Sour Cream Pound Cake

So, what’s better than spending an afternoon baking all day?

Doing it with your best friend!

Saturday, My friend Steph (formerly known as SQB… hey, I try to be careful with people’s online identities and make sure it’s okay with them before I use their name… so, back off) and I decided to have a baking party! Well, it was more like a baking date. I think the rule is you must have at least 3 people for a party… two and it’s just a date. So, Baking Date!

We decided on making a Pound Cake recipe that she had and then we each picked a cookie recipe to make, too!!

3 recipes in one day!!! Were we crazy?? Maybe, but it was really fun!

So, I’m going to go ahead and post the Pound Cake recipe now... and then she is going to type up an entry for her cookies and then I’ll post my cookies later, too!

So, this is a Sour Cream Pound Cake Recipe from Steph’s friend Julie’s Mom. (Say it out loud and you’ll get it). We decided to break the recipe into 4 mini loaves and use almond extract for 2 and vanilla extract for the other 2.

Things started off well, if by well you mean, having your handheld mixer die on you when you start to cream the butter and the sugar!

RIP........... GE Electric Handheld Mixer

The handheld mixer had a good run. It’s been around for 35+ years. Strangely enough, it was my fault and not old age that led to its ultimate demise. You see, the cord fell out of the base and instead of looking and gingerly placing it back in, I just picked it up and jammed it in back in there. My lack of attention to detail caused one of the prongs to give up and die. After attempting with tweezers to rectify the situation, we bailed and pulled out the cuisinart.

Anyway, the recipe was pretty easy. This was only the 2nd pound cake recipe, I’ve ever made (the other being a cream cheese pound cake) and it easy and straightforward.

The mini loaves made things a little interesting, because we had a hard time making sure they were done. They puffed up a lot and the outside edges got really browned, but the center stayed uncooked. Eventually, they cooked all the way through and I think we pulled them out maybe 3-4 minutes too late. But, regardless, they are delicious!

Sour Cream Pound Cake
1 cup butter
3 cups sugar
6 eggs
1 ½ tsp extract (vanilla, almond, etc.. whatever you want)
3 cups flour
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking soda
½ pint sour cream

Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together and set aside.

Cream butter and sugar with a mixer (or, in our case, a food processor). Add eggs one at a time, beating well. Add extract.

Add dry ingredients alternating with the sour cream.

Bake in a 350 degree preheated oven in 2 loaf pans for 1 hour. (Our mini loaves took about 40 minutes).

Doesn't it look so pretty???

Oatmeal Pie

When I was a kid, one of my absolute favorite toys was the Fisher Price Kitchenette. I got it for Christmas one year, and I loved to play pretend House with it. It wasn't as sophisticated as the kitchenettes are these days, I had to use my imagination a lot (which wasn't a problem, I had an imaginery friend, so using my imagination was not a foreign thing to me). I distinctly remember always asking my dad what he wanted me to make him and he always had one answer:

Cherry Pie.

I've never actually made a cherry pie. I've made a few other pies, but I've always been intimidated to make a cherry pie, because it's my dad's favorite pie. I want it to be perfect. Well, his birthday is a week from today and I've decided this is the year. I'm going to make him a cherry pie.

Now, it's been awhile since I've made pie crust. So, I wanted to have a dry run this weekend, just to make sure my skills are up to par.

I recently flipped through our family cookbook and came across a recipe that sounded... really weird. Oatmeal Pie. It was my Grandma Young's recipe (although I never remember having it), and I asked my mom about it and she said that it was very, very good.

I already had all the ingredients and thought... what the heck, I'll give it a try.

I actually only made half a pie. I halved the pie crust recipe and halved the pie recipe and used a smaller dish to bake it and it turned out perfectly! The pie crust was perfect. Flaky, but tender. And the pie... well, it's a little hard to describe, but I kind of think of it as a poor man's pecan pie. It has the texture and flavor of a pecan pie (which is my favorite pie), but, it has a thicker, heartier feel to it. It's delicious and I think next time, I'll add some cinnamon to the pie and maybe use brown sugar instead of granulated sugar and see how it turns it. Delicious.

I now think I'm ready to tackle the cherry pie this weekend!

mmmmm.... see that flaky crust and the thick, creamy filling?
Yum!

Pie Crust

Courtesy of Emeril

Yield: 1 crust

1 1/2 cups plus 2 tbsp of all purpose flour

1 tbsp of sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut in 1/4 inch pieces

2 tbsp solid vegetable shortening, cold, cut into pieces

3 tbsps of ice water

Sift the flour, sugar, and salt into a large bowl. Using your fingers or a pastry cutter, work in the butter and shortening till the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add 2 tbsps of ice water and work with your fingers until the water is incorporated and the dough comes together. Add more water as needed to make a smooth dough, being careful not to over mix. Form the dough into a disk, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before using.

Oatmeal Pie

Recipe courtesy of Veachel Young

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1 stick of butter, melted

2/3 cup corn syrup

2/3 cup uncooked Oats (I used quick, but I think regular would be better)

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

2/3 cup nuts

2/3 cup sugar

1 unbaked pie shell

Mix all ingredients well and pour into pie shell.

Bake for one hour at 350 degrees.

Wedding Cookies, again.

I was in New Orleans this weekend and there were three things that I wanted while I was there:

1. Gumbo
2. Hurricane
3. Pralines

I accomplished the first two (at the same meal, coincidentally), but I didn't get my pralines. So, I got home early on Sunday morning still craving them. I thought about making them, but I'm not sure if I have a candy thermometer and didn't really feel like I had the patience to make candy. So, instead, I decided to make something comforting and sugary.

