Blueberry Buttermilk Pound Cake

May 22, 2015May 22, 2015 / featherheadlady / Leave a comment

It has been a couple weeks since my last post. We’ve been doing some traveling and most recently I spent a week in Chicago with my daughter. A perfectly wonderful celebration of Mother’s Day and my birthday. As they age a lot of people stop celebrating birthdays or lie a little about their age. My theory is, the older we get the longer we should celebrate. This year the two middle weeks of May are my birthday and next year it may be the entire month! Birthday lunches and dinners with family and friends, toasts, presents, cards, FB greetings…embrace your age, embrace the attention, wear a tiara, eat cake. If no one bakes you a cake, bake your own. That’s what I did! While I was in Chicago my daughter and I made this cake. A new experiment. And a successful one. I decided to replicate this delicious cake for my birthday.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter at room temperature

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

3 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

2 cups blueberries

Preheat your oven to 325 and grease a bundt pan.

In a mixing bowl cream the butter until light and fluffy.

Gradually add the sugar and beat until well blended. Add the eggs, beating after each addition.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add to the creamed mixture alternating with the buttermilk. Begin and end with the dry ingredients.

Stir in the extracts. Stir in the blueberries.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour. Allow the cake to cool for 10-15 minutes, invert the pan and plate the cake.

Now sometimes the things I bake are works of art and sometimes they’re not. Today this cake was not a work of art!!

This is the cake I baked last week with my daughter.

This was the birthday cake I baked myself. Oh my. I really should be embarrassed to post this picture. I’ve had problems with things sticking in this pan before but this was ridiculous. We are eating the cake and it tastes SO much better than it looks. But the pan is in the trash! I need to buy myself a new bundt pan. Maybe a birthday gift to myself.

This cake is great with a scoop of vanilla or butter pecan ice cream or a generous dollop of whipped cream. Happy birthday to me!

Snickerdoodles

April 8, 2015April 8, 2015 / featherheadlady / 3 Comments

This is more of a tribute post than a recipe post. A very dear family friend passed away a couple weeks ago and I inherited a few boxes full of knitting and quilting and sewing patterns. In her files I found clippings from 1961 and 1962 when she wrote a column in a local newspaper entitled “A Pinch of This…A Pinch of That…” She had a “blog” before there were blogs.

She was a beautiful lady who graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in Home Economics. She was a great cook and baker, an incredibly talented seamstress (she made my wedding dress), a fantastic hand quilter, and a whiz with knitting needles and a crochet hook. Right up to the time she passed away she was knitting hats for newborns that she donated through her church. She was a patient teacher who passed on her skills to her sons and grandchildren. And a few to me. When I took up knitting a few years ago I would call her for long distance assistance and whenever I visited she wanted to see my latest projects.

In her “A Pinch of This…A Pinch of That” column she gave advice and helpful hints and, you guessed it, the recipe for Snicker doodles. I am a real sappy sentimentalist so when I found this particular column I had to make the cookies.

Ingredients:

1 cup shortening (I used butter flavor Crisco)

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar + 1/4 cup for rolling

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

Beat the shortening, eggs and sugar together thoroughly.

Stir in the flour, baking soda and salt. Chill the dough and roll into balls about the size of a walnut. While the dough is chilling whisk together the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

Roll the dough balls in the cinnamon sugar and place about 2 inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet.

Bake at 400 for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned and still soft.

Cool on a wire rack. Enjoy.

In her column my friend talks about making these for Halloween. She says, “I just finished a batch of cookies and put them in the freezer in anticipation of many little trick or treaters. It’s fun to see the smiling faces as you hand each small fry his surprise. This is a good time to remember too much candy for growing youngsters is not a good idea. Vary your gifts, fruit such as apples or oranges along with a homemade cookie. A plain napkin with the goodies in the center and the corners brought together and tied with string, is much easier to handle.” Those were the days. When kids got excited about a homemade cookie and a piece of fruit and parents would actually let their kids eat the homemade cookie and piece of fruit.

