Rhodes Pineapple Coffee Cake

You guessed it.  Today I'm over at the Rhodes blog guest posting.  I showed the easy step-by-step instructions for Pineapple Coffee Cake.  This is seriously one of the easiest Rhodes recipes I have made.  Yet it doesn't taste like it was easy.

This recipe makes me want  to do some more experimenting.  I think this recipe could be turned in to all sorts of coffee cakes.  But for today, pop on over to the Rhodes Blog and make this coffee cake today.  You'll love it.  I know I did.

Rhodes Pumpkin Slices with Rum Sauce

Today I'm posting over at the Rhodes Blog.  I made Pumpkin Slices with Rum Sauce.  Oh. My.  This recipe is soo tasty.  It's cinnamony, pumpkiny all drizzled with rum sauce that tastes like penuche fudge.  I know I'm not adequately describing this delicious sweet bread.  You just need to make it and devour it today.

Pop on over to the Rhodes Blog and see the step by step instructions yourself.

Chocolate Parfait Cookies

A friend gave me this recipe more than 20 years ago.  They look like chocolate chip cookies, but no.  The almond flavoring and the chocolate chunks make them so different.  They are my families favorite cookies.  Thankfully this recipe makes a very big batch.  They still don't last long. 

They can be made with nuts.  But we aren't a big nut-loving family, so we go without the nuts.  I also use Hersey's Symphony bar, but the plain one.  But any good plain chocolate will work well.  The recipe calls for 1-2 chocolate bars.  You can decide how much you like.  I usually use 1 1/2 bars.  Plus we can eat the other half while we are baking the cookies.

Chocolate Parfait Cookies

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1 1/2 cups butter

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp almond flavoring

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

6 cups flour

1-2 large chocolate bars (4.5 ounce), cut into chunks

1 cup chopped nuts, optional

Cream sugars and butter.  Add eggs and flavorings.  then stir in soda, salt and 4 cups of flour.  Add remaining flour until it ceases to be sticky.  Stir in chocolate chunks and nuts.  Drop heaping teaspoonful on parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Bake for 8-9 minutes at 350 degrees F.  Cookies should have a light brown tinge but mostly white. 

Makes about 6 dozen cookies

Cherry Checkerboard Cookies

This month was my turn for hosting my book group.  I was feeling the need for some fun party planning and thought it would be fun to have a red and white theme.  Seeing as my book group was meeting on the 10th of February, I jumped in.  I found these little beauties while searching online for red desserts.  I must admit they took quite a bit of time but they weren't hard.  They were perfect for a ladies group.  They were originally made by Womens Day Magazine

Cherry Checkerboard Cookies
1 1⁄2 sticks (3⁄4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 large egg
1⁄2 tsp almond extract
1⁄4 tsp salt
2 1⁄4 cups all-purpose flour
1⁄4 cup maraschino cherries (8 to 10), finely chopped
Red liquid food color
1 white of 1 egg, slightly beaten

1. Beat butter, sugar, egg, extract and salt in a large bowl with mixer on medium speed until blended. With mixer on low speed, gradually beat in 2 cups flour.

2. Remove and reserve 1 cup dough. Divide remaining dough in half. Roll each half between 2 sheets of wax paper into a 6 x 3-in. rectangle. Slide onto a baking sheet; refrigerate.

3. Put reserved dough in bowl; add remaining 1⁄4 cup flour and the chopped cherries. Beat until well blended, adding red food color (about 14 drops) until dough is bright pink. Divide in half; roll out as above; refrigerate 1 hour.

4. Remove paper from top of each rectangle. Brush tops of each white rectangle with egg white; top with a red rectangle. Wrap stacks separately; refrigerate 1 hour.

5. Cut 1 stack in half lengthwise (keep other stack refrigerated) to make two 1 1⁄2 x 6-in. strips. Brush top of 1 stack with egg white; place other stack on top, alternating colors. Rewrap and freeze 20 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough.

6. Cut each stack in thirds (1⁄2 x 6-in. strips); turn strips on their side. Brushing egg white between each strip, stack strips, alternating colors. Wrap in plastic wrap; freeze 20 minutes, or refrigerate longer until ready to bake. Repeat with remaining stack.

