Coffee Cake Deliciousness

While getting online last night for something...I ended up completely distracted and found myself reading this recipe for Coffee Cake! How these things happen I don't know, but in this case im glad they did! Matt finished tucking the kids in while I preheated the oven and gathered the ingredients. Then while he was off to 7-11 for a little treat for us (don't be too excited, a treat for us now is a large coke!). During that time I was able to whip this recipe up and have it in the oven!

So much crumble! And I got to use my new spring form pan too!! 

To make 

1.  Preheat oven to 350°f and grab a big bowl. Mix together 2 cups flour, 1 cup & 2 tbsp sugar, and 1 tsp salt. Then slowly cut in 1 ½ sticks (at room temp, so I popped mine in the micro for about 10 second after taking them out of the fridge). Once it crumbly scoop out 1 cup of it and set it aside.

2. Then add 1 tsp baking powder and ½ tsp baking soda. Stir that up and add 3/4 cup of buttermilk (or as I always do: put 1 tbsp of vinegar into a measuring cup and fill to 1 cup line with milk and let it set for 5 minutes), 1 egg, and 2 tsp vanilla extract. Then using a mixer, mix together for a couple minutes until very smooth. 

3. You'll want to make this in a spring form pan, so make sure to grease it and then toss in some flour over the oil/butter/Pam to coat it, don't forget the sides!. And pour your cake batter in. 

4. Take the cup of the flour mixture you set aside and add to it 2/3 cup of brown sugar and 1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon. Mix it well then sprinkle it on top of the batter. You will want to press it into the batter so it sticks to it. Then into the oven it goes! 

5. I'll apologize now for this grueling wait of 50-60 mins while it cooks! Its miserable with the sweet aroma of cinnamon and brown sugar wafting throughout the house! But once its done, test with toothpick, take it out and let it set for at least 10 minutes. Then take out of spring form pan. I couldn't wait after this, I ate it right away! Haha! 

This was great piping hot last night and then this morning with my coffee. After Matt gobbled down his piece he turned to me and said he could not believe that I had just made and thought MAYBE I had bought it and just warmed it in the oven hehe! 

So even if its the day before grocery shopping after 2 weeks of eating the fridge and pantry clean, you can probably scrounge up the ingredients for this impressive little cake! 

Ingredients: 2 cups flour, 1 cup & 2 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1¼ stick butter, 1 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp baking soda, 3/4 cup buttermilk, 1 egg, 2 tsp vanilla extract, 2/3 cup brown sugar and 1 tbsp ground cinnamon - oil/Pam to grease pan and flour

Cupcake Carrot Cake

YES! Cupcake Carrot Cake! Its cold over here, I want it to smell like cold weather...nutmeg, cinnamon, apples cooking, fresh breads, brown sugar! So I whip out my old recipe Carrot Cake, and I say "old" as in I made this 2 years ago...once. ENJOY the "vintage"! But it turned out really good a second time. And I had some left over brown sugar frosting that is like heaven, oh my god I cannot emphasize how good it is. I must throw it back in the freezer before I start eating it by itself! 

The recipe for these are actually very simple. And I only used a cupcake tin because I'm planning on saving them for breakfasts to have with my coffee.

The recipe goes:

1. In a BIG bowl, whisk up the 4 eggs and then add in the wet ingredients (eggs, 1 ¼ cup oil, 2 teaspoons vanilla, and 2 cups sugar (I use a cup of light and a cup of brown). In a different bowl mix together the dry ingredients: 3 cups flour, 2 teaspoons each baking soda/powder, ½ teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg) *Start preheating oven at 375°F, it'll need at least 30mins on preheat.

2. Once you have your ingredients, pour them into the big bowl and mix them together.

3. Add into the big bowl, 3 cups of grated carrots (I cheated and just put them through the food processor)

4. Once everything has had a good mixy-mixy put into cupcake wrapper lined cupcake tins.

5. Bake for about 20 mins. Check by inserting a toothpick in the middle of one and seeing if it comes clean. If you use this recipe for a cake you need to pour batter into a greased baking pan and bake 40-50 mins.

