Tag Archive for: dessert

Spiced Eggnog Pound Cake

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I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving!  I am still so full, but it was all worth it.  I remade a lot of recipes that I have put on this blog this past week for family members that I have not seen in a while.  We started off on Wednesday night, having my parents, all of my siblings and nieces over for dinner.  Corby served up his now-famous BBQ with coleslaw and a potato and bacon hash that was out of this world.  I made a salad and used the Pimento Cheese pop-overs instead of croutons.  Since we were having BBQ, my brother and his wife brought Bourbon Banana Pudding- I don’t have the recipe yet, but apparently it is from Joy of Cooking, and it was so so so good.

The next day,  I made the Prosciutto Cheese Straws for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner snack- fantastic and a huge hit with my brother and father, and for Thanksgiving Day dessert, I made the Chocolate Bread Pudding that was the Le Creuset recipe contest winner, and it was just as good as I remembered it!  We also got an Apple Crisp from The Co-Op on Sullivan’s Island (www.thecoopsullivans.com).  The Co-Op is a great little grocery/deli that serves up great sandwiches and amazing homemade desserts- definitely check it out!

So despite the fact that it is 80 in Charleston today, I am now gearing up for Christmas- how is that possible!!!  We are headed to NYC this weekend for a visit, and I am so excited to get some cold weather to get into the Christmas spirit.  We are also going to my sister’s annual gingerbread house building party on Sunday, before we head home, which we have not been to in a long time and should be so fun!  To also help get into the Christmas mode, here is a recipe I love from Christmas with Southern Living from back in 2005- Spiced Eggnog Pound Cake- enjoy!

Spiced Eggnog Pound Cake

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 3 cups sugar
  • 6 large eggs
  • 3 cups sifted cake flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup eggnog
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons brandy (optional)
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 3/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
  • Powdered sugar
  • 1 cup sifted powdered sugar
  • 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon whipping cream

Preparation

  • Generously grease and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan; set aside.
  • Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer about 2 minutes or until creamy. Gradually add granulated sugar, beating 5 to 7 minutes. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until the yellow disappears.
  • Combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to butter mixture alternately with 1 cup eggnog, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition. Stir in vanilla and, if desired, brandy.
  • Pour half of the batter into the prepared pan. Stir cinnamon and the next 3 ingredients into the remaining batter. Spoon spice batter over plain batter. Swirl batters together, using a knife.
  • Bake at 350° for 50 to 55 minutes or until a long wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Remove from pan; cool on a wire rack.
  • Place cake on a cake plate; dust with powdered sugar.
  • Combine 1 cup powdered sugar and whipping cream, stirring until smooth. Drizzle glaze over the cake

 

My Bakery Wish List

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Since I started writing this blog, I have been making a wish list of bakeries I want to visit.  Red Truck Bakery (www.redtruckbakery.com) in Old Town Warrenton, VA is definitely at the top of the list.  First off, I really love that they turned an old Esso Station into a bakery.  Second, I really love the truck- an old 1954 red  Ford farm truck- while I would not have the first clue how to drive it and would surely kill the transmission, clutch and any thing else in the engine, is really my dream truck.  Third, and most importantly, I am obsessed with their menu- I look at it every day and wish that I could be there right when the bakery opens and smells so amazing.  Today’s soup for example is potato with apple wood smoked bacon- heaven.  If you live in the neighborhood or have the chance to be near the area, please check it out for me as it doesn’t seem that I will make it there any time in the near future.  Fortunately- they ship nationwide (http://www.redtruckbakery.com/store)!! Here is some of the press from my favorite magazine- Garden & Gun:

“Leave it to a baker in moonshine country to create a dessert that rivals the Kentucky bourbon ball. The Double Chocolate Moonshine Cake from Red Truck Bakery in Virginia is made with legal hooch and enough rich chocolate to give you a food buzz. ”
  ~ Garden & Gun Magazine

Glazed Gourmet Opened Today!!

