A Fun Cake

Rocky Road Cake

1 box dark chocolate cake mix
1 tub chocolate frosting
2 cups mini marshmallows, divided
1 cup dry roasted peanuts, divided
1 cup miniature Hershey’s kisses

Bake cake according to box directions for a 2-layer cake. Cool completely. Frost as for 2-layer cake. Using ½ cup of mini marshmallows, outline a “road” across top of cake. Coarsely chop half cup of peanuts and “pave” the road. Mix remaining marshmallows, peanuts and all of kisses; press into frosting on cake, covering both top and sides. Serve and enjoy.

This is the recipe I had. My picture looks different than what you'd get if you made this cake, because I used a homemade chocolate frosting recipe. My chocolate frosting was much, much lighter in color than a store bought tub of frosting would be. But I think it tasted much the same, except for the fact that the store bought stuff tastes fake to me. But that's just my palate.

At any rate this is an easy recipe to make for a special occasion.

Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake

Graham cracker pie crust

7 oz package caramels
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1/4 cups pecans
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/4 cup milk
1 3 oz instant chocolate pudding mix
1/2 cup fudge topping

Melt caramels and evap milk, stirring constantly until smooth, approximately 5 minutes. Stir in pecans; pour into crust. Combine sour cream, cream cheese and milk in bowl or blender; process until smooth. Add pudding mix, blend again. Pour cream cheese mixture over caramel layer. Chill 15 minutes. Drizzle with fudge sauce. Chill 1 1/2 hours.

OK. Here's another one that sounded much better than it was in reality. If you should make this, serve it immediately and don't expect it to keep well in the fridge (or anywhere else, for that matter.) The pudding mixture did some major weeping overnight, and the fudge topping melted into it as well. This is why the photo looks really gross. I'd say skip the fudge topping and drizzle with just chocolate sauce, or a homemade chocolate glaze.

It was really simple to make though and would do for an emergency dessert.

Brownies

White Chocolate Brownies

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
6 oz white chocolate, chopped
or…white chocolate morsels
½ cup white sugar
½ cup butter, cut into pieces
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 oz milk chocolate chips

Topping
7 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 inch spring-form pan.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In saucepan over medium heat, melt white chocolate, butter and sugar until smooth, stirring constantly. Cool slightly, then beat in eggs and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in 6 oz milk chocolate chips. Spread batter evenly in pan, smoothing the top.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted 2 inches from the side of pan comes out clean. Remove from the over, sprinkle 7 oz of chocolate chips over surface, avoid touching the sides of the pan. Return to oven for 1 minute.

Remove from oven and, using the back of a spoon, smooth out the softened chocolate. Cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes, chill for 1 hour. Remove from pan, cut into thin wedges to serve.

These are quite rich, and always disappear when I take them anywhere. This is also the only brownie recipe I can make without ruining the brownies. I am a brownie making failure. But these are good and always turn out.

This recipe comes from a book called “1000 Recipes” by Martha Day. Believe it or not, the original recipe in the book did not say when to add in the flour mixture. I modified it a bit; in the book it calls for nuts and a milk chocolate topping. I am the only one in our household who enjoys nuts in things. Plus I make these for my Wednesday night teen class at church and one young lady is deathly allergic to nuts in any form.

Also; the topping is supposed to be made with milk chocolate and the semi-sweet chips are supposed to be in the mix, but I switched them. I tried using milk chocolate chips as the topping, but they wouldn’t spread; they just clumped and tore up the brownie as I tried to spread them. The semi-sweet chips melt and spread much more smoothly on top.

More apples

Another good-sounding recipe gone awry. Here's the recipe first:

Caramel Apple Strata

2 cups packed brown sugar
½ cup butter, cubed
¼ cup corn syrup
3 large apples, peeled and chopped
2 Tbs lemon juice
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp apple pie spice
6-8 slices day-old cinnamon bread
½ cups chopped pecans
10 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

In small saucepan combine the brown sugar, butter and corn syrup. Bring to boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Set aside.

In a small bowl, combine apples, lemon juice, sugar and pie spice. Arrange half of bread slices in greased 13-in x 9-in baking dish. Spoon apples over bread; drizzle with half of caramel sauce. Sprinkle with pecans, top with remaining bread.

In large bowl, combine the eggs, milk, salt and vanilla. Pour over top. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Cover and refrigerate remaining caramel sauce.

Remove strata from the fridge 30 minutes before baking. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 50-55 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting.

In a small microwave safe dish, heat reserved caramel sauce, uncovered, for ½ minutes or until heated through. Drizzle over strata.

This sounded really good; layers of caramel-y bread, apples...etc. It did not work out in theory as easy as the recipe makes it sound.

For one thing; I couldn't get the "caramel" to caramelize. Maybe it was just me. I'd never tried to make my own caramel. I cooked and stirred for 20 minutes just to see if the brown sugar would ever dissolve and become smooth; nope, never did. Argh! I drizzled it anyway.

I must not have baked it quite long enough, or something, because it was rather smooshy inside. Hubby liked it well enough, but since we only eat 2 pieces per day, (if that) it got really rubbery by the time there wasn't much left of it. I'll likely never make this again either. Maybe only if I am entertaining a big bunch of people and they will consume it all in one meal.

A Fall Treat

Pumpkin Muffins

½ cup butter, softened
¾ cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1/3 cup molasses
1 egg, room temperature, beaten
1 cup cooked or canned pumpkin
1 ¾ cups flour
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp grated nutmeg
¼ cup raisins

Preheat over to 400 degrees. Use 14 greased muffin cups, or papers.

Cream butter, add sugar and molasses and beat until light and fluffy.

Add egg and pumpkin and stir until well blended

Sift flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg. Fold in just enough to blend, do not overmix.

