My girl and I love girls’ days. We shop and eat, which are two of our favorite things.
Last Saturday, we went to our favorite shoe store and stocked up on flip-flops and sandals for the summer. Then, we went to the best place in town for lunch. Dessert topped off the day-creme brulee.
Someday, my girl will not want to spend her day with me. Someday, she will prefer her friends or a boy. In the meantime, I plan on spoiling her rotten with as many days like our shoe shopping day and this dessert.
This is the life.
Filed under: Food I Make, Food Made by Other Food Folks, Random Foodie Thoughts | Tags: cakes, coffee, coffee cream cake, cooking, desserts, food, mother's day, pioneer woman, recipes
Mother’s Day is all about the desserts.
On Mother’s Day, our family always eats lunch after church at a restaurant, and then we usually return to our house for dessert. Actually, we eat dessert before and after lunch. It’s our day, and the girls like dessert.
Please don’t judge.
At church on Mother’s Day, our youth hold a dessert auction to raise money for the youth fund. I always am willing to participate to help out the great cause.
Of course, I also consider it a competition. My goal is to make the cake that has the highest bid and shows the old ladies up. I haven’t done that yet, but I still keep trying.
This year, I made my strawberry cake and Trisha’s key lime cake. The key lime went for $55, and the strawberry went for $50. The highest cake went for $85, so if you take both of my cakes together, I won! Sorta.
I wasn’t brave enough to enter The Pioneer Woman’s coffee cream cake in the auction, because I had never made it before and I only wanted to enter a sure thing into the auction. Also, if I sell it, I don’t get a bite. I decided to make it and save it for before and after lunch on Mother’s Day.
The recipe was easy enough. I split the batter into two round cake pans and baked them up. While the cakes were baking, I made the creamy filling. The snag and mess occurred here. PW’s recipe called for whipping cream, which I guess makes sense. However, I only had half and half, and I didn’t realize the difference it would make. My filling was delicious, but not thick at all. It was more like gravy on top of the first layer of cake.
When I placed the second layer on the other with the filling, it all splurted out of the sides of the cake. Luckily, my cake stand had tall sides.
I pressed on and iced it for the big dessert day.
When we cut the cake, the flavor was so, so good even if the cake was so, so messy. It had the right mixture of coffee and sweetness and soft cake.
The only weird thing about it was that the cake had a slight inexplicable green tint.
Regardless of the color and the mess, it was still good. Now I know that whipping cream is the key, and the color is curious.
Maybe next year it will make it to the youth auction and bring in the big bucks.
Filed under: Food I Make, Random Foodie Thoughts | Tags: baking, cakes, desserts, food, home cooking, life, mississippi mud cake, snow day food
Snow days-or ice days around here-mean baking. I have the time to try something new on these special days, and it is great fun.
We got out of school today in the early afternoon due to the impending white gloom on its way, and Mr. Opinionated got off work a little early too. I perused several cookbooks before he got home from work trying to decide what to bake. I was thinking of maybe a new sweet potato pie recipe or maybe a coffee cake. Both, however, were shot down.
“How’s about a Mississippi mud?” he asked.
And so it is.
Snow day baking is the epitome of making do-I can only do with what I have on hand. I had plenty of eggs, sugar, flour, butter and such. I didn’t have plenty of powdered sugar and oil, though. And, I was not about to leave the house only to slide from here to the store.
So, the question of this snowy, bleak day is: Will this cake idea work?
The recipe is the same as my momma’s with some minor snow day-necessary modifications. I used 1 and 1/4 cups of water instead of 1 cup of water and 1/4 cup of oil. I had heard that that would work and was the secret to my friend’s super moist cakes. Instead of oleo, I used salted butter. I didn’t have a whole box of powdered sugar, and so I used the 2 cups I had. I also added a cup of pecans that I roasted for seven minutes in the oven while the cake was in. That’s a Paula Deen thing. I also had to substitute marshmallow fluff instead of marshmallows; I used most of a 13 ounce jar. Last thing, I baked my cake for 25 minutes instead of 30 minutes to help achieve the muddy quality I was looking for.
