We made a cheesecake!

It is a rare thing when you sit down with another person and instantly know that you are both thinking the same thing at the same moment.  From the smile on our faces, the sparkle in our eyes, to our upraised shoulders, my husband and I were completely in sync when the astonished words finally tumbled out of our mouths at the same time: “We made a cheesecake!”

 

The last few years we have celebrated Valentine’s Day (usually a few days late) by cooking a meal that we have never made before.  This year we decided to experiment with Chicken Parmesan and make a simple cheesecake for dessert.   We considered making a fancy cheesecake like some of the ones served at the Cheesecake Factory, but decided we should start with a basic one before getting too fancy.  I found Our Best Cheesecake Recipe online and found the same recipe listed on other websites all using “best” and “favorite” in the title and hoped that this description would be true in our own concocting.

As I looked for recipes, I wasn’t sure whether I should go with one that called for sour cream or strictly stay with cream cheese.  There are so many different styles of basic cheesecake recipes that it was hard to pick.  (A future post may discuss the differences between New York Style, Manhattan Style, and any other styles I come across, but for now I will focus on the recipe I chose.)  I read somewhere that the sour cream adds a tartness that pairs well with the creaminess of the cream cheese.  For some reason this idea wasn’t appealing mentally; however, every time I thought about the tartness my salivary glands reacted and eventually changed my mind.  Who knew that the salivary gland would have this much power!?  It may be mind over matter, but salivary secretions over mind? Weird.

At any rate, I decided to use the sour cream.  I mixed the cream cheese batter, while the husband took on the graham cracker crust.  He did an excellent job crushing the graham crackers into a near dust and then mixing them with melted butter.  Together, we pushed the crumbs into a pie plate (I don’t own a spring form pan, so I improvised with the pie plate) and created the crust.  We then poured the drippy batter into the crust and baked it.  Because I didn’t have the right kind of pan, there was more batter than would fit into the crust so we poured it into 4 ramekins to make mini crust-less cheesecakes. After baking for an hour, cooling for another hour, the husband transferred them all to the refrigerator to cool overnight.

In the morning, I cheated and tasted one of the mini cheesecakes for quality control purposes (wink, wink).  What kind of wife would I be if I gave the husband food that tasted bad?  It was, of course, for purely selfless reasons that I had to taste the cheesecake. The cheesecake looked and even felt heavy, so I was suspicious that it would taste that way too.  It didn’t taste heavy though.  Instead, it tasted rich with creamy vanilla flavors and just enough tartness to make it interesting. My taste test locked in my decision to make a cherry pie sauce.

And so after we finished eating our not so impressive Chicken Parmesan, we delved into our cheesecake with much enthusiasm. We each tasted a creamy bite with warm cherry almond sauce, looked into each others’ eyes, and with much love and excitement somehow muttered “We made a cheesecake!” before quickly filling our spoons with a much bigger portion and eating it too.

A Yellow Cake and Chocolate Frosting Attempt

OK, so I’m not Martha Stewart. I decided to make a cake for my dad's birthday. I asked him what his favorite kind of cake was and he responded with "ummmm…. " My sister, the Cake/Pie Goddess, quickly jumped in with “Don’t you like carrot cake?”  If my mind really had gears, I would have felt them whirring – carrots, I’d have to shred them, does it have pineapple in it, should I make it gluten free, what about the frosting – cream cheese, buttercream?  Obviously, I’ve never made a carrot cake before and obviously for some unknown reason I’m afraid to make a carrot cake.  But as my dad does, he saved me from my own thoughts and said, “I like yellow cake with chocolate frosting!”

That I felt I could do.  So for my dad’s birthday I concocted my very first yellow cake and my very first chocolate frosting.  Of course, I had eaten both of these things before and even made the cake from a boxed cake mix, but I had never made my own from scratch.

The Cake/Pie Goddess was out of town, so I was on my own for this creation.  I found two great recipes on Martha Stewart’s website for yellow cake.  One was for Yellow Butter Cake and the other for a Simple Layer Cake.  I decided to go with the simple one for a few reasons: 1. Because it said it was simple and I figured I could handle that and 2. It called for less butter and less eggs, which I figured was a good way to lower fat and cholesterol intake.  And, yes, I know I probably just ruined cake for everyone.

