Author Archives: Janet

Fudgy Almond Praline Brownies

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Fudgy Almond Praline Brownies

Fudgy Almond Praline Brownies



I…am…soooo…tired. I’m sure many of you have heard of what my husband and I call “Wikipedia Syndrome”. It’s where you go to wiki for one article and from that one, see another to look at and then another 4 from that one and then you find yourself with 33 tabs open, all with articles you want to read, most of which have gone so far off topic from the original article that you couldn’t remember it if you tried. Well, I did something similar last night. I was laying awake, Russ snoring to wake the dead next to me and I decided to listen to a certain video. Next thing I knew, three hours had passed and I had Wikipedia syndromed myself into watching about 40,000 videos. I now know every crevice of John Legends face, have watched videos by Christina Perri that SHE has probably forgotten she made and have fallen in voice love with Christina Aguilera (she is far better than I ever gave her credit for). I also now need toothpicks to prop my eyelids open, but hey… John Legend. Music. It was worth it.

I think.

What is definitely worth it though is these brownies. (Didya see my neat little segue there? Did ya, did ya, did ya? Look ma, no hands! Watch me, mom!! Ok, I’ll stop now. Sorry.) These are some intense brownies. They are dense enough to be almost candy like and the topping, which I was afraid would be overly sweet, really isn’t. That’s not to say it isn’t sweet, it is, but it’s actually a nice foil for the brownies. The topping sets up to a firm candy like praline that crackles when you cut through it and the brownies will take of any chocolate craving you have; for the next year. Plus the toffee bits in the brownies themselves add their own nice textural contrast. Cut these babies small. I promise; you don’t need a large piece to be satisfied.

The brownie recipe is lightly adapted from one from King Arthur Flour and the topping also lightly adapted from good old Betty Crocker.

You know the drill….

Mrs. Cupcake… who needs more toothpicks for eye props.

Fudgy Almond Praline Brownies

  • 4 eggs
  • 1 1/4 cups unsweetened baking cocoa
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons instant coffee powder or espresso powder (using this much DOES lend a slight mocha flavor to the brownies, which I wanted- decrease the amount if you don’t)
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup unsalted butter
  • 2 1/4 cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 1 8 ounce package Heath Toffee Bits
  • Topping-
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
  • 2/3 cup sliced almond, lightly toasted and cooled
  • 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 13×9 inch pan with foil and lightly butter or spray the foil.
  2. In a large bowl, beat the 4 eggs with the cocoa powder, salt, baking powder, instant coffee and vanilla extract until smooth. it will be very thick.
  3. In a small pot, combine the butter and sugar. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the butter is melted.  let cool for about 5 minutes, then stir it into the chocolate mixture.
  4. Add in the flour, stirring until smooth, then fold in the toffee bits.
  5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the middle should come out with just a few moist crumbs on it and the edges of the brownies should look set, with the middle still looking moist, but not uncooked. Let cool in the pan on a rack while you make the topping.
  6. For the topping, combine the butter and brown sugar in a medium pot. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil for one minute, then immediately remove from the heat. Stir in the powdered sugar and vanilla and stir well. Gently fold in the sliced almonds. Let the topping sit for five minutes, stirring every minute or so to distribute the almonds, then pour the mixture evenly over the brownies, smoothing it as needed.
  7. Let sit for an hour or two to set the topping. Your best bet is to set it in the fridge for 30 minutes or so to make sure the topping is completely set and doesn’t ooze when you slice the brownies.
  8. Slice into small squares and serve with plenty of hot black coffee…or tea..or, heck with it, a beer. I won’t judge.

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Brown Butter Blueberry Maple Cornbread

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Brown Butter Blueberry Maple Cornbread

Brown Butter Blueberry Maple Cornbread



As much as I love making yeast breads and other good stuff that are yeast raised like sticky buns , my first love will probably always be cornbread .There is just something so homey about a good wedge of cornbread, be it plain or doctored up, as this version is. You can eat it by itself; and contrary to popular belief, you really should be able to eat it plain, without soaking it in something to relieve dryness. If it’s that dry, you did something wrong when baking it.

On the yeast bread front, I’ve put my sourdough starter out to come to room temp somewhere in the vicinity of 43 times in the last month. Then, I get involved in other things, put it away and say I’ll get to it the next day. If starters could be sentient, mine would have the worlds largest inferiority complex. “What? She doesn’t want me again? Was it something I did… said? Do I smell funny? Wait… I’m supposed to smell funny.”

