Sour Cream Coffee Cake

by penji1

My niece Heidi and her husband Mark came to stay with us this weekend.  Heidi, along with my daughter Courtney, loves my coffee cake so I thought I would make a new one for them this weekend.  This is similar to the other coffee cake that they love but is a different shape and the streusel is in the middle instead of on top, tastes pretty similar though.  This recipe came from the December 18, 2009 issue of “All You” magazine.

streusel:

1 cup walnuts or pecans, very finely chopped (I used walnuts)

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch of salt

cake:

2 cups cake flour (I didn’t have any cake flour so found this substitution on the internet – 1 3/4 cups flour plus 1/4 cup cornstarch)

1 cup flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk, at room temperature

1 cup sour cream, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla

glaze:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1  Preheat oven to 350.  Grease a 12 cup Bundt pan or tube pan.  Make streusel:  In a bowl, combine nuts, both sugars, cinnamon and salt; set aside.

2  Make cake:  In a bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder and salt.  Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat both sugars and butter until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Beat in eggs 1 at a time, mixing after each addition, then beat in egg yolk.  Beat in 1/2 of the flour mixture, until just combined.  Stir in sour cream and vanilla, then fold in remaining flour mixture.  Do not overmix.  Batter will be thick.

3  Spread 2/3 of batter evenly in pan.  Sprinkle streusel over top then top with remaining batter, gently spreading batter until streusel is entirely covered.  Bake until a cake tester inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 – 40 minutes.  Let cake cool on wire rack for 10 minutes, then turn out of pan onto wire rack to cool.

4  Make glaze:  Sift powdered sugar into small bowl, add milk and vanilla and mix with a fork until smooth.  Drizzle glaze over top of cake, allowing some to drip down sides.

Tortilla Soup with Black Beans

by penji1

I pulled this recipe out of a magazine but can’t remember which one (again).  It smelled delicious while it was cooking.  This is a good recipe to throw together for dinner since you probably already have all the ingredients in your pantry like I did.

1 tablespoon olive oil

4 garlic cloves, minced (I only used 2 and I used my garlic press rather than mince them)

1 teaspoon chili powder

2 (14.5 oz each) cans diced tomatoes in juice

2 (15 oz each) cans black beans, rinsed and drained

1 (14.5 oz) can reduced sodium chicken broth

1 (10 oz) package frozen corn (I used an undrained can of corn)

1 cup water

salt and pepper

1 cup crushed tortilla chips plus more for serving (optional)

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice plus lime wedges for serving (didn’t have any limes)

(I also added 1 can of Costco chicken plus liquid)

1  In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium.  Cook garlic and chili powder until fragrant, about 1 minute.  Add tomatoes with juice, beans, broth, corn and 1 cup water  (and chicken, if using and I didn’t add the 1 cup of water because I had already added the juice from both the can of corn and the can of chicken); season with salt and pepper.

2  Bring soup to a boil; reduce to a simmer.  Add tortilla chips; cook until softened, about 2 minutes.  Remove from heat; stir in lime juice and season with salt and pepper.  Serve soup with lime wedges and more chips, if desired.

(Or you can dump everything in the crock pot except for the oil (you don’t need it), chips and lime juice like I did and cook on low for about 4 – 6 hours.)

Yields 4 servings, each serving = 277 calories (these numbers are based on the original recipe without the chicken added)

1 Year Anniversary Giveaway Winners Announced!

by penji1

And the winners of the 1 Year Anniversary Giveaways are:

Shaun Price – winner of the homemade treat!  (Shaun requested Cake Pops.)

Pam Adams – winner of the Pampered Chef product!  (I’ll send you an email telling you what I have that you can choose from.)

Julie Balvin – winner of the Dove Chocolate Discoveries product!  (This is Julie’s 2nd time winning, congrats!  I’ll send you an email letting you know what I have that you can choose from.)

Ronda Rudnick – winner of the “Hello, Cupcake!” cookbook! (Unless you already have it, I’ll email you to find out.)

Congratulations to all the winners and thank you all for reading my blog!

Chocolate Fondant Birthday Cake with Flowers/The Original White Almond Sour Cream Cake Recipe

by penji1

Today is my daughter Courtney’s 19th birthday and so she and I decided to attempt a full size fondant cake.  It actually came out pretty good!  I found the recipe for the cake underneath the fondant on a great website called cakecentral.com.  This is the recipe they suggested for using under fondant.  It comes from someone called “kakeladi” and apparently is a popular recipe so here’s the recipe, with all kakeladi’s tips included.

