My own flavors (Strawberry Lemonade Whoopie Pies)

I'm not really a crunchy mom.

I think that I wanted to be, back when I was pregnant, during those three weeks in the middle of my second trimester when I felt great.  I could cloth diaper!  I could only use organic!  I could do prenatal yoga!  I bought a Moby Wrap and an attachment parenting book and was ready to go.

Then, halfway through the prenatal yoga DVD, when I found myself cursing at the "pregnant" woman bending over backward and coaching me into positions my too-short hamstrings had no hope of ever reaching, I gave up.  I compromised by stowing a reusable shopping tote in my diaper bag and moved on.

Waste Not (Vanilla Bean Cheesecake with Jack Daniels Chocolate Ganache)

I believe in recycling.  I reuse boxes and gift bags.  I wear clothes long past their fashion window.  I freecycle. I hate to throw things out.  I don't like to waste anything.  Especially chocolate.  

Especially chocolate and booze.  That's a sin.

So when I had some leftover chocolate sauce from last week's post about Chocolate Jack Daniel's Cake, I knew that I had to do something with it.  The sauce had hardened in the fridge to a soft ganache-like consistancy.  And what's better with ganache than cheesecake?  Especially in easy to serve bar form.

But, since I believe in the principle of "go big or go home", wouldn't it be better to have the chocolate IN the cheesecake?  As a layer?  Instead of as a topping?

True Love, Again (Chocolate Pecan Jack Daniel's Cake)

Baby Chase is 11 days old today.  He's such a good baby!  Eats, sleeps, poops...again and again and again.  We're having a great time hanging out together, mostly he sleeps and I just stare at him.

How could you not?  Have you ever seen a more beautiful baby?  

I really had no idea how much you could love another person until I first laid eyes on this squirmy, squeaky little man.  Every day I fall more in love with him...and with my amazing husband, who is proving to be the best daddy in the world.

Old Friends and New Beginnings (Caramel Apple Skillet Cake)

A few weeks ago, some dear friends of ours bought their first home.  In the time between then and now, our area experienced an earthquake, a hurricane, and some massive flooding.  Luckily, their new house has withstood all that nature could throw at it, and they're safely back home to settle in. 

As we were going to visit for the first time and give them a little housewarming, I knew that they had already been through a lot. I'm of the opinion that it's bad luck to visit someone's new house and not bring food.  Something about good luck and best wishes and prosperity and happiness and who knows what else.  Either way, this seemed like a good opportunity for cake.

I don't usually make cakes, as any casual reader of this blog can tell you.  To make an entire cake for hubby and me seems like overkill, so I really need a special occasion that involved a lot of people to even get up the excitement to try.  Also, cake itself just isn't terribly exciting to me.  My entire life I've viewed cake as a mere vehicle for icing.  Even the best, most moist homemade cake seems a little blah.  And don't even get me started on all the birthday parties where I've had to suffer through dry, crumbly store bought cake with hydrogenated oil "icing".  For my birthdays, I always request pie or cheesecake or brownies or something else with some character.  Cake just doesn't trip my trigger like other desserts.

Oooey gooey goodness...

Midsummer Night's BBQ (Brownie Cheesecake Bars)

Right now, as I write this, I'm sitting down, feeling Hennebaby play soccer in my belly and eating a piece of heaven.  All three things are equally exciting - sitting down, feeling the baby and eating heaven.  In the past less than two weeks, I have taken an unfortunate trip home for my grandmother's funeral, painted a bedroom, worked 6 twelve hour shifts, relocated all the furniture in our house so that we could have our hardwood floors refinished, moved two people and a dog out for a week so that said floors could be completed, moved both people and dog back in, cleaned up after said floors, had two doctors appointments, did 5 loads of laundry, moved all the furniture back and hosted a barbeque for 20 people.  

Today I'm sitting down.  And enjoying Hennebaby dancing the Macarena in there.