I was so happy to find these clippings. I’ll share more of the helpful hints in the future. Rest in Peace Peggy Johnson. I believe that having her in my life made me a better person. She will live on always in my heart and mind and with every snicker doodle I make.

💕

Strawberry Lime Sorbet

April 5, 2015 / featherheadlady / Leave a comment

Spring seems like it’s never going to get here and I thought a nice fruity sorbet would make a refreshing dessert and would taste like Spring. I happen to have an ice cream maker that I haven’t used in awhile so I dusted that off and put the bowl in the freezer. I decided to combine strawberries and lime to get a little sweet tart thing going on.

Ingredients:

2 1-lb boxes of strawberries washed and hulled

2 T fresh squeezed lime juice

zest of one lime (about a tsp)

1/2 cup water

1/4 to 1/2 cup of sugar (depending on how sweet the fruit is and, of course, personal taste)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Put the washed and hulled berries in your food processor and purée until smooth.

Pour the purée into a large measuring cup or bowl and set aside while you prepare the syrup.

Taste your purée for sweetness and then determine how much sugar to add. I used a generous 1/4 cup. Measure your sugar, zest, lime juice and water into a small saucepan.

Cook over medium heat stirring constantly just until sugar is dissolved.

After taking it off the heat stir in the vanilla. Allow the syrup to cool a little. Once it’s cooled stir the syrup into the purée. You should have between 3 and 4 cups total once the syrup and purée are combined. Refrigerate 4-5 hours or overnight. Now dust off your Ice cream maker.

Once it’s assembled (I had to get the manual out) turn it on and pour in the purée.

After about 30 minutes I had a perfect sorbet. Scoop out and garnish with a little slice of lime or a piece of fresh mint. And enjoy the taste of Spring!

Now that I’ve dusted off the ice cream maker and located the manual I think I’ll be experimenting with more fruit sorbets. They are a lot lower in calories than ice cream or even frozen yogurt.

NOTE: Put your sorbet into a container with a good sealing lid and store it in the freezer. Before serving leave it out for a couple minutes for easier scooping. Also, I had a particularly juicy lime so I saved the rest of the juice in a labeled zip lock snack bag and put it in my freezer.

Chocolate Filled Coconut Nests with Cadbury Eggs

April 1, 2015 / featherheadlady / Leave a comment

In Easters past my daughter and I, and sometimes her friends, would color lots of eggs and then decoupage pictures we cut out of magazines, add glitter and hot glue gems on them. Sometimes they were hard boiled (or accidentally soft boiled). One year I bought brown eggs by mistake. But our favorite was making a hole in each end of the egg and blowing the whites and yolks out. I poked the holes, my daughter had to do the egg blowing. I wasn’t so good at that! I have a bowl full of those blown eggs saved. I’m kind of a sappy sentimentalist.

This is a project I would have enjoyed doing with my daughter. Plus Cadbury milk chocolate eggs are her all time favorite Easter candy. The nests were easy.

Ingredients:

14 ounce bag of good coconut

4 egg whites

1/2 tsp salt

food coloring (pick your favorite color)

1 cup Ghirardelli chocolate chips

1 pkg chocolate eggs

Preheat the oven to 300.

Separate the yolks from the whites and, using a whisk, stir the whites and the salt together. Add a small amount of food coloring and blend into the egg whites. I used the Wilton paste and a little bit goes a long way. Just stir. Don’t whip.

Stir in the coconut until well blended. Spray miniature muffin tins with cooking spray and put a couple tablespoons of the coconut mixture into each muffin cup. Gently press the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of each cup leaving a nice indentation in the center.

Bake for approximately 25 minutes or until coconut begins to brown a little. Remove from the oven and cool in the tins for about 10 minutes on wire racks.

Using a metal icing knife remove the nests from the pans to finish cooling on the wire rack.

Melt the chocolate chips in a microwave safe dish stirring every 20 seconds or so just until melted.

Put about 1 tsp of chocolate in each nest followed by a couple Cadbury eggs. The chocolate will help to secure the eggs in the nests.

