Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

So I am staring down the barrel of another birthday, Tony's this time, and I realize that I never got to post the strawberry cake that I made last month for my birthday!!!  And that's a real shame because it was so good.  Luckily the northern part of the country is coming into strawberry season and I am posting this for you just in time.

Now, I made this cake twice.  The first time I made it as a one layer cake in a sheet pan and it turned out perfect.  We ate it all though before I could get a single picture of it!  So being the good blogger that I am I made it again.  I made a 2 layer cake this time.  And I had high hopes for this one.  It was going to be beautiful and as light and fluffy as the first one.  It was close but not exactly the same.  I use whole eggs in this one and should have used the 6 egg whites like I did in the first one...lesson learned.

I really would have made another one for the perfect pic but I got the worse sore on the end of my tongue from all of the stinkin' strawberries I had eaten that I couldn't face another one...LOL!!!  But now that my tongue is all healed I want one and I want one bad!!!

Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting (from Confections of a Foodie Bride)

Ingredients

• For the strawberry puree:
• 24 oz very ripe strawberries, hulled (or no-sugar-added frozen strawberries)
• 1-2 tsp sugar (optional)
• For the cake:
• 1/4 cup milk, at room temperature
• 6 large egg whites, room temperature (4 whole eggs can be substituted, but it will not be as pink or as light and fluffy!  I recommend the egg whites)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cup cake flour, sifted
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 12 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), at room temp

Instructions

1. If frozen strawberries in whatever form (sliced, whole, etc) and in whatever container/bag you have them in. Pour into a fine strainer placed over a bowl and let sit. Lightly toss the strawberries occasionally to remove any pockets of excess liquid. Reserve the liquid for another use or discard.
2. If using fresh strawberries, just hull, slice and toss with a teaspoon or two of sugar and cover. Let them sit at room temperature for a couple of hours, until nice and juicy.
3. Place strawberries in a food processor or blender and puree.
4. Reserve 3/4 cup puree for the cake.
5. Use leftover puree to fill the cake or fold into the frosting, if desired. It's also fabulous spooned over ice cream... and eaten straight with a spoon.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare two 8- or 9-inch pans, or muffin pan, or 13"X9" pan: spray inside with baking spray with flour (or use some sort of grease/flour combination).
7. In small bowl, combine puree, milk, egg, vanilla and mix with fork until well blended. In bowl of stand mixer, add sifted flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix to combine. Continue beating at slow speed and add butter. Mix until combined and resembling moist crumbs.
8. Add wet ingredients and beat at medium speed for about 1 minute or until full and evenly combined. Stop mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl and hand beat for 30 more seconds.
9. Note: The batter will not get any pinker in the oven so if you're disappointed in the color from your berries, maybe consider adding a drop or two of pink or red food coloring.
10. Divide the batter evenly among the pans and smooth tops.
11. Bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (time will vary)I found that it was about 40 minutes for the 13X9 pan and it would be about 20-25 for the cupcakes. Let cakes rest in pan for about 10 minutes and turn out onto wire racks. Let cakes cool completely (about 2 hours).
12. To make the frosting use your favorite cream cheese frosting or this one. 
13. Once the frosting is made I added some of the leftover puree to it.  But not too much or it will become too thin.  If you wanted more pink (we avoid red dye) add some red dye to the frosting now.
14. Frost your cake and enjoy!!!

 

Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I was hunting around the internet trying to come up with something different to do with over ripe bananas. I make banana bread all the time so I kind of wanted something a little special. My oldest daughter was doing her FCAT’s all week (FL standardized testing).

I found this banana cake recipe that was simple, straight forward and (grin) I had all the ingredients!!!

Turned out wonderfully. A delicious light cake that everyone in the family loved! Will definitely be making this one again!

I put really cute little butterfly sprinkles around the outside for the kids and then served ours with banana!

Banana Cake (from Mom’s Who Think)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
2 cups flour, sifted
1/2 tsp. of salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1/4 tsp. vanilla
3/4 tsp. baking soda (add to pureed bananas)
3 pureed bananas, very ripe

Cream Cheese Frosting:

1/2 stick butter, softened
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 box powdered sugar (1 lb.)
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9x13" baking pan or two 9" layer cake pans.

