Archive for the ‘ cake ’ Category
We are all created with some gifts and talents. I have a passion for art and try to use the ones God gave me to glorify him. One of my gifts that I share with others is baking. A few years ago money was short and I felt very depressed that I could not give presents to all of my love ones. While planning the Christmas menu; the idea came to me. Bake enough cakes and create cake sample gifts. I baked fifteen cakes, cut slices of each flavor and mounted them all on decorative plates. Tossed decorative candies on top of the samplers. Covered with plastic wrap. Well, everyone was so pleased that I started doing that every Christmas and now they ask if I will be giving the cake sampler presents before Christmas even comes.
Here’s a list of some of the cakes that I baked.
Red Velvet
Italian Creme
Sour Cream Pound with brown sugar, butter and nut filling (may use blueberries instead of nuts)
Preserves Cake (using apricot, raspberry,strawberry,figs,pecans, orange or any preserves.
Chocolate Torte (use hazelnut)
Pineapple with Cream Cheese frosting
Maple Black Walnut (use real maple syrup from Maine)
Carrot Spice (use fresh carrots)
New York Style Cheese Cake
Marble
Ginger Bread
Lemon (Glaze with lemon icing)
Keeping Cake with cranberries and other fruit fillings(this cake keeps for many days)
Banana Cake with Banana Frosting
Simply Strawberry Cake (this is also a great summer dessert using strawberry jello)
Since I started this gift giving my baking quality has grown and so have my recipes.
There are so many ways to create beautiful and delicious cakes.
This is just a tip of the iceberg.
Happy Baking,
T Lowery
Have you seen the price of bread lately? It’s enough to make one wonder if it wouldn’t be cheaper to make your own. You know what? It is! For the cost of a typical loaf of bread (between $2-$4), you can make more than one loaf of homemade goodness. A large bag of bread flour can make quite a few loaves with a handful of other ingredients. You’ll need some yeast, salt, sugar, milk, water, oil and maybe an egg or two, depending on your chosen recipe.
When you’re at the grocery store, take a moment to look at the flour aisle. You’ll see cake flour, all purpose flour, whole wheat flour, and bread flour. Not all flours are created equal for every task. You may be tempted to grab the all purpose flour so you can use it for other recipes as well, but don’t do it. If you’re going to make bread, get the bread flour.
When making bread, there are a few things to keep in mind. Choose a basic recipe if you’ve never made bread before. Plan ahead. Read through the recipe a few times to familiarize yourself with the ingredients and the process. It is important to follow the recipe exactly.
Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature before you start. Yeast likes a warm environment. The measuring of dry and wet ingredients is of utmost importance to create a tender, tasty loaf. Pre-measure your ingredients if you find that helpful.
Follow your recipe exactly. If it says to mix the ingredients in a certain order, do it. Making bread is a science as much as an art, and if you want your loaf to turn out the same way every time, follow the directions to the letter!
When all your ingredients are mixed, it is time to knead the dough. You will need additional flour to spread on your counter and to dip your hands in so the dough doesn’t stick to you or the table top. Kneading is necessary to develop the gluten in the bread dough, mix in air for rising, and distribute the ingredients so the yeast can feed. Yes, the yeast actually feeds on the sugars in the dough, and creates a fermentation process, which enables the dough to rise properly. The biggest rookie mistake in bread-making is not kneading the dough long enough. Use a timer if you need it. You’ll want to knead the bread between 8-10 minutes.
When you are done kneading, form the dough into a ball and set in a greased bowl. Cover and let rest. Your dough will need to sit for 1-2 hours to rise. Make sure your kitchen is warm to aid the rising process.
At the end of this time, you’ll want to uncover the dough, punch it down, shape the dough how you want it be when you bake it, and cover it for another rising session. When it is done rising, it is time to bake. Pre-heat your oven before baking. Once your bread is done, let it cool completely before slicing.
Once you’ve mastered a basic bread recipe, you can make artisan breads, French bread, herbed breads, rolls, and more.
My grandmother had the Best Bread Pudding Recipe without a doubt. It is still one of my favorite desserts. Imagine my surprise on my first trip to New Orleans to discover all Bread Pudding is NOT alike!
There are actually several variations of this dessert. My grandmother’s version is a variation of a traditional dessert popular in British Cuisine. It is called bread and butter pudding and is often confused with bread pudding. Cubed bread is placed in a pan and then covered with an egg mixture to make a custard. After it is baked, the bread rises to the top to form a “crust” like topping. It tastes similar to French toast. The egg mixture forms a rich custard pudding at the bottom. Of course, my grandmother added her secret spices to give this a sweet nutmeg flavor. It is absolutely wonderful!