With this bread, I took the recipe I have up in here for honey cornbread and played with it. I traded the plain butter for browned butter because you can never go wrong with brown butter, used maple sugar in place of the regular and added in a pint of blueberries.  This one is perfect for breakfast. Just serve it with  yogurt and a cup of coffee (or tea in my case) and you’re good to go. It’s actually almost cake like enough to be a good fit for dessert too, if you’re the nontraditional sort, as I am. One of my favorite desserts is a piece of cornbread with butter and maple syrup. Try it sometime. 🙂

You know the drill…

Brown Butter Blueberry Maple Cornbread

  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 cup cornmeal (NOT cornbread mix)
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup maple sugar (if you don’t have maple sugar, sub 1/4 cup regular sugar and add in 1/2 teaspoon maple flavoring when you add the eggs)
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 1/2 cup whole or 2% milk
  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter
  • 1/4 cup honey, warmed if needed to make it pourable
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 pint fresh blueberries
  1. Preheat the oven to 400. Butter a 9 inch cast iron pan or a 9 inch square baking pan.
  2. Then, brown your butter- place the butter in a small pot. Melt it over medium high heat, swirling it frequently. Let it keep cooking until it turns a nice golden brown, then immediately pour it into a measuring cup or bowl to cool a bit while you work on the rest of the recipe.
  3. In a large bowl, whisk to combine the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt.
  4. In another bowl, combine the maple sugar, cream, milk, honey and browned butter. Whisk well. Add in the eggs (and maple flavoring if that’s what you’re using) and whisk well.
  5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and use a rubber spatula to stir just until barely combined. gently fold in the blueberries then pour the batter into the prepared pan.
  6. Bake at 400 until the top is golden brown and a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 20  to 25 minutes.
  7. Best served warm with plenty of butter and maple syrup. But that may be a bit of bias on my part. 😀

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Easy Stove Top Four Cheese Mac And Cheese

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Easy Stove Top Four Cheese Mac And Cheese

Easy Stove Top Four Cheese Mac And Cheese



I was looking through a friends blog the other day and I realized that she had not one, not two, not even four, but FIVE mac and cheese recipes on her blog. I immediately got jealous, knowing I was failing in the mac and cheese category. All I have is this one with 300 lbs of cheese, this one with bacon and caramelized onions and this one based on French onion soup plus one other that has such a hideous picture, I can’t bring myself to post it here. So, being the insanely (insanely being the key part of this sentence) competitive person that I am (more proof of that being that in the game Monster Busters, I have now replayed one level 512 times because I’m number 2 in it, not number 1), I had to post at least one more. Yes, yes I do need therapy.

I wanted to do a stove top version because pretty much everything I have up is baked mac and cheese. While I love that type, there are times that you either don’t have the time, it’s too darn hot for the oven or you just don’t feel like going to that much trouble. So stove top it was.

This one is pretty simple. Ok, it’s wonderfully simple. The hardest part is grating the cheese. But I have complete faith in your cheese grating abilities. This is creamy, not so rich you’ll pass out, but rich enough to satisfy and makes perfect leftovers for lunch the next day. Please use the best quality cheese you can… it honestly makes a difference in a dish where the cheese is the main component.

You know the drill….

Easy Stove Top Four Cheese Mac And Cheese

  • 12 ounces elbow macaroni, cooked according to package directions and drained
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 4 tablespoons flour
  • 2 1/2 cups milk (I used 2%)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
  • 2 teaspoons of your favorite hot sauce (optional, but it adds some pizzazz)
  • 2 cups sharp or extra sharp cheddar, shredded
  • 1 cup Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
  • 1/2 cup Swiss cheese, shredded
  • 1/4 cup Bleu Cheese, crumbled (if you are adamantly against Bleu, just omit it)
  1. Melt the butter in a large pot. Sprinkle the flour on top and let it cook for about three minutes, stirring the whole time. Slowly whisk the milk into the flour mixture a little at a time to prevent lumps. Whisk in the Dijon mustard and the hot sauce. Cook over low to medium heat until the mixture just barely comes to a boils and thickens up a bit, about 7 minutes or so.
  2. Change over to a wooden spoon and dump all the cheeses into the sauce. Stir constantly until they are melted. Taste a little bit of the sauce and add salt and pepper to taste.
  3. Pour the sauce over the cooked pasta and toss to combine. If it is a little thick for you, just add a small amount of hot water to loosen it up.

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Daisy’s Noisette Potatoes (BLOGGER C.L.U.E.)

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Hey there everyone! Time for another month of Blogger C.L.U.E. C’mon…. you remember. I am part of a secret society (does that sound mysterious and all Freemason-ish or what?) on facebook, where a group of food bloggers swap blogs each month and make a recipe related to a certain theme from one of the other group members. This month the theme was potatoes. Makes sense, right? March, St. Patricks Day, the Irish… all leads one to the humble spud, that root vegetable that has been responsible for saving lives many times in the hardscrabble pasts of many different countries. They had little else, but they had potatoes to eat.