It's wonderful.  :-)

On to third exciting thing:  the heaven.  Brownie Cheesecake Bars.  My good friend Liz celebrated her birthday yesterday, and was sweet enough to spend some of it on our deck, getting bitten by bugs and eating my husband's grilled hamburgers.  I wanted to make something special for her, something creamy and delicious and decadent and not too hard, because - let's face it, this pregnant girl was tired.  Since I couldn't reach my cookbooks until it was too late, buried as they were under the dining room furniture stacked in my kitchen, I turned to my handy dandy bookmarked list of desserts, where I found this gem from one of my favorite blogs, Brown Eyed Baker.  How I managed to bookmark this and not make it until this weekend I'll never know.

These bars completed my life.  For realsies.

Garden State (Sour Cherry Crumb Cake)

When I begrudgingly accidentally grumpily optimistically moved to Jersey 5 years ago, I imagined it as the land of parking lots, strip malls, toxic waste and Tony Soprano.  It was the place you scoffed at from other states; where fresh air was a pipe dream and the roads were clogged with big haired women in oversize SUVs on their way to the mall.  

OK, so maybe I still scoff at North Jersey.

But where I live, in South Jersey, is totally different.  I live in a suburban neighborhood like the Wonder Years.  Our grass grows like it's on steroids.  Not five minutes away is a cute little center of town where you can grab a smoothie or a coffee and wander down the streets, window shopping and people watching.

I might kind of like it here.

(Don't tell my husband.  He'll never believe you anyway.)

Spring Surprise! (Fudgy Chocolate Cake)

The trees are budding, the flowers are blooming, the puppy is shedding and it's finally feeling like springtime!!

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything - don't worry, nothing terrible has happened in the past few weeks.  I just don't have anything yummy to post.  I haven't been feeling well since ACE-a-palooza, because, well....I'm pregnant!! 

Hennebaby is due November 18, and we're all really excited!!  (We have names picked out, but for now our last name has to do.)  I found out during finals week, which made it REALLY hard to concentrate on studying change theory and gerontological disease processes, but somehow I made it through the last four days of finals, passed my exit exam (with flying colors, not to brag, haha) and convinced my classmates that I had actually given up alcohol for Lent.  Then, a few days into my first week of free-me-time, it started....Morning sickness.  Or the proper name for it, All The Freaking Time Sickness.  Starting Week 6, a few days after ACE-a-palooza, I haven't been able to stomach even the idea of food, let alone make anything to take pictures of.  In fact, I've watching TLC nonstop and been eating a lot of this:

Ahh, to be 8 years old again.  Anyway, my body feels like a science experiment.  I started to read the "What to Expect" book, only to find that I had EVERY. SINGLE. SYMPTOM. possible, including the weirdo ones like nosebleeds, congestion, headaches, acid reflux if I lay down with less than 2 pillows and the ability to smell better than my dog.  I swore that if one more person suggested that eating crackers in the morning was going to fix me, I would throw up on them.  Needless to say, a food blogger's worst nightmare.  Poor Layla  has been stressed out about why her Girl Human can't seem to stand up without making a horrible retching sound and why Boy Human is the only one who feeds her anymore. 

So that was the past 4 weeks.  For the Easter weekend, my parents came to visit, which was such a blessing.  It was so nice to be pampered and waited on for a few days!  Bob is a wonderful Baby Daddy, and he takes good care of me, but one of us has to go out and bring home the bacon, and that's not me for the next few weeks.  It was soo nice to have some help for a few days.  My mom turned into Mama Extraordinaire, making Easter Saturday dinner, cleaning my disaster of a house and doing all the laundry that had piled up.  In those few days, I moved into my 10th week and started feeling better, with the nausea fading to just the morning and before bed.  (It's my theory that Hennebaby is a boy, since a boy fetus starts to produce testosterone during Week 10 and I'm thinking that's what's counteracting my preggo hormones and helping my body to calm down a little.  We shall see!!)

So, my plans for this blog are to include one pregnancy recipe and (eventually) postpartum/new baby recipe a week to help those other food-loving expectant moms and their families.  The remaining recipes will probably be to satisfy my cravings, which are starting to be, um, interesting in their diversity and surprise factor.  