I chose wedding cookies. This is the third wedding cookie recipe I've tried and it's right on the money. They turned out slightly crunchy (just like the ones in the pink box) and the perfect texture.

I halved and tweaked this recipe, just a little by:

adding 1/2 cup of finely chopped mini chips (although, next time I might just use 1/3 cup)
adding 1/2 cup of shredded coconut, also chopped finely.

The dough is super difficult to deal with. Very dry. But, if you put it in the fridge for awhile, makes it easier to form balls.

Just the comfort I was looking for!

M&M Dream Bars

I absolutely love candy bars. All candy bars. It's the experience. It's the shiny wrappers and picking one from from a rack of 10s of them... trying to decide if I'm in the mood for a snickers bar, m&ms (and if so... peanut, regular or peanut butter), reese peanut butter cups, whatchamacallit, and the list goes on and on...

I've been searching for a recipe for m&m cookies. I always got the feeling that the actual cookie part was different than just making chocolate chip cookies and using m&ms instead. Although, now, after some research, I think thats exactly how you make them. But, in my search for a specific m&m cookie recipe, I found this recipe for m&m dream bars.

They are delicious! Addictive, in fact. They are pretty crumbly on top, which makes them very messy to eat, but worth the mess. Trust me.
The only thing I hate are blue m&ms. There is something so non-appetizing about bright blue m&ms.

Also: April, if you are reading this.... I'm going to save you some grief here cause I know you won't read the recipe all the way through... You have to reserve 1 1/2 cups of the crust to use on the top at the end!

Grandma Cookies

Everyday when I came home from school, my mom was there. I didn't realize at the time what a sacrifice that was for our family, to have her stay at home with my two brothers and I, but I am very grateful that my family was fortunate enough to be able to make that decision. I may not have had all the barbies or video games that my friends had, but having my mom there when I got home from school made it worth it.

When we got home from school, we were always hungry and clamoring for something to eat. And this is the recipe that my mom made us at least twice a week. (Probably more like 3-4 times a week). We call these Grandma Cookies. And strangely enough, not after our grandmas or any other grandmas in our family. We call them Grandma Cookies because a boy in my brother's boy scout group brought these cookies to the boy scout functions and called them Grandma Cookies (after his Grandma, I suspect) and so the name stuck.

Normal people call them No Bake Cookies, Chocolate No Bake Cookies, Chocolate Oatmeal No Bake Cookies.... you get the idea.

My mom NEVER used a recipe (see a pattern here?). And these cookies NEVER turned out the exact same way. Sometimes they would be thick and harden almost before she got them out of the pan (This is how everyone else liked them). Sometimes they would be gooey and chocolatey and never firm up, you had to scrape them off the aluminum foil with your fingers (how I preferred them). And sometimes they would be thin and lightly crispy, but tender (how I think they are supposed to turn out). Sometimes my mom forget to put butter in them, or vanilla (she forgot the vanilla a lot). Regardless of how they turned out, we always gobbled them right up.

If my brother or I ever tried to make them, we used this recipe that one of my aunt's penned. They called them Boiled Cookies (sounds delicious, huh?). I think my Aunt Evelyn wrote out this recipe, (although for some reason I think it might have been my Aunt Carolyn) and practically every word is misspelled. Whoever it was, was probably 12 or so when they wrote it out.

This is a cookie that is quick and simple, requires few ingredients and brings back great memories for me. I will definitely make these cookies for my kids one day.

Mine turned out pretty well, but I'm hoping to one day make them the same way my mom does/did... without a recipe.

Chocolate Oatmeal No Bake Cookies

1 stick of Butter

2 cups of sugar

1/2 cup milk

3 tbsp Cocoa

Pinch of Salt

Boil all these ingredients together at a heavy boil for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and quickly add:

2 1/2 cups of Oats

1/2 cup Peanut Butter

2 tsps Vanilla

Stir in and drop onto a a sheet of aluminum foil to cool.

6th time the charm... Biscuits.

The quest for the biscuit mastery continues...

Well, this is probably the 5th time I've made biscuits and I finally got the height right. when I rolled them out this time, I kept the dough thick... almost an inch. Previously I had been rolling out to about a 1/2 inch and that just made too many and too thin of biscuits.

This time they were the right height and thickness, but I think next time I'll use half buttermilk and half regular milk, I feel like all buttermilk makes them a little heavier than I'd like. I also used butter flavored shortening this time, which I won't do again. Tasty, but again, too rich. Next time, I'm hoping for perfection.

Lemon Bars (that aren't lemon-y).

I really enjoy the tart flavor of lemon and lime. My mom used to make my grandma a lemon bundt cake every year with a lemon glaze for her birthday. YUM. It was a favorite of mine.

So, the other day, I was browsing some lemon bar recipes and came across this one. It had good reviews, so I decided to give it a try last night. I didn't want to make a whole recipe, and the measurements seemed easily divisible, so I decided to halve the recipe. I think that's a mistake. Since there isn't an exact pan that is half the size of a 13x9 inch pan... I was forced to use an 8 inch square pan. I ended up with bars with a very thick (but yummy) crust and then a very thin layer of lemon topping. So thin, that I overcooked it. A lot. They are pretty tasty though, but they have a very light lemon flavor. I would almost call these sugar biscuits or something. I wouldn't even mention that they had lemon in them.

I'll definitely try the recipe again, but I'll try it whole. But, that makes me think... surely someone makes a pan that is exactly half the volume of a 13x9 inch pan. I'll look into it and if not.. then maybe I will!