2. Cream butter, sugar and eggs. Sift flour several times, then add the salt and baking powder to the flour.

3. To the creamed butter mixture, add the milk and flour (alternating, beginning and ending with flour).

4. Add vanilla and mashed bananas (with the baking soda added to the bananas) to this mixture.

5. Bake layer cakes (9") for 25-30 minutes, oblong (9x13") for 35-40 minutes.

Frosting Directions:

1. Mix cream cheese and butter until smooth, add sugar and vanilla and blend well. Spread on cooled cake.

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

My Dirty Little Secret!

We all have them. You know that dish that you whip together really fast using every single shortcut you can think of...well I did it the other day and EVERYONE LOVED IT!!!!

Believe it or not last week I had 2 funerals to attend. The first one was for my neighbor so I went to the viewing and showed my support but the other one was one of my very close friends husband. Neither of these were unexpected and they had both been in Hospice Care but it doesn't make their passing any easier.

Anyway on with my story...my friend was having an open house after the service and I told her I would bring a dish so that she had one less thing to worry about.

I stood and stared at my pantry for some inspiration. I stood there for a long, long time. I went to the fridge. Same thing. I couldn't even decide if I should do a sweet or a savory dish. I finally went through an old box I had of baking things and that's when it came to me. Fruit pizza!

Years ago at a school auction I had one a basket with a baking theme. You know the baskets that are chock full of everything you need to "bake". Cookie mixes, cake mixes, frosting, pancake mixes etc. Well I've used some of the stuff but lucky for me I had never had the need to use a bag of sugar cookie mix that was in there. I also had a very old tub of cream cheese frosting. I was so lazy on this I didn't even mix the frosting with whipped cream I just spread it on like it was from the tub and topped that bad boy with kiwi, strawberries and blueberries!

Normally I wouldn't even post something like this but it was such a hit. I had all sorts of people wanting to know how to make it, what was in it. Did I lie and tell them it was all from scratch or did I fess up? I'll never tell but this was that one dish at a pot luck that everyone raves over. This was it!!!


Fruit Pizza-Betty Crocker

1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® sugar cookie mix 1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted 1 egg 1 cup whipping cream 1/2 cup Betty Crocker® Rich & Creamy cream cheese frosting (from 1-lb container) 3 1/2 cups assorted fresh fruit 1. Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly spray 14-inch pizza pan or 15x10-inch baking pan with cooking spray. 2. In medium bowl, stir cookie mix, melted butter and egg until soft dough forms. Press dough in bottom of pan. Bake 10 to 15 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool completely, about 45 minutes. 3. In chilled medium bowl, beat whipping cream with electric mixer on high speed until soft peaks form. Gently stir frosting into whipped cream. Spread over cookie pizza. Arrange fruit on top.

Because everyone liked it so much I am going to submit this to Susan at Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy for her Blogiversary Bash! Happy first year Susan!!!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Perfect Cupcakes for Back to School!

I bake.  I bake alot...

One of the reasons that I bake so much is that I like for the kiddos to have snacks to take to school in their lunch that isn't completely full of artificial ingredients.  When I bake something for them I generally know what they are eating.  But I have always had a problem when trying to send cakes or cupcakes with them to school.

Then it hit me!  All over Pinterest (follow me there) I kept seeing posts of Mason jar cupcakes.  Great idea but I didn't have any mason jars and wasn't going to go and buy some just to make cute cupcakes in. Then it hit me.  I can use the same idea using the cute little Mini Round Glad® Food Storage Containers!!!

Banana Cupcakes

Genius I say!  And the kids love them.  Lauren asks for them everyday!!!  They get to take cupcakes to school with no mess or worries about squishing and gooeying eveything up!!!

Simply make your cupcakes as you usually would in the oven using a cupcake tin (not these Glad® Food Storage Containers!!!) and once they are cooled remove the paper line and drop them into your Glad® Mini Round container.  Do not put the frosting on them until you have put them in the Glad® Mini Round.  Once they are in there then you can put the frosting on them using a pastry bag!

Be sure to attach a spoon to the Glad® Mini Round container so your kiddo will have something to eat it with at school.  A ribbon would have been really cute but an elastic band works just as well!

