Better for you Carrot Cake

I found a cake recipe online when I went looking for one with less sugar and perhaps a higher glycemic index. The one I found, I added pineapple to it and it was well received. It made a beautiful cake.

Better for you Carrot Cake Recipe
 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Line a 9 x 13" pan with parchment paper and grease the sides.

Combine in a large bowl:
1 1/2 cups flour
2/3 cup flax meal
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt

Combine in a medium bowl:
2 1/2 cups finely grated carrot
1 cup finely chopped pineapple, juices squeezed out
4 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Make a well in the dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients. Stir just until combined.
Bake at 350 for 30 - 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near centre comes out clean.
Cool in pan for 10 minutes and then cool on a wire rack.

I made this recipe of icing to make the cake pictured. I added the pink fondant flower after, but the rest is:

Cream Cheese Icing
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 - 2 Tbsp. milk
3 cups icing sugar, sifted

Combine all ingredients and stir until smooth.

Obviously, the cream cheese icing is not "better for you", but hey, if you want icing, it's gotta be icing, right?

Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Carrot Bread Recipe

Still with the carrot theme, I also made carrot loaf. It is very moist and delicious. I may have added a touch too much cinnamon! I modified a recipe in my cookbook called "Taste of Home Winning Recipes".

 

This is my version of

Chocolate Chip Carrot Bread

In a large bowl, combine:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

shake of ground cloves

In a small bowl, beat:

3 eggs

1 cup orange juice

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla

Stir the wet ingredients in with the dry. Fold in:

2 cups grated carrots

1 cup chocolate chips

 

Transfer to two greased 8 x 4 x 2" loaf pans. Bake at 350degrees F for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near centre comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes. Remove to wire rack.

 

The children and I all enjoyed it. Hope you can too! I've tried this recipe before as muffins and that also worked well. It made 22 beautiful muffins. I baked them at 400 for 16-18 minutes.

 

Creamy Carrot Coffee Cake

Carrots! Carrots! Carrots! We finally picked the last of our carrots on Friday and I had a baking day with them on Saturday! That was fun. My favorite thing I made was the Creamy Carrot Coffee Cake.

This was a recipe in "Company's Coming Mostly Muffins" page 137. It is awesome! A nicely spiced, decadent cake that was just plain delicious. Loved the cream cheese icing on top. Just enough to be perfect! I used fresh pineapple instead of canned and omitted the nuts they called for. It was a good use of carrots, to be sure. I can post the recipe if you leave me a comment to that effect.

Have a nice day!

My Raylene Rankin tribute cake and my Class's cakes

Made this cake at the beginner cake decorating course I taught last night. It's my tribute to Raylene Rankin, who will be missed.

It is a carrot cake, filled with buttercream and covered in buttercream with buttercream decorations.

 

There were 8 students this term and they all let me photograph their cakes. Here are their cakes:

I think they did a great job!

 

Pecan Pumpkin Pie

This is the result of being asked to make pumpkin pie, but not having whipping cream in the house: Pecan Pumpkin Pie!

I found this recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book 14th Edition, page 440. They called it Pecan-Topped Pumpkin Pie. I enjoyed it the first day, after being in the fridge just long enough to say it was cool. But I thought it was even better the second and third day! It solidified more and tasted even more sugary on top. The pecans took over as the main flavor in this pie. Since I like pecans a lot, that was fine with me. If you wanted it to be more of a pumpkin pie and less about nuts, I would recommend making it with half the nuts and sugar and butter that goes with them and just using the nuts on top, not on bottom and top. Certainly a make-ahead pie for those fall occassions!

 

Here's their recipe:

Pecan-Topped Pumpkin Pie Recipe

1 single pie pastry

1 1/4 cups coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 3/4 cups pumpkin (15 oz can)

1 1/2 cups half-and-half or light cream

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

3 Tbsp butter, melted

 

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Prepare the pie pastry. Line a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate with pastry circle; trim and crimp as desired.

2. In a small bowl combine pecans and brown sugar. Spread 3/4 cup pecan mixture in the bottom of the pastry-lined pie plate; reserve remaining pecan mixture. For filling, combine pumpkin, half-and-half, granulated sugar, eggs, pumpkin pie spice and 1/4 tsp salt. Mix well. (I used 1 can evaporated milk since I didn't have half-and-half or cream either).

