Recipes Discovered

All In One Holiday Cake Recipe

The holidays are all about sharing and giving, and a lot of people have been asking me for my Thanksgiving recipes. On the menu this year, besides the normal roasted turkey with stuffing, and the not so normal deep fried turkey, was macaroni and cheese, sweet potato casserole, candied yams, green bean casserole, creamed corn, and cranberry jello salad. To keep everyone happy (and quiet) until dinner was served, I made a bacon ranch cheese ball and a pumpkin cream cheese dip, which was really great with pretzels. For dessert, there was pumpkin pie, all in one holiday cake (pumpkin, cranberry, apple, and pecans), and brownies. Of course, with all the food we had, Seth and I have a refrigerator full of leftovers. I’ve come up with some interesting uses for them though, including potato pancakes, turkey cranberry sandwiches, sweet potato and black bean chili, shepherds pie, and a macaroni and cheese concoction that I don’t even know what to name. Thanksgiving was a lot of fun and hopefully there are a lot more recipes to come during the holidays.

Devil’s Food White-Out Cake Recipe

Generally when I make cakes, I freely interchange 8 and 9 inch cake pans. This cake is a little different however, because it needs the height to have the appropriate finished look. I converted the measurements from the original recipe, calling for 8-inch cake pans, to slightly larger amounts to be make 9-inch cake pans.

The cake is a fairly simple recipe, combining cocoa powder, bittersweet chocolate, and semi-sweet chocolate to make a very moist and rich chocolate cake. The frosting is sweet, marshmallow-like, and a little more involved. It’s similar to the 7-minute frosting used on the coconut cake, but instead of cooking it over a double-boiler, a hot syrup is used to cook the egg whites. To assemble, each cake is cut in half. Three of the halves are alternated with the frosting to make black and white layers, and the fourth half is crumbled and pressed into the sides and top of the cake. It looks quite impressive when it’s finished. Although I haven’t actually had a slice, I did sample some of the cake that I crumbled, and it was outstanding. Hopefully the whole cake lives up to those expectations.

Blueberry Buckle Recipe

Blueberry Buckle is fantastic cake made with fresh blueberries and a crumb topping. The name supposedly refers to the cake engulfing the blueberries and then buckling on top to make a dimpled appearance. Although my cake has a dimply top, the blueberries weren’t engulfed by the cake, but they did make a rather yummy blueberry goo on top. To me though, the cake was a tad dry, so I will definitely fold the blueberries into the cake batter next time to spread them out more and to give the cake some moisture. The cake also burnt on the bottom, and I’m not quite sure if that was because of my cake pan or the oven temperature. The cake does bake quite awhile (at least 45 minutes), so I will probably lower the baking temperature to 350 next time. And there will be a next time – this cake, even with it’s problems, is delicious. It may not be Blueberry Delight, but it definitely ranks up there.

Lemon Cream Cheese Pound Cake Recipe

I was searching for a pound cake recipe and most of the ones I came across were for a cream cheese pound cake. The reviews said the cream cheese gave the pound cake a rich taste and also kept the cake moist. I’ve never made a pound cake, but rich and moist both seem important to cake, so I went with the cream cheese pound cake recipe. I added vanilla extract and lemon zest for flavor, and topped the cake with a lemon glaze. The cake looked beautiful, and tasted quite good as well – very rich and moist. Definitely a keeper.

Apple Crumb Muffins Recipe

Seth wanted an apple cake and I wanted a coffee cake, so somehow we compromised on these Apple Crumb Muffins. The muffins are simple to make, since they are made from a standard crumb cake batter (with chopped apples), just baked in muffins tins. The topping is butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and pecans. One of the recipes I read called for melting the butter in the topping, which I thought kind of made sense since it would be easier to mix together. Do not do it! Because the butter was already melted. the topping just ran off the muffins instead of making a crunchy top, and it made some kind of glue that fused the muffins to the paper liners making it nearly impossible to get the paper off without destroying the muffins. On the upside, the muffins taste really good. They are very moist, and aren’t overly sweet. Just watch out for the paper while you are eating them.