For the Brown Sugar Frosting:

(I actually had some of this hiding away in the freezer, so I didn't have to make it right away, I just let it defrost about 20 mins. It probably would have thawed quicker had I thought to put it on top of the warm oven before instead of now!)

1. Melt in a pot ½ cup packed brown sugar (light) with 3 tablespoons butter. Let it come to a boil for 1 minute then remove from heat and allow to cool.

2. Once cool, add in ¼ cup of milk with a mixer. Then slowly start mixing in 2 cups of powdered sugar. Mix it until its a frosting-ey consistency. 


Ingredients Cake: 4 eggs, 1 1/4 cup of veg. oil, 2 cups sugar (I used half brown sug, half reg. sugar), 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg  Frosting: ½ cup brown sugar, 3 tablespoons butter, ¼ cup milk, and 2 cups powdered sugar



Want more cupcake recipes & ideas, look no further:
Rainbow Cupcakes
Halloween Cupcakes
Hello Kitty Cupcakes

White Chocolate Mocha

As mentioned in my last post we will be headed to Portland this weekend for my sister in laws wedding! So as i'm planning ahead for the grueling 10.5hr drive turned 12hr+ (kids!) i'm thinking of two things: Food and Drink! Yesterday we made some beef jerky and got the snack part taken care of, so now it came down to drinks. While chatting with my esposo about bringing our own coffee and a cute little container with creamer and snatching some little packets of sugar, my idea was quickly vetoed! :( He wanted Starbucks. Um, excuse me honey, remember that time when we were on a budget...its still that time. So....being the ever so thrifty, clever, wonderful wife I am, I went straight to Google to find a copycat recipe. There were actually SO many, I liked this girls because she used to work there, and therefore I trust her taste buds (and the mug she used was like the cutest one I've ever seen and I totally want it!).

1. Since my coffee maker is set to make coffee automatically that part was already done. But you will need to make about 6 cups of coffee, make it strong! Then on the stove, over medium-low, warm 2 cups of milk. 

2. Warm the milk until it starts getting bubbles coming up on the sides of the pan. Then remove from heat. 

3. Add to the milk 1 cup of white chocolate chips! Just keep stirring until they melt completely, I ended up turning the heat back on the lowest setting, just be really careful because both the milk and chips can burn easily!

4. Pour in the mug about 8oz of coffee (which in my mug was about 60% of the way full) and then stir in the milk mixture the rest of the way (40%). I know these aren't very "technical terms" but since the coffee was already made and not the strongest pot I wanted to make sure I had enough caffeine to fuel me through the first day of school for Riley!

5. Top with whipped cream and chocolate shavings! (Luckily I had an old chocolate bunny left over from Easter in the candy basket I've hidden from the kids!) There you have it! Matt said it tasted really good and he would now prefer this over Starbucks!

♥  Just because I can: Here is our little Riley on his first day of 1st Grade with his own cup of coffee! *Wishing you the best day Bear!!* ♥

Ingredients: 6 cups strong coffee, 2 cups milk, 1 cup white chocolate chips and whipped cream, chocolate shavings (optional)

Check out my other coffee drinks:

Coffee in a French Press 

Vanilla Latte!

Quince & Apple Crisp

Just recently my mother in law bought me another piece of Le Creuset to add to my growing collection! We switched things up a bit by getting this Quince dish instead of the Caribbean color. I love how great they look together. I, of course, couldn't put it away without trying it out first, so for its first run I made my mother in laws Apple Crisp! -Which I can't believe isn't on my blog, I could have sworn it was!! I will throw in the recipe at the bottom just in case.

I might have been a little hungry for this piping hot crisp when I was snapping the shots but you kinda see the gorgeous quince yellow on the outside! 

My husband raved this was the best crisp I've made yet! Was it the new dish? Extra love? Hunger? I guess we will never know...

Recipe:
Apple, Pear or Peach Crisp

Place fruit, cut up into 8x8 pan ( I normally use about 4-5 apples for the 4 of us with no leftovers)
I like to sprinkle a little cinnamon and brown sugar onto the apples as well!