Share these little nests full of goodness with friends and family. They would make a nice addition to Easter baskets or your Easter dinner table. Wrap them in a little Saran Wrap and tie them with pastel ribbon.

NOTE: I used my egg yolks to make some vanilla pudding. We will have that for dessert tonight with some fresh berries. You might also want to use a little butter cream icing in the center of each nest and use jelly beans instead of chocolate eggs.

Happy Easter.

Cream Puffs

February 16, 2015 / featherheadlady / 2 Comments

Cream puffs are one of my favorite desserts to make for guests. They look like a little fancy or, as my dad would say, “store bought.” The puffs only requires 4 ingredients that most everyone has on hand and are very simple to make. The filling I always use is one of my mom’s recipes; a recipe I think my mom got from her mother because my cousins remember it from their childhood as well. I grew up enjoying this filling in a pie. Graham cracker crust, sugar custard filling topped with a beautiful meringue. It’s a great memory. It was a great pie. And it tastes awesome in a cream puff.

Puff Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup flour

1 cup water

4 eggs

1/4 tsp salt

In a heavy saucepan bring water to a boil and melt the butter in the boiling water.

Once the butter has melted add the flour and salt all at once and stir vigorously. Continue to cook and stir until the mixture forms a ball that won’t separate. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition until smooth.

Drop by heaping tablespoons onto a greased baking sheet.

Bake at 450 for 15 minutes.

Bake at 325 for 25 minutes

Turn the oven off, split the puffs, and put them back in the oven to dry for 20 minutes. Put dried puffs on a rack to cool.

Now you’re ready to prepare the filling.

Filling ingredients:

2 cups whole milk

1 cup sugar

3 T flour

3 egg yolks

1 tsp vanilla

Whisk together the flour and sugar in a heavy saucepan.

Whisk egg yolks.

Add milk and egg yolks to the sugar, flour mixture. Cook over medium heat whisking constantly until mixture comes to a full boil.

Remove from heat and whisk in the vanilla. Allow the filling to cool. Assemble the cream puffs.

Serve with some fresh berries or drizzle with a little chocolate, caramel or hot fudge. Add a dollop or two of whipped cream if you’d like.

Cream Puffs. It’s what was for dessert tonight. And probably again tomorrow.

NOTE: Add coconut or bananas to the vanilla filling for a cream pie or pudding. Or, if you don’t have time to make cream puffs, serve the cream filling on its own with fruit of your choosing.

Rice Pudding

February 5, 2015February 5, 2015 / featherheadlady / 1 Comment

For years we regularly went to a little diner called the Virginia. Their specialty was coney islands and whenever you went there you left smelling a little like onions and coney sauce. The Virginia made great steak and eggs for breakfast and waffles shaped like the state of Michigan. Their French fries had just the perfect amount of grease and they made a tasty liver and onion dish. Part of the charm of the Virginia was the regulars…some real characters, and the waitresses who had all worked there for years and years. But one of the best memories of the Virginia was their amazing rice pudding. No matter what you ate there was always room for rice pudding!! This recipe is good but does not quite replicate the Virginia’s rice pudding. This rice pudding was made in a pressure cooker.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups Arborio rice

2 cups whole milk

1 14oz can coconut milk

1 cup water

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 cup golden raisins (or dried tart cherries)

Put the rice in a colander. Rinse and drain.

Place the rice, milk, water, sugar, salt and cinnamon in the cooking pot.

Select sauté and bring mixture to a low boil stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar. As soon as the mixture comes to a boil, cover and lock the lid in place. Select low pressure and set the timer for 15 minutes. After the beep use the quick pressure release to release pressure. When the float drops remove the lid away from you and stir in the vanilla and raisins.

Place the cover back on the pot but do not turn on. Let stand 15 minutes while the raisins plump up. Stir and serve. Garnish with a little cinnamon and whipped cream. If we were at the Virginia the waitress would bring a handful of the little half n half containers to pour on our rice pudding.