Making the cake was actually pretty easy, especially using an electric mixer. I’m rather new to the electric mixer. Before I got married I never had one and just mixed everything by hand. What a work out! Now that I know how easy it is to mix things together with the electric mixer, I may be baking more!  As you probably know by now, I can’t follow a recipe.  I just can’t.  That’s all there is to it.  I substituted whole milk with almond/coconut milk.

All was well until the two 9 inch cakes were baked and cooled.  Getting them out of the pan was a real challenge.  I didn’t use parchment paper to line the pans as the recipe instructed.  (Maybe I should learn to follow a recipe after all!) Instead, I greased and floured the bottoms of the pans.  Oops!  The cakes stuck to the bottom of the pans and I had to reconstruct them by pushing the cake pieces together into giant cake blobs. (No pictures for this because it was way too messy!)

Enter Chocolate Frosting.  I made a half recipe of Martha Stewart’s Ultimate Chocolate Frosting, again using almond/coconut milk instead of real milk.  This frosting was surprisingly good!  I don’t usually like a strong chocolate flavor, but this recipe has changed my mind.  It had just the right combination of chocolate and vanilla to cause a perfect chocolate frosting addiction.  Not only was it delicious, but it became the perfect edible binding to hold the yellow cake together. 

The cake itself definitely needed the frosting's flavor.  It was missing something that I can't quite place.  Maybe it needed the extra butter and eggs in the other recipe or maybe I should have doubled the vanilla.  I'm not sure, so I guess I will have to make more cake to figure it out!

Martha Stewart, I am not.  My cake looked terrible, but it actually tasted great!  It was made with love, creativity, and happy birthday wishes for my dad.  Happy Birthday, Dad!  

The Case of the White Velvet Cake

I can never do anything the easy way.  Buy a cake from the bakery?  While I love them, where is the challenge in that? Buy a cake mix from the store?  Oh no, that would be too easy.  Instead, for the husband’s birthday, I decided to make him a “White Velvet Cake” from scratch.  I showed him the picture of the cake next to the recipe before I started baking and he agreed whole heartedly in favor of this being his birthday cake.

No pressure, right?  Keep in mind that I’m still learning to use ingredients like butter, eggs, and white chocolate, especially in baked goods.  Butter is a completely different consistency than butter-flavored Crisco.  It has to be slightly melted and softened before it can be added to the flour mixture of the cake batter.  Oh, how I miss Crisco!  You could just dump it right in the bowl without any preparation.  If only they would make a soy free version!  And then there are the eggs – the saving grace for any cake – they help the cake rise and give it a moist fluffiness that no substitute can quite create.  I’m glad that I’m no longer allergic to these simple miracles, so that I can experiment with cake making.  Finally, the white chocolate, which is another ingredient I’ve grown to love.  For the cake, it had to be melted, slightly cooled, and then slowly added to the batter.  This was a challenge because it couldn’t get too hard in the cooling stage or it wouldn’t mix with the batter.  Somehow the timing worked out though.

I only came across one real snag when mixing the ingredients: I realized that I didn’t have any sour cream. I never buy sour cream because I typically still buy groceries that are dairy free unless there is something special I’m planning to make as in the case of the White Velvet Cake.  Somehow I forgot, so when I came upon the line in the recipe to add it to the batter, I panicked.  Should I skip it altogether?  Is there a substitute that might work?  I had some applesauce, but would that make it taste like apples?  All of these questions quickly raced through my head before I decided to Google “sour cream substitutes” and discovered that yogurt is the best substitute.  Too bad I didn’t have any of that either.  I also found that buttermilk and butter could be used.  And no, I didn’t have any buttermilk, but I normally substitute almond milk mixed with apple cider vinegar for this ingredient, so I thought I would give it a try.  Unfortunately, I forgot to melt/soften the butter and it didn’t mix well with the liquid.  My husband gave it his best shot as I mixed the other ingredients, but it was not meant to be.  So…I ended up using most of the liquid and some of the butter that mixed in just so the cake wouldn’t be too dry.  At this point I wished that I had bought that cake mix at the store!

Long story short: the cake looked beautiful and golden in the pans until I removed them from the pans (and yes, I did grease and flour them).  Parts of the cake stuck, which made frosting the cake a little more difficult as cake mixed in with the icing.  But the frosting  actually made the cake.  Without the icing on top of the cake, it wouldn’t have been worth eating.  I made a White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting as the original recipe recommended.  It was delicious and made me change my negative thoughts toward cream cheese frosting.  Add white chocolate and it is a masterpiece!