The sides don't come out all even.  So I just trimmed off the edges.

7. Heat oven to 350ºF. Cut square logs into 1⁄4-in.-thick slices. Place 1 in. apart on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 10 to 12 minutes until set and edges are slightly golden. Remove cookies to wire rack; cool completely.

Oatmeal Carmelitas

I love just about anything with caramel in it.  So years ago when I picked up a Pillsbury Bakeoff Cookie cookbook at the checkout at the grocery store,  I was hoping there would be something caramel in it.  Sure enough there was, Oatmeal Carmelitas.  I was hooked from the first time I made them.  I have a cousin who loves them too.  She usually asks me to bring them to family get-togethers.  So here they are...

Oatmeal Carmelitas

crust

2 cups flour

2 cups oatmeal

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cups butter, softened

filling

1 12 oz jar caramel ice cream topping

3 T flour

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine crust ingredients in a large bowl and mix with electric mixer on low until crumbly.  Reserve half of crumb mixture(about 3 cups) for topping.  Press remaining crumb mixture into the bottom of a 9x13 inch pan.

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl combine caramel topping and 3T flour.  Remove partially baked crust from oven, sprinkle with chocolate chips and nuts. Drizzle evenly with caramel mixture.  I also use chocolate from a bar.  I just chop it into bitesize pieces.

Return to oven and bake for 18 to 22 minutes or until golden brown.  Cool 1 hour or until completely cooled.  Refrigerate 1 to 2 hours or until filling is set.  Cut into bars.

Too bad these are gone already.  I better go make some more.

Apple Spice Drop Cookies

Here's another simple apple dessert.  I found this one on the web.  I needed to take cookies to a family gathering and wanted to try out another new recipe using apples.  The taste was similar to the apples squares.  But the nutmeg gives these a slightly different taste.

I found this recipe at pastrywiz.com. 

Apple Spice Drop Cookies

makes about 3 dozen

1/2 Cup butter, softened
2/3 Cup sugar
2/3 Cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 Cup apple juice
2 1/4 Cup flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 Tsp. baking soda
1/2 Tsp. nutmeg
1 Cup apples, peeled, finely chopped (about 2 apples)
1 Cup walnuts, chopped

FROSTING:
1/4 Cup butter, softened
3 Cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3-4 Tbs. apple juice

In a mixing bowl cream the butter and the sugars together.  Beat in the egg and apple juice.  Combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl and gradually add the dry ingredients to the sugar mix, blend well and then add the apples and walnuts.

Place on a greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart.

Bake at 375 degrees for 13 minutes or until golden brown

Frosting:

Add the sugar, butter, vanilla and apple juice together and mix until smooth. Frost cooled cookies.

 I hope you enjoy these as much as we did. They were gone pretty quick!

 

Mom's Apple Squares

We have been loving the apples this fall!

I wanted to try out a few new recipes using apples.  Not surprisingly, when I started looking for recipes I kept coming back to the desserts with apples.  Here's one we all enjoyed.  It comes from Phyllis Hoffman's Celebrate Fall.  It was simple and quick to make.  I even liked that the recipe didn't have you peel the apples.  I'm also really enjoying my new subscription to the Celebrate magazines!

Mom's Apple Squares
3 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3 cups chopped unpeeled Braeburn or Gala apples
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 tsp vanilla extract

Frosting

1 cup powdered sugar

1 T. butter, softened

2 to 3 T milk

Coat a 15x10 inch jelly-roll pan with cooking spray and flour, set aside.  In a large bowl, combine eggs and salt.  Beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until frothy, about 1 minute.  Add sugar and oil, beat until blended.  Add flour, baking soda and cinnamon, beat until blended.  Fold in apples, nuts and vanilla.  Pour into prepared pan and spread evenly.  Baket at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until lightly browned and set.  Cool.

Combine frosting ingredients to acheive a spreadable consistency.  Spread over cooled cake.

