White and Purple Graduation Cake

by penji1

My friend Carl from high school sent me a message on Facebook asking if we could make 2 graduation cakes for his twin daughters who are fraternal twins, not identical so he wanted two different cakes.  Kiersten likes vanilla cake and her favorite color is purple so this is the cake we made for her.  It is a White Sour Cream Cake (the White Almond Sour Cream Cake recipe without the almond flavoring using a white cake mix – it was so yummy and I don’t even like white cake!) with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting and White Buttercream Fondant.  The diploma is a roll of fondant and the graduation cap is a cocoa cupcake covered in chocolate fondant with the top of the cap a piece of cardboard covered with chocolate fondant and the tassels made out of fondant.  Happy Graduation Kiersten and Congratulations!

Cocoa Cupcakes

by penji1

Courtney and I are working on a couple of graduation cakes for a friend’s twin daughters (I’ll post the cakes later today or tomorrow) and we needed some cupcakes in order to make some graduation caps so this is a recipe from my big file of recipes that I hope to have time to make one day.  It’s from the January 21, 2011 issue of All You magazine.

1 cup flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 eggs, separated

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk or low-fat plain yogurt

1/4 cup miniature chocolate chips

2 tablespoons powdered sugar, optional

1  Heat oven to 350.  Line 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners.  In bowl, sift flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt.

2  Using electric mixer on high, beat egg whites in clean, dry bowl until stiff peaks form.  Rinse and dry beaters.  In separate bowl, beat butter and sugar until light.  Add yolks, 1 at a time, beating well after each.  Beat in vanilla.  With mixer on medium-low, beat in 1/3 flour mixture, then 1/2 buttermilk.  Repeat, ending with flour.

3  Fold in 1/3 egg whites.  Fold in remaining whites and chocolate chips.

4  Scoop batter into muffin cups; bake until toothpick inserted in center of cupcake comes out clean, 18 – 20 minutes.  Let cool in pan 5 minutes then move to rack to cool completely.  Sift powdered sugar over cupcakes, if desired.

Optional add in – dissolve 1 – 2 teaspoons instant coffee or instant espresso in vanilla before beating it in.

Makes 12 cupcakes

French Vanilla Dream Bars

by penji1

I’ve signed up on a lot of websites for recipes and coupons and so I get a lot of recipes and coupons.  This website called “Vocal Point” often sends me coupons for free items because they want people to try them and then give feedback so just recently I got a coupon for a free bottle of coffee creamer but because we don’t drink coffee I wasn’t sure what to do with it but then I remembered this recipe that uses Coffee Mate so I figured I could substitute the free International Delights Coffee House Inspirations Breve Creme for the Coffee Mate.  The recipe calls for French Vanilla flavor but I bought Vanilla Caramel Cream flavor and used that instead.  These are really good but beware, really sweet!  (I think the recipe actually came from a Coffee Mate advertisement.)

crust:

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 1/4 cups flour

filling:

3 eggs

3/4 french vanilla coffee mate

1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

3 tablespoons flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup coconut

1 cup nuts (I used almonds)

icing:

2 cups powdered sugar

3 tablespoons melted butter

3 – 4 tablespoons vanilla coffee mate

1  Preheat oven to 350.  Grease 9 x 13″ pan.

2 For crust, cream butter and brown sugar.  Add flour.  (The dough will be crumbly.)  Press into pan and bake 10 minutes.  Cool 5 minutes.

3  For filling, beat eggs, coffee mate, sugar, flour and salt.  Stir in coconut and nuts.  Spread over crust and bake 25 minutes.  Cool.