The cake itself was dry and didn’t really taste much different than a dry white or even yellow cake.  Where was the white chocolate taste when I went to all of that effort adding it to the batter?  Maybe the lack of sour cream messed up the consistency?  (I looked at comments on Pinterest and noticed that other people complained of the dryness too and I’m pretty sure they didn’t make up a sour cream substitute!) 

The case of the cake will continue as I search for better recipes that are moist and fluffy.  Maybe I should keep it simple and stick to white or yellow cake recipes.  No, you’re right; that would be too easy.

 

Life and a Box of Chocolates

Forest Gump said that “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”   I always thought that was so simple, yet so true.  While I understood the philosophical nature of the statement, I never really understood the surface of it.  As a child I remember being so in awe of what I considered a fancy box of chocolates.  Sure, they were probably from Walgreens, wrapped in white paper with a gold bow painted on the top, but I thought the entire box was beautiful, each chocolate a mystery waiting to be solved.  Unfortunately, I was forbidden to solve any of those mysteries, forbidden to taste any of what I imagined to be gooey centers…until now!

Sure, most chocolates have soy lecithin in them as a preservative, but now that the milk allergy is gone, I feel a little splurging is necessary, especially at Christmas time.  I can finally solve some of those mysteries I’ve always been curious about.  My first chocolate did come out of a box just like I described above.  It was delicious: dark chocolate on the outside and a gooey caramel filling.  Yum.  I was at work, so I didn’t have time to savor or to think of a proper description, but “yum” seems to do the job.  I also tried one with a coconut filling that was so good that I had to try another one, so I picked a big square.  Maybe I got a bit greedy picking the biggest chocolate in the box, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that it was terrible!  It had what I think was toffee in the center.  It was so hard that I couldn’t even bite through it!  I ended up sucking all the chocolate off the top and then throwing the rest in the trash can. Now I completely understand the “you never know what you’re gonna get” part of the quote.  I really had no idea that some of the chocolates might actually be unpleasant (at least to my taste buds).

My husband brought home another box of Belgian chocolates that was wrapped in gold paper with a sheer fabric bow on the top.  It was really wrapped like a present!  When I finally tore through the paper, there was more wrapping and plastic covering on the inside.  I was surprised to find a paper guide to the chocolates inside.  This completely went against the quote!  There was a picture of the chocolate and a description of what the chocolate was.  Sure, this took a little bite out of the mystery, but created another one altogether.  I read the descriptions and then tried to decide which one I wanted to taste.  The mystery came in when I tried to decide if it actually tasted like the description.  The first one I chose was described as “dark chocolate with a cherry center” with a picture of a small round, dark chocolate.  Once I found the chocolate meeting this description, I pulled it out of the box and sunk my teeth in.  I searched for the cherry, but didn’t find one.  I was a bit disappointed, but I didn’t give up!  I chose another one that claimed it was “white chocolate with a creamy lemon filling.”  This description didn’t disappoint!  It was exactly that, but I was surprised at how lemony the filling actually was.  Delicious!

The moral of the story?  Even if you think know what you’re “gonna get,” you might actually get something entirely different, maybe better, maybe worse.  And so, the quote still holds true.  Whether you have a description or an idea of what you think the outcome is going to be, “Life is like a box of chocolates.”

Holy Cannoli and Calzones!

I spent Saturday evening (about a month ago now) listening to the NM Philharmonic Orchestra play the fantastic music of John Williams.  He created the music for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and even Far and Away just to name a few.  After our ears and hearts were full of his inspiring melodies, my husband and I needed to fill our stomachs before the growling echoed the booming timpani.  We headed over to Saggio’s where we both ordered calzones and cannoli.

These were both firsts for me, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  The calzones were massive!  If we had known how big they were, we would have only ordered one and split it.  The Four Meat Calzones consisted of pepperoni, Italian beef, bacon, and sausage with pesto, ricotta, and mozzarella with your choice of bread.  I chose the traditional, while the husband chose the rosemary.  There were a lot of flavors going on within my simple crust – spicy sausage and pepperoni, a soothing mozzarella, and a sweet pesto.  It was almost like a circus going from one flavor to the next, one big ring performance to the next, and yet they all combined nicely for an excellent experience.   However, for me this was only achieved by taking out all of the ricotta. I don’t like the texture of this cheese and honestly, with so many other things and tastes going on, the calzone didn’t need it.