I will definitely make this again in my pressure cooker because it was fast and very tasty. But I would make a few modifications. Today I added about a half cup of half n half at the very end to make it a little creamier. Also I would wait and stir the cinnamon in at the very end.

Rice pudding, it’s what’s for dessert.

But I still kind of miss the Virginia.

Lemon Bars

February 1, 2015 / featherheadlady / 1 Comment

This is Super Bowl Sunday and I was asked to bring something sweet to the party. I thought about making football shaped sugar cookies or some clever sports themed cake but vetoed both for lemon bars and chocolate chip cookies. I have had this lemon bar recipe for ages and am not sure where I first got it. Simple to make. Very rich. Very sweet.

Preheat oven to 325.

Ingredients for the crust:

2 cups flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 cup melted butter

Ingredients for the filling:

4 T fresh squeezed lemon juice

4 eggs beaten

2 cups granulated sugar

4 T flour

Whisk together the flour and powdered sugar.

Add the melted butter and stir until combined. Put the crust into an ungreased 9×13 pan and, using your fingers, pat the crust down evenly. Bake at 325 for 20 minutes.

While the crust is baking prepare the lemon mixture. Whisk the flour and sugar together. Whisk the eggs well.

Squeeze the lemons. Mine were particularly juicy and I got more than 4 T from one lemon.

Once the crust is baked increase the oven temperature to 350. Whisk together the lemon juice, eggs, and flour/sugar mixture. Pour over crust and bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Put the pan on a wire rack and allow to cool completely. Cut into bars and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Enjoy! I’m thinking they’re yummier than football shaped sugar cookies.

My contribution to the last football Sunday of the season.

(You can find the recipe for the chocolate chip cookies in an earlier post.)

Oatmeal Cake with Coconut Pecan Topping

January 25, 2015January 25, 2015 / featherheadlady / 1 Comment

I am not sure where this recipe came from but I’ve been making it for years. It’s always moist and tasty and the fact that it contains oatmeal gives some of us the delusion that we are eating “health food.” We had friends spending the weekend with us and I chose this for our Friday night dessert.

Cake Ingredients:

1 cup old fashioned oats

1 1/4 cups boiling water

1/2 cup butter flavor crisco

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar (packed)

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine oatmeal and boiling water and let it stand for 20 minutes.

In a mixing bowl combine shortening, sugars, eggs and vanilla. Cream together until fluffy.

Beat in the oatmeal.

Measure out your dry ingredients and whisk them together. Gradually add them to the creamed mixture and beat on medium speed until everything is incorporated. Pour into a greased 9×13 pan and bake for 35 minutes or until a pick inserted in the center comes out clean. While the cake is in the oven prepare the topping.

Topping Ingredients:

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup chopped pecans (or walnuts if you prefer)

1/3 cup butter

1 cup coconut

1/4 cup half and half

Rough chop the nuts.

Mix all the ingredients in a heavy saucepan. Cook over medium heat until mixture comes to a boil stirring frequently. Allow to simmer for 3-4 minutes.

As soon as the cake comes out of the oven spread the topping over the hot cake. Allow the cake to cool completely before serving.

Serve as is or with a little dollop of whipped cream. Oatmeal cake with coconut and pecans. It’s what was for dessert.

NOTE: I really do measure my ingredients out in advance into prep bowls. That way I can put my containers away right after measuring out the ingredients keeping my kitchen neater and I am less likely to forget to add essential ingredients. Also, it’s important to whisk your dry ingredients together before adding them to ensure even distribution of things like salt and leavening.

Galette aka Rustic Tart

January 5, 2015January 5, 2015 / featherheadlady / 1 Comment

Pie is one of my favorite desserts and this rustic tart (or galette) is easy and beautiful in its simplicity. My good friend Jane introduced me to this recipe a couple years ago. She made hers with pears. It works with almost any kind of fruit filling….peaches, pears, apples, berries. Today I made it with pears and apples. Awhile back my daughter and I made a galette with apples and raspberries. I keep my cornstarch and baking powder right next to each other in my baking cupboard and I somehow confused the two. We wondered why our fruit was bubbling. Was a fail that we fortunately were not serving to guests. But, we did eat it ourselves. Waste not, want not…or something like that. Pay attention to the ingredients and I promise that you will enjoy this recipe.