It’s funny; we here in the states or most of the Westernized world actually, think of potatoes as looking just a few different way; Russet, baby, red, white and that’s about it. Some of us who are more into food know of a handful more types that are newer (at least to this part of the world) and enjoy using them, but did you know that, worldwide, there are more than 4000 different types of potatoes?! FOUR THOUSAND!

This month the blog I got assigned to was that of the lovely Christy, herself being the owner of the blog Confessions Of A Culinary Diva . Christy has so many delicious dishes, like this Cantonese Lobster With Coconut Ginger Rice or these utterly delicious sounding Blueberry Dutch Baby Pancakes . I have both of those totally bookmarked, but you know what? I don’t think Christy is a big fan of potatoes, lol. I had a heck of a time finding a potato recipe. She had, I believe, two. This, of course, is probably one reason Christy is so lovely…. unlike me, she stays away from the carbs :-p I, on the other hand, love my potatoes. But you know what Christy DOES love, same as I do? Downton Abbey. And one of the recipes she had for potatoes was for one called Daisys Noisette Potatoes. They were part of what she called “A Very Downton Dinner”, which I thought was so cool.

These are delicious! Little balls of potatoes (go buy a melon baller if you don’t have one) that are lightly sauteed in clarified butter (I admit to not worrying about the clarified part), then finished off in a hot oven to give them that final crispiness. When I joined BLOGGER C.L.U.E., one of the things that I was told was that we were supposed to keep the recipes pretty much as we found them and not turn them into something totally different. I did that with two small exceptions. I added some onion and garlic to these and sprinkled them with Fine Herbes. As much as I love potatoes, I am a huge flavor person. I’ve never been much on just salt and pepper and while I can completely see that being the case back in the day in England, I also like to think of Daisy trying to liven up her cooking a little by adding some flavor to plain potatoes

You know the drill…

Daisys Noisette Potatoes

  • 6 russet potatoes , scrubbed free of all dirt
  • 1/4 cup clarified butter (again, I didn’t do that part. I did however, add a touch of oil to the butter to increase the smoke point)
  • 1/2 cup thinly sliced onion (my addition; feel free to omit)
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced (my addition; feel free to omit)
  • 1 teaspoon Fine Herbes (an herb blend you can get at any large grocery store) (my addition; feel free to omit)
  • salt and pepper to taste
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Use a melon baller to scoop out balls of potatoes. Put them in a bowl of cold water as you work, so they don’t turn brown while you’re scooping out the rest.
  3. Heat the butter in a large ovenproof pan. Add the potatoes, garlic and onion (don’t crowd, just do two batches if you need to) and cook for five minutes, stirring often.
  4. Transfer the pan to the 375 degree oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until they are golden brown and tender, stirring often. Season with salt, pepper and fine herbes.

Make sure you go check out the other bloggers posts from this months Blogger Clue! These ladies are some amazing cooks!

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Easy Peach And Apricot Cobbler

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Easy Peach Apricot Cobbler

Easy Peach Apricot Cobbler

Years back, before the internet became the place to go to get every recipe known to man, as well as some known only to The Mirthful Mermaids of the Planet Playtex (quick! Where’s that from?!), there were lots of options to get recipes via snail mail. Although it wasn’t called snail mail back then… just mail. 😛 One of the options came from various companies hawking recipe cards. They would come in a cute little hard see through plastic case or binders. I was subscribed for a while to one called The Great American Baking Company. It was like Christmas every month as I opened up the new cards and got to look through them to find ones I wanted to make.

The fly in the ointment? Out of a year of doing this, at what I realize now was a ridiculous price (I believe it was like $9.99 a month for about 12 recipe cards), I have now about 5 of those cards that, through various moves, I felt were worth saving. The rest either got thrown out over time, colored on by children over the years or peed on by cats because cats are Satans Spawn.

One that I will always keep is this one. I’ve changed it up a little bit through the years (the vanilla and almond in the fruit are my own idea and I use extra cinnamon in the fruit plus add vanilla to the whipped cream), but not much really in the way of changes at all. This is another one of those recipes that I’ve seen in various places on the web with this person or that claiming credit, but nope… came from a mail order company 😀 I love this one because, in the middle of Winter (or the tail end, like now) I can still have a yummy fruit dessert. This uses canned fruit and couldn’t really be any easier. Plus, I absolutely adore the whipped cream topping. It uses honey and cinnamon instead of the typical sugar and that adds such a unique twist to it. So if you have like 15 minutes to throw this together and an available oven….