Banana Cupcakes (from Mom’s Who Think)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
2 cups flour, sifted
1/2 tsp. of salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1/4 tsp. vanilla
3/4 tsp. baking soda (add to pureed bananas)
3 pureed bananas, very ripe

Cream Cheese Frosting:

1/2 stick butter, softened
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 box powdered sugar (1 lb.)
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups.
2. Cream butter, sugar and eggs. Sift flour several times, then add the salt and baking powder to the flour.
3. To the creamed butter mixture, add the milk and flour (alternating, beginning and ending with flour).
4. Add vanilla and mashed bananas (with the baking soda added to the bananas) to this mixture.
5. Fill cups 1/2 full with batter. Bake 20 to 23 minutes. Test with a toothpick for doneness. Cool completely. Peel off paper baking cups and place in Glad® Mini Rounds and frost

Frosting Directions:
1. Mix cream cheese and butter until smooth, add sugar and vanilla and blend well. Spoon into a piping bag with tip and frost cupcakes.

**If you have any really cool Back to School recipes, tips or ideas head on over to Glad's Facebook page for a chance to win a "Lunch Kit" for your kids entire class just by sharing!!!

I have partnered with The Glad Products Company through DailyBuzz Moms to help promote their Food Storage products. I have been compensated for my time commitment to review this product. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments. Thank you GLAD!

Paula Deen's Pumpkin Bars

Paula Deen's super moist Pumpkin Bar's with Cream Cheese Frosting!

On with my pumpkin recipes.

I've made them savory and I've made them sweet but by far this was the sweetest. Did you see Top Chef on Wednesday night when Padma used her napkin to spit out the super sweet lemon meringue martini? Well these aren't that sweet. Close, but no spitting was going on here. Just remember I warned you!

Before the recipe I wanted to do a couple of shout outs to some very kind people who have sent me a couple of things to try out...

Carr's cracker people contacted me a couple of weeks ago with some recipes that they thought I might be interested in (am and will show them later). They also asked me if they could send me some Carr's samples. Well seeing that they are my go to entertaining cracker I jumped at the chance to get some free. I thought maybe they would send me a box of crackers and that would be it. I was wrong...very wrong. The wonderful people at Carr's sent me an elegantly wrapped up basket with three boxes of crackers!!! Rosemary Crackers, Their classic Table Water Crackers w/ cracked black pepper and their Whole Wheat Crackers!!! Thanks Carr's

I was also contacted by the YouBar people. A few months back I was sent a couple of samples of their YouBars. Great idea but I am way too lazy to do it. You choose all of your ingredients in your bar and they send it to you labeled for you personally and all. Last week they contacted me and asked me if they could send me samples from their newest product line YouShake. Seeing as T. has a protein smoothie every morning I gladly accepted. So far he has only tried one but he did say that it was very, very good. It was a chocolate whey protein drink with banana. Sounded good to me. Thanks YouBar!!!

Pumpkin Bars (Food Network-Paula Deen)

Ingredients:

Bars:

• 4 eggs
  
• 1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 15-ounce can pumpkin
• 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (I changed this to 1 tsp cinnamon)
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves (I added)
  
• 1/4 tsp ginger (I added)
  
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg (I added)
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Icing:

• 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• I also added 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice
  

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy. Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth. Spread the batter into a greased 13 by 10-inch baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting. Cut into bars.

To make the icing: Combine the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and mix at low speed until combined. Stir in the vanilla and mix again. Spread on cooled pumpkin bars.

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Best-Ever Apple Cake

I love fall and all of the wonderful flavors and smells that go with the foods associated with it.  Hard to believe then that I spend my life living in SWFL right?  We do have fall here but it is very subtle.  Not the glaring colors of leaves changing, more like our grass just going brown…but fall is fall and changing temperatures, shorter days and lower humidity are all good things in my book!
When I got this months Southern Living magazine on of the first things that caught my eye as I quickly scanned through was “Our Best-Ever Apple Cake”  and I knew as soon as I saw the recipe for Browned Butter Frosting that I was going to have to make it my own…

Our Best-Ever Apple Cake (Southern Living October 2010)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2  cups  chopped pecans
• 1/2  cup  butter, melted
• 2  cups  sugar
• 2  large eggs
• 1  teaspoon  vanilla extract
• 2  cups  all-purpose flour
• 2  teaspoons  ground cinnamon
• 1  teaspoon  baking soda
• 1  teaspoon  salt
• 2 1/2  pounds  Granny Smith apples (about 4 large), peeled and cut into 1/4-inch-thick wedges