And then for dessert!  Holy cannoli, Batman!  I know that John Williams did not write any of the themes for Batman, but after listening to the themes for super heroes all night, this is what came to mind.  The cannoli is a scavenger hunt for the tastebuds.  It is deliciously sweet, but mysterious as it is difficult to place the sweet flavors.  Cannoli is basically a really thin crispy rolled cookie that is filled with a sweet cheese.  I knew it was cheese and yet it tasted nothing like the cheese I have tasted.  I’m pretty sure that I tasted something citrus – orange, lemon, maybe zest?  There was also a hint of cinnamon and just a few chocolate chips.  I’m not sure that I named all the flavors on my scavenger hunt, but it was sure fun trying to find them.

A seemingly simple evening started with the symphony, turned into a circus, and ended with a scavenger hunt.  We had no idea our evening would turn into such an event!

 

 

 

Brrrrrr….There’s a Blizzard!

My salad hating self made an appearance last night.  You know what I’m talking about – that side of yourself that can stand vegetables, can’t stand the thought of a green leafy salad, can’t stand the idea of eating anything green unless maybe its candy coated.   Don’t pretend that you don’t have that side of yourself!  Even the healthiest of us splurge on a frozen yogurt once in a while.  Right?
No, a salad would not cut it last night.  I needed comfort food.  You know, the kind of food that makes your toes curl up and your insides go all warm and gooey just at the mere thought of the food?  That’s what I needed.  Hot from the stove chicken pot pie, crispy fried chicken, or warm buttery biscuits would have been a dream come true.  But since it is August, it is not time for fall food yet, not time for crock pots and comfort. 

Moms always have a solution and luckily mine came up with going out to eat for BBQ and fried okra.  We both had a pulled pork sandwich (merely a vehicle for BBQ sauce) and little bowls of golden fried okra.  The BBQ was OK, but the okra hit the spot.  It also became a vehicle for the BBQ sauce.  The meal was a pretty small portion, so again the Mom had a brilliant idea…

DAIRY QUEEN!  Since my transformation into being able to consume milk products, I had not ventured into a Dairy Queen and before that it was rare.  Why would I go to something with “dairy” in the title?  Exactly.  So, it was the perfect place to go last night and I’m so glad I got to share the experience with my mom.  Continuing with my 5 year old stance on life and embracing my inner id, I made my mom order for me!  She picked her favorite – the M&M Blizzard!

We didn’t wait very long before they called our number and we ran up to the counter guy like little kids.  He took our mini blizzards and turned them upside down to show how frozen they were.  I felt my eyes get big as I worried about all of that deliciousness falling to the floor, but no deliciousness was lost.  It all stayed perfectly frozen in the cup.  WOW!  Now that is impressive.

And boy was it frozen!  We went outside to eat our treats and crunched on the frozen candy (and yes there were some green M&M’s that were definitely not wasted despite their dreaded color) and cooled off in the late summer heat.  In fact, we both got a bit chilled.  And you know what?  While it froze my fingers and my taste buds, it melted my salad hating self and I think I will live to eat salad again.  Never underestimate the power of ice cream and comforting conversation from your mom.
 

Melting over the Melting Pot

For my birthday the husband and I decided to use a gift card to The Melting Pot.  (It has only been collecting dust for 2 years!) Because of all of my previous food allergies, I had never been to The Melting Pot let alone tried fondue.  Honestly, I was more than a little skeptical about fondue.  I mean I can shove meat on a stick, boil it in pot over the stove, and then dip it in some melted cheese all in my own kitchen.  So why would I pay (ok I wasn’t paying this time) so much money to do this in a restaurant?

Besides, fondue seems like something fancy rich people do or maybe goofy teenagers on TV.  Have you ever seen Glee? There is  a segment that the ditzy, but loveable Brittany does with her cat called “Fondue for Two.”  Basically it is spoof on TV shows that interview celebrities; they always have some disgusting looking fondue and scream the theme song “Fondue for Two” a couple of times.  I couldn’t get this song out of my head until we got to the restaurant. 

However, once we walked in the doors all the joking and preconceived notions melted away along with the name of the restaurant and yes, I experienced "the fondue effect." The manager greeted us and really introduced us to the concept of fondue.  He said that he had been with the company for 10 years and he even said it was an expensive place, but worth the experience.  He answered my above question without me having to ask: fondue isn’t so much about the food itself, but the experience.

