Banana Ice Cream - Another reason to love Bananas

Looking for a healthy ice cream alternative then try this!  It was very good!

Ice Cream

4 bananas, just slightly overripe (brown spots good, completely black not so good)
2 tbsps creamy peanut butter (optional – thus 2 ingredient ice cream)
2 tsps cocoa powder (Dutch process), (optional – thus 2 or 3 ingredient ice cream depending on peanut butter)

DO NOT FREEZE THE WHOLE BANANA, you’ll have a heck of a time blending that beast.

Peel the bananas and slice them up into 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick disks. Place the banana slices in the freezer for about an hour or until they are frozen solid. Put the frozen slices in a food processor and pulse. First they will start to resemble gravel, but keep going. The bananas will soon turn into a frozen mush – at this point, start scraping the sides down (you will do this a lot). Or you could add a dash of milk since the liquid will help the blending. I’m lactose-intolerant, so after a few minutes of stopping to scrape the sides down, the banana begins to blend into a creamy texture. When the bananas look like whipped ice cream, you can add your mix-ins like peanut butter and/or cocoa powder, chocolate chips, toffee, raspberries, anything goes! Straight out of the food processor, the ice cream is like soft serve. You can also freeze it for a firmer texture. I find it’s pretty hard (and therefore, brittle) when I scoop it immediately after removing it from the freezer. Just give it a minute or two to soften up. Makes a pint.

Cake Test #2 for Nisee's Birthday Cake

So really this is cake #3 but this is only the 2nd type.  I made this cake the same time as I made the cake pops but it fell and I was very depressed about it so I just threw it away and didn't even try to frost it! I think I was trying to do too much by making the cake, the mints and the cake pops all in one day! So I decided to give it another try and I am glad I did because it turned out great!  It is a cherry pound cake that I did in 3 layers.  So that I could practice my icing skills I used a traditional wedding cake icing but I added a little cream cheese to it to help cut down on the sweetness but it didn't help all that much. I am super happy with how the cake turned out taste wise and looks wise!  This one I took to work and I got loads of compliments on it!

The Recipie is as follows:

Cherry Pound Cake:

1 1/2 cups Crisco

3 cups sugar

6 large eggs

3/4 milk (add enough cherry juice to make 1 cup)

3 3/4 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon vanilla flavoring

1/2 teaspoon almond flavoring

1/2 of 10oz bottle Maraschion cherries (chopped and drained)

Cream crisco and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time. Add milk and cherry juice alternately with flour (should be sifted).  Add flavorings and stir in cherries.  Bake in a greased and floured 10" tube cake pan at 300 degrees for 1 1/2 hours or until done.  You can also put it in a cold oven and set it to 300 degrees and bake for 2 hours if you wish.  Let stand in pan for 15 minutes before removing.   To make it in 3 layers I used 3 8 inch layer pans and I adjusted baking time to 60 mins. 

I used a wedding cake icing on this cake and the recipie for that is:

1/2 cup crisco

1/2 cup margerine

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 cups confectioners sugar (one box)

Cream all together except sugar and then add sugar slowly mixing until well blended.

That is the traditional recipe but for this specific icing I made some adjustments.  I tripled the recipe to make sure I had enough to cover the frosting and instead of using 1 1/2 cups crisco I just used 1/2 cup crisco and 1 8oz package of cream cheese!  It made it creamier but still had the stiffness I needed for the decorations.  I also replaced the milk with heavy whipping cream which I have used in other buttercream icing recipies.  While it is not required sifting your sugar also helps the icing be more fluffy!

Please note this is a pound cake so it tastes as such!  It is heavier and more dense than other cake mix type cakes. 

Cake Pops for Church Dessert Auction and Butter Mints

Our church had a poor man's lunch after church this past week to raise money for the youth group to go to Aquire the Fire in Greensboro.  After lunch they had a dessert auction to raise money for the Relay for Life and the MDA Muscle Walk.  I made butter mints to go with dinner as a dessert and then I made 4 kinds of cake pops for the auction.  I put them in bundles and I think I had around 13 bundles.  I made red velvet cake with cream cheese icing dipped in vanilla chocolate, chocolate cake with chocolate icing dipped in chocolate,  cherry cake with whipped white icing dipped in chocolate, and lemon cake with lemon icing dipped in white chocolate.  All of them tasted great!  They were a huge hit at the auction which I am happy about but even more I am happy that I was able to raise money for 2 great events one of which is very near and dear to me! 

waiting to be auctioned off

Lotus loves mints so I made her a little bag of swirls just for her and dropped them off on our way home from church!