1 box cake mix (she prefers Betty Crocker, any cake flavor can be used) (I used Devil’s Food)

1 cup flour (if using a chocolate cake mix then make this 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup cocoa)

1 cup sugar

generous dash of salt

1 cup sour cream or plain or flavored yogurt (I used sour cream)

1 cup water (or milk, juice, thawed frozen concentrates, soda (like Coke), cream or just about anything wet for the liquid) (I used milk)

3 eggs

1 tablespoon flavoring (match flavoring to cake such as lemon/almond mix for lemon cake, strawberry for strawberry, etc, for most flavors you can use a mix of vanilla, butter and almond extracts which is what she does most of the time, she uses this mix – 1 part vanilla, 1/2 part butter, 1/4 part almond) (I used 1 tablespoon vanilla because I wasn’t sure if Courtney would like the almond flavoring but when I make this recipe again then I’ll probably try kakeladi’s mixture of flavors)

1  In bowl, mix together dry ingredients using a wire whisk which is important with a chocolate cake mix but not so much for other flavors.

2  In a mixer bowl, place next 4 ingredients.  Add about 1/2 the dry ingredients and blend together then add rest of dry ingredients and blend.  Mix for 2 minutes.  (She uses a Kitchenaid mixer, position #1 to stir in then #4 to mix the batter.)

3  Pour into prepared pans and bake as usual.  (She prefers to bake at 300 for about 20 – 30 minutes, depending on size of cake, then turns the oven up to 325 for about equal time.  If the cake has pulled away from the sides, it is overbaked.  After cooling, the top might be a bit sticky.)

(She says this makes the amount of batter as if you used 1 1/2 mixes and is perfect for a 10″ square or 9 x 13″ or an 8″ or two 6″ rounds or two 8″ rounds or one 12″ round.)  (I used 2 square pans, one was 8″ and one was 6″ and this was the perfect amount of batter.)

Here’s the birthday girl with her cake!

Grandma’s Honey Muffins

by penji1

This is a Taste of Home recipe so these are not my Grandma’s muffins but someone else’s grandma’s muffins.  They were really tasty right out of the oven with butter!

2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1 cup milk

1/4 cup butter, melted

1/4 cup honey

1  In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  In another bowl, whisk egg, milk, butter and honey; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.

2  Fill 12 greased or paper lined muffin cups 3/4 full.  Bake at 400 for 15 – 18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Remove from pan to wire rack.

Yield:  12 muffins

Irish Beef Stew

by penji1

I got this recipe in an email from Kraft Foods right around St Patrick’s Day.  Not sure what makes it Irish Stew but it was good!

1 1/2 pounds boneless beef round steak, trimmed, cut into bite size pieces (I bought a package of stew meat and called it good)

2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons oil

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

1 (14 1/2 oz) can beef broth

1 (14 1/2 oz) can stewed tomatoes, undrained

1 (0.8 oz) envelope Good Seasons Garlic and Herb Dressing Mix (they had Good Seasons dressing mix at the store but not garlic and herb so I used Zesty Italian instead)

1 pound red potatoes (about 3), cut into 3/4″ chunks

3 carrots, cut into 1/2″ slices

3 cups hot cooked noodles

1  Coat meat with flour.  Heat oil in Dutch oven or large deep skillet on medium high heat.  Add meat and onions, cook and stir until browned.  Stir in broth, tomatoes and dressing mix.  Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally; cover.  Simmer on low 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2  Add potatoes and carrots, simmer, covered, 45 minutes or until meat is tender and sauce is thickened, uncovering after 30 minutes and stirring occasionally.

3  Serve over noodles.

1 Year Anniversary Giveaway Reminder!

by penji1

Just a reminder – there are 3 days left to enter to win one of the 4 different 1 Year Anniversary Giveaways on my food blog.  Monday, March 21 is the 1 year anniversary of the start of my food blog and at midnight on Monday, the giveaway ends.  Here are the four giveaways:

1  a Pampered Chef product of your choice from my stock on hand

2  a Dove Chocolate Discoveries product of your choice from what I have on hand

3  a treat of your choice from the recipes on the blog made by me

4  a cookbook of my choice

You can get up to 5 entries, here’s how:

1  subscribe to the blog (if you’re already subscribed then you already have an entry)

2  respond to this post and tell me which Pampered Chef product you would pick (assuming I have them all which I don’t)

3  respond to this post and tell me which Dove Chocolate Discoveries product you would choose (again assuming that I have them all which I don’t)

4  respond to this post and tell me which recipe you would like me to make for you

5  respond to this post and tell me what new cookbook you’ve got your eye on

GOOD LUCK and thanks for checking out my blog!