Louisiana bread pudding is made entirely differently and is just as good. The common ingredient is stale bread, but that is where the similarities end. The bread pudding consistency is similar to a moist cake and is warm served with a wonderful vanilla, whiskey, or rum sauce. The smell is heavenly and if you get a chance to visit New Orleans, this is a MUST have dessert that is served at most restaurants.
The following recipe, a specialty of my New Orleans sister-in-law, is a requested dessert at holidays, parties or any special occasion. The secret to this recipe is the bread. Stale french bread is the best. Use the long narrow loaves, if available. No matter what size pan she uses, it is always empty at the end of our family gatherings!
Best Bread Pudding Recipe
Ingredients
6 – 8 cups stale bread, broken in cubes
1 can evaporated milk
2 cups sugar
8 tablespoons butter, melted
3 eggs
2 tablespoons vanilla
1 large can fruit cocktail, drained
3/4 can condensed milk
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup raisins
Directions
Combine milks, butter, eggs, vanilla, sugar, nutmeg. Fold in bread and stir. Mixture should be very moist.
Add fruit cocktail and raisins. Mix well. Pour mixture into a 9×13 baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees approximately 1 hour or until top is golden brown. Serve warm with whiskey sauce.
Variations
You can leave out the raisins. Try adding blueberries, peaches, or apples.
Although my grandmother’s recipe is still one of my favorite desserts, I can truthfully say that this is the Best Bread Pudding Recipe – New Orleans Style!
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Plates are a type of dishware on which food is served, they are concave flat vessels, sometimes even rectangular. They are used in homes, in restaurants and even in parties for food reception. Plates are mainly made from different kinds of ceramic materials such as bone china, porcelain and stoneware, plastic paper or glass; There are many different types of plates available in the market today, some of which are dinner plates, salad plates, bread plates Bowls, soup bowls, cereal bowls, dessert bowls, saucers, platters and salvers. Today companies are finding innovative use of disposable plates, made from paper as promotional items.
Which is the most perfect way to serve dessert? If very normal types of cakes require no special plates to be served, there are cases when the cake plates have to match the cake style as such. The edges, the shape, the design, and even the size of the cake plates need to suit your culinary efforts. Smaller cake plates will by no means do for serving birthday or wedding cake, but they are definitely excellent for cookies. Generally speaking, there should be at least two types of cake plates in the house, some smaller and others larger, and sometimes it may not be a bad idea at all to also have some little bowls to serve jelly, ice cream and the like.
Besides the cake plates on which you serve dessert to guests, there are also the ones on which you store it, and these items are just as important. The variety of products now available on the market allows a very generous choice of models: thus, many people go for a covered storage container. Unlike other regular cake plates, such an item will preserve the cakes fresh, even when you have to transport it for instance to a party scene. The most common materials used for such cake plates include stainless steel and plastic, and they usually have handles for your better carrying the cake.
The easy and very comfortable replacements for cake plates are dessert cups, which often solve the dessert serving problem. Usually made of glass, these cake plates substitute are ideal when it is very difficult to cut the cake into slices or chunks. Keep in mind, that sometimes, depending on the cake you serve, the cake plates or the cups need to be cooled in the refrigerated or powdered with sugar. One doesn’t have to be a professional decorator in order to add a touch of inspiration to sweets: imagination could be your best friend for the matter.
Furthermore, all sorts of funny, but exquisite arrangements can be set. Thus, you can have two or three cake plates on which you build the pieces or the slices in the most fanciful of ways so that the pile should look good and appetizing. Sometimes, there are small cards with funny messages hidden in the pile, or you can try to use an unusual decorative pattern. Using cake plates in such ways will definitely make guests appreciate your elegance and imagination, not to mention that everybody will have their share of fun.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to pick up a cake at the ice cream store?” I ask my twenty-five-year-old son on the phone. He whines like a three year old. “You try to talk me out of it every year, Mom. I want you to make me an ice cream cake for my birthday. I want a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake. I’ve told all the guys in the band how great it is. C’mon Mom!”
He’s told all his friends. I thought he was over having birthday parties with his friends when he was ten, but apparently not.
In this day and age, it just seems wrong to make a homemade ice cream cake. There are beautifully decorated cakes in the freezer section of the grocery store, not to mention in the local ice cream parlor. I realize that making his ice cream birthday cake is more about reliving his childhood (I’ve made him ice cream cakes since he was two years old), and I recall baking and freezing a volcano ice cream cake that his friends talked about for years. He was so proud of that cake. (Not of his mom; of the cake.)
“How many friends are coming, Jake?” I ask him, knowing full well that he is going to tell me something like I don’t know, Mom. Can you make enough for twenty?
