Tag Archives: cream cheese

Recipes - Desserts

Apple Pecan Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting


I always have an eye out in whatever newspaper I am reading, hoping to run across new recipes that sound inviting, and spotted the recipe for this apple spice cake in our local Southeast Missourian newspaper several weeks ago and first made it to take to Deer Camp weekend in Kentucky in mid-November.  Though this cake does beautifully chilled in the refrigerator, this one barely made it through the first day of Deer Camp.

If your cake is allowed to sit, the chopped apples mellow and the spices mingle, producing a moist, dense cake packed with flavor.  Chop the apples into small pieces and chop the pecans coarsely for the best results.  Cinnamon and nutmeg season the apples perfectly, providing a taste of autumn in every bite.

You don’t need a stand mixer, but be prepared with a strong arm to thoroughly mix and fold all batter ingredients.  A hand electric mixer is all you need for preparing the frosting, but do beat the mixture until the sugar is thoroughly dissolved, at least five minutes.  The cake does require refrigerating once frosted, but after that, the amount of leftovers is up to you and your guests.  If you have any at all, keep the cake refrigerated.

Whether you are cooking for a crowd or a special family meal, you will have a hard time finding a cake more satisfying, more evocative of autumn and its blessings, than this concoction.  I hope you will try it soon and let me know how you like it.

Apple Pecan Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

4 cups Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, chopped small
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup Wesson oil
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup milk
1 cup pecans, roughly chopped

Frosting

1-8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup golden brown sugar

Directions Heat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9×13” baking pan. Set aside.

In large mixing bowl, combine apples and sugar. Stir in oil, eggs, and vanilla. In another bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Add the flour mixture to the apple mixture. Add milk and stir until just combined. Do not overmix. Add chopped pecans. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely.

For frosting: Beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add butter and continue to beat until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add vanilla and brown sugar. Beat for 5 minutes until light and fluffy and the sugar has dissolved. Spread evenly on top of cake. Refrigerate after frosting.

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Recipes - Desserts

Cherry Spice Cake

Hooray! Another “no trip to the store” baking day! Fall baking comes easily when the ingredients in many recipes are already waiting on your pantry shelves, ready for use.   When everything you need to bake up something yummy is at your fingertips, it is much easier to begin!   I browsed through this collection of recipes from “A Taste of the South’s” Fall baking special issue, making note of the 1-2 items I need to buy but those items truly are few, and that is a definite plus for us bakers.  Use what you have when you can!

I appreciate the endless choices offered with Fall baking and the traditional flavors sure to shine in these recipes.   You can bet  your hard-earned dollars that the tastes of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground cloves will be showing up! There are basic batters and crusts using flour, sugar,  baking soda or powder, eggs, and a cup or two of buttermilk. And nuts! You will be using chopped nuts, guaranteed! Today, I chose walnuts for their rich flavor. You should  use whatever tickles your fancy because it’s all about easily preparing something spiced, warm,  and delicious for your family and friends.

The easiest way to make this cake, or any cake, is to gather your ingredients and sort them out, having them ready when you need them. Have it all in place, cut your prep time in half, and you will be so much more efficient in the kitchen. The French  say “mis en place”,  and that is good advice! Read your recipe several times, know where everything fits, fill your measuring cups and small bowls with what you’ll need, and you will have this cake ready for the oven quickly. Do set your butter out early so it is completely softened. And use your stand mixer for both the cake batter and the cream cheese frosting. You can wash everything up while the mixer does its work.

The canned  cherries are a great surprise in this cake; their tart flavor perfectly complements the sweet cream cheese frosting.  Today I used the reserved juice from the cherries for the liquid in the cake frosting. I didn’t want it completely pink, however, so only used 2 T. This cake would also be great with a rich butter cream frosting. Ahhh, more choices! However you slice it, my friends, place it in the refrigerator once frosted until sliced; if you are lucky enough to have leftovers, place it back into the fridge. I set aside a large chunk last night to enjoy with coffee this morning.   Yum, breakfast too!

Cherry Spice Cake

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups flour
1 t. ground cinnamon
1 t. ground cloves
1/2 t. baking soda
1/4 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1 cup buttermilk
1-14-1/2 oz. can pitted tart cherries, drained
1/4 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped

Frosting Ingredients

1-8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
3-3/4 cups powdered sugar
1-2 t. water
2-3 drops red food coloring, optional
Additional chopped pecans or walnuts, chopped, optional

Directions Preheat oven to 350. Line two 9” round baking pans with waxed paper. Grease and flour the pans and paper; set aside.

Using a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. In separate bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, cloves, baking soda and powder, and the salt then add to the creamed mixture alternately with the buttermilk, beating well after each addition. Fold in the cherries and pecans.

Transfer batter to prepared pans and bake 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks. Cool completely.

For frosting, in large bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Add powdered sugar and enough water to achieve spreading consistency. Tint with food coloring if desired. Spread frosting between layers and over top and sides of cake. Garnish with additional chopped nuts. Store in refrigerator, covered.

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Recipes - Salads

Grandma’s Green Salad

At any large family gathering of ours that involves a hearty meal, someone is tasked with making what my sisters and I always referred to simply as “Grandma’s Green Salad”.  It is a green salad, yes, but prepared using gelatin in a ring mold and nary a vegetable in sight. There was no way I could cut into this salad today for a photograph so I am posting a photograph of it “as is”,  before chilling in the fridge overnight.  The salad is airy with whipped cream and small bits of crushed pineapple and cream cheese for delicate flavor.

