Author Archives: Rebecca - Page 2

Baking Pumpkin

Posted by on 1 November 2010 1 comment

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Preheat oven to 375. Cut pumpkin in half and clean out all the seeds. Place cut side down in an ungreased baking pan. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour or until pumpkin is tender when tested with a fork. Let cool; scrape the pumpkin meat from the shell, puree. Over the years I have done this several ways but I find that the easiest way to puree the pumpkin and get nice smooth pumpkin mush, is to use a food processor. Using a blender doesn’t work very well because the pumpkin is too thick, and it doesn’t mix well in the blender. Which means the pumpkin on the bottom of the blender is pureed really fine, but the stuff on top never touches the blades.

If the pumpkin is too juicy (which it most likely will be if it’s not a pie pumpkin), you can reduce the liquid by placing the puree in a shallow baking pan and bake (at 375) until it reaches the desired consistency.

To store- portion the pumpkin out into quart size freezer bags, making sure you label and date them so that you know that solid orange block is pumpkin 😉 Then freeze until you are ready to use it.

Banana Cake

Posted by on 25 October 2010 No comments

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Cake:

  • 1 1/2 c ripe bananas, mashed
  • 2 tsp lemon juice
  • 3 c flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 3/4 c butter softened
  • 2 1/8 c sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 1/2 c buttermilk

Frosting:

  • 1/2 c butter, softened
  • 8 oz cream cheese, softened
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 3 1/2 c powdered sugar

Garnish:

  • chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 275. Grease and flour a 9×13 pan. In a small bowl, mix mashed banana with the lemon juice; set aside. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Stir in banana mixture.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for one hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from oven and place directly into the freezer for 45 minutes. This will make the cake very moist.

For the frosting, cream the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Beat in 1 tsp vanilla. Add the powdered sugar and beat on low speed until combined, then on high speed until frosting is smooth. Spread on cooled cake and sprinkle with chopped walnuts is desired.

Snowglobe Cookies

Posted by on 9 September 2010 No comments

Here in Utah the Fall weather reminds me of what Christmas weather in California is like, and once the fall chill in the air hits, I start wanting to watch holiday movies, and bake holiday treats. Jeremy named these cookies snowglobes, obviously because they are round and look like snow, but the name has stuck and so that is what our family likes to call them.

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  • 1 cup pecans, toasted and cooled
  • 1 3/4 cups confectioners sugar
  • 2 sticks (1 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut in small pieces
  • 2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour

Heat oven to 325 F. Pulse pecans with 3/4 cup of the sugar, in a food processor until finely ground (do not over process); pour into a mixing bowl. Add butter, vanilla, and salt to the pecan, sugar mixture; mix well, scraping bowl often, to blend. Add flour; mix just until dough forms a ball.  Use a teaspoon to scoop the dough then shape into small balls. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 20 minutes or until tops are dry and bottoms are light brown. Cool cookies on sheet for 10 minutes. Gently roll warm cookies in remaining confectioners sugar to coat. Cool, then roll in sugar again.

Secret Ingredient Chocolate Cake

Posted by on 1 September 2010 No comments

Kyle’s mom gave us this HUGE zucchini from her garden. This sucker was about 2 feet long and maybe 14 inches around, it was just huge! In the past we have learned that when zucchini get this large, they are not good to eat steamed. By the time they get that big the seeds have matured and are hard and crunchy and the skin is tough,  and it’s just not pleasant to eat steamed zucchini with tough skin and crunchy seeds in it. So I was trying to figure out what to do with it, so that it wouldn’t go to waste. Enter this recipe!

Cake

  • 2 c sugar
  • 1 c vegetable oil
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 1/2 c flour
  • 1/4 c baking cocoa
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 c milk
  • 2 c fresh zucchini, shredded*
  • 1 tbsp vanilla extract

Frosting

  • 1/4 c butter
  • 1/4 c cocoa
  • 6 tbsp evaporated milk
  • 3 3/4 c powdered sugar
  • 1 tbsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar and oil. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add milk and vanilla and mix well. In a separate bowl combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Gradually add flour mixture to egg mixture. Stir in zucchini. Pour into a greased 15″ x 10″ pan and bake 40-50 minutes.

Frosting: Beat together frosting ingredients until smooth. When cake is done, remove from oven and frost while cake is hot.

*I used my Kitchen-aid shredder attachment to shred the zucchini. This made shredding SO much easier and lots faster than grating it by hand!

Cherry Sorbet

Posted by on 15 August 2010 1 comment

Ok every year we make homemade ice cream for July 4th. In recent years we have been getting creative with our ice creams. However the current kick seems to be turning towards sorbet. 😉 Sorbet is a GREAT way to use fresh fruit, and preserve it for eating all summer long, and we are just loving it.