Cross shaped butter mints!  

Trying to find a cake for Nisee's Birthday

So I decided that I am going to make Nisee's cake this year.  Her Wonder Pets theme leaves me with limited options from bakers but I found a lot of great ideas online and finally decided on what I am goig to do.  Now I just need to figure out what kind of cake I want.  My first attempt at a vanilla cake from a recipie online did NOT turn out well at all.  The cake tasted ok but not what I was looking for.  The icing was good.  The cake was sagging in the middle too when I got it out.  I also got to take my first crack at doing a cake with ruffles.  It was really easy and if I had been paying attention then I would have messed up the top.  I didn't get to frost the cake until really late that night which didn't help either.  Anyways I end up throwing the cake away after we sampled it and decided it wasn't what we were looking for.  Yes I said we threw the cake away!  I am still trying to lose this baby weight so we taste the cake and enjoy a piece and then it either gets tossed or I will take it to work and share it with my team and peers there. 

Here are a few pictures of the vanilla cake:

Baby Shower Cake Balls and Butter Mints

In addition to the diaper cake I was also asked to make cake balls for the shower and I offered to make homemade butter mints.  The cake balls were orange supreme flavored cake with cream cheese whipped icing dipped in white chocolate.  Kari picked out the orange supreme flavor and I wasn't sure at first but they were actually really good!  I used the butter mints recipe that my mother in law Mary gave me.  She used it to make butter mints for Lacee's baby shower and they were a huge hit.  I tried to make them once before and they turned out alright but not as good as I wanted.  This time however they turned out great! I was very happy with them and they looked GREAT!  Everyone at the shower loved both the cake balls and the butter mints! 

cake balls

mints

Baby Buggy Mold

Fall Cake Balls

So I haven't made cake balls or cake pops in a long time.  Actually the last time I made them was for Brittany's baby shower for Westen in March.  I didn't just want to make Fall Cake Balls or Pops I wanted to try my hand at shapes!  I have seen many cake pops in shapes and I decided that I wanted to try it out.  To make cake ball shapes you use cookie cutters to cut out the shapes and then you dip them in the chocolate.  It didn't sound all that hard so I thought so I will try it out!  Well it didn't turn out quite as I had pictured in my mind in the end.

Pre-Dip cake balls cut out

Things were going well as you can see with the cutting out of the cake ball shapes.  I have leaves, acorns, apples, pumpkins, and even a few balls in there.  I thought they looked really good. Then came the chocolate work and normally I am really good at working with chocolate but tonight it just wasn't working  like I wanted it too.  They turned out OK but just not what I was seeing in my mind.  BUT this is my 1st time so maybe next time I will get better.  I also think that instead of cake balls I am going to do cake pops for easier dipping.

Fall Cake Balls

Pumpkins

Leaves

Apples

They don't look terrible but definitely not my best. They are spice cake with cream cheese icing.  Chad says they taste great so I guess that is really what matters but I still want them to look just as good as they taste!   I still have the apples, acorns, maple leaves, and regular leaves chilling in the fridge waiting to be dipped.  Since things weren't going so well I decided to wait and try again later in the week to finish. 

My Baked Spaghetti

I am no great chef by any means but there are some things that Chad says I am good at making. I don't make it all by scratch but I do add my own flair to things.  I wish I had the time to make things from scratch but you can use some pre-made ingredients and by adding things to it you can make it almost your own. My baked spaghetti is just a way that we have found that we really like it and I thought I would share.  It's a really easy recipe if you want to call it that.

Ingredients:
1/2 box Angel Hair Pasta
1 lb. Hamburger
1 Jar Traditional meat free spaghetti sauce
garlic powder
onion powder
chili powder
oregano
italian seasoning
pepper
salt
parmesean cheese
mozzarella cheese, shredded

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Boil 1/2 a box of angel hair pasta (Add 2 tablespoons butter in the water to keep noodles apart)

Fry 1 pound of hamburger no more than 90/10 lean and while frying add about 1 tsp of onion powder, salt and pepper to taste (we like a lot of pepper so I tend to add a lot of pepper).

In a sauce pan mix the traditional sauce (fill jar about 1/4 way with water and place lid back on and shake up, add that too the sauce in the pan... the excess water bakes out when you put it in the oven).  Add about 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp onion powder, 1/2 tsp chili powder, pinch of oregano, pinch Italian season, salt and pepper to taste (again we had quite a bit of pepper).  I really don't measure them exactly I just add them to taste but these are about the amounts I use.  Heat using a cover to simmer for about 10 minutes.