I actually used pecans instead of walnuts, a personal choice when it comes to nuts.  I also just drizzled the frosting over the cake.  I thought it was easier and wasn't overkill with the frosting.  Now if you have any apples laying around, go and bake some for yourself.    

 

Pan Sugar Cookies

This past 4th of July weekend I had pan sugar cookies.  I couldn't quit thinking about them.  I asked for the recipe at the BBQ.  Apparently it's not a shared recipe.  So I started looking on the internet.  Surely there was something out there that mimicked those sugar cookies.  I found a few recipes and combined them to make these.

I love sugar cookies.  But I hardly ever make them.  Too much work.  But these little gems do not fall into the "too much work" category.  Plus I love the almond flavoring. 

Pan Sugar Cookies

1 ½ cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 egg
2 teaspoons almond extract
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 ½ cups flour

Cream butter, cream cheese and sugar together. Add the egg, almond extract and vanilla and blend until smooth. Mix in all of the dry ingredients. Grease a jelly roll pan with cooking spray. Spread the dough in the pan with a long flat spatula. This is the tricky part.  The dough is sticky and it might seem like there's not enough to cover the pan.  I keep dipping my long spatula into the flour while spreading.
Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. Cook just until golden brown.
Let cool completely.

After cooling frost with your favorite frosting.  Or you can use my cream cheese frosting recipe. Or use this simple white frosting.

White Frosting

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla extract

dash of salt

6 cups powdered sugar

7-8 T. milk

Mix butter, vanilla, salt, powdered sugar and half of the milk together with electric mixer.  Slowly add more milk until you reach the desired consistency.

Now go and make some for yourself!

Rhodes Bake-N-Serv Demo Night for Bloggers

Last week Dee-Dee from Whatever Dee-Dee Wants invited me to a special night  at the Rhodes Bake-N-Serv test kitchen.  Rhodes was hosting a demo night for bloggers from around the Salt Lake valley, although a few were from farther away.  Lucky for me, I got on the invite list.  It was a wonderful night.  Rhodes treated us great.

The Demo was presented by Heidi V.  She was awesome.  I've worked with Rhodes frozen bread dough a lot but boy did she have a few tricks up her sleeve.  She was full of advise and made everything look easy and do-able for even a beginner.

Did you know that every bag of Rhodes dough has a no fault guarantee?  I didn't.  But it does.  If your bread, rolls, etc. don't turn out you can get a refund.  Rhodes is so confidant in their products, they guarantee them.

A few tips Heidi mentioned when purchasing your Rhodes products

• look for the expiration date
• no ice crystals on the product
• the dough isn't frozen together
• ideally use the frozen dough within 1 month

Rhodes was soo good to us.  Each of us received a gift bag containing a cookbook, Fresh Ideas with Frozen Dough, an apron and a gift certificate for frozen dough.  They also had a freezer at the demo filled with different products.  We could pick one to take home with us.  Not to mention the food they served us.

There was such good food.  Bread is my favorite food group, you know.  Heidi made Butterscotch Bubble Loaf, Mango Salsa Bake, Bacon Cheese Nibbles,  Cinnamon Blueberry Crumble, Cinnamon Rolls, Orange Rolls, Kaiser Rolls, Breadsticks, rolls and bread.  There was so much food we each filled a plate and they even sent us home with all the extras.

Check out the Rhodes Baken-N-Serv website.  There are tons of ideas and recipes.   I've always loved Rhodes, but I'm back on their bandwagon again.  Thanks Heidi and Rhodes.  It was a wonderful evening!

Rootbeer Cupcakes

I wasn't sure what I thought when I first heard root beer cupcakes mentioned.  But I do love cupcakes and I love a good root beer.  So I was excited to try them when my friend Steph made them.

They did not disappoint!

So I had to get the recipe and try them out for myself. 

Here's the original recipe, followed by what I did when I made them.

Root Beer Cupcakes
1 box yellow cake mix
2 eggs

2 cups root beer

1 3 oz pkg instant vanilla pudding
1 tsp. root beer extract

Mix ingredients together in a large bowl.  Fill cupcakes 1/2 to 2/3 full.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 16 minutes.  Cool cupcakes completely before frosting.

