Cream Cheese Sheet Cake

Well I am glad I didn't attempt to start any gardening, because Mother Nature would have just killed it all.  After a few weeks of beautiful weather and a few thunderstorms....I am now looking at a blizzard outside.  Ugly, horrible, freezing snow.  And we are supposed to get 6 inches.

So I did what any one else would do.  I went to the kitchen to bake.  I made this cream cheese sheet cake while I cried a little on the inside watching the snow blanket our green grass.

Cream Cheese Sheet Cake

2 Cups Sugar

1 Cup Butter, Softened

8 oz Cream Cheese

4 Eggs

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

3 Cups Flour

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Baking Powder

Frosting:

1/2 Cup Butter Softened

4 oz Cream Cheese

3 1/2 Cups Powdered Sugar

3 Tbsp Milk

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Food Coloring

In a large bowl, beat together sugar, butter, cream cheese and eggs until well combined.  Add in vanilla and beat for about another minute.  In a small bowl add flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder.  Add flour mixture, 1 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition.  

Spread batter into a 11x17 inch pan with sides.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.  Let cool completely.  

For the frosting, beat butter and cream cheese until smooth.  Add milk and vanilla extract and 1 cup powdered sugar, beating until smooth.  Add remaining powdered sugar, 1 cup at time until desired consistency.  Spread over cake and cut into bars.  Refrigerate remains.

Printable Page

Banana Split Cake

While I have been doing some heavy duty spring cleaning and trying to organize everything better, my first task, was the kitchen.  I spend most of my time there and ends up being the worst in house.  While cleaning, I checked out the freezer and seen that I had a lot of bananas that needed to be used up.  So in the coming weeks, you will be seeing a lot of banana recipes.  

This recipe however was using up some bananas on the counter that needed to be used.  This cake is so yummy and doesn't require the use of the oven or stove and makes a great dessert for summer.

Banana Split Cake

1 1/2 Cups Finely Crushed Nilla Wafers

1 1/4 Cups Sugar, Divided

1/3 Cup Butter, Melted

2 pkgs (8 oz) Cream Cheese, room temperature

1 Can (20 oz) Crushed Pineapple, Well Drained

4 Bananas

2 Cups Cold Milk

1 Large box Vanilla Pudding

2 Cups Heavy Whipping Cream

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

1/4 Cup Powdered Sugar

1 Cup Chopped Pecans

In a medium sized bowl, mix together cookie crumbs, 1/4 cup sugar, and melted butter.  Press into the bottom of a 9x13 inch pan.  Beat together remaining sugar and cream cheese until well mixed.  Carefully spread over cookie crust.  Top with pineapple.  Slice bananas and layer over pineapple.  

In another bowl mix together cold milk and vanilla pudding and set aside.  In a large bowl, beat together whipping cream, vanilla and powdered sugar until soft peaks form.  Remove 1 cup of whipped cream and mix into pudding.  Layer pudding over bananas.  

Spread remaining whipped cream over pudding and sprinkle with pecans.  Chill for 5 hours serving.

Printable Page

Rainbow Cupcakes

I have been on hiatus for a few days.  My computer got a nasty flu and had to be fixed. In the process I had lost a lot of photos. I was finally able to get the computer up and running again and slowly installing all of our software.  Now that my camera is ready to go again I bring the most awesomess cupcakes around.

These babies are all over the web in not only cupcake form but in tall towering cake form ( I plan to make one of those someday).  These are a cross between rainbow and tie dye.  I had intended to make buttercream frosting but as it turns out this morning I was out of butter.  So I opted for cream cheese frosting, which was a little runnier than I was hoping for and ended up with a neat tie dye affect.  I made these for my beautiful baby girl's class today, who turned 4.  Where does the time go?  Seems like she was just learning to walk yesterday.

Rainbow Cupcakes

adapted from Baking Bites

1 Cup All Purpose Flour

1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp Salt

1/2 Cup Sugar

2 Large Eggs

1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil

1/2 Cup Buttermilk

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease 10 cups from a 12 cup muffin tin (or line with paper cups).

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.

In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs, vegetable oil, buttermilk and vanilla extract. Pour in dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Divide batter evenly into 5 small bowls; each should have a little more than 1/3 cup batter (approx 6 tbsp or so for each).

