So I’ve been wanting to bake something more fruity ever since I made the carrot cake last week. I do love all the chocolatey things and cakes and all the good stuff. But lately i’ve been wanting to bake something with apples, that seems a little lighter and healthier. (ok, i know it’s not exactly healthy.. eating an apple on it’s own would be a lot better, which I have been doing also!) But I had wanted to use up some green apples that were sitting on the counter. Of course I searched for recipes on the web, and in Dorie’s Book to find an apple related recipe that was lighter and less dense than say, an apple pie.

So I stumbled upon this recipe, and decided to combine it with a recipe I found in Dorie’s book for Dimply Plum Cake. I really liked her’s but found It was a bit smaller than I wanted to make so I combined the two recipes to make something inbetween. Instead of chopping the apples up and incorporating them, I sliced them and layed them on top of the cake like Dorie’s plum cake. This recipe is worth trying for sure. 

Dimply Apple Spice Cake

Ingredients

• 2 cups plus 2 Tbsp all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp allspice
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• 3-4 apples, cored and sliced
• cinnamon sugar for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spay a 9×13 baking pan, dust with flour and tap excess off.
2. In medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, all spice, cinnamon and nutmeg. Whisk to combine well and set aside.
3. In bowl of stand mixer, combine sugars and butter and beat on medium high until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well to combine. Add vanilla extract and beat to combine.
4. Turn mixer on slow and fold in flour mixture a little at a time until just combined.
5. Spread mixture evenly into prepared pan. Layer top with apple slices so they all face the same way, and sprinkle top generously with cinnamon sugar.
6. Place in oven and bake until cooked through, when top slightly bounces back to the touch, about 30 minutes, you may need an extra 5 minutes if it looks too soft, so just turn the oven off, and let them sit for another 5 minutes before you take them out.
7. Remove from oven and let cool completely before removing from pan, cutting and serving. These would also be good with whipped cream, cool whip or a dollop of ice cream. 

First off I’d like to wish my mom a Happy Birthday!! As I mentioned earlier, my mom has been away at the Dominican Republic for a week! And today is her Birthday! But she isn’t home til tomorrow, friday, missing her birthday! So I thought I would bake her a cake so she could have it when she gets home! A birthday isn’t a birthday without cake! Also, I’ve gotten my final grades back and was super happy to receive a B in Biology! So all that stressing, and even lack of baking paid off! So, I think I deserve a piece of cake too!

Ever since I made the Zucchini cake I’ve been wanting to make a carrot cake, mostly so I could use my shredder attachment again! But also, my mom loves carrot cake as well! I was originally going to make another one from the Joy of Cooking, but then compared the two and liked the additions of coconut to the cake, also it seemed to make more. So, from the book I got for my birthday last year, Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From my home to yours, I decided to try out her Bill’s Big Carrot Cake. So far I’ve loved everyting I’ve baked from it, including the white out devils food cake, which I made for my brother’s birthday in March, which was de-licious!! So here’s the recipe for the carrot cake! It’s definitely a winner.

Bill’s Big Carrot Cake

From Baking: from my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan
Yields 10 servings

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 3 cups grated carrots (about 9 carrots, you can grate them in food processor fitted with a shredding a blade or use a box grater, i used my KitchenAid with the shredding blade and baby carrots)
• 1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans
• 1 cup shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)
• ½ cup moist, plump raisins
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup canola oil
• 4 large eggs
• *I also added about a cup of crushed & drained pineapple

Getting ready:

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter three 9-x-2-inch round cake pans, flour the insides, and tap out the excess. Put the two pans on one baking sheet and one on another.

To make the cake:

1. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In another bowl, stir together the carrots, chopped nuts, coconut, and raisins.
2. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the sugar and oil together on a medium speed until smooth. Add the eggs one by one and continue to beat until the batter is even smoother. It will resemble custard or Jell-o at this point.
3. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture, mixing only until the dry ingredients disappear. Gently mix the chunky ingredients. Divide the batter among the baking pans.
4. Bake for 40-50 minutes, rotating the pans from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point, until a thin knife inserted into the centers comes out clean. The cakes will have just started to come away from the sides of the pans. Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes and unmold them. Invert and cool to room temperature right side up.
5. The cakes can be wrapped airtight and kept at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to 2 months.

