Double Chocolate Rum Cake

Today I baked my first rum cake; and it turned out delicious. I used a recipe from the Cake Mix Doctor, I got the book yesterday and decided to try it out. The cake was very easy and fast to make, the consistency was tender and moist. It calls for 1/2 cup of gold rum which I thought it was going to be too much, but it was just enough to get the rum taste; plus the raspberry rum sauce gives a little extra - delish!

I just tried this recipe for now but I will bake some others. I love the way this book shows the cake pictures right at the beginning of the book with the page for the recipe. It makes it very easy to pick and choose what you want to bake.

PB&J Cupcakes

Last weekend I decided to turn one of my husband’s favorite sweet treats, PB&J sandwich, into a cupcake.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Cupcake Ingredients:

• 1 box of white cake mix, you can also use butter cake mix
• 2-3 cups of Peanut butter spread; I used Jiffy’s reduced fat
• 3 eggs
• 3-1/2 sticks of unsalted butter (oil substitute)
• ¼ cup sour cream
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1 cup of milk (water substitute)
• Grape or strawberry jelly
• 1/2 cup chopped peanuts
  

Directions:

1. Cream about ¾ cups of peanut butter with ½ stick of butter
2. Just follow the instruction of the cake mix box, but make the substitutions listed above.
3. Add to creamed peanut butter - cake mix, eggs, vanilla extract, 1 stick of butter, sour cream, milk
4. Fold in chopped peanuts
5. Bake according to cake box instructions
   

After cooled, inject the jelly into each cupcake with a piping tip and voila! Now, it’s ready for icing.

Peanut Butter Icing

Mix about 1-2 cups of peanut butter with 2 cups of confectioning sugar; taste it to make sure it’s not too sweet and make sure it stays at a good consistence for decoration. Not too hard and not too soft.

Well, it turned out delicious and I even had extra for a little cake.

If you like PB&J sandwiches, this is a must. I am sure you will love it!

Strawberry Banana Cake

Last Sunday I made a delicious and moist strawberry banana cake with Coconut Swiss buttercream; then, sprinkled some coconut flakes on top.

The recipe was a mixture of a semi homemade magazine strawberry cake recipe and my usual recipe. But, instead of using a strawberry cake mix I used a white cake mix and added strawberry gelatin to give it color and flavor and it made it really moist, this was the recipe from the magazine. Then, just added butter, milk, eggs, sour cream, vanila extract, and a pinch of salt. After it's all mixed up I added the fresh chopped strawberries and bananas. Baked at 350 for about 40 minutes. Then, voila! !

Let the cake cool for about an hour then frost with the Swiss coconut buttercream - DELISH!

BTW- I took the Swiss buttecream recipe from cupcake recipe book .

See more strawberry cake at http://lapetitebaker.blogspot.com/2009/07/starwberry-cake.html

Family recipe - Tiramisu Cold dessert

This is a delicious cold dessert my mother and gramma used to make. I tried a few times but had no luck. Then, finally asked my gramma for the correct recipe; it turned out delicious. In Portuguese, this dessert is called "Pave Gelado" similar translation would be "Cold Dessert"

Ingredients

• 1 can of condensed milk
• 1 can of milk you can use 2% but full fat is always better
• 1 can of table cream
• 4 eggs - separate egg whites and yolks
• 2 packs of ladies fingers wafers
• 4 tbps of sugar
• 1 cup of chocolate milk

Directions

Freeze the table cream for one hour before using, to eliminate liquids. Place condensed milk, milk and 4 egg yolks in a sauce pan ; stir it until you get a thick consistence. Place the thick cream in a glass dish, 11'x8" approximately. Dip ladies fingers in chocolate milk and sugar and place two layers of the wet wafers over the thick cream.

Beat the 4 egg whites until peak and add table cream, from freezer (make sure there is no liquids on the top layer), add 4 tbps of sugar. Mix is all and pour it over the wafers' layer. Cover with aluminum foil and place it in freezer for at least 2-3 hours.

Enjoy!

Tips -

1. you can add some instant coffee to bottom or top layer to give it a bit of tiramisu taste.
2. if you like coconut, sprinkle some coconut flakes on top of the last layer and/or shaved chocolate like I did
   

Baby Shower Purse Cake

This was my third purse cake and it came out real cute. It was for my girl friend's baby shower yesterday. I got the idea from another baby shower purse cake picture someone sent me a while ago. I made the cake a day before to let it cool and decorated the next day. It was a chocolate cake with chocolate chips and coconut buttercream icing.

The little green shoes and bibb were made with fondant. I added a few baby spoons on the side pocket and a little baby bottle. Also, a real pacifier next to the baby shoes.

Everyone loved the cake and they kep telling me a should open a bake shop!

This is Melissa - she looked so cute! She is having a baby girl ;-)


Messy picture of the cake after we started slicing it. But, it was delicious.


Find some instructions on how to make a purse cake or Making a purse cake

Orange Peel Cake

Saturday I made a delicious orange peel cake. And, I made it out of a moist yellow cake mix. I like to sometimes mix my recipes, it’s a bit dangerous because they say baking is a science and you need to follow the measurements to have it all come together. But, it’s fun to experiment and see the results, plus you can also learn along the process.

So, even though the orange cake tastes it shrunk about 1” or 2”, from when I took it out of the oven. My husband thinks it need to bake longer; I don’t agree because I did the tooth pick test and it came out dry so it was time to remove from the oven. I think that the one possible reason the cake shrunk is because I opened the oven once and actually moved the rack out of it to check o nthe cake; and I read in this other web site http://www.baking911.com/ that you are not supposed to do that. Oh well, live and learn. I won’t do it next time. My husband likes the taste but still think he can taste the dough; I think it’s because the cake is really moist. I added orange juice, a whole orange, orange rum, and milk; so a lot of liquids.

Here is the recipe:

1. 1 box moist yellow cake


2. Eggs, follow cake mix instructions


3. ½ stick of unsalted butter


4. 1 cup of sour cream


5. 1 tsp vanilla extract


6. 1 tbp orange rum


7. ½ cup of milk – 2% is ok
   
8. ½ cup of orange juice
   
9. 1 whole orange, ground in food processor
   

Follow cake mix package instructions for oven temperature. Grease 9” round pan; I use Bakers Joy. Also, follow instructions from cake mix for mixing ingredients, you will be replacing the oil for the butter and the water with milk and the orange juice, add the vanilla and rum orange extracts. Then, add the whole orange.

I made a creamcheese icing for this cake, but you can also do an orange glaze, or no icing at all.

Once it’s done, let it cool and enjoy!

Julie & Julia - My Movie review

I watched Julie & Julia this afternoon, with my husband, and we both loved. It was funny and a even emotional at times. I think a lot of people can identify with Julie, the girl making Julia's recipes; her frustrations, ups and downs about what to do with her life and her work. Plus, you get a little glimpse of Paris, circa 1950 - I hope it was Paris - if not, it was still a pretty scenery.

Meryl Streep did a great job playing Julia Child; she is too funny and was able to walk in those really high heels to be as tall as Julia was. She had a real loving husband, Paul, and they both loved each other very much and seemed to always encourage each other a lot, no matter what; something to learn from them. So, I recommend to all of you food fanatics out there and even if you never watched food shows from Julia Child, like me, you will still like the movie and be encouraged to start cooking and, in my case, I will look for a Julia Child DVD to see some of her cooking shows. And, I am even thinking of getting the book Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Now, go watch it!

Here is a clip from one of Julia Child's TV show