Ingredients:

Pie crust (homemade or pillsbury refrigerated crust)

I prefer to make my own crust but in a pinch the refrigerated crust works fine.

5 cups of sliced fruit (I used 2 pears and 3 apples)

1/2 cup golden raisins or dried cherries or cranberries

1/2 cup amaretto

3 T cornstarch

3 T brown sugar

5 T white sugar

Preheat oven to 450

Peel, core and slice the apples. Core and slice the pears. Put them in a shallow dish with the raisins and amaretto and let them marinate for about 30 minutes. Longer is okay. While you’re waiting for the fruit, prepare your pastry. Roll out a disc about the size of a pizza pan.

Line a baking pan with parchment paper. Once your fruit has marinated combine the brown sugar, corn starch, and 3 T of the white sugar. Drain the amaretto from the fruit. (Save it, it’s perfectly fine to sip on while you finish preparing the tart). Toss the fruit in the sugar mixture. Heap the fruit in the center of the prepared pastry. Fold the edges over. Sprinkle with 2 T of granulated sugar.

Bake at 450 for 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 and bake for 45 minutes. Remove to a cooling rack.

Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or at room temperature with a generous dollop of whipped cream.

Galette is a French word and means “any of various round flat pastries with a sugar glaze or a sweet filling such as fruit.” If you want to impress people serve them a “galette”. If you’re just serving it for dessert tonight call it a rustic tart. Either way, enjoy!

Rugelachs

December 13, 2014 / featherheadlady / Leave a comment

Every year, for nearly 30 years, my very good friend and I have a candy making, cookie baking marathon for the holidays. We used to do it over a three day weekend. Now that she recently joined the ranks of the retired we held our marathon over an entire week and we were able to go to lunch a couple times and even got a little shopping in. The real significance of our candy making, cookie baking bonanza is not just that we make the most beautiful, awesome tasting, melt in your mouth sweet treats. It’s really about two good friends in sync with one another in the kitchen. Over the years we have fallen into a comfortable routine. I make most all of the cookie shapes (balls, sticks, knots, cookie press) and my friend does the messy stuff (dipping in chocolate, rolling in nuts, powdered sugaring). We both make dough. We both do cleanup. Not everyone can work well with another person in the kitchen. And our ability to do that makes our Christmas goodies just a little more special.

We have cookie recipes that we have made forever. And every so often we experiment with a new recipe. A few years ago we started making the Rugelach and it has become one of our favorites.

Ingredients:

Dough

1 cup butter at room temperature

1 8-oz package cream cheese at room temperature

2 cups of flour

1/2 tsp salt

Filling

1 cup sugar

2 T cinnamon

1/2 cup melted butter

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

(We make a double batch. Actually we make two double batches.)

In a stand mixer cream butter and cream cheese together. Combine the flour and salt and gradually add to the creamed mixture. Divide dough into fourths and roll into balls.

Wrap each ball in wax paper and refrigerate for one hour or more for easy handling.

Preheat oven to 350.

After dough has chilled roll out into approximately a 12 inch circle. Combine sugar and cinnamon. Brush each circle with the melted butter. Sprinkle with 3 T cinnamon sugar and then with 2 T chopped pecans. Cut each circle into 12 wedges.

(The dough circle pictured was small and was only cut into 8 wedges.)

Roll up wedges beginning with the wide end. Place pointed side down on ungreased baking sheet approximately 2 inches apart. Curve ends to form a crescent.

Bake for 24-26 minutes or until golden brown. Seems like a long time for cookies but they need to bake that long. Remove to wire racks to cool.

One of the secrets to really good baked goods is really good ingredients. Always use real butter, fresh, quality spices and chocolates.

Maybe one day our beautiful and amazing daughters will take over for us and we can wait anxiously to receive our cookie trays. That will be a happy day.