Mix together:

¾ c brown sugar
½ c flour
½ c Oats
¾ tsp cinnamon
½ c butter or margarine, melted

Bake at 375°f for 30 minutes.

Angel Food Cake

I've come to the conclusion that I *kinda* dug myself a little hole....but in a good way. See, the last two times when I got asked to bring snacks for bible study I went all out with White Chocolate Covered Pretzels and Homemade Soft Pretzels (Haha both pretzels, how funny!). So, for me to now bring something store bought, would be a little underwhelming. But I can honestly say that sometimes I REALLY need a kick in the bum to get off the couch and make something homemade! With all these fresh berries in season (and on sale I must add!) I had to make something I could top with them!

1. (I should preface that when I made these I was excruciatingly tired!) First, you will need to separate 12 egg whites (I froze the yolks in batches of twos) in a big bowl, add to the whites 1/3 cup warm water, 1 teaspoon of orange, lemon or vanilla extract (any will work), and 1½ teaspoons of cream of tartar. Whisk together until combined.

2. Once combined it should just be a bit frothy. Slowly sprinkle it in about 1 cup of sugar and beat at a medium speed. You're going to want to continue at a medium speed until you have medium peaks! Preheat oven to 350°f.

(medium peaks)



3. Then add in 1 cup sifted cake flour and 3/4 cup of sugar by sprinkling it on top and folding it on top until it is all combined. Pour into an ungreased angel food cake pan and bake for 35 minutes. (Since this part takes a bit, I was busy running around and didn't get a pic! Oops!) Once they come out of the oven, you'll need to flip the pan upside down so it can cool about an 1hr. This will make it nice and airy and not sticky (I learned the hard way :( wah.).

After you have these lovely little desserts (I used mini Bundt cake pans for a couple) top with whipped cream and fresh berries. Great for dessert or breakfast ;P Yum!

Lemon Tart

While cleaning up the yard yesterday I decided to pick some lemons and ended up getting two buckets full in the matter of minutes! To celebrate May, my birthday month, I'm going to be making everything lemon!

1. This recipe is done in two parts: crust and filling. We will do the crust first. You need 2½ cups flour, 1 stick 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, ½ teaspoon salt, 2/3 cup sugar, zest of half a lemon, and scrapings of 1 vanilla seed pod (I added drops of vanilla extract since I didn't have a pod.)

2.  Mix flour, butter, and salt on low.

Mix till it looks like sand.

3. In a different bowl mix the eggs with the sugar until combined. Then add in the vanilla and lemon zest, combine in. Then add the egg mixture in with the flour.

4. Once it forms a ball put in the fridge for an hour.

 

 

5. Next roll it out thin to make the crust. I was able to make two tarts from this. Preheat oven to

375°f.

 

 

6. Push it into the tart pan (I had pie pans only but it works all the same!) And I even had some scrapes for mini tarts for the kids! Cover with foil and pop into the oven for 20 mins to bake. Set aside to cool.

 

 

7. Now for the filling, you will need the zest and juice of 5 lemons, 1¼ cups heavy cream, 1¾ cups sugar, 9 large eggs. Preheat oven to 250°f.

8. Mix all the ingredients for the filling together in a glass bowl. Then place over a pot of boiling water until it reaches 140°f. Pour through a strainer.

9. Bake for 25mins. Take out and cool. (Luckily we had a tee ball game to help with this waiting process!!)

 

 

 

Mmm...dessert, breakfast who cares!! Enjoy ♥

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter Day Tiramisu

For Easter this year we headed up to Portland, Oregon to visit my sister in law and spend the week there for Riley's spring break. We lucked out and had the most beautiful weather! After not having my own kitchen I HAD to make something! So for dessert I made my first Tiramisu. I was really excited because Tiramisu is one of my favorites, but it seemed so daunting to make! Turns out its easy as pie, doesn't that always seem to happen?
 

