Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Back on the saddle with Pumkin Cake!


When the Cook is sick... the Cook don't cook!

I was put down with a pretty bad abscess in my jaw and jaw joint and then midway of treatment, I was hit with Strep. Go figure! So there went my whole plan of wanting to make a cookie every week.

Well I am cooking again, so that must mean I am on the mend or going through cooking withdrawals. I am on a soft food diet again, so instead of making a cookie this week, I thought cake would be better. I had left over pumpkin that needed to be used up so, I made a pumpkin cake.

It is made with a cake mix, I cheated but I used what I had on hand!

Ingredients:

Pumpkin mixture-
3/4 can of pumpkin
1 1/2 blocks of cream cheese at room temp
3/4 cups of packed brown sugar
1.5 tsp of pumpkin pie seasonings
1 tsp of cinnamon
1 tsp of ginger
1/2 tsp of nutmeg
2 tsp of vanilla

Cake-
1 yellow cake mix
4 eggs
1/3 cup of vegetable oil
1 cup water
1 package instant pumpkin flavored pudding (if you can't find this, you can use vanilla or cheesecake and add a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice to the mix)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 ° F

1- In bowl combine all the items for pumpkin mixture and mix until well combined.

2- Spray 9x13 cake pan with non cooking spray. Pour pumpkin mixture evenly on on bottom of pan and set aside.

3- In bowl combine all the items for cake and mix until well combined. ( I didn't use a whole cup of water, you may have to judge based on texture, etc)

4- Pour cake mix over pumpkin mixture and place into oven.

5- Cook at 350 ° F until edges are slightly brown and then cook on 200-250 ° F until center is set and firm. It will take 45 minutes to an hour for this cake to be fully cooked.

6- When a butter knife comes out clean, remove from oven and lightly dust with powdered sugar.

Final thoughts:

Considering I winged this recipe, I am not sure if I am going to rate it. But I do think it's good enough to pass on and I hope you will try it and review it for me and let me know how many stars you think it deserves.

It's made with a cake mix so you have plenty of wiggle room to experiment!

Enjoy!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Not quiet like I remembered, but good.

I would never turn down something sweet and full of mouth watering carbs. I do not always like overly sweet and sugary goodies. I love molasses cookies. They remind me of my childhood. The kind from my past were the kind out of the store bought package with the glaze on them. I would take those over a chocolate chip cookie in a heart beat. Someone passed on a recipe and being brave, I decide I was going to make some.

Although they are sweet but savory and chewy, they aren't the best in my book. I like a stronger molasses taste and a nice bite of ginger in the back when I swallow. The directions threw me for a loop. For a moment, I thought lost the mojo in the kitchen. I had hit a snag. The directions were not correct.

I ended up with molasses scrambled eggs. I should of known better but being the diligent cook I am I followed the directions. I poured it out and started all over again. Then I tweaked it a bit. Which I am pretty sure it was an improvement.

Ingredients:
2/3 cups Unsalted butter
3/4 cups of Dark brown sugar
1/3 cup of Molasses
1 Egg
1 1/2 teaspoon of Vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon Ground Ginger
1 teaspoon Baking soda
2 1/4 cups of All purpose flour

1/2 cup Sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 ° F

On low medium heat place a 3 quart sauce pan and melt your butter.

When butter is melted, add in brown sugar, cinnamon and ginger. Mix until brown sugar is melted. Remove completely from heat and add in vanilla.

Break your egg into a small bowl and whisk.

*Do not skip this step or you will have scrambled eggs*

While whisking your eggs, ladle in a small amount of the hot molasses and butter into the bowl with the egg. Do not stop whisking while doing this. Continue whisking and add in another small amount of molasses and butter while your still whisking. Do this one more time and when you are done, whisk the eggs and molasses back into the pan.

Stir in the baking soda and flour until well mixed.

Place the white sugar into a bowl.

Take a rounded table spoon of the dough and dip the tops into the sugar and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for seven to nine minutes until edges are lightly brown. Remove immediately from the hot pan and allow to cool. Store in a air tight container.

Final thoughts:
If you want a more molasses taste, use dark molasses. You can add more ginger too if you like more ginger. If you want a chewy tasty cookie, with a medium to light molasses flavor, then this is your cookie. For me it wasn't exactly what I was looking for but it puts me on the right path to find the right molasses cookie.


That being said I give this recipe three stars out of five. ✯ ✯ ✯

If you have a cookie recipe you would like me to try and review please email me at Samantha1983Dec@Gmail.com