yes

I have been baking although it's been horribly hot. How do I manage to do this? It's called sweating;)
So what have I baked? Of course, the "usual" brownies. I've added overripe bananas to the batter but later it's been a straight forward stick by the recipe baking. Oh, wait, not quite true. I have been melting bits of baking chocolate and using it in the batter. I have bits and pieces of baking chocolate that don't really add up to make a whole recipe, but a little extra chocolate is always good.
I made a strawberry swirl cake for my beloved. Instead of using a cake mix and Jello, I tinkered with Trisha Yearwood's recipe for key lime cake. I used the Jello to flavor the whole cake. I cooked some frozen and fresh strawberries into a puree and strained them.
I had reserved some cake batter after putting most of the batter in the pans. I mixed the puree strawberries into the reserved batter to give it an extra taste of strawberries. I was a little apprehensive that since I messed with the proportions of liquids, the cake wouldn't rise properly or taste okay. I topped it with a vanilla buttercream frosting.
My beloved said it turned out great. I had a piece of it today and I liked it. But honestly I love chocolate cake.
Besides baking my honey a cake, I baked a birthday cake for my "baby" boy who just turned 29. Last year, he picked the Cheeto cake that shows up as the photo on the blog. This time, he wanted a chocolate cake. So I lucked out, made his cake and got a slice of chocolate cake.

cake saw in use

Will trying to keep all his cake to himself

I bought the cake saw and really like it. I have a few photos of Will cutting the cake, but this is the only one that didn't turn out blurry because of his speed to cut it. 









This is Will in an attempt to make sure no one else will eat his cake. It failed miserably because we still ate a slice. I should have swiped a slice before he took it home, but didn't think about it. oh well.

I have to admit, I did enjoy baking a cake for my brother and sister-in-law. My brother wanted me to knock it off as my sister-in-law is diabetic and should watch her cake eating. I did make her a coconut cake for her birthday.
I should make my brother a pineapple upside down cake for his birthday. He likes that and his birthday isn't that far away. Chocolate cake is the usual tradition for siblings, but why not a pineapple upside down cake? It's his birthday.
Anyway, that's what I have been up to lately, Trying to stay out of trouble and the heat and just baking now and then. I think I would love to open a bakery but I don't honestly know if I could do that much work.  I'd like to believe it's all just baking and the customers will flock in. But I do know it's a lot more complicated than that.  I should research it more to really see if I could manage to work more baking into my life. Maybe I should find a family to bake for? hmmmmmm

whoopie pies

I'm not entirely with it, I think. Maybe it's because I think I should be on summer vacation, maybe it's brain fog, maybe.....I just don't know....
But I reviewed a book for Amazon

 and actually made whoopie pies.... so I thought I'd share a few photos with you. The recipe was quick to put together and used ingredients you most likely already have. They do suggest you use parchment paper and I have to agree - it makes the clean up so much easier.
My beloved loved them (after they were out of the fridge. I stuck them in the fridge to begin with because I was tired and it was late). My younger son and my youngest sister also gave them the thumbs up. So if you like whoopie pies, this is a shameless plug  for the book. Nope, I don't get a kickback from the authors. However, if you do use the link I provided, Amazon pays me a referral fee from the cost of the book.
They have a lemon whoopie pie that looks interesting. I think the next time I make the whoopie pies, I'll use more instant coffee. These were supposed to be mocha, but I didn't add enough instant coffee (what can I say, I don't like coffee). But next time I will.
I also made brownies this week. I did something a little different - I had left over vanilla mousse from my beloved's cake and I put a half a cup of it in the brownie batter. Again this is the  Hershey recipe with the exception I melt the butter and add the cocoa in it to give the cocoa a chance to bloom. The brownies seemed somehow richer, but not overly rich.