You know the drill… 🙂

Easy Peach And Apricot Cobbler

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1 28 ounce can sliced peaches in syrup, drained, juice reserved
  • 1 15 ounce can apricot halves in syrup, juice drained and combined with the peach juice
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  • Topping-
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temp
  • 1 egg
  • Whipped cream topping-
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 2 to 4 tablespoons honey (depends on how sweet you like it. Start with the lower amount.)
  • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
  2. In a medium pot, combine the sugar and the cornstarch. Stir in one cup of the combined juices from the fruit, along with the vanilla and almond extracts. Cook over medium heat until mixture boils, about 3 to 4 minutes.
  3. Stir in the butter, cinnamon and nutmeg, then add in the fruits. Pour this all into a 1 1/2 to 2 quart baking dish or casserole dish.
  4. For the topping, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt butter and egg. Spoon this over the fruit. It’s a thick mixture, but it will spread as it cooks.
  5. Bake at 400 until the topping is golden brown and the fruit is bubbly, about 30 minutes. You may want to either place foil on the rack below or put the baking dish into a larger pan to catch drips. When done, let cool slightly.
  6. For the topping, simply beat together the cream, honey, cinnamon and vanilla and top each serving with a nice big dollop.

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Apricot (or your favorite flavor) Almond Streusel Bars

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Apricot Almond Streusel Bars

Apricot Almond Streusel Bars

I can just see some of you out there rolling your eyes, saying, “My God, woman, enough with the streusel! How many streusel baked goods can you post!?” To which I say, in response, “All of them”. I 😀 like me some streusel , what can I say? Streusel makes me happy. it also makes me have to sweep off the bed when I decide to try and eat a slice of this while laying in bed reading “The Clan Of The Cave Bear”. But I think Ayla would have liked streusel. Heck, if those books are any indication, Ayla was the one to discover streusel. Lord knows she and her “mate”, Jondolar, discovered everything else we have nowadays, from the bow and arrow to nuclear weapons and modern plane travel. I think they were also the first ones to bake twinkies :-p

Well now… that was a random tangent, even for me. But so long as I’m on it…. I just finished rereading that book. I read it back in the day when it came out and probably about 4 or five times since.  While portions of that book are rather ridiculous and tedious, Jean Auel did have one hell of a knack for describing food. The woman had me wanting Mammoth pot roast (I swear, every time I read that book, I start craving a juicy tender pot roast) and planning on hunting down acorns in the hopes that I could “leech the bitterness out of them”. And I STILL want to try the one flatcake she mentioned that was soaked in maple syrup, then dried in the sun.

But, until I come across a live mammoth or have time to pound and dry a butt ton of acorns, I will stick to streusel. Streusel for the win! Especially when they are layered with apricot preserves and chocolate chips. I love chocolate covered apricots but can never figure out whether to eat the white chocolate covered ones or the dark chocolate ones, so in these bars, I just used both. These are a simple bar… both to make and in their hominess. They are a perfect snack (just stay out of bed with them), good school or after school snack and great for a family dessert or a pot luck. Crispy, fruity, chocolatey… what more do you need?

(Originally from Better Baking)

You know the drill… 🙂

Mrs. Cupcake… who needs to go vacuum the bed again

Apricot Almond Streusel Bars

  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 1 1/2 cups oats (not instant)
  • 1 cup sliced almonds, lightly toasted
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
  • 1 1/4 cups apricot preserves (use your favorite flavor)
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
  • 1 cup semi sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
  • 1 cups white chocolate chips
  1. Preheat oven to 350. Line a 9 inch square pan with foil; butter or spray the foil.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk to combine the flour, oats, almonds, both kinds of sugar, baking powder,  and salt.
  3. Use a pastry blender or your fingers (I usually start out with the pastry blender to cut the large pieces down, then use my hands to thoroughly combine the ingredients) to cut the butter into the flour mixture. You want to get it to about the size of peas and nice and crumbly looking.
  4. Take out  1 1/2 cups of the streusel and set it aside. Pour the rest into the prepared pan and pat it firmly down into the bottom of the pan for the crust.
  5. Combine the preserves with the extracts; stir well. Spoon this over the crust; spread to the edges. Top with the two types of chips, then sprinkle the rest of the streusel on top.
  6. Bake at 350 until the top is golden brown and you can see the preserves bubbling at the sides of the pan, about 35 to 45 minutes. Let cool in the pan on a rack until completely cool, then use the foil to help lift the bars out of the pan. Slice into desired sized squares, remembering that these are fairly sweet, so make them somewhat small.