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Bake pecans in a single layer in a shallow pan 5 to 7 minutes or until lightly toasted and fragrant, stirring halfway through.
2. Stir together butter and next 3 ingredients in a large bowl until blended.
3. Combine flour and next 3 ingredients; add to butter mixture, stirring until blended. Stir in apples and 1 cup pecans. (Batter will be very thick, similar to a cookie dough.) Spread batter into a lightly greased 13- x 9-inch pan.
4. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely in pan on a wire rack (about 45 minutes). Spread your choice of frosting over top of cake; sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup pecans.
Browned-Butter Frosting

Ingredients:

• 1  cup  butter
• 1  (16-oz.) package powdered sugar
• 1/4  cup  milk
• 1  teaspoon  vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Cook butter in a small heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly, 6 to 8 minutes or until butter begins to turn golden brown. Remove pan from heat immediately, and pour butter into a small bowl. Cover and chill 1 hour or until butter is cool and begins to solidify.
2. Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy; gradually add powdered sugar alternately with milk, beginning and ending with powdered sugar. Beat mixture at low speed until well blended after each addition. Stir in vanilla.
***This cake is delicious.  Tony said it was one of the best.  I think he just loved the frosting and I could have put it on anything and he would have been in love.  The one thing about this cake is that they recommend 2 other frostings to go with it.  You can take you pick but I highly recommend the Browned-Butter Frosting…

Dark Chocolate Frosting,

Cream Cheese Frosting

Strawberry Muffins

So April was a really busy month for us here.

We had a 5K run that both the girls did...

We had BMX races...

Friends that we visited...

We went fishing...

And finally we went strawberry picking and that's what this post is about!  Strawberries...

And we picked a lot of strawberries.  I made cake (post to come on that one), strawberry puree for ice cream and finally I made strawberry muffins.

I made strawberry muffins many, many times.  You know why?  The recipe that I found was awesome.  Simple, no mixer and all ingredients that you have on hand...

Strawberry Muffins (Taste of Home)

preheat oven to 375°

Ingredients

• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup fat-free plain yogurt (I used papaya flavored yogurt because that's what I had on hand and it was delicious so use what you have...)
• 1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/4 cups coarsely chopped fresh or frozen unsweetened strawberries

Directions

• In a small bowl, combine the first four ingredients. In another bowl, whisk the eggs, yogurt, butter and vanilla. Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in strawberries.
• Fill muffin cups coated with cooking spray or lined with paper liners two-thirds full. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. Serve warm. Yield: 1 dozen.

These were good.  I mean really, really good.  So good that I made them for a friends birthday and I frosted them with cream cheese frosting.  Everyone liked them...

Banana-Chocolate Chip Muffins

So it’s been a while.  I can give you a million reasons why I haven’t posted since last month but I won’t.  Hopefully this is the end of the dry spell.

I had 4 small bananas that were past the eating date according to everyone in my family.  I knew I needed to make something with them but couldn’t decide on anything.  I was going to make a banana cake with cream cheese frosting but getting out the mixer seemed like a lot of work while I was trying to do laundry and clean.  Banana bread rarely gets finished here for some reason.  Everyone starts gung ho on it and then I end up throwing out the last 3 slices.  I was going to make banana snicker doodles but once again sounded like too much work.

Finally I came across a recipe for banana chocolate chip muffins from the Epicurious  website.  I love this site because of the honest reviews that people leave on the recipes.  How can you go wrong when 275 people have left comments for you!!!

These muffins were delicious.  Light and fluffy, full of bananas and chocolate chips.  Definitely yummy my taste testers just confirmed! 

Banana-Chocolate Chip Muffins (Epicurious.com)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large)
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup milk
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350°F.
• Line twelve 1/3-cup muffin cups with foil muffin liners.
• Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in large bowl.
• Mix mashed bananas, egg, melted butter and milk in medium bowl.
• Stir banana mixture into dry ingredients just until blended (do not overmix).
• Stir in chocolate chips.
• Divide batter among prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full.
• Bake muffins until tops are pale golden and tester inserted into center comes out with some melted chocolate attached but no crumbs, about 32 minutes.
• Transfer muffins to rack; cool.