But, without further ado, I bring you....chocolate cake!!  One of the things I have had no interest in during my icky-feelings is chocolate. Given that it's Easter time, and that Hubby's favorite Easter candy is Reese's peanut butter eggs, my mom decided that for dessert on Easter Saturday she would make him a little treat, in the form of chocolate peanut butter fudge cake.  Using her easy recipe for chocolate fudge cake, she substituted chocolate peanut butter from Peanut Butter & Co for the fudgy filling and drizzled some fudge topping on the top.  Also, the recipe calls for a bundt pan, but since I somehow don't have one, we used a springform pan that worked just as well.  

This cake was rich and delicious and even Hennebaby seemed to approve of the two tiny pieces I had.  The peanut butter flavor was infused throughout the cake, and it was sweet and rich without being tooth-achingly over the top.  And as an added bonus, my house smelled AMAZING for several hours!!

Fudgy Chocolate Baby Daddy Cake

(from Mama Extraordinaire)

1 box chocolate fudge cake mix
1 box chocolate fudge instant pudding mix
8 oz sour cream
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup water
2 eggs
1 jar fudge ice cream topping (or chocolate peanut butter topping)
Powdered sugar for the topping

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, water, oil and sour cream well.  Place one half of batter in a greased bundt pan.  Using the back of a spoon, make a 'well' around the center ring of batter.  Fill with topping and cover with the remaining batter.  Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes or till cake tester comes out clean.  Cool in pan 5 minutes then invert on cake plate.  When cool, top with glaze or powdered sugar.  Store covered.  Enjoy!!!

**For Turtle cake, use caramel ice cream topping for the filling and top with pecans.  Dream up your favorite combination!!

The Challenge (Lamingtons)

I'm slightly competitive.  Just a little.  Growing up I was never good at sports.  Even grown up, now, I'm not good at physical activity.  Even walking at a slow pace on a flat surface requires the kind of visual-spacial-hand-foot-eye coordination I barely possess.  This made it a little difficult to find a good, un-awkward outlet for my competitive streak.  "I read more books than you!  I finished my homework first!  I can name the entire prime time line up of Nick at Nite in 0.43 seconds!"  These things do not make you cool.

I'm older and wiser now.  Still not much cooler.  

Happy birthday, happy birthday (Giant Cookie Cake)

Last night we celebrated my friend Kristen's birthday with a surprise dinner celebration at Benihana.  When her husband Tony and I were planning the dinner, I asked what kind of cake she would like.  Tony suggested that I get a cookie cake from Mrs. Field's at the mall.  Buy a cake?!?  That is essentially a big cookie??  I self-appointed myself to the challenge of once again recreating a homemade version of a store bought classic.

This was a task with high expectations.  I was slightly nervous.  Especially when Husband, after seeing my nervousness, said "You should have just bought a cookie cake."  

Fork - for scale.

(Yeah, sometimes his brain-mouth filter has a large hole in it.  I love him anyway.)

Who You Callin' "Pumpkin Eater"? (Pumpkin Roll)

Things have gotten a little nuts around here!  We're so lucky to have such amazing friends, and as a result have been having a great deal of fun lately, with dinners, a comedy show, football tailgating and other good times.  I have several recipes from the past week or so to post, but I knew that this one had to be the first in line.

Back in Pennsylvania, my family rarely gets together in the fall without Pumpkin Roll.  My awesome Aunt Jessie has a signature recipe that has graced our tables with its sweet deliciousness for as long as I can remember.  When Bob and I were invited to an autumn dinner party, I knew that it was up to me to continue this tradition.  I also wanted to put my own little spin on a classic, so I added a little extra something - toffee bits.  The result is rich and cakey, like the original, with a little surprise crunch in the middle.

