Birthday!

Jax turned three, so I made him some birthday treats.

1. First I made some apple pie/tartlet thingies - diced apples tossed with some cinnamon, brown sugar, and flour, baked in puff pastry squares in muffin tins. But they looked really good, and really, what three year olds want gourmet apple pie/tartlet thingies?
2. So I made some yummy yellow cupcakes and took those to daycare, still warm from the oven. There were a few extra (I sent two dozen, not knowing how many floaters would be around for birthday snack time), and I asked Jax if he wanted to give them to the office people. No, he said, he wanted to take them home and eat them. Smart boy.
3. The best, however, was his cake. I asked Jax what kind of cake he wanted, and he said blue cake. The next day, muffin cake. Finally he said chocolate race car cake. Sure, I can do that. My grandma gave me a ton of old Wilton cake pans, so in addition to race car I also have a semi, jeep, old model T Ford, station wagon, van, and coupe. The race car pan was really big, so I decided to go for the coupe, because, as I see it, anyone can make a race car cake - it takes someone special to make a 1976 Datsun 280Z cake. And oh yeah, I'm that special. Jax said he wanted it to be yellow, so I made it retro '70s yellow. Pure awesome. And delicious, of course, but that goes without saying.

Jax's Birthday

We threw a small party for Jax's second birthday last week.

Menu:
Chicken nuggets (because what two year old doesn't like chicken nuggets)
Fruit salad - canteloupe, strawberries, pineapple, grapes
Pizza rolls
Taquitos and queso blanco con chilis sauce
Airplane cake!

The cake was marbled chocolate fudge cake, made by marbling Better Homes and Gardens' white cake with their chocolate cake. It didn't marble as clearly as I wanted, but it still combined really well for a dense, fudgy cake that was lighter fudginess in some parts compared to others. It didn't last past the day of the party.

Pizza Rolls
Pizza sauce (I made my own with some tomato sauce, onions, garlic, and Italian seasoning)
Sausage, cooked
Pizza dough (I broke down and used the bagged mix instead of making my own)
Mozzarella cheese

Mix the sausage into the sauce. Roll out the pizza dough and cut it into squares. Put a spoonful of sauce onto each square, as well as a pinch of cheese. Fold the dough over. Bake at 450 10 minutes or so, until crust is golden. Note: DON'T sprinkle the cheese over the entire sheet. The crust won't stay closed and it'll ooze out all over!

Chocolate angelfood cake

I made a chocolate angel food cake for my ungrateful brother's birthday. It was delicious!

Chocolate Angel Food Cake
1 2/3 Cup egg whites (1 dozen)

1 cup minus 1 tbsp cake flour

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup cocoa

1/2 tsp. salt

1-1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

1-1/2 tsp. vanilla

Sift flour, cocoa & 3/4 c. sugar 4 times. In a large bowl of electricmixer, combine egg whites, salt, cream of tartar & vanilla. Beat on highspeed until whites are stiff and stand in peaks. At medium speed add 1 c.sugar until blended. At low speed, add the flour mixture. Push batter intoa 10 inch tube pan. Bake at 375 for 35 minutes. Invert at once and lethang until completely cold. Frost with chocolate butter frosting.

Chocolate buttercream frosting

6 tbsp butter, softened

1/4-1/2 c milk

1/2 c cocoa powder

approx. 1/2 bag powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Cream butter and vanilla in mixer. Mix in cocoa powder. Alternate mixing in milk and powdered sugar until you reach spreading consistency.

Baby shower food

We had a potluck baby shower at work last week. I made spinach artichoke puffs and chocolate cherry polenta cake with cream cheese frosting (next time I'll make just one layer dusted with powdered sugar instead of the cream cheese frosting).

Here's the cake.

And here are the spinach artichoke puffs.

Spinach Artichoke Puffs
4-6 roasted garlic cloves
1-10 oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed
1-14 oz can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1-10 oz jar Alfredo sauce
1 c shredded mozzarella
1/2 c grated Parmesan
1/2-8 oz package cream cheese, softened
1 pkg puff pastry, thawed

1. Mix everything in an 8x8 inch baking dish and bake for 30 minutes at 350.
2. Cut each pastry sheet into 36 squares. Place each one into a spot in a greased mini-muffin tin.
3. Once the spinach artichoke dip has cooled, stir thoroughly and put about a tablespoon or so on top of each pastry square. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes or until the pastry begins to brown at the edges.
4. Serve warm.

Thanks a lot, Amish people

I kept one of my Amish friendship bread babies to experiment with (I actually gave the other one away, for the first time since I started). I made four different kinds (I divided each batter in half), all using vanilla pudding, and each was delicious.

