Pumpkin Cream Cheese Angel Food Cake

I recently found a recipe on Pinterest for Pumpkin Cream Cheese Cake.  It sounded very tasty and extremely easy.  I had all the ingredients on hand so I decided to give it a try.

This recipe calls for very few ingredients: angel food cake, a can of pumpkin, cream cheese, and some cinnamon.

 

 

(Just in case you have really good eyes, I should probably point out that the spice shown is cinnamon, not basil as is written on the lid.  I like to trick my mom by putting the spices in the wrong containers.  No, just kidding, there really is a valid reason behind the spice madness.  I simply hate dried basil and my spice organizer didn't come with a cinnamon bottle so I dumped the basil and filled it with a spice I actually use- cinnamon.) 


Directions:
*Beat the cream cheese with 3 tablespoons water until the consistency has thinned.
*In a separate bowl, mix the cake mix, pumpkin, and 1 tsp cinnamon with 3/4 cup water. 
*Add half the cake mixture to a 9x13 pan, layer with dollops of the cream cheese, add the remaining cake mixture, and top with remaining cream cheese.
*Take a knife and swirl the cream cheese and cake together.  Be sure not to over mix, you want the ingredients to remain separate. 









Bake the cake at 375 degrees for 34 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean).

 

 

I thought this cake turned out pretty decent.  I wasn't overwhelmed with the cake, but it certainly wasn't bad for having so few ingredients.  I think it might have been better to add a little powdered sugar and cinnamon to the cream cheese.  The cake was not very sweet, which I actually liked, but it might be a little better with some extra sugar.

 

I would also suggest making it with regular angel food cake mix, not the confetti version.  The confetti mix doesn't taste any different, but it is kind of weird to see specs of green and red in this cake. 

 

The texture turned out very moist, and almost sponge cakeish.  I've never had sponge cake, but it has the texture of what I imagine sponge cake to be.

 

 

Stay tuned..... next up- CHILI!  

 



Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Icing

Yesterday afternoon, as I was trying to write a report, my mind kept wandering to pumpkin cookies.  Hard as a tried I couldn't get them off my mind.  I decided to take a break and search for a recipe... there are a ton of pumpkin cookies recipes on the web but I decided I would try Martha's Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Icing. 

I must admit I had never dealt with brown butter before.  What a shame.... all these years and I have been missing out on this delicacy.  My new mission is to find a savory application for brown butter... I bet that would be fantastic. 

If you zoom in on the above picture, you can see little bits of brown in the frosting.  So delicious.  The frosting is a keeper for sure.  The cookies...well they were okay.  They were actually better than okay, they were good, but not great.  Perhaps my expectations were too high.  I'm afraid Martha let me down on this one.  I'll forgive her though since the frosting was so good.

The cookie recipe produced a cake like soft cookie texture. I was hoping they would be more like the Lofthouse cookies that unfortunately have me enamored.

Since the cookie batter is kind of thin (like cake batter), you can't just put scoops of batter on the cookie sheet- if you do, they will look like my first batch of cookies which were terribly ugly.  See below.

Martha's recipe calls for using a piping bag to pipe 1 1/2 inch rounds onto the cookie sheet.  I thought this seemed unnecessary and decided to just spoon the batter onto the sheets.  After my first batch looked so unpresentable, I decided to go the extra mile and do the piping technique. 
The picture below shows the cookies before being baked.  I forgot to take a pic of the cookies (sans icing) after they were baked.  Please forgive me....I'm still new to the blogging world.

I also forgot to take a picture of the brown butter.  I wish I would have because it truly was neat to see the color develop into a rich golden shade.  The smell was amazing as well.  This icing is nice because it hardens the perfect amount. 

Here is a link to the recipe.  I only made one change so I don't think I will take the time to re-write the recipe-  http://www.marthastewart.com/318741/pumpkin-cookies-with-brown-butter-icing.

Martha used 1 1/4 sticks butter in the icing.  I used 1 1/2 sticks in my icing. 