1. I liked this recipe because its said to be from the actual restaurant Buca di Beppo, which has my favorite Tiramisu. In this recipe you actually make the "lady fingers" which end up looking like thin cakes. It makes things a lot easier to serve because its flat layers. So to make the lady fingers first you need 6 large beaten eggs and ¾ cup of sugar (sifted).(Now is a good time to preheat oven to 350°f) Then you will mix on high for 12-15mins. Being on vacation and feeling much like a fatty I decided to do it....by hand! It took about the same amount of time, maybe more towards the 15min mark, and I had to switch arms quite frequently. Your goal is to get it frothy and thick.
 
 

2. So here it is thicker and really frothy. You can see how sticks to the sides of the mixing bowl. (Of course I chose a bright pink Easter outfit that is reflecting in EVERY picture with this bowl!) Add in 1 cup flour, sifted, and stir it just until it is all blended together.
 
 

3. Make sure to butter your baking sheets. I experimented using one with butter and one with a Silpat and they turned out so much better on the Silpat! You can probably fit two of these thin lady finger cakes per baking sheet. Have them be about 6in. in diameter, but do leave space in between. Bake them for about 10mins.
 
 

4. The edges will just start to brown and they are done! Remove from the baking sheet and let them cool a minute or two. This recipes makes a lot of batter, so if you want to save some for next time you can. I made all mine and just used the good ones. You can cut the rest up for snacks or just toss it.
 
 

5. Now for the filling layer. In a large bowl, mix 1 lb. mascarpone cheese, ¾ cup powdered sugar, and 3 tablespoons of rum. You only need to mix till its all combined.

6. It'll look similar to cream cheese frosting but will smell and taste quite different ;)

7. In a shallow bowl combine 1 cup cooled espresso with 2 tablespoons rum. (Thank you Sergio for the wonderful espresso and café you made for us :)

8. I used a large round bowl to set the Tiramisu together in. You'll want to dip the little lady finger cakes into the espresso mix for just a couple seconds, no more than 3! They sog really easily. Its best to use a spatula. Then smear some of the mascarpone cheese mixture on top.

9. You're going to layer it cake then cheese, cake then cheese. The cheese layer will be last, so make sure not to run out!

 

10. Top with 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder and 2 crumbled up chocolate biscotti! Yay, so easy! I put mine in the fridge for a couple hours and there were some areas that didn't soak completely in the espresso that by the end of a couple hours it was all even. My bowl was a lot bigger than the cake so it looks really funny here, but the individual scoops look so pretty!

 

♥ Ta-da! So good!! Even Sergio, straight from Italy, said it tasted really good!! ♥

 

Rainbow Cupcakes

As a treat with the kids, we made some cupcakes and I thought it be really fun to do rainbow ones. Then I found some rainbow candy strips at the store and thought that'd be cute on top. Both ideas I saw on Pinterest, but *I* put the two together ;) These are supposed to be for St. Patrick's Day because the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow....get it? A lot of people didn't :( But hey, they turned out SUPER cute so I'm only the tiniest bit bummed!

1. You really just make a white cake, like this one from a box. (It says "White" on that little blue label the Pyrex is covering, cant you see?) It calls for 1⅓ cups water, ⅓ cups veg oil, and 3 egg whites. Mix that all together and then divide by however many bowls to make into different colors for the rainbow. I used 6!

2. For each one I added food coloring. I had my kids helping me so a couple extra drops got added here and there, but they were learning about color mixing so it was worth the educational experience!
(Drops) Red: 4red, Orange: 3yellow 2red, Yellow: 3yellow, Green: 3yellow 2blue, Blue: 3blue, Purple: 3red 2blue
(I'm totally guessing based on how I guessed when I originally mixed these, buts it'll give you an idea, ill write it down next time!)

3. This is the tricky part. I made 24 cupcakes and that really was pushing it. If you want this to be semi-easy I would try for 18 cupcakes. You could probably do a spoonful into each cup. So line your cupcake tins with however many cupcakes you want to make. Then you have scoop each color into the liner, color by color. It takes a while, I'm going to warn you.