Add about 1/2 tsp food coloring to each bowl to make red, orange, yellow, green and blue batters. Stir well, so no streaks of plain batter remain. Add additional food coloring if necessary.

Starting with the blue batter, add a small spoonful to each of the 10 grease muffin cups (just over 1/2 tbsp in each). Repeat with all remaining colors, working from green to yellow to orange to red, adding each subsequent spoonful on top of the previous color. Do not attempt to spread the layers of color out (as it can cause layers to combined), but allow them to spread on their own.

Bake for about 15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool cupcakes on a wire rack before frosting.

Makes 10

Quick Buttercream Frosting

In a large bowl, beat together butter, milk and vanilla.  Gradually add in the powdered sugar until frosting reaches a thick, spreadable consistency. 

For Rainbow effect, divide frosting into 5 bowls, adding food coloring to each bowl like you did above.  In a frosting bag, with the tip of your choice, layer the frosting in the bag and pipe each cupcakes.

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 Oz Cream Cheese, Room Temperature

3 Tbsp Milk

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

~ 3 Cups Powdered Sugar

Beat together cream cheese, milk and vanilla.  Gradually add in the powdered sugar until frosting is desired consistency.  Color frosting as directed above.






Printable Page

Recipe Linked to:

Blarney Stones

Happy Fat Tuesday.  Hope everyone is enjoying the Mardi Gras festivities.  I don't have any Mardi Gras recipes ready at the moment but the kiddos are watching The Princess and the Frog...ok ok, I like the movie too.

I do bring some St. Patrick's Day treats.  Both me and my husband come from dominant Celtic backgrounds, and with my my heavy interest in genealogy and history of our backgrounds, I've been wanting to compile a collection of recipes for our ethnic background also.  While this recipe probably isn't Irish at all, it's also known as peanut cake squares, it's a fun dessert to serve at St. Patrick's day parties and kids are sure to enjoy it.

Blarney Stones

adapted from Taste of Home

4 Eggs

1 3/4 Cups Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 3/4 Cup All Purpose Flour

3 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

1 Cup Milk

1/4 Cup Butter, Melted

Frosting:

7 1/2 Cups Powdered Sugar

2/3 Cup Milk

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

1/8 tsp Salt

6 Cups Finely Chopped Peanuts

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees F.  In a large bowl, beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla until thick and lemon colored, about 4 minutes.  Combine the flour, baking powder and salt and add to egg mixture.  Beat on low speed until combined.  Beat in milk and butter.

Pour into greased 13 x 9 in baking pan.  Bake for 30 - 35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool on a wire rack.  Cut into 24 squares.  Cover and freeze for 8 hours.

In a large bowl, beat powdered sugar, milk, vanilla, and salt until smooth.  Frost the top and sides of frozen cake squares.  Roll in peanuts.  Place on wire racks to set.

Printable Page

Recipe linked to:

Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake

This recipe comes to us from Ree, The Pioneer Woman.  Most southerners have a sheet cake recipe.  I've never heard of it until coming across Ree cookbook. This cake is absolutely amazing.  It is so moist and the icing makes it taste like a fudge brownie with nuts.  Hubby called it brownie. It is baked in a HUGE pan, which is where the Texas part comes in.  Everything is bigger in Texas right?  I made it in a 17X11 inch pan which I think a 18x12 would be better.  When pouring the icing, I had a little spillage. This awesomly delicious cake will be making regular appearances around our house.

Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake

adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes From an Accidental Country Girl

For the Cake:

2 Cups All Purpose Flour

2 Cups Sugar

1/4 tsp Salt

1/2 Buttermilk (See Note)

2 Large Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 tsp Baking Soda

2 Sticks Butter

4 Heaping Tbsp Cocoa Powder

For the Icing:

1 3/4 Cups Butter

4 Heaping Tbsp Cocoa Powder

6 Tbsp Milk

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

3 1/2 Cups Powdered Sugar

1/2 Cup - 1 Cup Finely Chopped Pecans

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees F.  In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, and salt.  Stir together and set aside.  In another bowl, whisk together buttermilk, eggs, vanilla and baking soda and set aside.  In a medium saucepan, melt butter and add the cocoa.  Whisk together to combine.  Meanwhile, bring 1 Cup  water to boil.  When the butter is melted, pour the boiling water in the pan.  Allow to bubble for a moment, then turn off the heat.  Pour the chocolate mixture into the flour mixture.  Stir together for a moment to cool the chocolate, the pour in the egg mixture.  Stir together until smooth , then pour into an ungreased jelly roll pan or rimmed baking sheet (17x11 or 18x12 is best)  and bake for 20 minutes.