3. Place the pastry-lined pie plate on the oven rack. Carefully pour filling over the pecan mixture in pastry shell. (I'll leave mine on the counter next time and risk spilling it as I set it in the oven, versus letting out all that oven heat and almost burning myself on the edge of the open oven as I poured the filling in). Bake about 50 minutes or just until set in center. (45 minutes was enough in my convection oven). Stir melted butter into remaining pecan mixture. Sprinkle pecan mixture over pie filling; bake for 10 minutes more or until topping is bubbly around edges. Cool on a wire rack. Cover and chill within two hours. (Let chill for two hours more before serving for best results.)

 

40th Birthday Cake

This may not be my most beautiful cake ever, but a good deal of thought went into it. I made it for my older sister who insists she is not having any more birthdays. ha ha. But she is always busy at something and she is great at what she does, so I had to celebrate it. I put a few of her favorite and/or most important roles and passtimes on her cake in three dimensional fondant figures.

 

The cake itself is a two-layer carrot cake with cream cheese icing and filling. The figures are all fondant and gum paste. Warning: do not put fondant on cream cheese icing until you MUST because it softens quickly due to the fat in the cream cheese. It also turns shiny and looks greasy. Here's the view from the other side:

 

It was easy to decorate, once I had made the figurines. I marked off the cake in 6ths (hidden under border that was added later) and then piped the lettering. Then I added the borders and finally I added the figurines at the last moment. My only regret is not giving more space where it was needed around the tent and less around the "40" but that's how it was divided. And apparently I should have written "Carol is 39 again."

Orange Zucchini Loaf review

My friend shared with me some orange zucchini loaf that looked like lemon poppy seed loaf.  It was so good that I had to try it for myself.  She got the recipe from mennonite girls can cook. I made it just like the recipe (without nuts) but swapped 1 cup of whole wheat flour for 1 cup of flour. It was still awesome! My children loved it and it is school friendly - no nuts. My husband commented that he could only taste the orange in it. I think that's why it is so good.

 

Next time I will, of course, try swapping some applesauce for some of the oil in the recipe. I think it will work well with that substitution. Enjoy your zucchinis!

Picnic Cake

If you want to have a great cake for a barbeque or a picnic, try one like this:

I made a double batch of white cake in two 9x13" pans. I stacked them with buttercream icing in between. I used my new "grass" tip (picture a tip with a flat top with 11 holes in it like a salt shaker) and made green buttercream "grass". To cover the cake took about an hour.

Then I applied the picnic blanket. It was made of rolled fondant mixed with gum paste. First, I made strips of red and white fondant/gum paste using my fondant ribbon maker set at 1/2 inch. I lined those up and rolled over them lightly with a rolling pin. Then, I cut strips in the other direction and lifted each of those strips and offset the squares to make the checkerboard. It was all laid out on my roll and cut mat, so when the checkerboard was done, I could "flip" it onto the cake.

All of the picnic items were formed in advance from a mix of fondant and gum paste.  They were left to dry for about a week. To finish the cake, I just placed the picnic items on the picnic blanket and piped the greeting with white buttercream icing.

The trickiest part was definately the picnic blanket. The squares didn't always want to stay together. The most fun part was making the little hot dogs and hamburgers. Those took about 3 hours to form, so it wasn't quick, but I would have been quicker if I didn't have to color the fondant first. It was worth the effort. Happy Picnic-ing!

Canadiens fooler cake

My son wanted a cake that would look like a puck with the Montreal Canadiens symbol on it. Only, since his name is Adam, he wanted an "A" instead of an "H" in the middle. Here's how it turned out:

The cake is a chocolate, two layer cake. All the icing and the filling is buttercream except the "C", which is rolled fondant. I had extra icing so I did the fancy 3-layer deep shell border, but I don't think Adam even noticed it!

Rhubarb Sauce Meringue Pie

Tis the season for rhubarb! My husband noticed a recipe for Rhubarb Meringue Pie in a newspaper recently and suggested I try it. I was a little taken aback - I mean, I LOVE Lemon Meringue Pie, but I didn't know how I'd like Rhubarb Meringue. I didn't have the actual paper so I did a quick internet search and found several recipes. I followed the one at Cooks.com for their Rhubarb Sauce Meringue Pie.

My only critique with the recipe is that the cornstarch should have been combined with a little water and mixed into the rhubarb rather than adding it in, dry, with the sugar. I took out a couple clumps of cornstarch before pouring the final filling into the pie shell. The rest of the recipe was great. It says to bake until it is a "delicate brown". It certainly looked delicate coming out of the oven! It was a truly beautiful pie. If you like Lemon Meringue Pie and have some rhubarb, I would insist you try this pie! I used frozen rhubarb and was delighted with the results. The whole family was asking for seconds. It was delicious. I loved how the tang of the rhubarb was nicely offset by the meringue - excellent combination.

