake; let cool. Top with caramel sauce, then whipped topping. Sprinkle with candy bars. 12 to 16 servings.

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 305 Calories; 13g Fat (37.8% calories from fat); 3g Protein; 47g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 7mg Cholesterol; 242mg Sodium. Exchanges: 2 1/2 Fat; 3 Other Carbohydrates.

Chocolate Pound Cake

My name is Anya and I am a chocolate addict. I admit it freely.

Pound cake is wonderfully yummy and dense. So when I saw a recipe for a Chocolate Pound Cake how could I resist? The chocoholic in me wouldnt let me resist! I might try a glaze next time I make this. The powdered sugar was pretty but didnt really offer anything tastewise.



Found via All Recipes

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c butter
3 c white sugar
5 eggs
2 t vanilla extract
1 t instant coffee granules dissolved in 1/4 c hot water
1 c buttermilk
2 c all-purpose flour
3/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 t baking powder
1 t salt

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).

2. Grease and flour a 10 inch Bundt pan. Mix together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the dissolved coffee and buttermilk. Pour batter into prepared pan.

4. Bake in the preheated oven for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 20 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.