The cake came out of the oven fine. I poked holes across the top of the cake with a toothpick to prep it for the creme. Spreading the marshmallow creme was a challenge, so I plopped it on the top of the cake and covered the whole thing with aluminum foil to let the creme melt a little.
That took a while, but it worked.  The creme spread so nicely that I decided to add a little extra.  Wallah!
Then, I sprinkled the pecans on the top.
The warm icing went over all of that, and then the aluminum foil went back over the whole thing to rest. I noticed the creme poofing a little, but I thought that would be a good idea to keep the whole thing warm and gooey.
Looking back, I don’t think I should have done that. My warm and gooey cake looked more like a hot mess than a chocolate cake. The warm cake and warm icing turned the topping into a mesh of marshmallow, chocolate icing, pecans. It didn’t look too much like the mud I was looking for.  Mississippi Slosh Cake, anyone?
Regardless, it tasted amazing. It wasn’t like my momma’s cake; I didn’t taste it and say, “Mmmm…childhood,” or anything like that. It was amazing, though. It was warm and gooey and good. The recipe, however messed up it is, is a keeper.
Snow days are the greatest.
Filed under: Random Foodie Thoughts | Tags: chocolate chip cookie, cooking, desserts, easy bake ovens, life
Miss Helper got an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas!
Easy Bake Ovens=Long Wait Time + Very Little Food
Our first order of business was chocolate, of course. We made the smallest chocolate chip cookies ever served on the face of the earth. Interestingly enough, the package said the amount to be made was twelve.
We got eight.
And, might I brag here that they were the best chocolate chip cookie ever devised on God’s green planet?
I think we may have a baker on our hands. The girl’s got talent.
Filed under: Food I Make, Food Made by Other Food Folks, Random Foodie Thoughts | Tags: desserts, food, life, mississippi mud cake, Paula Deen, recipes, soul food, southern food
Mississippi mud cake is an old favorite. Long before The Food Network and popular cookbooks written by celebrity chefs, my momma used to make Mississippi mud a lot.
For Christmas this year in my search for soul food desserts, I made one too. I used Paula Deen’s recipe.
It was fine, but my cake was very, very dry. Mud cake should be very, very moist. I followed her recipe to the T, but something did not go right.   We did like the addition of pecans, though.
Next time, I will stick with Momma’s recipe written here in her words:
2 cups sugar mixed with 2 cups of self-rising flour. Set aside.
Take 1 cup water, 1/4 cup of oil, 1 stick of oleo, and 3 tablespoons of cocoa mix and boil together.
Pour the mixtures together.
Beat in  two eggs and add 1/2 cup buttermilk mixed with 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and 1 tablespoon of vanilla.
Bake 30 minutes at 350 in a large flat pan.
For the icing-1 stick of oleo, 6 tablespoons of milk, 3 tablespoons of cocoa, 1 tablespoon of vanilla-boil all together and add 1 box of sifted powdered sugar.
Put miniature marshmallows or marshmallow creme on the hot cake and pour the icing over the whole thing.
Filed under: Food I Make, Food Made by Other Food Folks | Tags: cake, cake pops, cooking with kids, desserts, food, life
Going to Toys-r-Us with two kids within three months of Christmas has to be the worst idea ever. Their minds are filled with the greatest of expectations from the toy commercials that constantly bombard them, and then the toy aisles are filled to the ceiling with the material realizations of those expectations.
It is a bad, bad place to take a kid in December.
For some reason that must have made a lot of sense at the time, we recently had to go in Toys-r-Us. We got what we needed, and then both kids were allowed to get one small item. No problem for Mr. Picky. He is actually very easy to please and entertain. It only takes him moments to find something that he can be happy with for a long while.  He made it out of there with a small trinket and a smile on his face.
And then there was his sister.
After looking for many, many minutes and not finding any satisfaction in anything less than $20, I had had it with her. Finally, though, we found something we thought we both could love:
Don’t those kids look happy? Couldn’t Miss Helper and I be that happy too? Don’t we love cake? Yes, yes, and yes!
