Apple Pie...Cake

Ok - so it's been a while since my last post.  It's been a wonderful and wacky and crazy busy time, adjusting to life as a mother and full-time lawyer.  So, while I still bake, sew and craft, what has fallen to the wayside is time to put together the blog posts to show the baked, sewn and crafted goods.

However, I had a small number of pre-made posts that I failed to upload and maybe, just maybe, if I start by posting these ones, I will be "hooked" once again (because Lord knows I have lots of stuff that I can post about if I make the time - like the motorcycle diaper cake I recently made for two friends who are expecting).

So, here goes ... Blogging attempt take 2 ... Action ...

My husband loves cake and I love making it, but I seldom have time to make a cake from scratch.  Even back when I was on maternity leave, I came to grips with the fact that boxed cake mixes are faster, still taste good and I'm okay with that.  It leaves more time for me to come up with fun combinations.  Recently I made an "apple pie cake", mostly because the hubby was having a cake hankering and the apple pie filling in the cupboard caught my eye when I was grabbing ingredients.

Ingredients

Golden Yellow cake mix (and additional water, oil and eggs according to package)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Can apple pie filling

Mix the cake mix according to the directions on the box and stir in cinnamon.  Bake according to directions.  Make either two 9 inch round cakes or, as I did, a 13x9 slab cake and cut it into two equal pieces.

Cinnamon Buttercream

3/4 cup butter, room temperature
3 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp half and half
1 teaspoon vanilla

According to my husband, this is his favourite icing.  I have to admit, it is pretty good and is a great accompaniment to autumn flavours, such as apple, pumpkin, etc.

When the cake is cooled, create a border of icing around the edges of the bottom layer and fill the centre with 2/3 of the apple pie filling.  Place the second cake on top and ice as you normally would (crumb coat (if you're into that sort of thing), chill, finishing layer).

I topped this with a few apple slices from the filling.

I didn't take too many pictures but here are a couple shots of the final product.

What fun! What fun! E is one!

This year flew by.  I mean at Mach 3 speed.  I can't believe E's First Birthday has come and gone.  I'm a little ashamed to admit it but I started planning his party as early as December!  (I have issues, I know!)

The party was Dr. Seuss themed.  I ordered decorations from Birthday Express - they sell great Dr. Seuss party sets, with plates, cups, cutlery and table clothes.  They also sell adorable window decals and wall cut outs. 

E's Dr. Seuss collection is quite respectable and made for easy décor.  I placed several of his books around the living room.

I couldn't find a banner that I liked, so I used the basic Paint application on the computer and created a banner saying Happy Birthday, spelled out on Cat in the Hat hats, sewn together with bias tape.  I made a similar banner for E's highchair saying "I am 1".

Food-wise, I kept it simple.  I made:
fruit salad - called "Beezle Nut Fruit Salad";

• potato salad - lamely called "Tangy Pangy Potato Salad";
• green eggs;
• ham (and turkey) sandwiches;
• "cat"prese skewers;
• doughnuts - because "D is for doughnuts";
• cheese trees; and
• Birthday Cake with Jerry Jordan's Jelly!

For the cake, I tried to style it like the birthday cake from "Happy Birthday to You"!  The cake itself was a plain white cake, with raspberry jam filling and lemon frosting:

Lemon Frosting

1 box lemon pudding
1/4 cup icing sugar
1 cup milk
1/2 tub thawed cool whip

Mix pudding, icing sugar and milk with electric mixer for 2 minutes at medium or high speed.  Allow mixture to sit for 1 minute.  Fold in cool whip until frosting is consistently mixed. 

I also ordered custom "green egg" cookies from a local baker.  They were AMAZING!!!  Cake Expectations totally exceeded my expectations.

All-in-all, it was a good day!

Holy crap, its been a while

To say its been a while is probably the understatement of the year.  Between finishing maternity leave and returning to work after only five months, working full-time and coming home to an infant, I evidently let my blogging slip.  When I logged in, I didn't even remember preparing several draft posts that I should post in the coming days weeks.

The inspiration for this post, however, is a cake that I recently made for my BFF's daughter's First Birthday.  (Yes, I think First Birthdays are worthy of all caps!)  That and I have been crafting and baking up a storm recently in anticipation of E's First Birthday and a baby shower that I am co-hosting for two colleagues.  Hopefully I can make time to post about those events but it is probably wiser if I don't make any promises.

The theme for B's party this weekend was pink and black zebra.  Naturally, my BFF wanted the cake to match and zebra cakes are particularly trendy lately (one need only Google zebra cake and many posts explaining the technique are readily found, such as here and here).

We did a trial run and its actually much easier to make than I expected.  Just time consuming.  If I had to do it again, I likely would have used smaller amounts to create thinner stripes.  That said, I think it turned out amazing and it got rave reviews.

Due to my fondant aversion, I tried my hand at Wilton sugar sheets for the first time so that it could have a zebra exterior.  Talk about easy to use!  I applied some piping gel and they held up really well.

All in all, I was very pleased if I say so myself.

Chicken Pot Pies and Pear Upside Down Cake

I have been on a pastry experiment kick as I had been trying out several pastry recipes in advance of Thanksgiving this weekend (I offered to make the pumpkin pie but haven't make pastry in years).  While my husband has been a very willing guinea pig, there is only so much pumpkin pie I can make.  So, I found a recipe for chicken pot pie and set about to make a batch of pie pastry using the traditional Tenderflake lard recipe (found here).  I had already done shortening and butter based crusts, but thought I should go back to my childhood and try the recipe that I first learned when baking pies for family holiday dinners (or watching anyways).