I sent Kyle to the store on his way home from work one evening to pick up some more milk, and he came home with cherries too.  “They were $1 a pound” he said. Yumm. Dinah has been snitching cherries from the fridge and every time I turn around has cherry juice all over her face and hands.

Anyways since the cherries were such a good price we decided to try making cherry sorbet, so Kyle brought home LOTS more cherries.

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  • 5 lbs pitted cherries (weight measured with no pits in them)
  • 1 c water
  • 1 c sugar

So after pitting (which takes a really long time) and weighing your cherries, put them in a large pot. Add the sugar and the water, and cook over medium heat stirring occasionally to prevent burning and/or boiling over. Kyle let it boil over and it left a puddle of a lovely deep red color on the stove top. 😛 But I wouldn’t recommend you do that because then you’ll have to clean it up. Once heated throughout, remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Once cool put in a blender and puree until smooth. Chill in the refrigerator for half and hour or so, then freeze as directed by your ice cream maker. Yummy 😀

Yield: ~4 quarts

Apricot Sorbet

Posted by on 11 August 2010 No comments

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  • 4lbs very ripe apricots (fruit only don’t weigh them with their pits)
  • 2 c water
  • 2 c sugar

Measure out 4 lbs of apricots (I used a kitchen scale), and pour into a large pot. Add the water and cook covered, over medium heat (stirring occasionally) until heated through. Remove from heat and add the sugar. Allow to cool to room temperature. Once cool puree in a food processor or blender until smooth. At this point you can strain it, to catch any little fibers of fruit. I did this with one batch and then I didn’t on the next batch and there wasn’t much of a difference, so it’s faster if you don’t bother straining. 🙂 Cover and chill mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator. Freeze as directed by your ice cream maker.

Apricot Ice Cream

Posted by on 11 August 2010 1 comment

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Yield: 4 quarts of ice cream

  • 2 c milk
  • 1 3/4 c sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 c half & half
  • 1 tbsp vanilla extract
  • 4 c whipping cream
  • 4 c apricot puree

Scald milk until bubbles form around edge; remove from heat. Add sugar and salt; stir until dissolved. Stir in half & half, vanilla, whipping cream and apricot puree. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes. Freeze as directed by your ice cream maker. 🙂

Apricot Pancakes

Posted by on 7 August 2010 3 comments

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  • 1 c flour
  • 1 egg
  • 1 c milk
  • 1 c apricots, finely chopped
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 c sugar

Combine all dry ingredients, then mix in egg and milk until smooth. Add finely chopped apricots and cook on griddle until golden brown on both sides.

Chocolate Cake

Posted by on 15 April 2010 No comments

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This is my most favorite homemade chocolate cake. I just eat it without frosting it’s so good!

  • 2 cups boiling water
  • 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 2 1/4 cups sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 3- 9 inch round cake pans or I have used a bundt pan or one large 10 in x 15 in pan.

In a medium bowl, combine the boiling water with the cocoa, and whisk until smooth. Don’t be tempted to taste it. 😉 It looks and smells a lot better than it tastes at this point. Let this mixture cool, while you prepare the rest.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt and set aside for now.

In a large bowl, (I use my kitchenaid) cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla.

Alternately add the flour mixture and the cocoa mixture. So I pour a bit of the cocoa mixture in, let it mix a bit then a bit of the flour mixture and let it mix a bit, and repeat until I’ve added all of the cocoa and flour mixtures.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan(s).

Bake in preheated oven.

3-9inch rounds for 25-30 minutes

10 in x 15 in pan for 50-60 minutes

I don’t remember how long the bundt pan took, but I tend to set the timer for the lower number and then just keep checking it until it’s done.

Allow the cake to cool in the pan before pulling it out. And then just dig in and eat it because it’s so GOOD! 😉

Pineapple Jam

Posted by on 12 March 2010 No comments

Yumm! This is my newest experiment in the canning department. We had a pineapple sitting on the table, just waiting for the ‘perfect’ time to cut into it, and well the ‘perfect’ time just never came, so the pineapple was starting to look a bit over-ripe. So I decided “Hey! Let’s look for a recipe to make some jam!” Well I found one and it worked, so I sent Kyle to wal mart to get a few more pineapples because they were $2 each at the time. 😀

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  • 3 1/4 cups crushed pineapple
  • 3 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 box Sure-jel powdered pectin
  • 1 tsp butter or margarine

I crushed the pineapple using our food processor. It came out nice and chunky. I did do a batch with pineapple that I put through the blender, but it just pureed it, instead of crushing it.

Combine the crushed pineapple, pectin, and butter or margarine in a large pot. Bring to a rolling boil and add the sugar. Return to a full rolling boil and boil hard for 1 minute. Fill prepared jars leaving about 1/4 inch head space. Adjust two piece lids, and either invert for 5 minutes and set upright to cool and seal or, process for 15 minutes* in a boiling water canner or a steam canner.

*For our altitude here in Utah you need to add 10 minutes to the processing time.