So, we took our sanity-or at least what was left-and our cake pop kit home to make some awesome cake pops and be happy with shiny, smooth hair like the kids on the box and just like the Christmas-time commerical had promised.
The cake pops on the box. We could do this, right?
We followed the directions and worked our little hearts out. Little Miss Helper and I baked and shreadded that cake like nobody’s business. We mixed in the frosting and dipped those balls in that melted chocolate. This was going to be awesome!
Ours weren’t too shabby, if I do say so myself.  We put sprinkles on a few,  and we left them to cool as directed by the shiny haired girls’ directions.
Cake pops in real life.
Later, somehow gravity began to work against us and the heavy chocolate began to drop like poop. It was bad. Miss Helper wanted nothing to do with them, and I must say they didn’t look too appetizing. Another Christmas commerical proven wrong.
We didn’t even bother to finish them. We just chunked them and put the box in the closet where it shall gather dust until we are bored enough to get it back out.
I hope the cake pop fad dies, and soon.
Next time I will push for her to get a Barbie.
Filed under: Food I Make | Tags: desserts, disasters, flan, food, life, recipes
I needed a quick dessert for a mediocre meal. I find that a dessert that is delicious can make up for a meal that misses the mark a little.
Instant flan, anyone?
I am pretty sure that even the dog wouldn’t eat this monstousity, and I also pretty sure that real flan doesn’t look and/or taste like this did. It was pretty bad. Now, I have to make up for two missed marks. Yikes.
Flan out of a box? Bad idea.
Filed under: Food I Make, Random Foodie Thoughts | Tags: chocolate, chocolate sauce, desserts, family, food, ice cream, life
My sister’s birthday party is at my mother’s house. I asked what I could contribute to the festivities like I usually do. Usually, mother replies, “Nothing. Just bring yourself and the rest of your family.”
This time, she replies, “How about dessert?”
Oh, boy.
Now, those of you who read this random blog know that I choke under pressure. If people are coming over or the recipe may make money for a charity, I will almost always burn it.
We’re talking crispy here.
The dessert for the party isn’t for house guests. Nor is it for charity.
Nope. Worse than that. Family.
Oh, the pressure.
I decide to keep it simple. Simple is good, right? I asked the birthday girl what she wanted, and she told me anything was fine. I asked my family what they were in the mood for, and they replied brownies and banana pudding.
Easy, right?
Sure.
I decided to make brownies out of a box. Check. I bought ice cream, the good kind. A can of the good whipped cream. Fine.
Then, I decide to make a homemade hot fudge sauce to go with the brownies. I’ve had better ideas.
The recipe I was using said to mix water, sugar, and corn syrup. I had no corn syrup, so I just made do. I added the water and sugar together in a small pot, and heated the mixture over high heat as the recipe said. I was supposed to heat it until it turned a light brown color.
Ok. I wasn’t sure how brown the light brown should be.
I learned pretty fast how much too much was.
What I ended up with was a thick, hot, gooey, smokey mess. The smoke detector might have gone off. Maybe. It wasn’t a happy event.
I needed a redo, and I needed the pan, so I poured the sugar-water fiasco in a bowl where it hardened to a dark, dark brown solid.
It took two days to get the hard as a rock stuff out.
I tried the sauce again, and it worked out better.
I added a cup of chopped chocolate chips.
I also got a little fancy and added a real vanilla bean. I sliced it in half and scrapped out the beans just like on tv. So exciting.
The brownies with ice cream, homemade sauce, and whipped cream turned out fine. The banana pudding was also a hit.
And my sister had a nice birthday.
Next year, I’ll volunteer to bring the chips and paper plates.
Filed under: Food I Make, Food Made by Other Food Folks | Tags: Banana pudding, cheesecake, desserts, food, recipes, southern living
The magazine Southern Living has an effect on me. It either inspires me to change and rearrange my whole house and cook up a Southern storm, or I fall into a depression of knowing I can not measure up to its pages/standards. Sigh.
When I saw this recipe for banana pudding cheesecake in the magazine, for some reason, I decided to try it. I needed a cake for work and for a dessert auction at church. It looked so pretty and proper on the glossy, fancy pages. Plus, banana pudding and cheesecake in one dessert? I consider that miraculous. I knew I could never duplicate the cake exactly, but I was willing to try. My version would either be a disaster or the greatest thing ever.