Shepherd’s Pie

by penji1

This recipe came to me in an email from Food Network, by Melissa d’Arabian.  It is easy to make but time consuming however you can tell by the taste (which was excellent) that it was made from scratch and slowly.  I read online that this actually isn’t truly Shepherd’s Pie because Shepherd’s Pie has lamb in it, this is Cottage Pie which has beef but either way, it was delicious and worth the time it took to make.

garlicky potato topping:

4 large russet potatoes, peeled and quartered (my potatoes were small so I used eight)

10 whole garlic cloves, peeled (10 seemed like a lot so I just used 2)

1/2 cup sour cream

1/4 – 1/2 cup beef broth (I only needed the 1/4 cup)

4 tablespoons butter, softened

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

filling:

4 slices bacon, cut into thin strips (I just went ahead and used the whole package because what’s better than bacon?  more bacon!)

1 tablespoon oil (if you use the whole package of bacon, you won’t need this additional oil)

2 medium onions, chopped

1 teaspoon salt, divided

1 teaspoon sugar

1 pound ground beef

2 – 3 medium carrots, roughly chopped (about 1 cup)

3/4 cup frozen peas, thawed

2 garlic cloves, pressed

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 tablespoon flour

1 (12 oz) bottle light or dark beer (I used beef broth in place of the beer)

1/2 cup beef broth

1 teaspoon finely minced fresh rosemary leaves (I’m not a big rosemary fan so I left this out)

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/2 cup grated Swiss or Cheddar cheese

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves (left these out too)

Prepare potato topping:  In a large saucepan, add potatoes and garlic and cover with cold water.  Bring to a boil over medium heat and cook, uncovered, until potatoes are fork tender, about 15 – 20 minutes.  Drain.  Transfer potatoes and garlic to a large bowl.  Add sour cream, 1/4 cup broth, butter, salt and pepper and beat on low speed with a hand mixer until potatoes are light and fluffy, about 1 – 2 minutes.  If mixture is too dry, add remaining 1/4 cup broth.  Do not overmix.  Cover and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350.  Spray 10″ round baking dish with cooking spray.  (I actually had about 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef and the extra bacon so I knew a dish this size wouldn’t be big enough so I used my stoneware oval baker which was big enough to hold all the ingredients but during baking it overflowed and started a fire in the bottom of my oven so you might want to go with a bigger pan and also put a cookie sheet under it just to be safe.)

Prepare filling:  Heat a large skillet over medium heat.  Add bacon and cook, stirring occasionally until browned and almost crisp, about 7 – 8 minutes.  With a slotted spoon, transfer bacon to a plate and set aside.

Add oil to drippings in skillet (unless you used the whole pack of bacon in which case you won’t need any more oil) and put over medium heat.  Add onions and 1/2 teaspoon salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are very soft and just beginning to brown, about 10 minutes.  Sprinkle in sugar and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions begin to caramelize, about 3 minutes.  Stir in beef and cook, stirring occasionally, over medium high heat, until beef begins to brown, about 7 minutes.  Add carrots, peas and garlic and cook, stirring, until vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes.  Stir in tomato paste and flour and cook, stirring, until well blended, about 2 minutes.  Add beer, bring to boil and boil 3 minutes.  Cook, stirring with wooden spoon, scraping up browned bits from bottom of pan, about 2 minutes.  Add bacon, broth, rosemary, remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until sauce thickens, about 15 minutes.

Spoon meat mixture into prepared baking dish.  Spread potato topping evenly over beef mixture.  Bake until filling is hot, topping is lightly browned and edges are bubbly, about 35 minutes.  Remove from oven and sprinkle with cheese.  Return to oven for 10 minutes.  Let rest out of oven 10 minutes before serving.  Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Irish Soda Bread

by penji1

Happy St Patrick’s Day!  I am proud to have Irish ancestors who came to America during the Potato Famine so we had a big Irish feast here tonight in honor of those ancestors.  I got this recipe from Bob’s mom who as far as I  know is not Irish.  🙂  It is quick, easy, smells so yummy while baking and tastes delicious!

2 cups flour

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons butter

2 eggs, divided

3/4 cup buttermilk (or 1/4 cup vinegar plus 1/2 cup milk)  (I bought real buttermilk for this recipe and it tastes so much better than the substitution of milk plus vinegar)

1/3 cup raisins (NO!)

Combine dry ingredients then cut in butter with 2 knives or pastry blender until crumbly.  Mix  1 egg and buttermilk together in separate bowl and then stir into flour just until moistened.  Stir in raisins.  Knead on floured surface 1 minute.  Shape into round loaf and place on greased baking sheet.  Cut a 1/4″ deep cross on top of loaf.  Brush all over with beaten egg.  Bake at 375 for 30 – 35 minutes or until golden brown.