There are egg yolks in the filling, which explains why the filling is more orange than you would expect from red rhubarb. I enjoyed this pie a lot more than my previous rhubarb apple pie with molasses. I was really impressed at how nicely the filling held up with the cooled pie. I love my husband's good ideas!

Enjoy your rhubarb!

Applesauce Rhubarb Muffins

I needed to use up those last cups of rhubarb in my freezer so I searched online for a rhubarb muffin recipe without nuts - so my children could bring them to school. I found a recipe at www.cooks.com

for these muffins and they are great!

I will finely chop the rhubarb the next time I make them. With 1/2 inch pieces, the chunks of rhubarb are too big to let the muffins cook evenly. Oh, and I used about 1/3 cup of oil instead of 1/2 cup and they didn't miss the fat!

Enjoy that fresh rhubarb from your garden today!

Happy Birthday cake!

How would you decorate a cake for a six year old who can't decide what he likes? Here's what I did:

I made a "6" cake! I used two round pans for the bottom and a heart pan, cut in two and trimmed to make this 2-layer cake. I filled it with lemon curd (think lemon pie filling) and iced it with buttercream.
Here's what the first filled layer looked like:

I should have used a different color than purple as an accent - it might be too "girly" for him. Or I could have made the cake darker blue but it will still taste the same!

Thinking about Mother's Day

Hello friends! This morning I thought I would play with my little girl all morning, but my bread supply was so low that I had to make bread instead. It was a good, dreary day for it. While I was at that, I glimpsed the little piece of paper I had recently signed - agreeing to donate a cake to a cake walk that is happening on Saturday (the day before Mother's Day). I figured, "Why not?" and baked a cake too. I made a plain white cake, 2 layers, 9 inches round. I made up some buttercream and got to work decorating the cooled cake. In an hour, I had this to give away. I thought it should make a nice Happy Mother's Day cake!

So, Happy Mother's Day a little early!

(Now go tell your mom you love her.)

A Flower Garden Cake

This could have been a Welcome Spring cake, or an Easter cake, but at our house it was a birthday cake for a four year old girl! She loved it.

It was a chocolate cake underneath, with a buttercream filling. Pretty standard stuff. Melody helped me make the 4 bugs on the cake and we had great fun doing it! Fondant and gum paste are just as much fun as play dough.

This is just a closer look at the details. The smiles on the bugs are an exact match of my pinky fingernail!

Happy Easter!

Hello there,

 Happy Easter to you and yours. I'm serving up a simple baked cheesecake with peaches on top for our Easter dessert. I made the "Happy Easter" piping from Royal icing and let it dry and placed it on the cooled cake. My children created these Ukranian Easter Eggs (Pysanky) yesterday.
Enjoy the holiday!

Happy Easter, Love Helen

Lightning McQueen Cake

I was asked to do a car-themed cake for a boy who absolutely loves Lightning McQueen. I challenged myself to do it in 3-D. I am thrilled with the results! Took about 5 hours to decorate the whole thing. I used parchment paper cut-outs to design numbers and lightning that would fit.

The red is all fondant. The other colors are fondant/gum paste mix and the white is buttercream icing. I covered it in buttercream first. This is what it looked like then:

I had the 3 inch toy car as my model. The cake was three 9x9" cakes that were trimmed and stacked in various ways. The final cake is about 7"x14"x2"high. When I was done, I wanted the wheels to look like they were buried in sand (since they were flat on the bottom) so I sprinkled brown sugar all around the cake. I'm super impressed with how this one turned out!

Smurf cake

Today's blog is just to show how I decorated the Smurf cake I made for my daughter's birthday. I used a shaped pan and filled it with my usual chocolate cake recipe for a 9x13" pan.

Then I covered the flat area with smooth white buttercream, and the rest, with stars. I used piping gel to make the black, and red fondant for the tongue. Pretty cute!

It was really easy to decorate this "shaped" cake! But it did use more icing than I expected. Stars take up more icing than smooth finish.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just wanted to share a little love this morning. Happy Valentine's Day! This is the cake I made to show my beginner cake decorating class how to decorate a Valentine's Day cake.

Love to All! Have a nice day.

Rhubarb Granola Muffins

Today's muffin recipe is from an old newspaper clipping. They are awesome! I can't even tell which newspaper they came from but it doesn't really matter! They are crunchy and good. I used Harvest Crunch cereal where it calls for granola so they contain lovely slivers of almonds. 