4  For icing, combine powdered sugar, butter and coffee mate with whisk.  Spread over filling.

Blue and Black Striped Birthday Fondant Cake

by penji1

This is a birthday cake for Courtney’s friend Dakota who wanted it for a friend who is a girl, did you follow that?  That’s all I know!  Cort and I both put on our Facebook status’ that we were looking for opportunities to practice our fondant decorating skills and so if any of our friends had an event coming up that they could use a fondant cake for, to please let us know and we would make a cake for them for just the cost of the ingredients.  Good deal for us as we get to practice without it costing to much and good deal for the friend who gets a pretty good fondant cake for cheap!  We have about 4 – 5 more to do over the next few months so hopefully we can just keep getting better and better!  If any of you blog friends out there need a cake (and you live near me), the FB offer applies to you too!  I tried a new recipe for the cake so I’ll give you that here, the frosting was my standard Vanilla Buttercream Frosting and the fondant was the Satin Ice Buttercream Fondant which is actually really yummy!

cake recipe:

1 box cake mix plus ingredients listed to make cake

1 small box instant pudding mix

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup chocolate chips (for a chocolate cake)

Add pudding mix to cake mix and stir with whisk.  Following directions on box, add wet ingredients listed on box plus 1 cup of sour cream and mix according to package directions.  Add chocolate chips if using after batter is mixed.  Bake according to package directions although these may need to bake just a few minutes longer.

Baskin Robbins Candy Parfait

by penji1

I got this cute little book the other day from http://www.paperbackswap.com called “Candy Bouquets Create Your Own Gifts and Centerpieces” and this is the first creation that Courtney and I made from that book (more are soon to follow I’m sure).  The book is full of cute little ideas for candy centered gifts for all occasions.  We made these for 2 special friends of mine that I visit every month but didn’t make it to visit this month so treats instead!  I’ll give you the instructions for the one in the book which is called “Milky Way Parfait” and I’ll also give you the changes that we made to make ours (really the only changes were that they used a glass ice cream dish and we used the pink plastic one and they used mini Milky Way bars and we used Baskin Robbins hard candies).   We bought everything we needed to make these at the Dollar Store (except for the pins and the Tootsie Pops).  They came out really cute!

1 – 2 (10″ – 12″) pieces ribbon, various colors and patterns

1 sundae or parfait glass

1 (1 pound) bag miniature Milky Way bars  (we used about 3 bags Baskin Robbins hard candies, can’t remember what size bags they were, in various flavors – Mint Chocolate Chip, Mango Delight, Pralines and Cream and Cookies and Cream)

cream colored shredded paper (didn’t need this because our dish was not see through)

1 styrofoam disc (I used 2 that were round but narrower at the top and wider at the bottom and flat on both top and bottom, they fit perfectly in my dish, I just glued them together with a hot glue gun)

50 – 60 quilters T-pins or straight pins

1 cherry or strawberry Tootsie Pop sucker

1  Tie ribbon around stem of sundae or parfait glass.  Place 2 – 3 mini Milky Ways in bottom of glass (again we didn’t because it wasn’t glass and therefore see through).  Cover Milky Ways with cream colored shredded paper.  Pull some of shredded paper up and over sides of glass.  Trim styrofoam disk to fit snugly in glass (if needed).  Insert disk into glass so that 1/2″ – 1″ of disk is exposed above edge of glass.  Press down gently to secure styrofoam disk in glass.

2  Insert pin through 1 end of Milky Way wrapper.  Push pin into styrofoam to affix candy.  Place Milky Ways in single row around outside and top of styrofoam.  Repeat until sides of disk are completely covered and there is only a small portion exposed at top.

3  Insert Tootsie Pop into center of exposed area on styrofoam disk.  Press down gently until only red wrapper of sucker shows above Milky Ways.

The Deen Brothers’ Baked Hush Puppies

by penji1

This recipe comes from the Food Network Magazine and yes, that’s Deen as in Paula Deen, these are her sons and this is a recipe from their cookbook “The Deen Bros. Take It Easy”.  I made a pot of chili today (“Family Favorite Chili”) so these went along nicely.

2/3 cup yellow cornmeal

1/3 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 cup finely chopped onion

1/3 cup milk

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1 Heat oven to 450.  Grease 24 cup mini muffin pan with cooking spray.

2  Combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt and pepper in medium bowl.

3  In a separate bowl, mix onion, milk, eggs and butter.  Fold egg mixture into flour mixture just until moistened.

4  Scoop 1 tablespoon of batter into each cup.  Bake 10 minutes, or until hush puppies are firm to the touch and golden brown around edges.