Drain the hamburger and add it to the sauce mix and keep simmering covered for another 10 minutes.  Drain the noodles really well and add them back to the pot they were boiled in.  Then pour in the sauce mixture. Use a spoon and mix the noodles and sauce together well.  Pour into a glass dish and place in the oven for 15 minutes.  While spaghetti is in the oven then in a small bowl mix together one package of mozzarella cheese and a 1/3 cup of parmesan cheese. Remove the spaghetti from the oven and sprinkle the cheese mixture over the top of the spaghetti and put it back in the oven until the cheese is melted.  Allow to sit for at least 10 minutes before serving. 

And that is my baked spaghetti!  It makes my husband happy and I think its yummy so it works for my little family!  If you try it I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Tie Dye Cupcakes ... yes I know its late!

I said I would post pictures of how I made the tie-dyed cupcakes when I posted about Lacee's shower but I got busy doing a lot of other things.  Nisee has been napping today so I am here to post.  I got the idea from a mini cookbook that I got in line at the grocery store.  And I also found a post about a lady who tried it which made me want to try it even more. See that post here.

Cupcake Cookbook!  Lots of great ideas but you can also find them at bettycrocker.com for the most part!

To start with you use a basic white cake mix and mix it as the instruction say.  Then separate it into how every many colors you want to use.  I used 5 this time. I did my best to measure them exactly the same but I still had some that had a little more than other colors.  Then you tint it the colors you want. 

Tinting the batter

My batter colors

Then you spoon it one teaspoon at a time into the cups until your run out of batter.  Make sure you don't use too much as you spoon because you don't want to run out of a color before you get to all of your cupcakes!  It is hard to measure exactly one teaspoon so I just did my best to a similar amount unto each cupcake paper.  A lesson I did learn is that I will use smaller spoon fulls next time so that I can have more different colors throughout the cupcakes.

Added the blue and green ... still have 3 colors to go

Then you just bake the cupcakes like the instructions say.  I would also say use light color cupcake liners so you can really see the colors through the paper!  Now the recipe says to tie dye the icing too but I think that can take away from the cupcakes and that should really be the focal point.  So I decided to stick with white butter cream.  Now I normally make my traditional wedding cake butter cream icing that I have made since I was probably 6 or 7.  You know old enough to know my measurements and to run a mixer!   But I ran across another recipe for American butter cream that I wanted to try so that is what I used and it was really good!  See that recipe here.  Last I topped the cupcakes with some rainbow sprinkles for just a little extra.  I got a lot of complements on them.  Not as many as the pink champagne cupcakes but they were a big hit and the kids really liked them!

They look pretty when they are done

a little pink got in there but as you can see I got a little too much yellow in this one...

the final product

They were yummy as well as very pretty!

Fried Pickles!

I posted on Facebook a few days ago that I wanted fried pickles.  Now most of you know that when you are pregnant and you get to wanting something that you generally don't want it you NEED it!  So as the days passed I kept thinking about how great fried pickles would be and so I couldn't take it anymore.  My sister in law Heather said that there was a good recipe for fried pickles in our Mt. Hermon Lutheran Church Cook Book that my Mamaw gave us.  So when I got home tonight I decided we were having them with our hamburgers.

The recipe is really easy but after a few suggestions from Heather I adjusted it.

For the dip you need 1 egg, 1 cup milk, 1 tablespoon flour, 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce.  Heather said she adds in Texas Pete to hers. I am not a fan of Worcestershire sauce so I just replaced it with all Texas Pete.  You beat that all together in a bowl.  Then in another bowl the recipe calls for 3 cups flour, 3/4 tablespoon of salt and 3/4 tablespoon pepper.  This time I used just that and I had TONS of flour left so I would recommend using about 2 cups flour and salt and pepper to your taste.  Also next time I make it I am going to use less milk because there was also a lot of dip left and I felt it was a little runny.   Then just dip the pickles and then flour them and deep fry them!

They turned out really good this time but I am a firm believer that I can always improve on something the second time I make it!  Here are a few pictures of my fried pickles.  I serve them with ranch dip which makes them even yummier!!

Cake Balls galore! Oh and Cake Pops too!

So my Mom asked me to make her some cake balls for a Christmas Dinner she is going to and I was already making them for my team and for a dinner I was going to so I just made enough for all 3.  We went with red velvet with cream cheese icing dipped in white chocolate and chocolate cake with chocolate icing dipped in chocolate.  The red velvet are great!  I am partial because well it is my favorite cake, and I heart white chocolate and well I did make them!   The triple chocolate are good too.  VERY RICH but very good!!!