And that is what my husband and I enjoyed: an eating experience.  Our waitress was extremely knowledgeable about the menu and helped us pick the items that were right for us.  We decided to splurge and order the four courseoption.  We started with the cheese fondue and chose spinach and artichoke.  We were given bread, apples, broccoli, and cheese to dip in the gooey pot of melted Fontina and Butterkäse cheeses, spinach, artichoke hearts and garlic.  I never thought that apples and cheese would pair well, but the combination of sweet apple and garlicky cheese was an experience itself: intriguing and delicious.

Next came the salad. We ordered the California Salad which consisted of mixed baby salad greens, Roma tomatoes, candied pecans and Gorgonzola cheese with Raspberry Black Walnut Vinaigrette.  I’m not a fan of Gogonzola cheese as it’s what I call a “stinky cheese” and tastes too strong for me; however, the vinaigrette completely made up for the stinky flavor.  It was a deep sweet flavor with a tiny kick of balsamic vinegar that made me curious for me.

 

 

 

Finally, the main course arrived.  The husband tried The French Quarter which had Cajun seasoned shrimp, chicken, Andouille sausage, and pork, while I ordered The Land and Sea which consisted of herb crusted chicken, sirloin, and shrimp.  The waitress recommended that we choose the Seasoned Court Bouillon as the broth to cook the meat.  Because the husband’s choice was so flavorful, we didn’t want something to overpower that flavor. And this was the real experience! The meat is served raw and you really do cook it in boiling broth. It sounds simple enough, but it is FUN!

 
Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, we ordered dessert! We ordered the s'mores - melted chocolate, marshmallows, and bits of graham crackers. I could have eaten it with a spoon, but they gave us strawberries, bananas, cheesecake, and marshmallows that only complimented the delicious sauce. (After we started cooking our meats, I completely forgot about taking pictures, so there are no pictures of our delicious dessert.)

After three hours of eating, I truly understand "the fondue effect!" And I truly appreciate a good eating experience.

Cheesecake and its Factory

My husband and I are visiting our old stomping grounds in Orange County, CA. We are here to remember the life of a very special person who lost her battle with cancer. While the circumstances of our trip are not the happiest, we still wanted to catch up with friends and visit the places we used to enjoy. The Cheesecake Factory was at the top of the list.

I have always loved the Cheesecake Factory. I have tried their Orange Chicken, Navajo Sandwich, Fried Chicken Sandwich, and even a special BBQ Salmon with crunchy onion straws on the top as well as a number of other delightfully delicious dishes. However, I've never tried what they are truly famous for, what they are named for: their cheesecake. That is until last last night!

My husband and I had dinner with his best friend and his lovely girlfriend. When my husband and I had finished eating our fried shrimp basket, I was happy to see that our friends had requested a dessert menu. Talk about a menu! Two pages of different types of cheesecake! His friends ordered the Tuxedo Cheesecake and the Oreo Cheesecake. After some deliberation, (they had more than one kind of peanut butter cheesecake!) my husband and I decided to split the White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cheesecake.

First, the Cheesecake Factory gets an A+ for presentation. The plate was absolutely beautiful, a work of art, really. It had two huge dollops of whipped cream at either end of the generously cut slice and carmel drizzled over the entire plate. I almost didn't get a picture because I wanted to dig in!

The taste? Divine. There were so many different flavors all divine in their own right that the combination made it even more so. The crust was a thin blonde brownie topped with a thin layer of chocolate brownie. This would have been a great dessert on its own, but was made better with a thick layer of white chocolate cheesecake peppered with macadamia nut pieces. Did you know that cheesecake tastes nothing like cheese, not even cream cheese? It is simply and sweetly divine. And what could enhance this even more, but the airy sweetness of whipped cream and the buttery goodness of caramel?

A divine dessert and the company of two fantastic friends made us forget the sadness that brought us back to CA, made us relish the life we have, appreciate the small joys that make the hardships we face worth enduring. The next time I visit the Cheeecake Factory, I won't be sharing with my husband.

Shamrock Shake

So, I tried it – all 530 calories of it!  McDonald’s Shamrock Shake is the strangestcolor of green – a lighter version of the color lime, the color of washed outgrass, maybe even mushed up shamrocks – not a color that I would normally eat.  On top of all the green cream is a big dollopof whipped cream.  Before getting to theactual flavor of the shake, I got a mouth full of super sweet vanilla.