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We now have a gourmet doughnut shop in Charleston- I am beyond excited! Glazed Gourmet (www.glazedgourmet.com) opened on Upper King Street, and I hear they have a pumpkin doughnut that is extremely tasty.  Can’t wait to check it out for myself! Will post with a picture and an update when I make it there. 

Cattle, Football, and Petit Fours

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I am back from a trip to Oklahoma and Arkansas, and what a trip it was- I saw the sunrise three out of the four days we were gone! We spent two days in Oklahoma at the Drummond Ranch, where Corby’s oldest friend, Ladd and his wife, The Pioneer Woman (www.thepioneerwoman.com) Ree, and their four children live.  It is so beautiful!  The first day we spent with Ladd, the kids, and the cowboys shipping cattle.  Cowboy Tim, Cowboy Sam, Cowboy Josh and the kids rounded up all the cattle from nearby pastures and brought them to a pen where they were divided into sections and weighed.  Then the 18-wheelers backed up one at a time to the shoot, where the cattle were then herded and loaded into the trucks.  They shipped over 400 cattle in about three hours.  It was amazingly efficient, and I only had to be on a horse for about ten minutes.  It was terrifying.

That night, Ree and Ladd came over to the Lodge where we were staying and cooked us amazing steaks and Delicious, Creamy Mashed Potatoes.  That is actually Ree’s name for the dish in her cookbook, and the recipe is below!

The next day, after watching the sunrise again- this time from my bed in the Lodge- which was much better, we drove to Fayetteville, Arkansas to visit Corby’s family and watch the Arkansas vs. Auburn game.  Two very good things came from this trip- first, Arkansas won- which while I don’t really have any passion for football what so ever, it makes Corby wildly happy.  Second, and more importantly, we went to Rick’s Bakery (www.ricksbakery.com) which was very much deserved after the extreme trail run Corby took me on Saturday morning.  Wow!  Of the many things I tried at Rick’s- donuts, petifores, cookies, and cake, I think the petifores with the Razorback decorative icing were my favorite, and who knew they were such a hit at tailgates.  Everything was so good!!  If you are in Fayetteville, AR for any reason, make a point to go there, and you will not regret it!

 

Delicious, Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:

5 pounds Russet Or Yukon Gold Potatoes

3/4 cups Butter

1 package (8 Oz.) Cream Cheese, Softened

1/2 cup (to 3/4 Cups) Half-and-Half

1/2 teaspoon (to 1 Teaspoon) Lawry’s Seasoned Salt

1/2 teaspoon (to 1 Teaspoon) Black Pepper

Instructions:

Peel and cut the potatoes into pieces that are generally the same size. Bring a large pot of water to a simmer and add the potatoes.  Bring to a boil and cook for 30 to 35 minutes. When they’re cooked through, the fork should easily slide into the potatoes with no resistance, and the potatoes should almost, but not totally, fall apart.

Drain the potatoes in a large colander. When the potatoes have finished draining, place them back into the dry pot and put the pot on the stove.  Mash the potatoes over low heat, allowing all the steam to escape, before adding in all the other ingredients.

Turn off the stove and add 1 ½ sticks of butter, an 8-ounce package of cream cheese, and about ½ cup of half-and-half. Mash, mash, mash! Next, add about ½ teaspoon of Lawry’s Seasoning Salt and ½ teaspoon of black pepper.

Stir well and place in a medium-sized baking dish. Throw a few pats of butter over the top of the potatoes and place them in a 350-degree oven and heat until butter is melted and potatoes are warmed through.

Note: When making this dish a day or two in advance, take it out of the fridge about 2 to 3 hours before serving time. Bake in a 350-degree oven for about 20 to 30 minutes or until warmed through.