Pumpkin Roll

Cake:

3/4 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup pumpkin puree

8 oz cream cheese

Icing:

2 tablespoons butter, room temp

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup powdered sugar

3/4 cup toffee bits

Line a 10x15 cookie sheet with parchment paper and butter the paper.  Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and allspice.  Beat the eggs and sugar until fluffy and light yellow, 3-5 minutes.  Add the vanilla and pumpkin.  Gradually add the flour mixture, stirring until incorporated.  Spread the mixture on the cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 14 minutes.  Lay a tea towel flat over your wire rack and sprinkle with powdered sugar.  Remove the cake from the oven and invert on the towel.  Sprinkle the top with a smallt amount of powdered sugar.  Roll the cake up, jelly-roll style, and allow to cool.  (This step ensures that the cake will cool in the shape that you want and won't crack when you roll it back up with the icing in the middle.)   I rolled my length-wise to maximize the length of the log, but you can do yours width-wise to maximize the icing surface area inside.

Beat together the cream cheese, vanilla, powdered sugar and butter.  Unroll the cooled cake, spread the top with the cream cheese mixture.  Sprinkle the toffee bits over the top.  Roll back up, without the towel.  Sift powdered sugar onto the top, then cut off the ragged ends.  Eat that part as a reward for your own traditions.  :o)

Jack-o-Cake Balls (Cake Balls)

There's a chill in the windy air, the smell of smoky leaves and a nearly bare tree outside my window.  

There are also bloody hand prints on my door.

Maybe Dexter was here?

This can mean only one thing.  It's Halloween!!

In honor of Halloween and a good friend's 30th birthday, we're throwing a party tomorrow night.  Dessert is one of my contributions, so I've been busy this week.  I'll post all the recipes over the next few days, but these were so cute that they needed to be posted first.  

Inspired by Bakerella's Cake Pops, I thought that the cake-ball shape was perfect for jack-o-lanterns.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find any fine tipped writing icing, so some of the pumpkins have what look to me to be snowman faces.  No one will ever mistake me for an artist.  Or a face painter. 

These are actually very time consuming, but not difficult, per se.  After my artistic struggles with basic jack-o-lantern faces, I whole heartily applaud Bakerella's abilities to make her balls o'cake absolutely adorable!  Check them out on her website - she actually came out with a whole cookbook for them.  Most inventive things on a lollipop stick since someone put a tootsie roll inside hard candy.

Jack-O-Cake-Balls

(redecorated from Bakerella)

1 box white cake mix (or make your own sheet cake)

1 can cream cheese frosting (or make your own with 8 oz cream cheese, 1 cup powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla)

2 bags orange candy melts

50 green jelly beans 

Black writing icing/pen

Bake the cake according to the directions and allow to cool completely.  Crumble the cake into a large bowl and scoop the frosting on top.  Mix with a fork or your hands until all incorporated.  Shape into golf ball sized balls and chill in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight.  Melt the candy melts in the microwave or a double boiler and dip each ball into the candy.  Push a jelly bean vertically into the top of each ball.  Allow to harden, 1-2 hours.  Decorate as desired.

Ogres have layers. (Chocolate Layer Ice Cream Cake)

Onions have layers.

This cake has neither ogres or onions, but it does have layers. Layers of ice cream and chocolate yumminess. Earlier this week, we had a little dinner party with our very good friends and their beautiful new baby girl. That day, it was hot. When I say hot, I mean, 95 degrees. I'll look for any excuse to eat ice cream, and this seemed like a great opportunity to break out the blue binder o' recipes and see what it had to say about ice cream. I found this little gem a few pages past the pineapple slush. I'd never made it before, but it was one of those things that my mom handed me and said "Look how easy this is! Wouldn't this be really good....?"

And it was. On both counts.

Chocolate Layer Ice Cream Sandwich Cake

12 vanilla ice cream sandwiches (rectangular kind)
1 tub whipped topping (thawed)
1 box instant chocolate pudding
8 Oreo cookies
1/2 cup chocolate fudge topping
mini chocolate chips



Chop the Oreos into small pieces. Mix 1 cup whipped topping, the fudge topping, the instant pudding and the Oreo pieces.


Lay four sandwiches side by side to form the bottom layer. Cover with half the pudding mix. Lay four more sandwiches on the chocolate layer and cover with the remaining pudding mix. Lay the remaining four sandwiches on top to form the cake. Ice with the rest of the whipped topping, top with mini chocolate chips. Keep frozen until 10 minutes before serving. Eat fast - but not tooooo fast....

:-)