I followed most of the instructions for the pot pie, except I used pre-cooked chicken (cut into cubes) and used frozen peas and carrots rather than fresh carrots.  I also cut the amount of liquid to 3 cups of broth and 1 cup of milk.

This was too die for!  I don't know if I could go back to store bought pot pie!

[As an aside, for my pumpkin pies, I decided to use this pastry recipe.]

I also made a cake for the husband.  When we were grocery shopping, he asked if I could make a cake with pears, which he loves.  After some searching, I found a recipe at Kraft.  It called for cranberries, which I omitted in order to ensure that my husband would try the cake rather than run away (he is definitely not a fan).  I also used canned pears rather than fresh.  Otherwise, it was made according to the recipe.

To put it briefly, this has already been asked to be made again (like, he already went and bought the ingredients again).

Donuts - Baked not Fried

Who doesn't love donuts?  Thankfully, baked donuts are all the rage right now.  I had been thinking about making some for a while when the Grandparents Day brunch became the perfect excuse.

For the brunch, I made a dozen of the vanilla donuts below.  A couple days later I also made the chocolate donuts based on the recipe found here. (The only thing I would change in the chocolate recipe is to add 1/4 cup sugar.)

Ingredients
2 cup cake flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 large egg
1/2 cup plain greek yogurt
4 Tbsp. 2% milk
3 Tbsp. butter, softened
2 tsp. vanilla bean paste

Vanilla Bean Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 Tbsp. 2% milk
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla bean paste

Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Spray donut pan with cooking spray and wipe off any excess.

In a large bowl, mix together all dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon) until combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk all wet ingredients (eggs, yogurt, milk, butter, vanilla bean paste) together until smooth.

Pour wet mixture into dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Pour batter into large ziploc bag (or pastry bag if you want to have to clean it up afterwards), cut a corner of the bag off and pipe into donut tray.

Bake for 10-12 minutes until donuts spring back to the touch.

 

When I made the chocolate donuts a couple days later, I made both a chocolate glaze and a vanilla glaze.  As a result, I had four different types of donuts.  Apparently, the hubby is a fan.

Baked French Toast and Chilled Fruit Salad

Two other dishes I made for Grandparents Day brunch were Baked French Toast and Chilled Fruit Salad.  Both were amazing.

Baked French Toast
I was a little concerned about whether this would turn out, but it was a favourite at the brunch.  Its a lot more like bread pudding - oh, so good.

Ingredients

1 loaf French bread, cut diagonally in 1 inch slices and some cut in half

8 eggs

2 cups 2% milk

1 1/2 cups half-and-half cream

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup butter

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

3 tablespoons golden corn syrup

   
Directions

Arrange the slices of bread in a large ceramic pie plate. 

Beat together eggs, milk, half and half, vanilla and cinnamon. Pour over bread slices making sure all are coated. Cover with tin foil and refrigerate overnight.

The morning of your brunch/breakfast, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

In a small saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar and corn syrup and heat until bubbling.  Remove from heat and immediately pour over bread and egg mixture, again ensuring that all bread is coated.

Bake in preheated oven, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Cover with tin foil and bake for additional 10-15 minutes.  (If I did anything differently, it would be to put a baking pan under the pie dish as the mixture bubbled over and made a pretty good mess in the oven.  Oh well, it was time to clean it anyways.)

Chilled Fruit Salad
This version is based, in part, on the recipe found here. The pudding mixture and the juices from the canned fruit make a lovely dressing that is almost glaze-like.  (Tip: If you don't want to use canned fruit, use 1 cup of orange juice instead and mix the pudding into the orange juice.)

Ingredients

1 (14 ounce) can peach slices, undrained
1 (14 ounce) can pineapple chunks, undrained
1/2 box dry vanilla instant pudding mix
1 lb strawberry, stemmed and quartered
1/2 pint blueberries
2 cup green grapes 
2 medium bananas, sliced

Directions
In a large bowl, combine peaches, pineapples, and vanilla pudding mix.  DO NOT DRAIN THE FRUIT.
Mix well until pudding is dissolved.

Stir in strawberries, blueberries, and grapes.  Cover with plastic wrap and chill overnight.

Add bananas and mix just before serving in the morning.
Enjoy!

Breakfast Casserole

One of the dishes I made for Grandparents Day brunch was Breakfast Casserole.  I adopted the recipe from the Egg Farmers of Ontario website - it has a great variety of recipes.  It was super easy and quick to make and was able to bake it in the oven for part of the time I was baking the french toast (which I will provide the recipe for in an upcoming post).

Ingredients
1lb turkey sausage
1 red pepper, coarsely chopped
1 green pepper, coarsely chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
12 eggs
1/3 cup milk
1 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Directions
Remove sausage from casing; crumble and cook in large skillet over medium-high heat.  Remove from heat.
If I can't get the sausage to crumble into fine enough pieces, I use my food processor to break it down further.
Sautee peppers and onion until onion is soft.  Add sausage back to pan and continue cooking for 2 minutes.
Drain well and spoon into 9x13 baking pan.

Beat eggs, milk, salt and pepper in bowl. Cook in large skillet, whisking constantly.
When eggs are set but still very moist, remove from heat and stir in 1 cup cheese
Immediately pour over and cover sausage mixture.  Sprinkle with reserved cheese.

Bake in preheated 350 F oven for 20 minutes or until eggs are fully set. 


E was a big help too - in that he was happily occupied by his bouncer while I made the casserole. What a good lil' goose.