Santa Fe Chicken Casserole

by penji1

Some of the other bargains I scored at Smiths this morning were 3 of those new Philadelphia Cooking Cremes in 3 different flavors which were only .75 after the sale price and coupons.  I figured for .75, I would give them a try.  They all came with multiple recipes on each container and this one sounded like one that Bob especially would like so I made it first.  It was very tasty, a little spicy but not too much.

3 cups shredded cooked chicken breasts (I used 2 cans of Costco brand chicken)

1 (15 oz) can no salt added black beans, drained and rinsed

1 (14.5 oz) can no salt added diced tomatoes, drained

2 green onions, sliced (didn’t have any)

1 (10 oz) tub Philadelphia Santa Fe Blend Cooking Creme, divided

3 (6″) flour tortillas (I only had 8″ whole wheat tortillas so used those and they tasted great)

3/4 cup Mexican style finely shredded four cheese, divided (I only had cheddar)

1  Heat oven to 375.

2  Combine first 4 ingredients in large bowl.  Add 3/4 cup cooking creme and mix lightly.

3  Spoon 1/3 of chicken mixture into 9″ pie plate, top with 1 tortilla, 1/2 remaining chicken mixture and 1/4 cup shredded cheese.  Cover with 2nd tortilla, remaining chicken mixture, 1/4 cup shredded cheese and remaining tortilla.  Top with remaining creme and shredded cheese and cover.

4  Bake 20 minutes or until heated through, uncover and bake 5 minutes or until cheese is golden brown.

Look what I got for FREE!

by penji1

I know some of you out there will appreciate this and for those of you who live near me and get a Sunday paper then you can get the same stuff for free!  This morning at Smiths grocery store I got 6 bottles of Propel water, 3 boxes of Ronzoni Garden Delight Pasta and 3 boxes of American Beauty Quick Cook pasta for free!  Actually they paid me to buy it all because after the sale prices and the coupons, I actually made $1.77!  Yahoo!  Smiths is having one of their mega sale events where when you buy any 10 items from a list of certain products then you automatically get $5 off at the register.  When you pair those up with coupons from the Sunday paper then you can get some really great deals.  If you’re interested in this at all, check out savvyshopperdeals.com which is where I go to get help with saving money on groceries, personal care and household items!  I love saving money, don’t you?  Happy Monday!  🙂

Bow-Tie Pasta with Broccoli and Potatoes

by penji1

This recipe comes from the September 2010 issue of the Food Network Magazine.  I didn’t have all the ingredients called for so I didn’t follow the recipe exactly but I’ll give you the original recipe and my changes.  I thought the potatoes seemed a little odd in the pasta but they were really good as was the whole dish.

salt

2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1″ pieces (I only had small ones so I did 4)

1 large bunch broccoli, florets and some chopped stems (about 2 cups)

12 ounces bow-tie pasta

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 leeks, white and light green parts only, sliced into half moons (didn’t have any leeks so left them out)

pepper

1 head Boston lettuce, torn (didn’t have any Boston lettuce so left it out)

1 1/2 cups grated fontina cheese (I didn’t have any fontina so used a bag of 4 blend Italian cheeses)

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese plus more for topping

1  Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Add potatoes and cook for 10 minutes, then add pasta and broccoli and cook as pasta label directs.  (I don’t like the broccoli to be cooked until it’s mushy so I waited and added it the last 5 minutes of the pasta cooking time.)

2  (I omitted this step since I didn’t have any leeks.)  Meanwhile, melt butter in large skillet over medium heat.  Add leeks, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and pepper to taste.  Cook until soft, about 7 minutes.

3  Put lettuce in a colander.  Reserve 1 cup cooking water, then drain pasta, broccoli and potatoes over lettuce to wilt it.  Return the pasta and vegetables to pot.  (I skipped the lettuce part, did retain the 1 cup of cooking water, drained pasta, broccoli and potatoes and returned them to pot.)

4  Add leeks to pot (I didn’t add the leeks since I didn’t have any but I did add the butter here) and stir in enough of reserved cooking water to moisten (I ended up using the whole cup).  Stir in cheeses and season with salt and pepper.  Top with more Parmesan.