Perfect Party Cake - TWD

This is quite the party cake. I will make this one again in a heartbeat. Carol of mix, mix, stir, stir chose this party cake. It is a white, lemony cake layered with raspberry filling. The frosting is made with a buttercream and topped with shredded coconut.

You can find the recipe HERE or on pages 250-252 in Dorie's cookbook. It really is not that difficult of a recipe to bake and put together.

I baked the cake in celebration of my friend's birthday. We went camping together and I brought it to the campsite. It seemed to be enjoyed by all. When I make it again I plan on using some other frosting though. The amount of butter used is literally shocking! I will also skip the coconut next time. I just am not a big fan. Other than these two minor issues, it is a great cake.

My VERY late Taste and Create

I need to apologize to Eat Me, Delicious. I am sorry for my tardiness for Taste & Create. I had such a hard time picking something to make from your delicious blog (I enjoyed your blog with all the pictures of your cat. We are big kitty lovers here and yours is adorable). There were so many potential choices that I wanted to make and narrowing down my pick was difficult. I have numerous bookmarked to make in the future. I actually did bake my selection on time but I didn't get around to posting it last week.

In the end I chose the Cinnamon Swirl Buttermilk Pound Cake. This is one fantastic recipe. I am a sucker for poundcake. But this specific poundcake is the absolute best I have ever tasted. Seriously. It was that good. It may not look like anything from my picture but we finished every last crumb. Please check out the link above for what the bundt cake should look like. Her cake looks wonderful and beautiful. Mine not so much!

I obviously didn't follow the recipe and tried to remove it from the pan way before it was ready to come out. I had to get my son to T-Ball practice and was rushing around. I tried to get it un-molded almost immediately upon taking it out of the oven. Big mistake. Huge. The cake came apart into numerous pieces. At the end of the day it really didn't matter though. It was so DELICIOUS! The boys loved it and my husband and I couldn't leave it alone. I will be making this one for my dad who is a poundcake hound as well.

Here is the recipe:

Cinnamon Swirl Buttermilk Pound Cake

Makes one 10 inch bundt cake, serving 12

Cinnamon Streusel Swir
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Buttermilk Pound Cake
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp finely grated orange zest
1 cup buttermilk

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 325F. Grease the inside of a 10 inch Bundt pan. Dust the pan with flour.

Make the Cinnamon Swirl:
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt, breaking up any large lumps of brown sugar. Add the melted butter and stir until blended and crumbly. Make the Pound Cake
3. Sift together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon into a medium bowl. Whisk to combine, and set aside.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium speed until very creamy, about 2 minutes. Gradually add the sugar and beat at medium-high speed until well blended and light, about 4 minutes. At medium speed, add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Beat in the vanilla extract and orange zest. At low speed, add the dry ingredients in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk in two additions and mixing just until combined.
5. Scrape half of the batter into the prepared pan and smooth it into an even layer. Sprinkle the streusel mixture evenly over the batter. Scrape the remaining batter on top and smooth it into an even layer.
6. Bake the cake for 65 to 75 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes (obviously this is so important!!).
7. Invert the cake onto the rack and cool completely.

My VERY late TWD

I am so behind!

I did make the pineapple dessert that was chosen by Andrea last week. I just didn't get around to posting it. The recipe can be found HERE or on page 293-295 in Dorie's cookbook.

This recipe was extremely time consuming. Not hard. Just took me a long time to make. And 3 hours in the oven with weather being 90+ degree heat plus high humidity that day was just awful. And the broiling of the pineapple and toasting of the coconut was just not my cup of tea. But my husband thought that it was one of the best desserts that he has eaten. In fact, he said that he is "in love" with this dessert. I really did not think that it was that good. Too sweet. Maybe I am just not that "in love" with pineapple as he is.

Unfortunately to Ben's dismay, I don't think that I will be making this one again.

Coming VERY soon: My late Taste & Create submission!

