Great Granny's Lemon Cake and More Decorating

I made these two cakes yesterday for my friends birthday. I put her two favourite drinks on them. Coca-Cola and Tequila.

The Coke cake is chocolate, made with my favourite recipe.

The Tequila cake is a lemon cake made with my great granny's recipe.

1 box cake mix (I instead used the dry ingredients from my 'Boxed Mix from Scratch' recipe)
1 pkg lemon Jello
1 cup water
3/4 cup oil
4 eggs
1 tsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350. Add the lemon Jello mix to the cake mix ingredients. Add remaining ingredients and mix. Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Bake 35-40 minutes.

Apple Pie

My mum has been bringing home lots of apples from the grocery store lately and they don't always get eaten before they go bad, so this week I decided to make a pie with them before they were unusable.

7 cups apples, peeled and sliced (I used gala apples and I cut up about 7, I didn't actually measure)
2 tbsp lemon juice (I think I ended up using more than this)
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp butter or margarine, cut into squares (I didn't measure this part either)
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp water
1 double pie crust (I used this pastry recipe)

Preheat oven to 425. Prepare pie shell in a 9 inch(ish) plate. Toss apples with lemon juice in a large bowl. In a separate bowl combine sugar, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg. Toss this mixture in with the apples. Pour into pie shell. Top with the butter pieces. Cover with pastry top, seal the edges then stab holes in the top for the air to escape. Combine egg yolk and water, brush over top of pie. Place pie on a tinfoil covered cookie sheet (to catch the drippings). Bake at 425 for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and cook for another 40-45 minutes.

Bird Crap Cookies (Meringues)

I used to make these fairly frequently but only my dad and I really like them, so I stopped. One of my family members nicknamed them 'Bird Crap Cookies' because that's that they look like. They didn't turn out quite how I remember them though.

2 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 300 F. Grease two cookie sheets. In a non-plastic bowl, using a non-plastic spoon (or a set of beaters works best) beat egg whites, cream of tartar and vanilla until soft peaks form. Add sugar gradually, beating until stiff. Fold in chocolate chips and walnuts. Bake for 15-20 minutes. According to the recipe this makes 2 1/2 dozen, I got 18.

When I make these again I think I will either halve the walnuts and chocolate chips or double the rest of the ingredients. There were way too many walnuts and chocolate chips for the recipe. But they are tasty, even if they did flatten more than I remember.

Lemon Cake

For this recipe I took the recipe from the post below and modified it slightly.

2 1/3 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla

Then I frosted it with Lemon Cream Cheese icing from this post.

Basic Yellow Cake

I found this recipe on Allrecipes and it is great and amazingly versitile. The first four ingredients are basically what is in the commercial box cake mix (or at least the basics of it, none of the unpronounceable stuff :P)that you would buy at the store for a white or yellow cake. You can then experiment with the remaining ingredients however you like to create your perfect cake. For my first try with this recipe I made a basic yellow cake.

2 1/3 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350. Mix together the first group of ingredients then mix in the second group of ingredients. Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Bake 30 minutes or so, until a fork (or toothpick) inserted comes out clean.

I haven't tried these variations myself, but they came with the recipe.

To make this recipe into a chocolate cake, add 1/4 cup of cocoa powder to the dry ingredients.

For a white cake, omit the two eggs,and instead beat three egg whites on the side and then gently fold them into the cake at the very end, just before you pour the batter into the pan.

It be Talk Like A Pirate Day

Fudge Puddles (aka Fudge Puppies)

I made these Fudge Puddles the other day and for some reason my mother started calling them Fudge Puppies. They're pretty tasty, peanut butter cookie outside with a fudge centre.

1/2 cup margarine, softened
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 325. Spray muffin tins or mini muffin tins with PAM. Mix together margarine, peanut butter and sugars. Stir in egg and vanilla. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Stir into 'wet' mixture. Roll dough into balls and place each ball inside a muffin tin compartment. Bake for 14-16 minutes.

1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup regular chocolate cups
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla

Melt chocoate chips together in a double boiler. Stir in sweetened condensed milk and vanilla. Mix well. Set aside and allow to cool slightly.

As soon as you remove the cookies from the oven (while they are still warm and soft) make wells in them by pushing down the centres with a melon baller. Allow the cookies to cool in the pans for a bit and then remove carefully so that they don't fall apart. Spoon fudge mixture into the wells in the cookies.

Perfect peanut butter inside, chocolate outside, kind of the opposite of my mum's favourite chocolate bar.

Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake

So this is the last Facebook transfer post left! Yay! Or at least until Christmas. Anyway, saving the best for last of course, this was the birthday cake I made for myself this year. Originally posted on Facebook May 5, 2009

This past Saturday was my 20th birthday and for it I baked my own cake. No, I didn't want someone else to bake one for me, I wanted to bake my own to share with my friends. Although, one of my friends was nice enough to bring brownies to my party, which were amazing and I must have the recipe. Anyway, back to the topic. I made myself (and my friends) a Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake and since so many have asked for the recipe, I knew I had to post it. Although I would have posted anyway.

Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake
from the inside of the Philly Cream Cheese box

1 1/4 cups finely chopped pecans (I think I used a bit more)
2 tbsp butter, melted
2 tbsp sugar
3/4 cup sugar
32 caramels, unwrapped (this is the hardest part of the whole recipe)
3 tbsp milk
3 pkgs (250g each) brick cream cheese, softened
3 eggs
8 oz semi sweet chocolate squares (one package if you use Bakers') melted and cooled slightly

Preheat oven to 350. Cover bottom of 9 inch springform pan with parchment paper. Combined chopped pecans, butter and 2 tbsp sugar. Press firmly into pan.
Microwave caramels and milk in 1 min intervals, stirring between each until melted and wel mixed. Spread over crust to within 1 inch of edge. Beat cream cheese and 3/4 cup sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer. Add eggs, 1 at a time. Stir in melted chocolate. Pour mixture over cooled caramel layer. Bake for 45-50 min. Run knife around rim of pan to loosen cake, cool completely. Refrigerate 3 hours or overnight.

I also decorated mine with pecan halves in a circle around the edge and my own caramel glaze.
15 Caramels
2 tsp milk
2 tsp butter

Microwave together in 30 s increments, stirring after each until well melted and blended. Allow to cool slightly and then drizzle over cake.

My mom declared this to be the tastiest thing I've ever made. It was very rich and heavy and I think next time I would try making it in a larger springform pan so that it makes more and is less heavy for each piece. Still it was amazing! I will definitely make this again, possibly for my mom's birthday. Or if someone else's birthday is sooner and they request it!