To make the frosting:
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth and creamy. Gradually add the sugar and continue to beat until the frosting is velvety smooth. Beat in the lemon juice or extract. If you’d like coconut in the filling, scoop about half of the frosting and stir the coconut in.

*I toasted some coconut beforehand, and sprinkled it on top of the first layer in the middle of the cake.

To assemble the cake:
Put one layer top side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper. If you added the coconut to the frosting, use half of the coconut frosting to generously cover the first layer (or generously cover with plain frosting). Use an offset spatula or a spoon to smooth the frosting all the way to the edges of the layer. Top with the second layer, this time placing the cake stop side down, and frost with the remainder of the coconut frosting or plain frosting. Top with the last layer, right side up, and frost the top- and the sides- of the cake. Finish the top with swirls of frosting. If you want to top the cake with toasted nuts or coconut, sprinkle them on now while the frosting is soft. Refrigerate the cake for 30 minutes, just to set the frosting before serving.

Serving:
This cake can be served as soon as the frosting is set. It can also wait, at room temperature and covered with a cake keeper overnight. The cake is best served in thick slices at room temperature and while it’s good plain, it’s even better with vanilla ice cream or some lemon curd.

Happy Birthday Mom! xox From Me & The animals

This past weekend, I’ve had the house to myself, and it’s been very nice! Just me and Lainey. My mom’s off in the Domincan Republic! Lucky bum! And, not only that, shegets home Wednesday night, her birthday! So I’ve already picked out a cake to bake for her! Which will be waiting for her when she gets home. Eating cake at 1 am isn’t bad..is it? I didn’t think so. You’ll have to wait and see what it is!

But, in the meantime I decided I needed something to hold me over. Before making these, I was contemplating whether or not I wanted to make blondiesor brownies. So I decided to make two-in-one brownies! That way, I could enjoy both! I’ve never actually made just blondies, but im sure they would be good on their own. You can keep the recipe as is for blondies, if you’re having a blonde moment. Or, you can split the batter in two and keep one blonde, and one dark! I got the recipe for the blondies from here, and then added my own substitutions and created a chocolate brownie recipe from it as well.

I already promised some to my neighbour, for fixing the fence. I hope they make it to him. . . Enjoy!

Blondie & Chocolate Marbled Brownies

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 1/4 cups light brown sugar
• 2 2/3 cups plain flour
• 3 eggs
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chocolate chunks, or chips
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts ( i used walnut & cashews )

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Grease a 13×9 inch baking pan or line the pan with parchment paper.
3. In a large bowl, mix together oil and brown sugar. Then add the eggs one at a time and beat until smooth.
4. In a separate bowl, sift together dry ingredients and then add them to the brown sugar mixture. Mix well.
5. Stir in chocolate chunks.
6. Spread batter into prepared baking pan. Batter will be thick!
7. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.

So i’ve been stuck inside for the past 5 days, studying. It has been absolutely gorgeous outside this past weekend and I haven’t enjoyed any of it. So at exactly 3:30 today, as I walked out of my first exam I decided two things. 1. I feel like baking. 2. Good god I need to go to the gym! Now, some people may think those two things don’t go together, but I think they go just well. I feel like i’ve been cooped up not doing anything & I need to get moving! And, as long as I’m burning all those extra calories, why not eat some cookies while im at it?? So I decided to buy some white chocolate wafers, and use the macadamia nuts we had at home to make cookies! These are really really really good. I don’t love white chocolate, but I like it in these cookies.

White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

Recipe from Joy Of Cooking, 75th Anniversary Edition.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 1 1/3 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup coarsely chopped macadamia nuts
• 1 cup coarsely chopped white chocolate

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350. Line or grease cookie sheets.
2. Whisk together flour and baking soda. Set aside.
3. Beat in a large bowl until light and fluffy, butter and both sugars. 
4. Beat in one at a time eggs and vanilla.
5. Stir in dry ingredients. Stir in macadamia nuts and white chocolate.
6. Drop by heaping measureing teaspoons 1 1/2 inches apart and bake for 15-18 minutes depending on how large you make them!

Her and I enjoyed a cookie, both macadamia and chicken flavored