You Capture. Emotion

When I saw that the challenge for this week was emotion I immediately wanted to capture my almost 3 year old having a meltdown and throwing a tantrum. Which has been happening quite frequently at our house as of late.

But every time we are in the midst of an all out meltdown I forget to take a picture. I guess that is the farthest thing from my mind at the time! Maybe I will get one sometime today and add it?! But hopefully there won't be any tantrums today....Yeah....right.

Here is a picture of my oldest son, Brock. We went to the zoo a couple of weeks ago (I guess I cheated because it was in my archives) and I wanted to ride the sky glider. He was not in the mood and thought that it looked scary. We had to bribe him with riding the train afterward. He reluctantly agreed and had a blast. This picture shows his emotions of excitement, happiness and pride of his accomplishment. I think that we will be riding the sky glider every time we go to the zoo from here on out.

Be sure to check out Beth's site for everyone's You Caputure shots!

Jambalaya with Shrimp and Turkey Sausage - CEiMB

I have never eaten jambalaya until this evening. But I was excited to make it because it has lots of good stuff that I like. Rice. Shrimp. Ham. And Ben loves tomatoes so I had high hopes for this recipe. After reading the Tell All I decided to substitute Italian Turkey Sausage for the ham after someone suggested it. I love turkey sausage as well and though that it sounded good.

The recipe can be found HERE. It is a really good one. There are plenty of spices that give it a little zip but not too much zip that your mouth is on fire. After reading some of the reviews on the recipe others thought that it was bland and needed something else. I am not sure if my spicier turkey sausage gave it that or not. But I thought it had plenty of spice. I also liked that the boys ate a little of it too. They sure didn't scarf it down but they certainly tried it and are getting more daring. They actually liked the turkey sausage much better before it went into the jambalaya.

Ben thought that it was good and Ellie was another winner in our house again tonight. He is even looking forward to the leftovers for his lunch tomorrow. Check out what all the others Elliers did with jambalaya too.

Next Thursday: Vegetable Cheese Strata (another new thing for me!)

Honey Peach Ice Cream - TWD

This is a really bad picture and it does not do this ice cream any justice! We really enjoyed this honey peach ice cream in delicious, crunchy sugar cones. YUMMY!

Tommi from Brown Interior was the recipe chooser this week. It was a good choice. I just wish that it would get a little warmer here to really enjoy ice cream outside. You would think it was the beginning of fall with the awful weather we have been having. At least get to 70, please. I shouldn't complain though because yesterday was 80. I just wish it would stay like that.

You can find the recipe HERE or on page 437 in Dorie's cookbook.

Double Chocolate Pudding Pie - CEiMB

I was late for TWD and I am late again for CEiMB. What a slacker I am!! But this was actually made on Thursday. I just didn't get around to eating, taking photos or posting about it until Friday and today. Better late than never.

This pie was chosen by Tessa at Handle the Heat. When CEiMB was in the beginning stages the banana cream pie was chosen. I think this chocolate pie of Ellie's was better than the banana cream one. Both of them are a tad gelatiny for me though. It is not bad...but I am certainly not running to the refrig to eat the leftovers!

You can find the recipe HERE or HERE. Be sure to check out all the other CEiMB participants as well.

The only modifications that I did to the recipe was substitute dark chocolate cocoa powder and used 1.5 cups of 2% milk and 1/5 cups of skim.

You Capture. Nature

I took all these nature pictures while we were out for a bike ride with the kids tonight. Sorry there are so many. I had a hard time deciding which ones I liked the best.

Make sure to head over to Beth's to see how everyone else captured 'nature' this week.

Parisian Apple Tartlet - TWD

I am late with this one. I realize that today is Wednesday, not Tuesday. We have been so busy with last day of school stuff, cleaning the house, etc. I made this tonight.

The recipe was chosen by Jessica from My Baking Heart. You can find the recipe HERE. Her pictures are great and her tartlet looks fantastic.