4. Bake at 350°f for 18-24minutes. After 18mins mine were done. Just push the tops and make sure they bounce back. They came out surprisingly close to the color they were before baking!

I had some cream cheese frosting in the back of my pantry which went perfectly! Then I topped it with the rainbow candy I bought! (I've never looked for this specific candy before but I bought them at the gas station in case you're wondering)♥

Eat up!...

...and get more!


INGREDIENTS: box of white cake mix, cream cheese frosting, rainbow candy strips, food coloring, water, veg oil, eggs

 

♥ Happy St. Patrick's Day ♥

Boston Cream Pie

So, this is the recipe for the picture of the Boston Cream Pie I posted on Instagram a couple weeks ago. I was actually house sitting for my mother in law, so it was all made in her kitchen. We are still on the house hunt and I'm stuck in my tiny, natural light-less kitchen for now. But this recipe came about because someone had bought one of these for our Bible Study and I loved it. Like fell in love with it. I honestly cant remember actually ever eating Boston Cream Pie before, but maybe I just wasn't paying attention the name and just enjoyed the dessert!

(I kinda want to preface this recipe with, if you think this is like a cake or pie where you make the filling pour into a mold or crust and bake at 350°f for 15-20mins, this is NOT one of those recipes. This was really hard, and I would almost say no worth it to make yourself. Which sounds really bad, but I like to enjoy when I am bake something and this recipe was so stressful. I'm gonna have to say that next time my sweet tooth is calling out for Boston Cream Pie I'm probably driving 3 minutes down the street to Safeway and saving myself the agony of making one of these again.)

1. I am glad that I got this step done first, because the kitchen got messy! (Sorry Linda!!) You need two pie pans about 9inches or so, just make sure they are the same size. Take some butter and make sure they are really greased up, then sprinkle flour over and move the pans around so the butter part gets covered in flour!

2. Next, you're going to cream 6 tablespoons of butter and 3/4 cup of sugar till its fluffy. Then one by one, mix in 2 eggs, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Preheat oven to 375°f.

3. In a separate bowl mix together 2 tablespoons flour, 1 ½ cups cake flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, ¼ teaspoon salt. Then slowly add that to butter/sugar bowl, between adding the flour, mix in ½ cup of milk. Beat it until its a smooth texture between adding the flour and milk.

4. Pour half of the mix into one pie pan and the other half in the other pan. And into the oven they go for 15mins. If you press on the top of the cake, it should bounce back, then you know its done baking.

5. For the custard. In a pot pour in ½ cup light cream (I couldn't find any so I used half and half) and ¼ cup milk. Cook this on medium until little bubble starts coming up on the edges. Quickly add in 3/4 cup of sugar and stir it until it dissolves.

6. Now you'll whisk together ¼ cup of milk with 4 teaspoon of cornstarch, make sure there are no lumps.

7. Whisk in two eggs.

8. Whisking constantly, mix together the eggs/milk, with the hot milk/sugar and return to heat.

9. Once on the heat, slowly heat it up and stir, stir, STIR! I'm going to be totally and admit I had to throw this all out and redo it because it burnt! Once it starts clumping up, it just heated too fast and burnt on the bottom, and I was really stirring. So the next time I let it heat up a little slower and once it started boiling then I stirred it really fast and concentrated on NOT letting it burn. This is a little part of why I disliked this recipe :P Once its clumpy, add in 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and remove from heat.

10. Probably by now your timer for your cakes has gone off, unless you're really super fast with the custard part! So just let me cool, while you let the custard cool too. This would be a great time to get started on a chocolate frosting if you wanted to make one. You can see in the progression of the recipe, its gone from natural light outside to very dark night time, in total this whole recipe took me about 2 hrs!

11. Once everything has cooled down, take your pies/cake (whatever they are!) out of the pans and lay one down and cover it with the custard.

12. Take the other one and sandwich it! (I really smushed mine together after this)

13. Tah-dah! I wanted to get a nice shot of it sliced up and on a plate, but that is when my camera, of course, died. But there she is, the final product! Yum!!  ( I btw used a jar of chocolate fudge frosting I bought at the store hehe)