The mousse reminds me a bit of vanilla ice cream, but not frozen. I still have more left, I'm thinking of using it in the coconut cake I'm making for my sister-in-law today for her birthday. Maybe mix some coconut with it and use it as the filling between the first and second layer.
These are photos of my honey's birthday cake. It got eaten up relatively fast, believe it or not

The mousse reminds me a bit of vanilla ice cream, but not frozen. I still have more left, I'm thinking of using it in the coconut cake I'm making for my sister-in-law today for her birthday. Maybe mix some coconut with it and use it as the filling between the first and second layer. I used the mousse in the buttercream frosting I made for the cake.

This is how the filled cake looked when it was sliced. The mousse held up much better than the Baviarian cream has in the past.






_enjoy_

more disasters in cooking;)

Yup, it's true.  I had more disasters this weekend in cooking. But it happens to the best of us (and the worse of us, too).
Here's the latest. Every Memorial Day weekend Sunday, I make a big to do over the Sunday dinner. I know I'm not going to cook a big meal on Sunday until after Labor Day - and since it's my love's birthday weekend (usually), I try to make it special.
This time it was going to be roast chicken. I had a nice Purdue Oven Stuffer and I was looking forward to roasting and eating the chicken.
So I prepped the chicken and put it in my slow cooker. This slow cooker has a light on it so you know you turned it on and I made sure it was on. I baked some bread in the bread machine and it smelled pretty good. It didn't occur to me I couldn't smell the chicken. My sense of smell is not that good, but still......
About 7 hours later, I decided to remove the chicken from the slow cooker so we could eat supper. When I turned the chicken over (I roast mine breast side down so all the juices drip into the breast), I noticed the pop up timer was not popped up.  I thought that was weird. Than I stuck the chicken with a fork. It was still raw inside. Definitely not cool.
I debated whether to try and nuke it or put it in the oven, but my fear of having a chicken sitting out on a very warm day and the chicken stayed raw made me decided to trash the chicken as well as the slow cooker. I was not a happy camper, I had to rustle up some canned chicken breast and make a quick chicken and rice dish. Not what I wanted, but what could I do? Just the thought of eating that chicken turned my stomach, so I figured it wasn't worth it. 
Now my slow cooker has died without even giving me a warning. I got to start the process of finding another slow cooker. If anybody's got any suggestions on brands or types of slow cookers, I'd be glad to hear them. 

But I do have photos of my love's birthday cake. It turned out fine the second time around.

Betty & Pam save the day

Yesterday, I decided I would make my love's birthday. It's a filled cake, I'm sure I described it before. Last year, I used a sort of delicate vanilla cake and it didn't stand up to the Bavarian cream. So I decided to make a few changes this year - going with vanilla mousse with strawberries in it and a sturdier cake.
I decided to try a cake from an ancient recipe (okay, it's older than me so that makes it pretty old;)) and I should have know I was in troble when it called for 4 teaspoons baking powder. Just because a recipe is in an old cookbook doesn't mean it's good. Plus the page was completely clean, no evidence the recipe had ever been used. I baked the cake (40 minutes at 375 degrees - not kidding, 375 degrees). First, it took longer than 40 minutes to bake all the way through. Okay, strange, but maybe some weirdness.
But to depan it! well, I throrougly  greased the pan with Crisco. The filled cake pans are a little weird and I thought I'd go that route. The cake would _not_ come out of the pan. I tried the few tricks I knew to depan a cake, but it didn't work. So when the pan finally released, a good portion of the cake stuck to the pan.
Or maybe I should refrain from using the word "good". That cake was one of the driest cakes I ever made in my life - it was like a very stale generic yellow cake. My love suggested I cut it up, cover it with the mousse and it should work out. And probably he was right. But I said no, I'll make another cake. The birds were happy about that.
I turned to my buddy, Betty Crocker. I used the recipe for "Bonnie Butter Cake" and coated the pans with my other cooking buddy, Pam. The cake tastes great and depanned like a dream.
I got to finish adding strawberries to the mousse and make the frosting, But I just wanted to give a huge thank you to my cooking pals, Betty Crocker and Pam - they never let me down.

Misleading ad?