Even though in my head I knew a shamrock shake was supposedto be a mint flavor, my tastebuds were expecting lemon lime because of thecolor.  So, they were completely confusedwhen the cold green creaminess hit them with a super light mint flavor swirled withcreamy vanilla.  In fact, they convincedmy brain it really was lime.  I tookanother sip and thought, “how odd – it’s like a lime mint, no just mint, novanilla, no a mint vanilla.”  Ipractically inhaled the entire shake through the straw (so it wouldn’t melt, ofcourse!) and I’m still not 100% sure what the flavor really is.  I bet it’s better than mushed up shamrocksthough!

My Weekend of Cake

My birthday was over a month ago and this post never made it up, so here it is now!  My birthday was on a Monday, so I chose to celebrate the entire weekend with cake.  My very wise mother once said that you get to subtract a year from your age for each celebration.  She forgot to mention that this number is then added to your weight!

But it was worth it!  Saturday my husband surprised with a  beautiful cake from ABC Bakery.  It was decorated in my favorite colors, reminiscent of wedding cake – red buttercream roses, turquoise butterflies, green leaves, and sparkly sugar.  It was almost too pretty to eat.  Almost!

It tasted even better than it looked.  White moist cake with a raspberry jelly filling, topped with an airy vanilla buttercream frosting.  If I could be a flavor I would want to be a piece of this cake.  It was sweet, fluffy, and the raspberry filling was deep enough to be intriguing and only made me want more.  Normally my willpower is strong enough to say no to more than one piece of cake, but not if it is from ABC.

Or if my sister made it.  On Sunday my sister (a/k/a the pie goddess in some circles and more recently the cake goddess) treated me with her Chocolate Coca-Cola Cake.  This cake looked crazy, but in a fantastic way that made me want to dig into it – forget a plate and fork, just dig in!  Somehow I managed to suppress my inner two year old and managed to avoid chocolate all over my face.  The cake was covered in blue, purple, and black sprinkles on top of white buttercream frosting.  And the inside? Two layers of chocolate devil’s food cake that sandwiched chocolate buttercream frosting.

The only words spoken (if they can be considered words at all) from my dad, my husband, me, and even the pie goddess herself:

                Ooooooo.

                Ahhhhhh.

                Yummmm.

The cake completely abducted our ability to form words; that’s how delicious it was.  We took turns mumbling.  And after my second slice, I think my teeth ached from the sweetness, but not unpleasantly – more like a craving for more of the crazy, fantastic, yumminess.

Thanks to everyone who helped me celebrate my weekend with cake!  I’m already looking forward to next year!

Fudge

Fine.  I will admit it.  I used to sneak fudge out of the pan after my Mom had cooled it and hide under my bed to savor in its delicious fudginess.   And no, this wasn’t last year!  I was so little that I don’t know how old I was.  I just remember it was worth hiding and later itching and scratching from the allergic reaction.

But that was then and I don’t remember what it tasted like.  All I have is now.  Fudge tastes like a chocolate marshmallow dream; a dream because it’s so creamy and melts in your mouth so quickly that you have to wonder if you imagined it happening at all.  The only way to find out is to eat another piece and start the process all over again and repeat until you are left with an empty tin.

Now sure this is a problem because of all the calories, but for me it's a problem because store bought chocolate including baking chocolate has soy in it.  I've read different accounts regarding the degree that people are allergic to soy lecithin.  Some experts say that people are only allergic to soy protein and not the oil or lecithin; however, other experts disagree.  I'm not an expert and I'm not going to pretend to have the answer, so I just have to be careful and not over do it. 

As with my first admission, I'm still sneaking fudge.  I'm just not hiding under the bed to eat it!

Mom's Pecan Pie

What completes the perfect Thanksgiving dinner better than pecan pie?  As soon as I wrote what was meant as a rhetorical question, I answered it anyway – pumpkin pie, cherry pie, apple pie, as long as it’s pie!  But I’ve legitimately (meaning before my change of allergies) had those pies before.  Before the big change, pecan pie had way too many eggs in it for me to splurge. I actually don’t remember the last time I had tasted it.  I know there are many recipes out there, but this post is specifically dedicated to my Mom’s Pecan Pie, which was also her mom’s pecan pie.

You can imagine that I was dying to eat dessert throughout the entire dinner.  I was careful not to overindulge on the turkey and stuffing so that I could overindulge on the pie.  It was definitely worth the wait: nutty brown sugary sweetness, the taste of home, a nostalgia that I couldn’t quite place.  I’m sure I had stolen a sliver of this tempting dessert in the past, but that’s not what I was remembering.