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Better Than Starbucks Lemon Cake

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Better Than Starbucks Lemon Cake

Better Than Starbucks Lemon Cake

This is going to be a short post because I want to get this up before the three or four people who read me, all of whom probably found me while bored at work, leave for the day and never realize I made them a delicious cake. I know, I know, you’ll miss my rambling, but I promise to ramble even more than usual when I come back.

I USED to love Starbucks lemon pound cake. So did my husband. Then they changed how they made it. I have no earthly idea what the Starbucks people thought they were doing when they changed up their recipes and added others. Their pumpkin bread is still good, but in my humble *looks humble* opinion, that’s about it. I tried their new salted caramel bar, all happy because salted caramel and was completely disappointed. And my husband, the man who happily ingests cans of overly processed, heavily salted orange stuff marketed as cheese dip, thinks the lemon cake is kind of yucky now too *she says as tactfully as she can*

So I made my own. I used an old lemon cake recipe I hand copied from food.com a billion years ago when it was recipezaar dot com and played with it. Dare I say it turned out better than the new Starbucks? I DID however accidentally overcook mine a tad so the edges (my favorite part) were a bit dry, but farther in, not at all and the flavor was delicious. This has the sweet lemon taste in the actual cake that the old Starbucks cake had and the tangy glaze. I upped the ante a little bit by doing the old trick of soaking the cake with some lemon syrup. I know; not technically like Starbucks, but that’s why I have the word better in the title 😛

You know the drill….

Love you guys! <3

Better Than Starbucks Lemon Cake

  • 1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 4 eggs, room temp
  • 1/4 cup lemon zest
  • 3 cups flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about 5 lemons worth, depending on size)
  • 3/4 cup milk, room temp
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons lemon oil (I like Boyajian brand) (you can sub lemon extract, but lemon oil is so much better in flavor with none of the chemically taste the extract can have)
  • Syrup-
  • 1/3 cup lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • Glaze
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 tablespoon lemon zest
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons water
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 8 inch loaf pans.
  2. In a medium bowl, combine the butter and two cups sugar. Beat on medium speed until smooth and creamy and the sugar has had time to dissolve, about 4 minutes.
  3. Add in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
  4. In a small bowl, whisk to combine the flour, lemon zest, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
  5. In a measuring cup, combine the milk, lemon juice, vanilla extract and lemon oil.
  6. Add the flour and the milk mixture alternately to the butter, starting and ending with the flour (flour, milk, flour, milk, flour), beating just until combined after each addition.
  7. Pour into the prepared pans; bake at 350 until a wooden skewer comes out clean, about 45 to 55 minutes. Cover lightly with foil near the end if it seems to be getting too brown.
  8. When done, let cool in pans for ten minutes, then turn out onto a rack that has been set over a large cookie sheet (to catch drips).
  9. While the cake cools, make the syrup- combine the lemon juice and sugar in a small pot. Cook over medium heat, stirring a few times, just until the sugar dissolves. Spoon the syrup evenly over the still warm cakes, letting each spoonful soak in before using more. You should be able to get it all soaked in, but if not, the rest is great in tea.
  10. Let the cakes finish cooling completely before glazing.
  11. To make the glaze, simply combine the glaze ingredients in a bowl; start with just the lemon juice as liquid and add water as you need to to get a pourable but not too thin glaze (mine was a bit thin… don’t follow my example 😛 )
  12. Let the glaze sit to harden a bit after you’ve used about half, then follow up with the rest. Then…. eat. Laugh at the Starbucks people.

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Better Than Starbucks Lemon Cake

 

 

White Chocolate And Lime Mousse Tart

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White Chocolate And Lime Mousse Tart 4



Most of my strongest memories of my father center around food. Dad was an….interesting cook, to say the least. I mentioned once (maybe twice or more… I’m getting old and forgetful) before that dad used to make things like chili or spaghetti sauce and besides adding jalapenos to both (yes, even the spaghetti sauce) and when I say adding jalapenos, I mean making it so hot, your tongue fell out of your mouth in protest, he also never ever drained the grease from his ground meat. So there you’d have some otherwise lovely (and mouth burning) dish, swimming in a pool of grease. But no one wanted to hurt his feelings or incur his wrath, so no one ever said anything. I got my opening one day however a couple of years after I moved him next door to me. He asked me why my spaghetti sauce was so much better than his and also, did I drain the grease off for some reason? I did a cheer inwardly and said that yes, I drained the grease off my ground beef and that that may be why mine was better, because too much grease makes it (I said politely) a bit heavy on the stomach. I didn’t mention that burning the stomach lining of people may not be smart. I knew when to shut up. 😀

Dad also loved jello. My kids though, as much as they loved Gramps giving them unlimited amounts of sweets when I wasn’t looking, weren’t jello fans. So he would make it for himself and me, just the same way he did when my brother, sister and I were kids. No plain jello for dad. Nope, nope, nope. He would drain some sort of canned fruit or a jar of maraschino cherries, use the juice from it as the liquid and then add the fruit when it was almost set. Then he would top it with about 4 pounds of Cool Whip and we were good to go on calories and sugar for about a year. It was utterly delicious and still how I like my jello. I think of him every…single…time I eat jello.