My tartlet was not so pretty. I went with a puff pastry made from scratch. I really wish that I would have just used the store bought stuff though. I may try this again at some point. It was really simple and would be so easy just to put together with some frozen Pepperidge Farm puff pastry some night after dinner. I used this recipe for puff pastry that I found from reading the TWD P&Q. It was OK. Maybe a little bland and very greasy right after removing it from the oven. I had to place the tartlet on a paper towel to attempt to remove some of the grease. I also read the directions wrong and cut my fuji apple into smaller pieces than necessary.

This would have been better if I hadn't of run out of vanilla ice cream to put on top. Ben didn't care for it. My sister and her boyfriend thought that it was good. They gave it a 7 or 8 rating out of 10.

Greek Celebration Bread

This bread is also known as Artos bread. It was the 2nd bread that was baked for the BBA Challenge. Some who made the bread got really fancy and put dried fruit or nuts in it. Some made theirs into fancy braids. I just stuck with the plain version.

This was really fun to make and I have discovered that I enjoy making bread. I made it last weekend and determined that I should have halved the recipe. This makes a huge loaf of bread. It was monstrous! I put together the poolish the night before as the starter. It is a sweeter bread with a bunch of spices (cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg) and honey. I brushed the top of the bread when it came out of the oven with honey, lemon and sesame seeds.

The bread was delicious. It was soft and worked perfectly for french toast that the boys inhaled. Everyone really liked it.

This weekend I may attempt to make bagels. We'll see?

You Capture. Feel.

Check out how all the others captured 'Feel' at Beth's. There are some really good ones!

Cinnamon Squares - TWD

Cinnamon squares while baking = house that smells like a Yankee candle factory!

These cinnamon squares are wonderful! Not only did they make my house smell divine while baking but everyone really enjoyed them. Especially Brock, who inhaled them. He even requested that I make this "cake" for his birthday! I was quite surprised that he liked them as much as he did. There was a lot of cinnamon and coffee flavor. Especially for a 5 year old.

Tracey from Tracey's Culinary Adventures was the TWD chooser this week. I'll admit that I wasn't too excited to make these cake squares. I didn't think that the picture in Dorie's cookbook (pages 210-211) did them justice. But, they sure were a hit.

This recipe is easy and doesn't require a lot of thinking. Just the kind of recipe I really like. I used a mixture of semi-sweet and bittersweet chocolate throughout.


Next Tuesday: Parisian Apple Tartlet

Chicken Turnovers

I have had this recipe bookmarked for quite some time. I found it at 3 Sides of Crazy and thought that it looked fun and tasty. Tamy has her recipe posted HERE and I will also post it below.

Here is my salsa, guacamole, green onions, chicken and cheese.

I did find this recipe a little time consuming, probably because I had to make the guacamole, shred the chicken and roll out the biscuits before stuffing. Good thing that Ben agreed to help me or it would have taken me much longer.

Here are the turnovers almost ready to be cooked.

And the finished product!


Chicken Turnovers

2 cups shredded cooked chicken (I used a rotissiere chicken)

1 large bunch green onions, chopped
1/4 cup salsa
1/4 cup guacamole (see notes below)
1 can refrigerator biscuits, grand size
1 cup shredded shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine in large bowl the salsa, guacamole, green onions, chicken and cheese.

On a floured board between wax paper layers, roll out each biscuit to about double the original size. Fill each biscuit with chicken mixture and fold over into a moon shape. Press the edges firmly to seal. Bake 20 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with a side of sour cream and salsa for dipping.

For the guacamole, I searched for a simple one at FoodGawkr. I love this site! I used this recipe and made some modifications, such as halving the recipe. I also used regular salt instead of Kosher. It was good...but I prefer my own recipe that includes jalapenos and cheddar cheese. But for the turnovers and this recipe it was perfect.