Mississippi Mud Pie

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On top of working with the Lee Brothers last week, which was the best experience ever, I also moved.  As all of you know, moving is not fun- at all!  However, I now have a much bigger kitchen, and I also got some old Pyrex mixing bowls from ebay.com which are fantastic.  My son asked me whether I was more excited about the new house or my new mixing bowls.  The house wins by a slim margin.  As a treat for all of my hard work this weekend during the move, I decided on chocolate. Nothing quite beats it- except for maybe cheese- but those are two totally different categories.  I found this old recipe for Mississippi Mud Pie, and it is delicious!

Mississippi Mud Pie

Use a chocolate or vanilla cookie crust, or a graham cracker crust, to make this Mississippi mud pie
(I used chocolate- so good).

Ingredients:

1/4 lb. butter, 1 stick
2 (1 oz. each) squares unsweetened chocolate
3 eggs
3 tablespoons white corn syrup
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
9 inch graham cracker, chocolate or vanilla wafer pie shell

Preparation:

In a saucepan, heat butter and chocolate, stirring often, until melted and well  blended. 
Beat eggs; stir in the corn syrup, sugar and vanilla. 
Add the chocolate mixture to egg and sugar mixture, stirring well. 
Preheat oven to 350°.  Pour filling into prepared pie shell. 
Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until top is slightly crunchy and filling is set.
Serve  warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or dollop of whipped cream.

All the Buzz- Caramel Cake

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I read the book, “The Help” when it first came out and absolutely loved it!  I have not had a chance to see the movie, but it is on the long long to do list.  However, I have had a chance to sample the actual Caramel Cake that was featured in the movie which is clearly the most important part!  The cakes in the movie were provided by Caroline’s Cakes in Annapolis, MD.  She is a native of Charleston, SC and will hopefully be opening a shop here soon!  Her bakery is centered around her Caramel Cakes, and they are phenomenal!!  She has over 120,000 people on her list that order them every year!  She obviously keeps this recipe pretty well guarded, so I am going to post another and quite tasty recipe for a Caramel Cake that comes from Eudora Garrison’s Favorite Carolina Recipes.   Eduora Garrison was food critic and editor for the Charlotte Observer.

Caramel Cake

1/3 cup plus 1-1/4 cups granulated sugar, divide and use
1/3 cup boiling water
3/4 cup butter
3 eggs
3 cups sifted cake flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Melt the one-third cup of sugar in a heavy skillet, stirring constantly until a deep-brown syrup is formed- a process called caramelization.
Remove from heat and slowly stir in boiling water, being careful that steam does not burn your hand. Set the syrup aside to cool.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease two 9-inch cake pans, place parchement paper in the bottoms, then grease and flour the cottoms and sides.
Cream butter in bowl with electric mixer. Add 1 and 1/4 cups sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time, beating until each is well incorporated.
Stir in 4 tablespoons of the reserved syrup.
Sift together the cake flour, baking powder and salt.
Combine milk and vanilla.
Add flour mixture to the batter alternately with the milk mixter, beginning and endin with the four mixture. Beat until smooth.
Divide batter evenly among the two prepared pans and bake for 25 minutes, or until wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Remove pans from oven and let stand about 10 minutes, then turn out cakes onto wire rack, peel off paper and cool completely.

Caramel Frosting

3 cups (light) brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons half and half
1/2 stick of butter (4 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Mix sugar and half and half in a heavy saucepan and cook, stirring over low heat until syrup reaches the soft-ball stage,
235 degrees on a candy thermometer. If lacking a thermometer, check doneness by dropping a tiny bit of syrup into a cup of cold water. When the syrup can be gathered up in fingers and will almost hold its shape, it has reached the soft-ball stage.
Remove pan from heat.
Stir in butter, then let syrup cool.
Add vanilla and beat until frosting reaches spreading consistency. A little cream (or half and half) may be add if mixture is too thick.

Cheerwine Cake- who knew cooking with soda could be so good!!