But sometimes I like to get a little fancier and not use the sugar laden flavored kind of gelatin and go back to the plain old fashioned gelatin that you flavor yourself. I have been, like most people, waiting not so patiently for Spring. Speaking of which, we are supposed to be getting an ample amount of snow here in Kentucky again tomorrow. But I’ll save that whining for later.

I have been heavy into anything citrus lately. It’s both my favorite sort of fruit, plus it makes me think of Spring. Spring…warmth…my garden.. warmth… fresh produce… did I mention warmth? Sorry. I’ll stop now. So, when I saw some pretty limes at the store, I got to thinking about what to do with the ones that jumped into my shopping cart. I got home and saw some white chocolate sitting out. I had bought it for something else, but who cares? When an idea hits, you run with it. 😀 I had seen a recipe for white chocolate mousse elsewhere that I couldn’t find now, so I improvised and completely messed around with using a mousse recipe I found elsewhere. What I ended up with was a delicious tart with both lime and white chocolate sharing the limelight (hehe… LIMElight) equally. This is rich and creamy and a small slice will do you just fine. Unless you’re a teenage boy. Then… make two. I originally planned on using graham cracker crumbs as the crust, but all I had were Oreos. And I love the way it turned out with them.

You know the drill….

Mrs. Cupcake, who is sobbing over the thought of more snow

White Chocolate And Lime Mousse Tart

  • Crust-
  • 14 oreos (NOT Double Stuffs)
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • Filling-
  • 8 ounces good quality white chocolate, chopped
  • 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons lime zest (from about 3 limes)
  • 1 packet unflavored gelatin (sold with the other types of flavored gelatin in packs of 4, usually on the bottom shelf)
  • 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  1. Make your crust- put your Oreos in the bowl of a food processor and process them down to crumbs. Add in the melted butter and pulse until it is combined. Pour the mixture into a buttered 9 inch tart pan (the kind with the removable bottom) and press it down onto the bottom of the pan.
  2. Bring 1/2 of the cream to a simmer. You can use a small pot or just do it as I do in the microwave.. When it comes to a simmer, remove from the heat and dump in the chopped white chocolate. Let sit for about five minutes, then stir until it is smooth. Let the mixture sit until it’s just barely warm.
  3. Meanwhile, sprinkle the gelatin over the lime juice in a small pot. Let it sit for about ten minutes to soften up, then stir it over low heat just until the gelatin dissolves. Let cool, then fold the gelatin mixture into the white chocolate/cream.
  4. Whip the remaining one cup of cream with the vanilla extract until it has soft peaks. Fold the white chocolate mixture into the cream, then pour this all into the prepared crust. Smooth the top and refrigerate for at LEAST 6 to 8 hours, but preferably overnight. Gelatin takes a few hours to set firmly anyway and the addition of a citrus juice in this one makes it set slower.
  5. When done, gently push it out from the bottom (it always helps to have someone else there to grab the pan bottom. Otherwise, you have this tart in one hand with no way to remove what looks like a huge cream covered bracelet dangling from your other arm. Don’t ask… just don’t ask.
  6. Garnish with more whipped cream and some lime slices.

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White Chocolate And Lime Mousse tart 3

German Chocolate Cake

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German Chocolate Cake

German Chocolate Cake



A while back on my facebook page, I asked my followers there (why is it that every time I say “followers”, I feel like Jim Jones holding up a pitcher of kool-aid? Come to me, my pretties… I’ll make life allll better!) what they wanted me to make- sweet, savory, specific flavors? I was having a brain dead day. I have a lot of those. Most people came up with suggestions fitting this blog, i.e., fattening, high calorie, etc. A few however, seemed to forget where they were. I got suggestion for… *GASPS*…. low calorie foods and I was told in email that I needed to start blogging more low cal, even diabetic friendly recipes and that I should also post some vegan ones more often.