I also made Cake Pops a few weeks ago just because I wanted to.  I was going to make them for Thanksgiving but that didn't happen.  They were butter pecan cake with cream cheese icing dipped in white chocolate.  These were also great (again see I made them so I love them)!  Chad really liked them too!  I let most of my family try them as well and got good reviews from everyone. 

Here are pics of the Cake Pops:

Butter Pecan Cake Pops

Butter Pecan Cake Pops!

Butter Pecan Cake Pops

Here are the pics of the Cake Balls I made today for Christmas:

Red Velvet Cake Balls

Red Velvet Cake Balls

Red Velvet Cake Balls

Triple Chocolate Cake Balls!

Mama's Tray I made her

YUMMY!

I have come a long way from the 1st cake balls that I made.  The thing that made the most difference was using my double boiler!  Its so much easier than using a microwave for the chocolate and to think I have had it since I got married and just now started using it! HAHA

Cake Pops and Cake Balls

When Kara and I were planning our friend Christina's bridal shower we were trying to decide what we could have as a favor for the guests and Kara  mentioned that she had a friend who made cake pops.  I had never heard of them but I like anything cake so I figured they would be good.  So we got them for her shower and they were GREAT! 

I was in Target yesterday and they had this great book all about how to make cake pops and cake balls and I read how to make them and I was like it cannot be that easy but it seemed really easy.   I didn't buy the book but I did Google it when I got home and I found their site and its actually a blog.  http://www.bakerella.com/  At the site they tell you how to make the cake pops and cake balls and there are a lot of other great ideas and tips as well. 

So I decided to try my hand at making cake balls.  I didn't have any sticks and they said that the cake balls are the best to start with if you are trying for the 1st time.  You simply bake a cake mix as you normally would and let it cool.  I did a strawberry cake mix from Duncan Hines.  Once cooled you crumble the cake and then mix in almost an entire can of ready made frosting.  I used cream cheese ready made frosting.  The site cautions on using the whole can as the pops can become too mushy.  Then you mix it until well blended.  It will be kinda mushy but still firm enough that you can fashion them into balls. Then you roll them into quarter sized balls and put them on wax paper.  Next they have to be chilled for a few hours (or put in the freezer if you are in a hurry).  Once they are cold and firm you melt your chocolate per the instructions on the package and then you dip and cover the balls with chocolate and decorate as you wish, of course.  Place them on wax paper to set.  I used both white and regular melting chocolate for mine. 

If you check out the Bakerella site and see all the awesome pops before you see my pictures below please remember this was attempt #1!  They taste awesome but aren't very pretty!  I am still proud though well because I made them and I worked hard on them. I started with the white chocolate so those are the worst looking and the regular chocolate got better but I still have work to do!  Working with chocolate is tricky but I do agree that practice makes perfect or at least a lot better.  I still have some left over green chocolate melts and some white cake mix so I think I might just make something for Christmas as my next attempt.

Lessons from attempt 1:
1. Allow more time for the cake balls to set and get colder!  I was in too big of a hurry to see what I could do that I did not allow them time to get as cold as they needed to be.  I think this is why they weren't as easy to work with as I would have liked.
2.  Size Matters!  The site says that each box should make 45-50 cake balls.  Well mine made 30 and I did not think to count until after I had started with the chocolate.  I think if they had been a little smaller they would have been easier to work with as well.  They will have to be smaller for sure if I plan to do the cake pops. 
3. Don't over heat your chocolate!  Since I had never worked with chocolate before I had some trouble getting it right for me.  I over-heated and when that happens it won't dip anymore so to fix you have to add a tiny bit of Crisco. I specifically over-heated the white chocolate but had learned my lesson by the time I got to the regular chocolate.   I saved it but I think a good investment is one of those chocolate melters I have seen in the stores. I also need to figure out how to make the chocolate smoother.  Mine was melted but it wasn't as smooth as I wanted. 

So with those lessons in mind here are the pictures of my 1st attempt at Cake Balls!!!  Tell me what you think?

Strawberry Cake Balls

Strawberry Cake Balls

Strawberry cake balls with white chocolate and sprinkles!

Strawberry cake balls with regular chocolate covering with white chocolate drizzle.

Strawberry cake balls with regular chocolate covering with white chocolate drizzle.

Strawberry cake balls with white chocolate and sprinkles!