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One Minute Cake

February 14, 2009 by greg Leave a Comment

The other night we were finishing dinner and my 11-year old son said he wanted to make us dessert. He is taking FACS in school now. Of course everything has a new fancy name. When I was in school it was called Home Economics. FACS stands for Family and Consumer Science. He has been learning a bit about cooking in FACS and I hope it helps him expand his palate. Anway, he ran to the computer to look up quick desserts and stumbled across a 1 minute cake recipe on CDKitchen.com. It has no eggs but combines flour, sugar, baking powder, cocoa, oil, milk and vanilla to make a quick batter. The batter was poured into a greased coffee cup and cooked for one minute on high in the microwave. The texture was a bit chewy and not cake-like at all but it certainly tasted ok. I added some walnuts to my batter before he cooked it. I helped him plate them up and served the warm chocolate goodness with some vanilla ice cream.

Filed Under: dessert Tagged With: cake, DS cooks

Happy Holidays Xmas Tree Cake

December 24, 2008 by greg Leave a Comment

My son and I made a Christmas Cake to take to a friend’s house tomorrow. It is glaringly obvious that I am a poor cake icer but it was fun and it tastes good. I used a vanilla cake recipe that I found here. One and a half times this recipe was the perfect amount to fill a half sheet pan. I cut the cake in half to make two layers and then cut it in the shape of the tree. We made a simple buttercream frosting (#4 on this list of frostings) and it turned out great. The cake was moist and tasty and the frosting whipped up nicely.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday Season.

Filed Under: dessert Tagged With: cake, holiday, xmas

Divine Dining Redux #5 – Blueberry Lavender Ice Cream

November 29, 2008 by greg 1 Comment

I have an on-line friend from California who contributes regularly to the recipes and cooking forums over at Gardenbuddies.com. This year she has started her own fantastic blog where she shares her little piece of heaven in California. If you haven’t seen Jain’s Once in a Blue Moon, you MUST. Last year on Gardenbuddies she shared a recipe for ice cream made from fresh lavender and blueberries. Can I say, this recipe is truly divine? The perfect ending for my Divine Dining dinner. Another Gardenbuddies contributor, Mary, has posted her recipe on her outstanding blog, Once Upon a Plate. You can find all the recipe details there. I only made slight changes.

It starts with 1 cup of blueberries. I used frozen blueberries. Fresh or frozen, it doesn’t really matter. They are both excellent. These are cooked with sugar and just a bit of water until the blueberries begin to pop open.

Once the blueberries have broken down I pureed them in a blender and strained it using a fine sieve. The blueberry liquid was returned to the sauce pan. Recipes call for just the flowers but I didn’t have enough flowers in my garden so I just chucked in lavender leaves as well. This was cooked gently for a few minutes ton infuse the lavender flavor into the blueberry syrup. This was strained once again and vanilla and cinnamon were added.

Once the blueberry syrup was well chilled, half and half was added and the mixture was frozen in the ice cream maker.


Filed Under: dessert Tagged With: blueberry, divine dining, ice cream, lavender

Rhubarb Custard Bars

June 29, 2008 by greg 4 Comments

These are SO good. Every year my neighbor’s mother always asks for rhubarb from my garden. She always brings over a few bars of heavenly goodness after she transforms my sad old green rhubarb into pure pleasure. She gave me the recipe recently and I’ve made them myself. Not for the diet conscious, that’s for sure, but these are so worth it, it doesn’t matter.

Rhubarb Custard Bars
(Thanks to Arliss Thomas)

Crust:
2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup margarine (I use butter)

Filling:
2 cups sugar
7 tbps flour
1 cup whipping cream
3 eggs, beaten
5 cups chopped rhubarb

Topping:
1 8-oz pkg cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup whipping cream, whipped

In a bowl combine the flour and sugar. Cut in the margarine (or butter) until it is coarse. Press into a greased 9×13 baking pan. Bake at 350°F for 10 minutes. While the crust is baking prepare the filling by combining the sugar and flour in a bowl. Whisk in the cream and eggs. Stir in the chopped rhubarb. Pour the filling over the crust and bake at 350°F for 40-45 minutes or until the custard is set. Cool completely. For the topping beat together the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Fold in the whipped cream. Spread over the cooled bars. Cover and refrigerate.

Filed Under: dessert Tagged With: bars, rhubarb

Flan

June 9, 2008 by greg 2 Comments

I don’t make a lot of desserts but when I do I like them to be tasty. I am partial to anything creamy and custardy. Crème brûlée tops my list but I also love flan.

My recipe for this flan consisted of . . .

~1/2 cup sugar for the caramel
3 cups skim milk
2 whole eggs and 2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar

The caramel is simply made by placing the sugar in a pan and heating it until it has melted and browned. Careful not to scorch it. You can cook flan in one large container or in smaller single serving cups. I chose the latter and divided the caramel among six baking cups.

The eggs where mixed but not beaten too much as you don’t want to incorporate air into them. Meanwhile the vanilla, sugar and milk was heated to scalding temperature in the microwave. This was then added to the eggs very slowly at first while whisking to temper the eggs. You don’t want to cook them at this point. Once all the milk was incorporated it was divided among the baking cups. These were placed in a pan and hot water was added to surround the cups coming up a little over half way.

The custard was placed in a 350 °F oven for about 30 minutes until the custard was set. It should jiggle a little but a knife inserted in the center should come out clean. The flan was removed from the pan and cooled. Eventually it was placed in the fridge to chill. The longer it sits the more the caramel will dissolve to make a sauce for the flan.

To serve run a knife around the edges of the flan to loosen it from the sides. Place a serving plate upside down onto the cup and quickly invert it. Tap it on the counter if necessary to loosen the flan from the cup and carefully lift it up. Here’s my caramelly goodness.

Filed Under: dessert Tagged With: flan

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