Or, a mixture of both.
I followed the recipe the first time for work, and I decided after trying it that I needed to chop the bananas and the vanilla wafers in the crust smaller. Of course, the folks I work with will eat anything, and they ate most of the cake. Whether they ate it because it was delicious or just because it was there, I’ll probably never know. I liked it fine except for the overly chunky bananas.
I made this cheesecake again for a dessert auction fundraiser at church. The second time could have easily been the charm. Now, I wanted to help out with the cause at hand and participate to raise money for the youth of our church.
I also wanted to put some old women in their place. Last place.
*Evil laugh here.
I followed the recipe for this banana pudding cheesecake again this time chopping those bananas and vanilla wafers like nobody’s business. I also left off the cookies around the edges. They looked weird on the finished product. Those old women were going down.
At the auction, I presented my contribution beautifully and watched the price like a hawk. Success to me was having the highest price at the end of the silent auction even if no one else knew we were competing.
Old church women, take that.
In the end, my cake went for a nice sum of $40. It was not the highest price, dang it, but it was a lot more than several others. I consider that a victory of sorts.
It was all for the kids, anyway. Right.
It was fun to make this neat cheesecake, even if it was no where near the perfection found on the pages of the magazine.
I’ll be making this banana pudding cheesecake again someday. Old ladies, beware.
*Evil laugh one more time here.
Filed under: Food I Make, Random Foodie Thoughts | Tags: brownies, caramel sauce, desserts, pecans, Stuffed brownies, Tastefully Simple
Recently, I volunteered to help with a fundraiser at work. My choices were to provide canned drinks, to provide sandwiches, or to make desserts for sack lunches.
I decided to make two desserts. I figured I could swing it.
What is it that they say? “No good deed goes unpunished.”
For sure.
First, I made chocolate-white chocolate-peanut butter chip cookies with walnuts. No problem. Cookies are no big deal. They turned out fine. I bagged them for the sack lunches, and they were done. One dessert down; one to go.
Then, I attempted to make brownies with a caramel cream cheese and pecan stuffing. I had no recipe since I made it up. I just figured brownies with caramel and cream cheese with pecans would be good.
Here is the part where I should have quit while I was ahead.
I took two boxes of regular size brownies and prepared one according to the directions on the box. I baked it for about ten minutes while I prepared the rest.
To make the stuffing for the brownies, I mixed one box of softened cream cheese with a jar of Tastefully Simple caramel sauce that I found in the pantry. Then, I mixed a cup of pecans and a half cup of sugar with two tablespoons of melted butter. I baked the sugared pecans for five minutes to toast the pecans and create a nice sugar glaze. When the pecans had cooled a bit, I mixed them in with the cream cheese. If I could do it over, I would beat in a half cup of sugar into the cream cheese mixture. The cream cheese just never lost its twang.
I spread the caramel cream cheese concoction on the first brownie batch. Then I covered that with the second box of prepared brownie mix.
I baked and baked and baked it at 350 for over thirty minutes. The top never got done, the bottom was who knows how done, and I was getting impatient since I wanted it to cool and cut it ahead of time.
What to do? Crank up the heat, of course.
I decided to broil the brownies for five minutes. Why? I don’t know.
I fired up the broiler and left to find another activity for my five free minutes. With about one minute left on the clock, a peculiar smell hit my nose.
I guess this has happened to everyone. That tell-tale smell of burned food that went a little too long. I jumped up and raced to the oven to find a charred clump of brownie.
I had managed to ruin what had started out okay.
The caramel cream cheese with pecans had been fine.
The brownie mix had been great.
But, I ruined the whole thing. The problem then was that I had committed to provide desserts to the sweetest lady ever who was counting on me to provide desserts for our fundraiser.
The pressure-what’s a girl to do?
Cover those burned bad boys with powdered sugar and send them on, of course.
Next time, I’ll provide the drinks.
The Opinionated Foodie: The Love (or Not) of Food and Everything That Goes with It 