Rhubarb Granola Muffin Recipe

1 3/4 cups flour

1 1/4 cups granola

3/4 cup sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

2 eggs

3/4 cup milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups chopped (1/2 inch pieces) rhubarb

1/2 cup granola for topping

1. In a medium bowl, mix together flour, 1 1/4 cups granola, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg.
2. In a large bowl, beat eggs; whisk in milk, oil and vanilla; stir in dry ingredients until almost combined. Stir in rhubarb.
3. Spoon into greased or lined muffin cups. Sprinkle the 1/2 cup granola over the batter, pressing lightly on top.
4. Bake in preheated oven at 375degrees F oven for 15 to 18 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Pretty simple! Enjoy with your next cup of coffee or tea!

Cranberry Apple Muffins

Today's idea came from my husband, who asked me for Cranberry Apple Muffins. I adapted a Raspberry Apple muffin recipe in my Mostly Muffins Company's Coming cookbook. They turned out really good. He was happy.

Here's the recipe I made for 24 muffins:

Cranberry Apple Muffin Recipe
3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon (optional)
1/2 tsp. salt

3 large eggs
3/4 cup sour cream (or 1/2 cup sour cream and 1/4 cup yogurt)
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup milk

1 1/2 cups chopped cranberries, fresh or frozen
1 1/4 cups diced, peeled cooking apple

Topping:
3 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. cinnamon

Measure flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt into a large bowl. Stir. Make a well in centre.

Combine eggs, sour cream, butter and milk in a medium bowl. Add to well.

Add cranberries and apples. Stir just until moistened. Fill 24 lined or greased muffin cups full.

Topping:

Combine brown sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle about 1/2 tsp. over each muffin.

Bake in 375 degree oven for about 25 minutes, or until wooded pick inserted in centre of muffin comes out clean. Let stand in pan for 5 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool. Makes 24 muffins.

Peanut Butter Fudge

Had a craving for some fudge, so I whipped up some of this right after supper. It is fairly quick and easy. Took about 1/2 hour from start to finish (that is, eating it!).

Peanut Butter Fudge Recipe
2 cups granulated sugar
3 Tbsp. butter
1/2 cup milk
pinch salt

1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup marshmallow creme (I used 8 large marshmallows, melted in the microwave when it was time for the creme to go in.)
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Combine sugar, butter, milk and salt in large heavy saucepan. Heat and stir on medium until sugar is dissolved and mixture begins to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low. Boil slowly, uncovered for about 8 minutes, stirring twice, until mixture reaches soft ball stage (about 235 degrees F, 113 degrees C, on candy thermometer) or until small amount dropped into very cold water forms a soft ball that flattens on its own accord when removed. Remove from heat. Let stand for 10 minutes.

Stir in peanut butter, marshmallow creme and vanilla. Pour into greased 8 x 8 inch pan. Spread evenly. Cool. Makes about 1 1/2 lbs. Cuts into 64 pieces.

Enjoy!

Raisin Nut Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing

That cream cheese in the fridge was calling to me today. So I answered it with a beautiful dozen cinnamon buns. We were so excited to eat them, that they were almost half gone before I got to taking pictures!

I made half of the dozen with raisins and walnuts, and the other half were just cinnamon and sugar. I eventually covered all of them with the cream cheese icing. Yummy! Here's the recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens 15th Edition Cook Book p.116:

Best Ever Cinnamon Rolls - Raisin Nut with Cream Cheese icing

4 1/4 to 4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 package active dry yeast

1 cup milk

1 cup mashed cooked potato

1/3 cup butter, cut up

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 Tbsp. cinnamon (or more!)

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup raisins (or up to 1 cup if you want lots of raisins)

1/2 cup nuts (or up to 1 cup if you like lots of nuts. Roasted pecans are suggested.)