Ummmm…. no. I don’t. Have to, that is. Or even need to. There are plenty of other bloggers covering that territory. Those of us willing to put our blood sugar count on the line for you are getting harder to find, however. Appreciate us while we’re still alive and don’t have to be buried in piano cases. :-p

I can appreciate that people want those type of recipes and I will happily guide my readers towards some wonderful blogs and web sites that do that type of food, but unless I make something that just HAPPENS to fit that criteria, I won’t be posting that style of food. There are 900,000 blogs out there cooking under many different topics. Mine is a baking/comfort food blog. You wouldn’t go into a restaurant that specializes in home cooking, things like meat loaf, mashed potatoes, cream pies, etc and say, “Hey, I want you to make me a nice vegan lentil dish. This other stuff just isn’t what I’m looking for and you need to stop serving it.” Same thing here on my little corner of the internet.  I love you all more than pizza (fully loaded with extra cheese even) and if I make a recipe that is Vegan or low cal or wonderfully good for you, you’d better believe I’ll post it. But will I actively search for or make those kinds of recipes? No. I enjoy baking, I enjoy comfort foods (and big hips and thighs obviously). However, believe it or not, I make healthy foods sometimes But I do it because I like the sounds of a recipe or want to try making something differently or because I had to turn sideways to fit my hips through a door and can’t afford new jeans and am getting tired of sitting around the house in a Muumuu.

So there you have it. If you want foods that have enough calories to feed a small country or that will make you feel better on a day when all you want to do is eat your emotions, I’m your gal. If you want foods that will trim your waistline or lower your blood sugar, I may not be the blogger for you. I’d hate to see you leave, but I fully understand. 🙂

On that note….. cake. With calories galore.

This is my husbands favorite cake and I kinda like him, so I thought I’d give it a try. This recipe came from Southern Living. It’s moist chocolate cake, smothered in a thick and rich coconut pecan frosting

Because…cake. Chocolate….

FYI- This recipe makes a TON of frosting. I still had some left over and you can see how heavily iced this cake is. I can see cutting it in half and still having enough for the cake, easily. I have noticed in the past that Southern Living recipes can lean towards a bit of inaccuracy in amounts, as much as I love them.

You know the drill…

German Chocolate Cake

  • 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, room temp
  • 7 ounces of finely chopped semi sweet chocolate
  • 2 cups flour
  • 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • Frosting-
  • 3 1/2 cups chopped pecans, lightly toasted and cooled
  • 1 cup, plus 2 tablespoons, unsalted butter, room temp
  • 2 14 ounce cans sweetened condensed milk
  • 3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
  • 5 egg yolks
  • 3 cups (10 ounces) sweetened shredded coconut
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 2 9 inch cake pans with a baking spray that combines oil and flour. Wilton makes a good one.
  2. Place the chopped chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and microwave in 30 second increments, stirring after each one, until chocolate is fully melted. Set aside to cool a bit.
  3. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.  In another bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and egg yolk, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add in the vanilla extract and beat just until combined.
  4. Alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour (flour, buttermilk, flour, buttermilk, flour). Fold in the melted chocolate.
  5. Scrape batter (it will be thick) into the prepared pans, smoothing the tops of each pan of batter.
  6. Bake at 350 until a wooden skewer inserted in each comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Let cakes cool in the pan, on a rack, for five minutes, then turn out carefully onto the rack to finish cooling.
  7. While the cake cools, make your frosting- In a large pot, combine the butter, sweetened condensed milk and brown sugar. Cook over low heat, whisking often, until mixture is smooth. Don’t let it get extremely hot; you’re just getting it all melted down and combined. Add a little of the mixture to the egg yolks and whisk to combine. You’re just trying to heat the yolks so they don’t cook unevenly when you add them into the milk mixture.
  8. Whisk the egg yolk mixture into the milk one. Let cook over low heat, whisking often, until it has thickened up, about 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer it to a large bowl and add in 3 cups of the pecans, the coconut, vanilla extract and salt. let this cool. It will thicken more as it cools down.
  9. Place one cake layer on serving plate. Frost with half the frosting. Lay the other cake layer carefully on top; frost with the rest of the frosting. Garnish withe the rest of the pecans.

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Cheesy Chicken Fajita Quesadillas

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Cheesy Chicken Fajita Quesadilla

Cheesy Chicken Fajita Quesadilla

Yesterday was….interesting. Russ and I had to go get some grocery shopping done so we decided to brave the snow and hope for the best. Mannnn, were we naive! First off, my car (his is totally snowed in and not going anywhere) was parked 1/2 mile away at a little general store that let him park it there. Why was it there, you ask? Because, the other day when he tried to get up our 1/4 mile driveway, he got stuck. Some kind strangers pulled my car back out to the road and he drove to the store and asked to keep the car there. Thank God for small town hospitality. Anywhere else would have had it towed, but they let him leave it there.