1. Plain old chocolate chip, which made six large muffin cookies.
2. Apple and cranberry crumbcake - cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, an apple, and a handful of craisins, topped with a food-processed mixture of a stick of butter, cinnamon, a cup of sugar, and about 1/3 c flour. We sent this into daycare for the assistant director's birthday, and she was very disappointed that she only got one small piece - the kids and other teachers ate the rest! One of Jax's teachers was telling everyone that she gave me the recipe (she's been giving me several that she finds in magazines). Nope, came up with it myself!
3. Spiced vanilla - all the spices of the apple and cranberry one but without those or the topping; it also made six large muffin cookies.
4. Maple pecan - mixed a cup of chopped pecans into the batter, then drizzled maple syrup on the top before I baked them. This made eight tiny baby loaves.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose...

...and sometimes it rains.

Tonight, while it rained a bit, I tried making strawberry roulade with the Amish friendship bread. I made plain vanilla and baked it in a 9"x13" pan, 3 cups of batter per pan (next time only use 1.5 cups and try a cookie sheet), for about half an hour instead of the full hour. I let it cool briefly (just long enough to make the frosting and puree the strawberries). Then I sliced it in half and frosted one of those with cream cheese frosting (1 stick butter, 1 package cream cheese, and enough powdered sugar to make it spreadable), topped with pureed strawberries (great to have on hand in the freezer, especially if you buy too many at the farmers' market like I tend to do). Roll it up, wrap in wax paper, and chill. Voilà!But when I tried it with the other half it stuck to the waxed paper underneath it when we tried to roll it. So that became strawberry cheesecake cake. I'd already made up the other sliced sheet, so we flipped it onto the second, whole sheet, sandwiching the frosting and strawberries between. I then made more frosting (same recipe), frosted the top, and put more strawberries on top.

More bread flavors

Looking through my Complete Baking cookbook, there are a lot of types of bread I think I can adapt to the Amish friendhsip bread, which I think I may have to start up again because we're down to only about a dozen mini loaves left in the freezer right now. Here are some I'd like to try:

1. Raspberry crumble - add fresh raspberries and grated lemon rind, then for the crumble top use 1 oz finely chopped nuts (I think I'll do granola instead), 2 oz brown sugar, 3 tbsp flour, 1 tsp cinnamon, and 3 tbsp melted butter
2. Blueberry
3. Apple cranberry - orange juice (maybe in place of some of the milk?), cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, 1-2 apples, 6 oz cranberries (craisins); dust with powdered sugar
4. Pumpkin - 8 oz pumpkin, nutmeg, currants or raisins
5. Maple pecan - maple syrup and toasted pecans with pecan halves on top
6. Cherry marmalade - glacé cherries, orange marmalade, with marmalade brushed on top after they're baked
7. Blackberry almond
8. Orange and honey - use orange juice and grated orange rind
9. Apple loaf - applesauce and currants or raisins
10. Pineapple apricot - dried apricots, chopped crystallized ginger and pineapple, and grated lemon and orange rinds
11. Apple apricot - dried apricots, 1 apple, grated rind and juice of an orange
12. Pear and sultana
13. Saffron and cardamon - plus honey and honey for brushing
14. Bilberry - probably I'll use blueberries because I don't know where I'd find bilberries; top with 4 oz sugar, 1 1/2 oz flour, cinnamon, and 2 oz butter cut into all that

Poundcakes

A while back, a friend gave me an Amish bread starter. We've gone a tad overboard with it at our house, to put it mildly. I discovered that you can either make two large loaves (six mini) and four starters, or four large (twelve mini) and two starters, or six large (eighteen mini) and no starters. You're baking these poundcakes every ten days, so this adds up fast! Fortunately you can also freeze the starters, if you've run out of space in your freezer and already given tons away.

Here are some of the kinds I've made:

• butterscotch
• butterscotch with white chocolate chips
• marble (chocolate and vanilla swirled)
• chocolate
• chocolate with chocolate chips
• chocolate with white chocolate chips
• chocolate with mint chips
• chocolate with peanut butter chips
• chocolate with caramel
• oreo
• cheesecake with cranberry
• vanilla
• vanilla with strawberry chunks
• vanilla with chocolate chips
• vanilla with swirly chips
• vanilla with Kissables (mini Kisses with a candy shell)
• vanilla with caramel chips
• pistachio
• banana
• banana with nuts
• lemon
• carrot, complete with cream cheese frosting

I have given these to my coworkers, parents, friends, Jax's teachers, and TM'ers. Right now, the freezer is beyond full because I made a few last week (34 mini and 1 large, to be exact). They are really yummy! I'm planning on giving a bunch to family and friends we're visiting next week.

A friend's review: "Those were the most amazing cakes I have ever eaten!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and I love cake :) "