This is a simple gelatin salad to prepare with 40-50 minutes of “down time” while the gelatin is setting up halfway in the fridge. Once that is ready, you need only whip your cream and fold it into the gelatin-pineapple-cream cheese mixture and allow it to rest, covered, in the fridge overnight.  I prefer this salad with some finely chopped pecans myself, but I omitted them today as the Carlyle branch of the family likes it best without nuts.

The cream cheese and crushed pineapple add sweetness to the lime gelatin used in the recipe.  To serve, turn out onto a plate  on a bed of lettuce leaves or serve from your ring mold.  This salad always brings back sweet memories for all of us, and I hope someday it will do so for your family; there really is nothing better than our old heartfelt favorites on the table!  Happy Easter, y’all!

Grandma’s Green Salad

Ingredients

1-(3 oz.) box lime gelatin
1 cup water
1 small can crushed pineapple with juice
3 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 pint whipping cream
1/2 cup pecans, chopped (optional)

Directions Dissolve the package of lime gelatin in the boiling water in small sauce pot. Pour small amount of this mixture in the bottom of a glass ring mold and place in fridge to set. Transfer the remainder of the gelatin mixture to a large bowl and add the crushed pineapple and cream cheese, breaking the cream cheese into small pieces with a fork. Place this mixture in fridge also until halfway set, whip the cream then add it to the gelatin mixture.  Add pecans, if using, and fold well to blend ingredients. Scrape this mixture over the set-up gelatin mixture in your ring mold, smoothing with a spatula. Cover and chill overnight.

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Recipes - Salads

Strawberry Pretzel Salad

Strawberry Pretzel Salad finished

Another dish from last night’s party.  Like the Copper Penny Carrots, making the dish a day ahead allows the flavors to take an overnight mingle. The pretzel crust is the salad’s best feature providing plenty of texture and contrast to the other layers.

Not a hard dish to prepare, quickly finished after the gelatin mixture thickens, this salad provides  big results.  A three-layer salad, it has versatility for serving alongside your entrée, or, as a sweet dessert treat.  The crust, a baked mixture of crushed pretzels, brown sugar and butter, provides the dish its chewiness, and the cream cheese middle layer its creaminess.  Add a topping of sweetened gelatin with fruit and how could you go wrong? The result is a pretzel salad  with an awesome blend of flavors and texture.  Added bonus (because we are into that around here) you can present this in small squares and serve at least 18 people, and you can do it easily because the concoction is rich and satisfying enough to allow for it.

It will take an hour to complete this always popular salad but  30-minutes of that hour is waiting on the  gelatin mixture to set and thicken so the cook gets a break before putting the layers together and then it goes right back to the fridge and all pau!

Big Win-Win!

Strawberry Pretzel Salad

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter, softened
5 T. brown sugar
2-1/2 cups crushed pretzels (not too finely crushed)
1-(6 oz.) pkg. strawberry gelatin
2 cups boiling water
2 small pkgs. frozen, sweetened strawberries or container to equal 20 oz.
1 cup sugar
1-(8 oz.) block cream cheese
1-(8 or 12 oz.) container Cool Whip, thawed

Directions Preheat oven to 350. Combine butter, brown sugar, and pretzels and stir until the ingredients are thoroughly combines. Press into a buttered 9×13” glass dish. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven; cool. Dissolve gelatin in boiling water. In large bowl, combine frozen strawberries and the gelatin mixture, stirring often. As berries thaw, stir to blend well and snip the berries into smaller uniform, pieces if desired. Keep stirring until mixture is thoroughly combined then place bowl in refrigerator and chill until slightly thickened. In large bowl, combine the sugar and cream cheese and use a wooden spoon to thoroughly cream ingredients; add the Cool Whip and beat on low speed with electric mixture until just combined. Spread the cream cheese mixture on the cooled crust then top with cold thickened gelatin mixture, spreading each layer to the sides of the pan. Refrigerate overnight, covered. Cut into small squares for serving.

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Recipes - Desserts

An Old Favorite

Image

shauns pistachio angel delight

One of my hanai nephew’s favorite desserts (and he has already changed the recipe and made it even more his own), Shaun’s Angel Delight is a wonderful dessert for Christmas or any time at all. The mac nuts Shaun added in lieu of the pecans I used at Kete-Yama’s are a wonderful connection as well to our island home, Maui. And, of course, he used his favorite Pistachio pudding and not my recipe’s French Vanilla. I made this dessert daily at Kete-Yama’s, my small café on Maui, and it quickly became Shaun’s favorite. The middle layer is the custard so you can be creative here (i’m thinking chocolate pudding mix and adding chocolate shavings to the top instead of flaked coconut). No matter the flavor, the texture is always complemented by the crispness of the shortbread crust. Mama’s sister, our Aunt Lou, sent me this recipe when I asked at home for good dessert recipes for the café, and it became a reliable and popular item on our menu. This one you made looks so yummy, Shaun! Hark, the Herald Angels Do Sing!

Shaun’s Angel Delight

Ingredients

1 cup flour
1 stick butter, melted
3/4 cup pecans, chopped small
1-(8 oz.) block cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup of 12 oz. container Cool Whip, reserve extra for topping
2-(3 oz.) boxes French vanilla instant pudding
3 cups milk
Shredded coconut

Directions Preheat oven to 350. To make crust, combine flour, butter, and nuts in medium bowl. Stir well to mix thoroughly then press into the bottom of a 9×13 pan; bake 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool well.

When crust has cooled, make the second layer by combining cream cheese, powdered sugar, and the Cool Whip in a large bowl and stirring well to thoroughly blend. Spread on top of crust.

Prepare the top layer by combining the instant pudding mix and milk in large bowl. Beat well with electric mixer until thickened. Spread on top of the second layer and top with reserved Cool Whip, shredded coconut, and more chopped nuts if desired. Chill well before serving.

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