Sooo… we traipsed through the foot high snow, me in just a long sleeved shirt and a sweater, because I don’t own a coat and I don’t have gloves because the boys played with them and lost them. Did I forget to mention that it was 6 degrees with a wind chill of -2 out when we did this? You may now groan and feel pity for me. I’ll take the sentiment gladly. 😛 So, we got to the car, got to the main road, which was clear and made it into town, about 20 minutes away. Did our shopping and headed home. It was dark by this time. Now, the stupid part was our hope that we would be able to get the car up the driveway. Why did we think this when not a darn thing had changed since last time? I have absolutely no idea. Call it hunger induced idiocy… cabin fever induced idiocy. Whatever.

Well, we made it home. I had Russ let me off at the edge of the driveway so that I wouldn’t make him nervous gripping the dashboard and whimpering as he tried to get up the driveway. Then I slogged through to the house, and since I heard NO car following me, I grabbed a flashlight and went straight back out. By now the temp was about -1 with a wind chill of “Oh, crap, I can’t feel my face.” I made it back down to the car, which was stuck (gee, imagine that) about 30 feet in. We tried to get it out; no luck. So Russ went over to our neighbors house (the driveway belongs to both of us, with their house being up front near the road and ours way back). he has a truck, so we begged for him to chain us up and pull us home. He agreed. BUT… of course there is a but here…. he managed to get us about 35 yards or so from the house and that was it. He was afraid of getting stuck himself if he went farther in. So there we were; a trunk and back seat full of groceries at a distance that, at that moment, seemed like far enough to qualify as being in another state, with about 352,000 bags of groceries to get in. Uphill. Both ways. Did I remember to mention that it was about -400 with a wind chill 0f -2000? It seriously is uphill getting to the house though; thus one reason the neighbor was afraid of getting stuck. So we managed, after about 4 trips each, crawling on our hands and knees, as polar bears snapped at our heels to get the food and the blizzard raged around us (Yes, yes I AM planning on writing a nice fantasy story. Why do you ask?), to get the groceries back to the house.

I have never been…so cold…in my life. Sweater, hat, no gloves, sneakers that held out not one bit of snow or cold. My poor feet and hands threatened to divorce me and find another body to live on if I ever did that again. I didn’t blame them.

And…. we have another storm on the way that will bring either significant amounts of snow or significant amounts of ice. Woo….hoo…

These quesadillas were nice and warm however. Both heat wise and spicy wise. Right now, I so love the words warm and heat. If I had a raw habanaro in front of me, I’d eat it just to embrace the inner heat. These are crispy crunchy on the outside, cheesy and chickeny (think I’ve used enough c words now?) inside with wonderfully browned onions and peppers. Plus, there is a touch of heat from the jalapeno. Nothing major though. These are also extremely easy.  I have it set for three servings but this is simple to change amounts on.

You know the drill….

Love…. Mrs. Cupcake… who will never be warm again.

Cheesy Chicken Fajita Quesadillas

  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1 small onion
  • 1 small green pepper
  • 1 tablespoon finely minced jalapeno pepper
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
  • 8 ounces thinly sliced chicken breast (I made it easier and used the store bought chicken for tacos and the like, found in the lunch meat section. Feel free to use what makes you happy.)
  • 6 8 inch flour tortillas
  • vegetable oil
  • 3/4 to 1 cup shredded Colby jack cheese.
  • salt and pepper to taste
  1. Slice your onion in half, then cut it into thin half moon slices. Do the same with the green pepper.
  2. Pour the 2 tablespoons oil into a medium non stick pan. Add in the onions, green peppers, jalapenos and garlic. Cook over medium heat until the onions and peppers have gotten soft and browned, about 5 minutes. Put in a bowl, cover and set aside.
  3. Heat the sliced chicken in the same pan and heat just until warm. Set in the bowl with the veggies. Leave the pan over the heat while you prepare the tortillas.
  4. Brush one tortilla lightly with oil. You don’t want it dripping but you want enough on there to help crisp the tortilla. Lay it in the hot pan and immediately top it with a third of the veggies and meat and the desired amount of cheese. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Top with another tortilla and carefully brush that one with oil. Carefully slide a spatula under the bottom and lift to see if it is as browned as you want it to be. If so, carefully flip it over (hold the top one lightly with your hand as you flip) to brown the other side.
  5. Cook to desired doneness, remove to plate and cut into 4 wedges.
  6. Repeat with the other tortillas; serve with sour cream, salsa or picante sauce and some green onions.

Copyright Notice: From Cupcakes To Caviar images and original content are copyright protected. Please do not publish these materials anywhere without prior permission.

Cheesy Chicken Fajita Quesadilla

Cheesy Chicken Fajita Quesadilla