I get a lot of junk (snail) mail and today was no exception. There was an ad for Anne Byrn's  "The Cake Mix Doctor Deluxe Edition" for a free 21 day trial and a price of probably $34. There's 4 payments of $7.49 but that doesn't include shipping and handling.
I like Anne Byrn's books, I have three of them. And my beat up copy of  "The Cake Mix Doctor" was not the "deluxe edition". It had a completely different cover. So I was debating with myself did I _really_ want this book for that price.
Since the book is "not available in any store", I decided to try Amazon to see if that had it or if it was a brand new book. And here's what I found

Looks like the same book from the ad and most likely it is. I ordered it from Amazon because Amazon had a price I was comfortable paying. The front of the ad, where my address is, has "Postmaster Deliver 5/27/10 - 5/29/10" but I'm not sure why that particular time was specified. I got the ad on May 26, 2010.
I just wanted to alert any buyers out there about this book, Maybe somebody has purchased this particular edition from "Cake Mix Doctor, 33 E. Minor St, Emmanus PA 18098"  and can tell me a little about it. It could be different than the 2003 edition in Amazon's database. But somehow I doubt it.

McCormick rosemary roasted chicken spice package

I received the McCormick package of spices and the recipe for rosemary roasted chicken with potatoes from Gather yesterday. I decided I would try it today.
Most of the spices I would normally have on hand except for the coarse ground black pepper. I just don't normally use that much pepper. But this collection of premeasured  spices made it easy to put together this meal.
I didn't want to buy anything else to make dinner, so I used the white potatoes I had on hand in substitute for the small red potatoes. I washed the potatoes and cut them into 1  inch cubes. I mixed the ingredients in the olive oil as per the instructions. I mixed the chicken and potatoes, lined a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and placed in the oven.
While the meal was roasting, I managed to squeeze in a look at my mail and a quick shower. It was great not to stand over the stove to make sure sinner was cooked. I had to cook the food just a bit longer than what the recipe called for, but my oven is a little quirky when it comes to the temperature.
My husband and I ate the results. We both liked the way the potatoes turned out, but we felt the chicken itself was a little "edgy", a little too much spice for the chicken.  But it didn't bother us enough to make us stop eating the food.
I would give this recipe over all a 4.5 stars out of a possible 5 stars.  Even though I got home later than I usually do from work, the meal came together quickly and easily, perfect for a work night dinner. The ingredients are premeasured, so the seasoning is not a problem.  The clean up was easy and quick, always a plus for a week night dinner.  For us, it seemed a little spicy, but we tend to shy away from spicy food. I would definitely make this again but maybe reduce the amount of pepper and paprika than what is given in the recipe.
I would recommend this McCormick seasonings for rosemary chicken and potatoes highly to anyone who likes chicken. I think I with try the pork one next.
Thanks to Gather, who supplied me with the ingredient pack.

another cake!?

yes, this soon. My younger son asked me to bake a "birthday cake" for one of his co-workers. He decided it should be chocolate (it's the tradition cake here for birthdays) and so I baked it, using the Hershey's cake recipe.
And what to frost it with? Well, none other than the chocolate frosting I have tweaked to make it more powerful than normal chocolate icing;) One problem - I could not find the corn syrup, an important part of this recipe. So okay, I thought, I'm make buttercream frosting. Well, I didn't have the ingredients on hand to make a chocolate buttercream. I thought, oh heck, won't need it until Wednesday, so I'll just let it go until tomorrow.
Than it occurred to me I will probably be working late tomorrow and won't be in the mood to fool around with frosting when I got home. So it's marshmellow frosting to the rescue.
Yup, you may know it as "7 Minute Frosting" or "Boiled Frosting", I just call it marshmellow because that's what it tastes like. And I've been making it for a very long time, so I think I can call it what I like;)
With a cup of sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar, some vanilla, hot water and the powdered whites of eggs, it's pretty simple to put together. (You could use an egg white, but I don't think that's recommended anymore). This is a recipe your really need an electric mixer - unless your hands are much better than mine, which is possible. It takes 7 minutes of intense beating to make these ingredients into this fluffy frosting.
But now I got to wait until Wednesday to see how it's received.......