1.  In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups of flour and yeast; set aside. In a medium saucepan, heat and stir milk, potato, 1/3 cup butter, granulated sugar, and salt just until warm (120-130 degrees F) and butter almost melts; add to flour mixture along with the eggs. Beat with an electric mixer on low to med. speed for 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Using a wooden spoon, stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can.
2.  Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead in enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately soft dough that is smooth and elastic (3 to 5 minutes total). Shape dough into a ball. Place in a lightly greased bowl; turn once to grease surface of dough. Cover; let rise in a warm place until double in size. (45-60 minutes).
3.  Punch dough down. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Cover and let rest 10 minutes. Meanwhile, lightly grease a 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Set aside. For filling, in a small bowl stir together brown sugar and cinnamon; set aside.
4.  Roll dough into an 18x12 inch rectangle. Spread 1/4 cup of butter over dough evenly. Sprinkle with filling, leaving about 1 inch unfilled along the long sides. Sprinkle the raisins and nuts over the filling. Roll up rectangle, starting from a filled long side; pinch dough to seal seams. Slice rolled rectangle into 12 equal pieces (use a ruler and "cut" with dental floss wrapped around the roll and pulled through). Arrange, cut side down in prepared pan. Cover and let rise until nearly double in size (about 30 minutes).
5.  Preheat oven to 375degrees F. Bake 25 to 30 minutes (23 was enough in my convection oven.) or until golden. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes; remove from pan. Spread with icing.

Cream Cheese Icing

In a medium bowl beat one 3-ounce package softened cream cheese with 2 Tbsp softened butter and 1 tsp. vanilla. Gradually beat in 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar until smooth. Beat in 4-6 tsp. milk, 1 tsp. at a time, to reach spreading consistency.



Carrot Date muffin Recipe

I've made these before, but I was asked for the recipe since I served them again yesterday. I'll post the original recipe and how I modified it.

The recipe comes from the Company's Coming Mostly Muffins book. Page 46. Here is their

Date Nut Carrot Muffin recipe
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

2 large eggs, fork beaten
3/4 cup buttermilk (or use 1 Tbsp lemon juice and enough milk to make 3/4 cup)
1/3 cup cooking oil
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped dates
1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 1/2 cups grated carrot

Measure first 8 ingredients into a large bowl. Stir. Make well in centre.
Combine next 6 ingredients in medium bowl. Add to well.
Add carrot. Stir until just moistened. Fill 12 greased or lined muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake in 375 degree oven for 20 to 22 minutes until wooden pick inserted in centre of muffin comes out clean. Let stand in pan for 5 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool. Makes 12 muffins.

Now then, Keep reading to see my variant of the recipe.
Most noticeably, after typing in this recipe, I realize that I did not remember the brown sugar! Oops. I did think as I was mixing that there should be SOME sugar, so I put in 3 Tbsp of white sugar. Here's what I actually put in the muffins in the photo:

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3 Tbsp. white sugar
1/2 cup home-made granola (oatmeal, sunflower seeds, whole wheat flour, honey, oil, sesame seeds, wheat germ)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/3 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
dash ground nutmeg

2 large eggs, fork beaten
1 Tbsp lemon juice and enough milk to make 3/4 cup soured milk
1/3 cup cooking oil
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup chopped dates and raisins combined
1/4 cup fine coconut

1 1/2 cups grated carrot

I used the same method as above. They made very textured, moist muffins.

New Year's Olliebollen

Well, I'll be showing my roots, but every New Year's Eve, I have always had Olliebollen. Lately, I make it, just like my mother still does and her mother before her and so on. We're Dutch. We ring in the new year by eating these deep-fried beauties.

I'm pretty sure there are as many variants on the recipe as there are Dutch out there, but here's the recipe I use:

Olliebollen Recipe - yields about 2 dozen

1 Tbsp. quick rise yeast

1 cup milk

2 1/4 cups flour

2 tsp. salt

1 egg, room temperature

1 1/4 cups dried currants (raisins if you prefer)

1 thickly grated tart apple

Warm the milk to lukewarm. Combine the milk, 1 cup of the flour, salt, yeast, and egg together in a large bowl. Mix in the rest of the flour to form a thick batter. Stir in the currants and apple until well incorporated. Leave batter to rise in a warm place until double in size, about 40 minutes. It should look like this:

Heat enough vegetable oil to 375 degrees F to deep fry these olliebollen. (I use my electric wok set on high with about 1 1/2 inches of oil in it.) Drop the batter by tablespoon into the hot oil.

I try to cook about 6 or 7 at a time, but by staggering their entry into the oil by 30 seconds or so, the first one will be done when the last one has been in a bit. This way the oil doesn't cool too much and you don't have to rush to get any in or out "on time". Fry about 4 minutes on each side. They should come out lightly brown all over. In the picture above, the bottom 3 have been flipped already. When they are that color all over, they are done. Remove to a paper towel-lined colander and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Go ahead, try one! Good luck stopping at just one! These are fantastic when served warm, but they're still great even when they've cooled off. Enjoy!

Happy New Year!