Side Note:  The cookie batter is delicious.  Mark and Natalie were fighting over who got to lick the mixing paddle.  Mark won but he graciously allowed Nat to have a few licks.  :) 

Bananoffee Pie

Bananoffee Pie

This is probably my current favorite dessert dish.  I have made this pie twice in the past month and each time I am blown away how tasty it is.  The pie is super easy to make and is unlike any pie I have ever tasted. 

The fist time I made this pie I made an incredibly stupid mistake and lost the use of my hand for about 10 hours....seriously.  I had to have the hubbs bathe our daughter since I only had use of one hand.  How, you ask?  Well, the secret to this recipe is boiling the can of condensed sweetened milk for 3 hours.  After it is boiled for 3 hours, the sweetened milk turns to toffee.  I was so anxious to open the can that I didn't wait for it to properly cool.  I opened it right away and as you can imagine, the heat had built up pressure in the can and upon opening, it exploded hot toffee all over my hand.  I persevered through the pain and finished making the pie, but oh man, it seriously hurt. 

This time around I let the can boil for 3 hours, turned off the stove and went to bed.  In the morning the can had cooled and I was able to open it without issue. 


Ingredients:
1 Shortbread Cookie Pie Shell
1 Can Condensed Sweetened Milk
3 Bananas
2 Cups Whipping Cream
2 tsp Vanilla
1 Tbs Sugar

Directions:
Boil the can of milk (in the can) for 3 hours.  Make sure the entire can is submerged in water the entire time.  I would highly suggest letting the can cool overnight before opening. 

Bake the pie shell at 375 for 5 minutes.  Slice the 3 bananas and arrange on the bottom of the cooked pie shell. Cover the bananas with the toffee.  Top with whipped cream and enjoy!

Whipped Cream Directions:
Whip cream until soft peaks form, add in vanilla and sugar.  Continue to whip until whip cream is thickened. 


I hope you try this recipe and enjoy it as much as I do.  I made this for my mom and sister tonight and they both seemed to enjoy it as well.  :)  This is seriously heaven in pie form in my humble opinion.

Hamburger Vegetable Soup

Welcome to my first blog post!  I love sharing my food stories with my friends and family so I finally decided it was time to start a blog.  I internally debated long and hard about what I should cook for my first blog post.  This was an awfully hard decision for me, but I decided upon an old favorite- Vegetable Soup. 

This doesn’t sound very fancy or exotic, and frankly it isn’t, however it truly is one of my favorite soups to make.  This is a variation of the recipe my Grandma made many times growing up.  I realize I probably shouldn’t mess with Grandma’s recipe but I have a strange desire to alter recipes.  I just can’t help myself.  I’m sure my Grandma would understand. J 

Here are the ingredients.  The picture shows 6 potatoes- I only ended up using 4.  I froze the other two for future use.

Rachel’s Version of Grandma’s Veggie Soup

1 lb ground beef
3/4 package of frozen mixed veggies- 32 oz bag
I/2 package of frozen lima beans- 16 oz bag
½ onion
3 cloves garlic
4 medium size diced potatoes
1 packet of onion soup mix
1 can tomato sauce
1 can stewed tomatoes
6 cups of beef broth
1 cup water
Salt to taste (sorry I don’t measure!)


Brown the onion, garlic, and ground beef in a large soup pot.  Drain off fat if using fatty ground beef.  Return the beef mixture to the pot and add in remaining ingredients.  Simmer on medium heat until potatoes are tender and soup tastes delicious- approximately 45 minutes.  I usually smash down the stewed tomatoes since I don't like huge tomato chunks, but I suppose that is a personal preference. 


Here is a picture of the finished product. 

I must say this soup never disappoints.  I could eat this all the time and be a very happy girl.

Thanks for reading my first blog post!  Check back in a few days to see what my next creation is!  If any of my two readers want to make a suggestion, I am all ears!  :)