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This past week was the first week of third grade for my 8 year old son, Walker.  As a, “yay school is back in session” celebration, I decided to try a new recipe I was sent by The 1861 Farmhouse Restaurant in Valle Crusis, NC.  They just added this cake to the menu and were so generous to share the recipe with us!!  It is a Cheerwine Cake, and it is amazing!!  My mother has a recipe for a Sprite pound cake, and I have a recipe for apple fritters using Mountain Dew, but this was the first I had heard of baking with Cheerwine.  Needless to say, I think the people at the 1861 Farmhouse Restaurant are incredibly smart.  For more of their yummy goodness, go check out their restaurant at www.1861farmhouse.com.   Here is the recipe and a picture of how it turned out.  I didn’t use the nuts in the icing because I don’t like them, but I would think that if you did, it would be delicious.

Cheerwine Cake

1 box chocolate cake mix
1 cup Cheerwine
1 tsp. almond extract

Icing:
1/3 cup Cheerwine
21/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup margarine
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1 cup chopped nuts
1/4 cup cocoa

Directions

Prepare cake as directed on box, except substitute the water for the Cheerwine. Add almond extract, mix well. Pour into greased bundt pan.

Icing: 

Heat Cheerwine, margarine and cocoa until it comes to a boil. Pour mixture over powdered sugar, blend til smooth. Stir in almond extract and mix in nuts. Let cool, pour over cake.

Sour Cream Blueberry Cake

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We used to have blueberry bushes on the hill at my grandmother’s mountain house, and it was so marvelous to have blueberry pie, blueberry pancakes, blueberry muffins etc. all from blueberries that we had picked that morning.  The bushes have unfortunately gone away, but I still have kept my love for blueberry treats.  I came across an old recipe for a Sour Cream Blueberry Cake that is delectable.  If you decide to make it, please let me know what you think!!

Sour Cream Blueberry Cake

1 stick butter
1 cup of sugar
3 eggs
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup blueberries

Directions

Beat the butter, sugar and eggs together until the sugar is dissolved, and it is a light creamy mixture.
Then add the vanilla.  Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.
Add half of the dry ingredients to the mix then half of the sour cream and stir.
Then add the remaining dry ingredients and sour cream and stir.
Pour half of the batter into a large greased and floured pan.
Cover with blueberries and top with remaining batter.
Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.  Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and enjoy!!

Bourbon Panna Cotta. Run, don’t walk.

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I don’t know what sounds more Southern than Bourbon Panna Cotta, do you?

Mmmmm, ramekins. 🙂

Therefore, since I can’t seem to keep my hands off anything from A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen (a delicious little blog by Kim Morgan), here’s a recipe I found there for this delight, which came originally from Frank Stitt’s Southern Table:

 

Bourbon Panna Cotta

1 cup plus ½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons water
4 cups heavy cream
½ cup pecans, toasted and chopped
3 tablespoons good bourbon
2 cups whole milk
2 envelops unflavored gelatin

Directions

Set aside eight or ten – 8-ounce custard cups or ramekins.
Combine the ½ cup sugar, lemon juice, and water in a small heavy saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat, boiling until the sugar dissolves. Reduce the heat to medium, brushing down the sides with a wet pastry brush to remove any sugar crystals, and cook, shaking the pan to swirl the caramel, until the caramel is a mahogany in color 10-20 minutes. Do not stir the caramel mixture.

 

When in doubt, bake some Cuttaloosa Carrot Cupcakes

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“A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen” is a sweet, homegrown blog filled with amazing recipes that are easy to follow and produce ridiculously fine results. Let’s hear it for this one:

 

Cuttaloosa Carrot Cupcakes!

1 3/4 cups finely grated carrots
1 cup crushed, drained pineapple (save liquid)
1 1/2 cups finely chopped walnuts or pecans- optional
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup corn oil
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Mix above ingredients together till well mixed.
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda

Mix above ingredients together till well mixed, then add to carrot mixture mixing well. Divide into 3-8″ cake rounds that have been well greased or 18-24 well greased muffin tins.

Bake cake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or till knife comes out clean. 20 minutes for cupcakes.  Cool on rack for 10 minutes then remove from pan.

For the entire post and the butter cream icing for these beauties, click here to go to “A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen”