Green Tomato Spice Cake

Got the idea for this from a lady at the farmer's market in Willamstown.  I had forgotten about it until I saw green tomatoes here in Asheboro.  I decided to go out on a limb and try it.  It was SO good.  It has a similar flavor to a carrot cake or spice cake.  Very moist and super tasty!

Here we go:

1. Dice green tomatoes.  You will need 4 cups.  Place the tomatoes in bowl with 1 tablespoon of salt.  Let sit for 10 minutes and then rinse and drain.

Tomatoes- I might chop them into smaller pieces next time.

2. Cream together 1 stick of softened butter and 2 cups of sugar (you could probably reduce the sugar if you want).

3. In separate bowl, combine 2 cups of flour with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, and 1 teaspoon baking soda.  Stir in 1/2 cup raisins and 1/2 cup of walnuts.

4. Add dry ingredients to the creamed butter/sugar.

5. Stir in tomatoes.

6.  Pour into greased and floured 9 by 13 pan.  The batter will be very thick.

7. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Serve plain or with cream cheese icing.  

Strawberry Poke Cake

I just made a new cake! ... and it uses strawberry jello!


Jello is a pretty waspy food.

Strawberry is a good summer flavor.

And to top it off- cool whip!

This is a total wasp cake, just in time for summer!


To make this you will need:

cake (white or yellow), follow directions on box. I needed to add water, oil and eggs to my mix.

box of jello (I used small box, but you can use bigger size for more strawberry flavor)

cool whip

fresh strawberries

You may be able to find a lower calorie/lower fat cake mix, or make the cake with a can of diet sprite to lower the points. This cake is about 6 points for a 12th of a 9 by 13 pan. Not TOO bad.


First, make the cake batter according to package directions and bake.



Meanwhile, prep the strawberries that will go on top of cake when it is all done.


When cake is done, let it cool for a few minutes before the REAL fun begins.


Here's the fun part: poke holes in the cake with a fork or toothpick. This will allow the jello to seep down into the cake.


Mix jello packet in 1 cup of boiling (or almost boiling) water.

(yes, Royall really does walk around with the guitar like that)

Pour hot jello liquid over cake.

Let cool in the fridge for a few hours.

Top with cool whip and strawberries.



Cut up and serve for your 4th of July celebration! The jello lines kind of look like the stripes of the American flag!!!

Fresh Apple Cake with Brown Sugar Glaze

I had several apples sitting (more like rotting) in the fridge and I wanted to make Gmom's Jewish Apple Cake, but I didn't have the recipe or the right kind of pan. Instead, I decided to make this recipe.

The cake takes a few hours. About 20 minutes for prep, 1 hour and 15 minutes for baking, and a couple hours for cooling. It was a 3-day weekend. Trust me, I had the time.

Here's what you are gonna need:

3 cups of chopped apples
1 cup of walnuts
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
cinnamon
3 cups of flour
2 cups of sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups of veggie oil
vanilla extract

for topping:
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup milk

STEP ONE: Preheat oven to 350.


STEP TWO: Get pan ready. Grease with Crisco (80% disgusting, 20% hand moisturizing) and dust with flour.



STEP THREE: Prepare the apples. I used about 2 and 1/2 apples. Peel and chop.


I assigned the job of peeling and chopping to my sous chef. I'm glad he did a great job, I wasn't sure he could see out from under all that hair.


STEP FOUR: Combine dry ingredients. Mix together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.



STEP FIVE: Get the wet ingredients together. Mix the eggs and then add the sugar and vegetable oil.




An exciting video, I know. For some reason, I just realized I can take video. It may be a blog changing revelation!

STEP SIX: Add dry ingredients slowly. It should seem more like a cookie dough than a cake batter when you are done.


STEP SEVEN: Stir in walnuts, apples and vanilla extract.


STEP EIGHT: Pour into pan.


STEP NINE: Bake at 350 for an 1 hr. 15 minutes.

STEP TEN: When only a few minutes of baking time are left, start preparing the glaze. Combine 1/2 cup butter, 1 cup of brown sugar and 1/4 cup of milk. Bring to a boil for 3 minutes to form a syrup.



STEP ELEVEN: Remove cake from oven and immediately pour syrup on top.


You might want to do this on top of foil as to avoid this problem:


It takes a little while for the syrup/glaze to soak into the cake. Let it cool before removing from pan. I put a plate on top and flipped the cake over. Then flipped it again. Technically, this cake is served upside down.


Slice and serve it up with a little (or a lot of) whipped cream!




This is really good stuff. I love the parts where the syrup has sunken into the crispy outer layer making a super sweet crunch.

Chocolate Mayo Cake

Look at how lovely this cake is! Rich, chocolate-y, moist, and easy to make.

Would you ever guess it has MAYONNAISE IN IT?! Well it does and you probably figured that out from the title. Mayo makes this the ultimate wasp cake. After all, mayonnaise was voted the waspiest condiment last week!

Here we go:

Preheat the oven to 350.

Lightly spray a 9 by 13 pan with cooking spray.

Combine dry ingredients:

4 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup cocoa
4 teaspoons baking soda


Add wet ingredients:

2 cups water
1 cup mayonnaise
4 teaspoons vanilla extract

Mix well.


Pour into pan and bake for 35 minutes.


Let cool.

Icing:

I made a butter cream icing too. Here's the recipe: 1/4 cups softened butter, 1/4 cup shortening, and 2 cups of confectioners sugar. Add a dash of vanilla and beat on high in the mixer.

Special thanks to Lena for giving me this recipe!

Here's my review:

Pretty good! I guess mayonnaise in a cake makes sense when you consider that cakes usually have eggs and oil in them. This came out a little more dense that I would have liked. I think it could also use more chocolate- maybe a cup of chocolate chips added!

Secret Ingredient Cake Revealed!

Thanks for voting in last weeks ingredient poll! I appreciate the one person who had the guts to vote for prunes to try and make this more challenging.

The results are in. The winning secret ingredient is........

WHISKEY!

This is just like iron chef, but I'm only making one dish and I have all of my Saturday to do so and I'm not competing against anyone and it's not on TV and no one is yelling "cuisson".

Let's get started:

Here's of picture of what you are going to need. It took way too much effort to arrange this than it is worth. So you better enjoy it.


Ingredient list:

package of yellow cake mix
package of vanilla pudding mix
bag of butterscotch chips
1 cup walnuts
4 eggs (yikes!)
1/3 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup whiskey
little bit of powdered sugar

Step one: preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Make pessimistic comment about how you won't be able to make recipes like this in the future because it will heat up the apartment during those air conditioned months. Realize you are turning into your father.

Step two: grease bundt pan

Step three: pull out the handy Kitchen Aid mixer. Mix the pudding mix and cake mixes together.

Step four: Add eggs, milk, whiskey, oil and water. Mix for a few minutes.

Step five: Add walnuts and butterscotch chips and mix briefly.


Don't eat too much batter. There's raw egg AND alcohol in there.

Step six: pour into bundt pan


Step seven: Bake for about 50 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

This is how it looks right after it comes out of the oven:


Step eight: Let cool, then remove from pan.

Step nine: Poke holes in the top with a toothpick. This is where the icing will seep in!

Step ten: Make icing by melting about 1/2 cup butterscotch chips, 1/4 cup walnuts and 1 tablespoon of water in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Add 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar and 1 tablespoon of whiskey and stir until smooth.

Step eleven: drizzle icing over cake. It helps if you put foil underneath for easy clean up.

That's it! Enjoy with a nice glass of milk.

Cake-inna-Mug

Adventures of Cake-inna-Mug

What's better than chocolate cake? Why, chocolate cake that you make in a mug in the microwave in 3 MINUTES, of course!

Royall's grandmother introduced us to cake in a mug and gave us a recipe which I lost somewhere. Her recipe used chocolate chips instead of cocoa powder and was so rich that we couldn't eat a whole mug in one sitting! This is the recipe I used, which is similar.

Disclaimer: This isn't going to taste like a cake that you labor over and cook the old fashioned way. But it's darn good for something made in a microwave and it satisfies a chocolate craving after a long day. I never had an easy bake oven, but I hypothesize that it might yield something like this. It's rich and dense. Hope you have some milk handy!

You're going to need 5 minutes, your favorite mug and:

4 tablespoons flour (cake flour is best)
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
4 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
1 egg

Mix all the ingredients in your favorite mug. Mix it again and again. You don't want scrambled eggs cooked in your mug or flour stuck on the bottom. Speaking of eggs, check this out: double yolks ?! Does that mean fraternal twin chickies? FYI: I researched this and it turns out that double yolk eggs usually never hatch because the two baby chicks fight each other to the death before they even hatch. Not appetizing, I know, sorry. Let's move on...


After everything is mixed well, put in the microwave on high for 3 minutes. DON'T FREAK OUT: the cake will rise up and look like it is about to overflow. Just let it finish in the microwave... it's kinda cool to watch! It will go down after it cools a little bit.


Add some cool whip if you'd like and eat up!