A few minutes before cake is done, start on the icing.  Melt the butter in a sauce pan over medium-low heat.  Add the cocoa powder and stir until smooth.  Add the milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar.  Stir together.  Dump in the chopped pecans and stir until well blended.  Immediately after removing the cake from the oven, pout the warm icing over the top.  You'll want to avoid doing much spreading, so try to distribute it evenly as you pour.

*Note* If you don't have buttermilk, Pour 1 Tbsp lemon juice or white vinegar into a measuring cup and add enough milk to equal 1 Cup.  Let sit 5 minutes.

Printable Page

Recipe Linked to:

Coconut Pound Cake

Today is my birthday.  Quarter of a century so far.  I feel young, yet old at the same time.  Seems like yesterday I was a freshman in high school and now I am married with 3 children nearing 30. This is the cake I made for myself yesterday to celebrate Valentine's day and my birthday.  I seem to be the only person in house that likes coconut, which a-ok with me. I don't just like coconut...I love it...somewhat of an obsession.  I am constantly looking for things to add coconut extract to. 

This pound cake is very moist and the flavoring isn't overpowering. Most of the coconut flavor comes in through the icing, coconut cream cheese frosting.  My parents had a piece today when they came to visit and throughly enjoyed it.

Coconut Pound Cake

adapted from Mommy's Kitchen

1 Cup Butter, Softened

2 1/2 Cups Sugar

6 Large Eggs, Room Temperature

3 Cups Sifted Cake Flour ( A must here)

1 Cup Coconut Milk

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 tsp Coconut Extract

3/4 Cup Flaked, Sweetened Coconut

Frosting/Icing

4 oz Cream Cheese

4 Tbsp Coconut Milk

1 tsp Coconut Extract

1 Cup Powdered Sugar

Beat Butter until creamy, gradually add sugar.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well.  Add vanilla and coconut extract and blend.  Add flour and coconut milk alternately, beginning and ending with flour.  Add shredded coconut.  Pour into a greased and floured Bundt cake pan and bake at 325 degrees F for 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove and cool completely on a cooling rack.

For the icing, mix together cream cheese, milk, extract and powdered sugar.  Add more powdered sugar or milk depending on the consistency you'd like.

Printable Page

Recipe linked to:

   

Whole Wheat Applesauce Bars

This recipe was a clipping out of a magazine my mom had in her pile of hundreds of recipes.  I almost threw it out with how small the clipping was.  When I took a second look at it, it sounded really yummy and thought I better make this before I lose the paper.

While the title says bars, this is more of a cake.  It was pretty easy to throw together.  The cream cheese frosting adds a special touch to it.  I LOVE cream cheese frosting.  Licking the bowl clean is the best part!

Whole Wheat Applesauce Bars

1/3 Cup Butter, softened

2/3 Cup Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

¾ tsp Ground Allspice

½ Cup All Purpose Flour

½ Cup Whole Wheat Flour

¼ tsp Baking Soda

2/3 Cup Cinnamon Applesauce

1/3 Cup Chopped Walnuts

1/3 Cup Golden Raisins

Frosting:

½ Cup Butter, softened

8 oz Cream Cheese

1-2 Cups Powdered Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease a 8 or 9 inch baking pan.  In a large bowl beat butter, brown sugar, eggs and allspice until well blended.  In another bowl whisk together both flours and baking soda.  Add to the butter mixture mixing well.  Combine the applesauce, walnuts and raisins with the rest mixing well.  Pour and spread in prepared pan.  Bake for 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.  While that is baking make your cream cheese frosting.  In a large bowl cream butter and cream cheese.  Add vanilla and mix.  Slowly add powdered sugar until you get desired thickness.  Spread on top of bars and cut.

Printable Page

Recipe Linked to: