Chocolate Strawberry Trifle

In honour of Mother's Day and my own mother, I made this awesome quick recipe given to me by my neighbor, Caroline. This is so tasty that all of your guests will think that you slaved away in the kitchen for hours....my brother-in-law actually had this thought! What you do is just bake a box cake in a 9 X 13 pan and then cut it into cubes. Mix 2 (8ounce) cool-whips with 1 (4 ounce) instant chocolate (or any flavor) pudding. And last but NOT least, slice up some strawberries.

First (Bottom) layer: cake

Second layer: pudding mixture

Third layer: sliced strawberries

Repeat layers until your Trifle dish is full

Enjoy and let me know what you think of it!

Daring Bakers Challenge for April

The challenge for this month was Cheesecake Pops. This recipe looked almost like several other cheesecake recipes that I have made in the past, but only you cut (Scoop) them into little balls or shapes and then dip them into chocolate. While looking at the recipe I had to gasp, I have been trying to loose weight and the thought of all that cream cheese.....oh my! I got the cheesecake mixture into the pan and had to cook it about 65 minutes. I wanted to make sure that it was indeed done and it didn't appear to look done at the suggested 35 to 45 minutes. I put it into the fridge overnight on a Friday night and on Sunday morning I carefully cut the cheesecake (with a plastic knife, I don't know why that works so well!) into triangular shapes and then dipped them into mint chocolate. I got this minty chocolate at a cake supply shop near my home and oh it is really good! I then put lots of cute spring color sprinkles on the still wet chocolate and did they look cute and tasted WONDERFUL!! I would make these again for a special occasion -- or even just one day that I want to splurge! Here is the recipe if you would like to try them for yourselves! Sorry no pictures my camera isn't working...need to go and get a new one! Here is the recipe:

Cheesecake Pops
Makes 30 – 40 Pops
5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature
2 cups sugar
¼ cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
5 large eggs
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
¼ cup heavy cream
Boiling water as needed
Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks
1 pound chocolate, finely chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionery coating or wafer chocolate – candy supply stores carry colors, as well as the three kinds of chocolate.)
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
(Note: White chocolate is harder to use this way, but not impossible)
Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees) - Optional
Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil.
In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.
Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a spring form pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.
Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.
When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.
When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety.
Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.
Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionery chocolate pieces) as needed.
Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

My FIRST Daring Bakers Challenge

These last couple of months I have been bored with my cooking and decided to browse some cooking blogs that I stumbled upon. I found a really cool food blog that I found some great recipes on and read about a group that bakes a different recipe together each month. This group is called the Daring Bakers and is the real reason that I created this food blog. I joined the group last month and received my challenge for March 2008. The challenge was to make a cake named, "The Perfect Party Cake". This cake recipe is from the recipe book, "Baking from my home to yours" by Dorie Greenspan (Who is the best-selling author of Baking with Julia Child) I was instantly intimidated! Oh my, a butter cream frosting, 4 layers and filling..... The last cake that I remember making from scratch was when I was a teenager and decided to make my dad a birthday cake. It was pretty awful and I still get teased about it.

I decided that I needed to make this cake for Easter Dinner Dessert. Easter morning the kids hunted for their baskets and then it was time to bake. I got the Kitchen Aid out and away I went. I couldn't believe it; I was making this cake and actually had some confidence that my family would be able to eat it. I got the cake batter into the pans and waited patiently the 30 minutes for the cakes to bake. I just knew that all the running around the kids were doing was bound to make these cakes not rise. I pulled the cakes out and they looked just perfect. Perfect until I flipped them out of the pans and saw that they didn't rise real high. So, I decided that I needed to make the recipe again to make sure that I didn't screw something up (as this is common around here!!) I quickly made another 2 cakes and of course they turned out the same. Oh well, I now had 4 layers that would look like a decent size cake when it was finished. (Decent size was an UNDERSTATEMENT!) I proceeded to make this awesome butter cream frosting and couldn't believe that I actually made this masterpiece frosting myself! I then had to put all of this good stuff together! I started with the first layer and spread the raspberry filling onto the top of it, then put a layer of frosting. I repeated these steps until the last of the four cakes were placed onto the top. At this point I was freaking out, this cake was just crazy HUGE! I looked at this thing and just started frosting, frosting and more frosting. I am NOT by any means going to make a living by decorating cakes. The original recipe called for coconut over the butter cream, but Grandma Madeline doesn't appreciate coconut, so I just placed a few little nests of coconut and jelly beans on the top and around the bottom for a little Easter decoration. No one that ate the cake could believe that I made it. So bring on the next challenge Daring Bakers, I AM READY! Email me for the recipe if you too would like to challenge yourself!

Easter Birthday Cakes

Aunt Gaby's "29th" Birthday Cake
G1's Birthday Cake

Tomorrow is our annual Egg Hunt and this year we will be also celebrating G1's B-Day early. Since he was born on Easter in April 2001 and we will be gone on vacation for his "real" B-Day, I decided to do a combo party. So it is G1's 7th B-Day/Egg Hunt. It is also Aunt Gaby's "29th" B-Day again tomorrow so we made 2 cakes (actually Brownies since cake doesn't pass through the mouth of my little prince). I never claimed to be a cake decorator, so I am sure you're laughing at my cakes right now!

Easter Treats for the Kiddos

OK, this isn't something that I slaved in the kitchen over, but it was a hit with the kids. These Little Debbie Swiss Rolls were made into, "Bunny Racers". I found the idea in the Family Fun magazine this month and made enough for both kids to take to school and also for our Egg Hunt this weekend. All the kids loved them and our kids enjoyed making a few of them for themselves.

Martha's Outrageously Chocolate Cookies

Tonight I decided that I needed to warm up the house by making some cookies. I have been browsing other baking blogs and websites and came across this Martha Stewart recipe. This recipe is so rich and decadent that you have to try them if you have any love for chocolate. When I mixed up the ingredients, I was shocked to see that the batter is more like a brownie batter than a cookie dough. I let the batter settle for 10 minutes prior to scooping them onto the pan which allowed the batter to firm up a little. I then baked for 12 minutes and allowed them to cool for just a couple of minutes before transfering them to waxed paper. While still warm be prepared to indulge in at least 3 or 4 of these with a super cold glass of milk! NOTE: Since I am trying to get into shape for bathing suit season, only 1/2 a package of the chocolate chunks were added to this recipe! Printable recipe can be found by clicking here.