It was easy to make a cake for twenty little freckled faced boys with twenty pairs of dirt-riddled sneakers in the house when he was a kid. It was no problem dealing with the twenty little hands that hide twenty little boogers under the coffee table top instead of using a Kleenex. Twenty little gift bags full of plastic spiders and Jolly Ranchers. And twenty gifts that made Jake so excited that he had to run to the bathroom every fifteen minutes. Ahhh, those were the days.
A cake for twenty nowadays means two cakes in the freezer. This entails my husband taking out all the Lean Cuisines, frozen oat bread, pork chops, and something grey and hairy, and trying to stuff them into the extra fridge in the out building. (You know the extra fridge… It’s called the Extra Fridge because it costs an extra thirty bucks a month on the electric bill so he can store two six-packs of grocery store brand diet soda, an empty bottle of mustard, and two half-bottles of ketchup).
We take everything out of the freezer to fit the humungous birthday cakes for Jake. His birthday party is in the evening, so this requires appetizers as well. I pick up ten pounds of Buffalo wings for the band, and another five for the regular folk. My husband goes to Costco and purveys massive amounts of chips and soda. He also comes home with a five CD audio set of John Denver. “It’s for Jake.” I see through his bald faced lie. “Jake doesn’t like John Denver.” He smiles and takes the shrink wrap off the CD’s. “He doesn’t? Well I guess I’ll have to listen to them, then. I just hate waste.” (Guess he forgot about the Extra Fridge.)
So the cake is ready, the appetizers are in place, the soda is chilling, and there are piles and piles of chips and salsa on the table. The family begins to arrive and mill around while John Denver plays in the background.
Then we hear the tell-tale backfire. We look out the window and watch as the primer-gray serial killer van pulls up. With a little banging and coaxing, the van’s side door opens and out tumbles Jake. (The driver door hasn’t worked since the Great Wal*Mart Parking Lot Incident of ‘06.) Then the real show as the van begins to mime the capacity of a clown car; band member after band member emerges with some kind of instrument in hand. The van just doesn’t look big enough to hold them all. Yes, Jake is right. There are twenty of them, and they are all heading toward the door. (Except the one who stops by my maple tree and begins to “water” it. He must be the drummer.)
Twenty pairs of dirty Converse sneakers, twenty spiked up, multi-colored hair-dos (or hair-don’ts… depending on how you look at it, I guess…), and twenty outlandish outfits that I think their sisters should be wearing. I have to blink because at that moment I see Jake and his friends as ten-year-olds again. It just happens that these ten year olds eat gobs more and are a lot louder.
“Hey Mrs. M,” shouts Jake’s lifelong friend, Sam. “Did you make one of your awesome ice cream cakes?”
“No, Sam, I made two.”
“Right on,” he casually replies as he beelines past me for the ranch dip and the Fritos.
By night’s end, the house has transformed into a waste site filled with dip-smeared paper plates, empty chip bags, and enough aluminum soda cans to build a Toyota. There are also smashed chips in the carpet, and droopy Mohawks on these future captains of industry. I also find it amusing to see the boys listening to John Denver with Jake’s Dad. Jake actually looks interested in what my husband is saying. I think they actually like John Denver.
The band isn’t so bad; they sing and play a punk-reggae-fusion version of Happy Birthday for Jake. And as the party wound down, Jake came over to me and gave me a big hug. “Thanks Mom for making my cake. And thanks for letting the band come, too. You’re a great Mom.”
It was all worth it until next year.
Ice Cream Cake Recipe
2 boxes of cake mix (any flavor)
2 to 3 containers of Cool Whip
1 gallon of ice cream in a rectangle box (any flavor)
2 to 3 cans of frosting (any flavor)
Make the cakes as directed on the box, use two 9 x 12 pans to bake the cakes. Let the cakes cool. Put one of the cakes on a covered with foil cookie sheet. Open up the ice cream box completely so that you have a brick of ice cream and slice the brick into 6 even slices. On the top of the first cake, lay each ice cream slice on top of the cake, side by side so that it covers the whole top of the cake and pinch each slice into the next so you have a solid layer of ice cream. Next, take a half of a can of frosting and spread it over the ice cream evenly. Try to do the frosting quickly because the ice cream will begin to melt. Next, use one of your Cool Whips and spread half the container on top of the frosting and spread evenly. Now take your second cake, and lay it over the top of the ice cream/frosting/Cool Whip layer. Cover in saran wrap and stick it in the freezer for an hour.
After freezing for an hour take the cake out and completely frost the whole cake. After frosting the cake, put a whole nice thick layer of Cool Whip over the frosting as if the Cool Whip is the frosting. Then put back in the freezer for eight hours.
When you serve, pull cake out of freezer about 15 minutes before slicing.
This cake will serve 12-24 people depending on how you slice the pieces, or how big the band is!