Fold in raisins.

Spoon batter into muffin cups, fill ¾ full.

Bake for 12-15 minutes until the tops spring back when touched lightly. Serve warm or cold.


Delicious. These are a great fall treat.


NOTE: Well, for heaven's sake. I know I took a picture of these, but I can't find it now. I guess a muffin looks like a muffin. Trust me, they were good. I frosted them with plain cream cheese frosting.

Cookie Fun

Here's a fun one if you have kids.

An Edible Puzzle

16½ oz tube of sugar cookie dough
1/3 cup of flour


Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a rimless baking sheet with parchment paper.

Knead flour into sugar cookie dough. Reserve half of dough for late use. Roll the dough on a floured surface to a ¼ inch thickness, then cut it into three approximate 4-inch squares.

Place the squares onto the baking sheet and chill them in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.

Bake the cookies for 10 minutes.

Remove the cookie sheet and slide the parchment paper onto a counter or cutting board.

Push the cookie cutters into the dough. (Warning, it will be HOT!) Be sure to cut cookie all the way through.

Slide the paper back onto the sheet and bake for 2 more minutes.

Let cookies cool.

To frost:

Thin a cup of white frosting (I used my homemade cream cheese and it worked just fine) with a small amount of water (I used milk) until it’s the consistency of honey. Divide into small bowls and stir in desired food coloring.

Frost cookies with a paint brush.


My alterations here; I don't have a cookie sheet without sides, so I just cut the cookies on the parchment paper on the sheet. It worked just as well.

I also was a bit more creative with my shapes. Instead of just squares I cut out a green grass bush for the bunny adn an oval for the teddy. It also worked as well. The only thing is that I didn't have a leaf cookie cutter for the apple, so when I attempted to cut one out, it didn't work. As in, it wouldn't come out of the puzzle. But it still tasted as well.

More Strawberries

Chocolate Cream Cheese Strawberry Pie

3 squares (1 oz each) semisweet chocolate, divided
1 tablespoon butter
1 9” pastry shell, baked
2 3 oz packages cream cheese, softened
½ cup sour cream
3 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
3-4 cups fresh strawberries, hulled
1/3 cup strawberry jam, melted

To melt chocolate; in a glass jar or cup place 2 ounces chopped chocolate and butter, set glass into pan of hot water, stir chocolate and butter until smooth. Spread or brush chocolate mixture over the bottom and up the sides of the pastry shell. Chill.

Meanwhile, in a bowl, beat the cream cheese, sour cream, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Spread the cream cheese mixture over chocolate layer; cover and chill for 2 hours.

Arrange strawberries, tip end up, over the filling. Brush strawberry jam over the fruit. Melt remaining chocolate and drizzle over all.
This got two thumbs up from the husband. It's really good, and as I said before I prefer the chocolate in this recipe over the chocolate in the previous recipe. I do have to add that I prefer the strawberry/water puree from the other recipe as a glaze. Using jam seems like cheating to me for some reason. But that's just my preference.

Ellen, the 3 yr old, loved helping with this recipe, especially licking the spoon after I'd melted and brushed the crust with the chocolate. But she also loved helping glaze the berries.

Strawberries

This one will be familiar to those who read my other blog, but I figured there's no rules here for reposting from blog to blog. I got this recipe this year from a different blogger, The Lumberjack's Wife. It's easy and fun for kids to help with.

Chocolate-lined Strawberry Pie

Ingredients:
Graham cracker crust
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips(ish)
2 tblsp butter(or so)
1/4 cup whipping cream(about)
1 tablespoon light corn syrup(give or take a little)
8 cups strawberries(or more if ya want), stems removed
2/3 cup water
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch

Now, for the directions:

Melt chocolate pieces and butter over low heat;set aside.

In a heavy saucepan stir together whipping cream and corn syrup. Bring to a gentle boil. Reduce heat and cook 2 minutes. Remove from heat; gradually stir into choc mixture. Cool to room temp. Spread cooled choc mixture over the bottom and sides of the crust; set aside.

In a blender combine 1 cup of the strawberries and the water. Cover and blend till smooth.

In a saucepan combine sugar and cornstarch. Stir in pureed berry mixture. Cook and stir over med heat till mixture is thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir for 2 minutes more. Cool for 10 minutes without stirring.


Arrange half of the remaining strawberries, stem end down, in crust. Carefully glaze thickened mixture over fruit, thoroughly covering each peice of fruit.

Arrange remaining berries over first layer. Glaze these berries as first layer. Chill for at least 2 hours before serving. Enjoy!

The only thing I'd say about this is that the chocolate tastes kind of diluted; more like those fake chocolate candies you get at holiday times.

I found the answer to that in a second strawberry pie recipe, which I will post tomorrow, if I remember. HA.

Something Sweet for the Crepes

Berries’n Cream Crepe Filling

4 cups fresh berries, (slice strawberries)
2 Tblsp sugar
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
¼ cup lemon juice
½ cup whipping cream, whipped
12 dessert crepes
Whipped cream for garnish
12 whole berries for garnish

Sprinkle sliced berries with sugar and set aside. Beat condensed milk with lemon juice until thick. Fold in berries and whipped cream. Divide between crepes and fold. Garnish with additional whipped cream and a berry centered on cream.

Note: 20 oz frozen berries can be substituted for the fresh berries. Drain off juice and omit the sugar.


I used my own raspberries from the freezer. This was delish...super-rich. Hubby said that at first he thought he'd eat 2 of them, but by the time he finished the first one he didn't need another.

I'd never beated sweetened condensed milk before, nor even thought of mixing it with whipped cream, but it was really good. And would likely be good used with other desserts as well.