Have you ever experienced this before? Tasted something that transported you to another time, another place, but you just couldn’t recall where or when? Luckily after devouring two pieces of pie, I dropped into a welcome turkey (pie?) coma and the burning question didn’t drive completely crazy.

It wasn’t until the next day during a pre Black Friday shopping snack, consisting of, you guessed it, another piece of pecan pie that I realized or maybe my taste buds realized where I had tasted such yumminess before. It wasn’t from the pseudo pecan pies we tried making without the eggs – still delicious, but without the fluffiness, more like bar cookies or candy than pie.  Pecan pie actually reminds me of a dessert we used to eat a lot when I was growing up, a dessert that only has pecans and sugar in common with the pie.  What is this dessert? Pineapple Dump Cake!

There is no pineapple in pecan pie, but the combination of the pecans and the brown sugar reminded me of my favorite part of the cake; that deep sugary sweetness.  The dump cake is made with layers: pineapple, brown sugar, cake mix, butter, coconut, pecans.  This got me wondering if coconut would be a good addition to the pie.

Of course, I’m not the first person to thing of this!  Mom informed me that her Aunt Mae does that with the recipe.  I love Mom’s Pecan Pie, but I think I want to try Aunt Mae’s Pecan Pie too.  And why not?

Celebrate with Cake

Have you ever noticed that just about every milestone we come to we celebrate with cake?  Weddings, birthdays, and even other holidays all marked with the surgery confection we call cake.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining!  I’ll make up a milestone if it means there will be cake.  Luckily, I don’t have to as I have a lot to celebrate!

Wedding Cake   

My husband and I just celebrated our first anniversary.  You know what that means? We got to eat the cake top!  (Oh yeah, and we love each other.)  That cake top dominated our freezer for an entire year, but more than that it dominated our thoughts and the desire for that yummy butter cream frosting on our taste buds.  OK, so it didn’t dominate our entire lives or anything that dramatic, but when we reached our first year milestone we were ready to celebrate – with cake.

For those of you who have frozen your cake tops, you probably now that you are supposed to wrap the cake.  I didn’t know this.  Give me a break – I’ve never been married before!  So…the cake sat in a box free to breathe in all the other freezer foods.  You can image what our cake top tasted like – freezer burned!  The frosting is my favorite part of cake, so you know it had to be pretty bad when I scraped it off and refused to eat it.

The cake itself even a year after its creation was still as divine as it was on our wedding day – a taste of heaven and a reminder of all the happy moments from our special day.  White wedding cake – firm yet spongy, sweet yet not overpowering – with a whipped raspberry filling that complimented that cake perfectly. 

Birthday Cake 

My mom just celebrated a very big birthday.  The world has been lucky to have her for 60 years!  We obviously needed a special cake to celebrate this very special lady, a special bakery bought German Chocolate cake.  German Chocolate is her favorite and I can see why.  I’m not usually a fan of chocolate cake, but German Chocolate seems to be sweeter than other chocolate and the cake itself seems to be lighter. But it isn’t the cake that makes this dessert so special, it’s the icing: chunky coconut blended with milk, sugar, and pecans. One taste made me completely understand the phrase “icing on the cake” and instantly reaffirmed my belief that the frosting really is the best part of cake.

This cake was so delicious, that it not only excited my sense of taste but my curiosity as well.  I couldn’t just leave it at “oh, that tastes good.”  That’s not really my style.  No, I decided to do a bit of research on German Chocolate cake and discovered that the chocolate isn’t from Germany as I expected!  Instead, it’s named after a person with the last name German who was hired by Baker’s chocolate to develop a sweet chocolate in the 1852, hence the name German Chocolate.  The cake wasn’t made popular until the 1950’s when recipes started appearing in magazines and newspapers.  For more information, check Wikipedia.

Thank you, Mom, for letting us share in your birthday celebration and thank you for sharing your favorite cake with us! My favorite is still the white cake with butter cream frosting, but German Chocolate is a close second.

Celebrate with Cake

I tasted cake before I discovered that I’m not allergic to milk and eggs – a splurge here and there. Again, what celebration isn’t complete without cake?  But now I can enjoy it without having to worry about any reactions later on.  I can “have my cake and eat it too” – enjoy my dessert and the celebration.  I’m not sure why we celebrate with cake, but I’m sure glad that we do.