Frosting

1 8 oz container whipped topping, thawed

1 square softened butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp. root beer extract

Mix whipped topping, softened butter and root beer extract together until smooth.  Add powered sugar and mix until desired consistency.  Frost cupcakes!  They may be stored in the refrigerator to keep frosting from getting too soft.

Now, I thought I had all the ingredients I needed but I didn't. I did NOT want to make one more trip to the store that day so I improvised. I just substituted the water in the cake mix with root beer and added 1 tsp. root beer concentrate.  Then I added the rest of the regular ingredients called for on the box, i.e oil and eggs.

I couldn't find root beer extract but I did have root beer concentrate.  It may be the same thing.  I'm not really sure.  But it's what I used.  They were soo yummy.  So root beery.  I will definitely be making them again soon.  Thanks Steph for sharing these with me!

Whole Wheat Bread

I've finally found a whole wheat bread recipe that my family loves!  Not just to eat while it's warm, but for toast and sandwiches too.  It's soft yet doesn't fall apart.  It's absolutely delicious. 

I grind my own flour but you can just buy yours.  Or talk your friend with a wheat grinder into grinding some for you.  I started using hard white wheat to fool my kids that it was only half wheat flour.  But they like it so much that I've been using half hard red and half hard white wheat.

I found this recipe over at The Sisters Cafe.  I changed it a little bit to suit my needs.

Whole Wheat Bread

makes 5 loaves

3 1/2 cups hot tap water

1 12 oz can evaporated milk

3 T. instant yeast

2/3 cup oil

1 cup honey

1 cup white flour (I guess that doesn't make it "whole wheat" bread)

3 T vital wheat gluten

12 cups whole wheat flour

1 1/2 T salt

If grinding your own wheat, grind all of the wheat before you start.  Approximately 8 cups of wheat is equal to 12 cups flour. 

Using a heavy duty mixer, (I use a Bosch) combine ingredients in the order given, mixing well after half of the flour.  Then add the other half of flour and salt.  If dough is too sticky, add a little bit extra white flour.  Knead in mixer for 8 minutes.  Dump dough onto counter and form into a log.  Divide into 5 equal parts.  Put each part into a greased medium loaf pan.  Push down the sides to fill the bottom of the pan, leaving the top round and smooth.  Don't worry too much about it looking perfect here. 

Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 1 hour or until desired size. 

Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 25-30 minutes.  Remove from oven and brush tops with melted butter, if desired. 

Let cool ten minutes before removing from pans.  Cool completely before slicing.  Although we never wait for that.

Cinnamon Roll Class

A few weeks ago I was asked to teach some girls from the neighborhood a cooking class.  I thought they would enjoy learning how to make cinnamon rolls.  They did really well and we had a fun time.  Not to mention that we ate a bunch of cinnamon rolls too.

First I taught them about proofing the yeast.

When the dough was made, they wanted to touch it.  Just to see what it was like.

Then I showed them how to roll out the dough.

Next comes the melted butter.

Then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture and the brown sugar.

I then showed them how to roll them up.  I aslo showed them how I like to cut the rolls, with thread.  Wrap the thread around the roll.  Then cross the thread and pull.  It makes a clean cut every time.

The girls each made a pan to take home. 

We had a great time.

Thanks Dee-Dee for asking me and thanks

Qing

Claire

Madi and Sydney. 

It was a fun afternoon.  Now go make some for yourself!

Cinnamon Rolls
1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter
1 T. or 1 package yeast
1/4 cup warm water, 105 to 115 degrees
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
3 1/2 to 4 cups flour
1 tsp. salt

melted butter
cinnamon sugar mixture
brown sugar
white frosting

Scald milk, add butter to melt and set aside to cool. Soften yeast in warm water, can add part of the sugar to speed to growth of the yeast. Let stand for 5 minutes. In a large bowl or mixer with dough attachment add yeast, milk and butter, egg, remaining sugar, salt and 3 cups of flour. Mix well. Work in more flour as needed. Knead until smooth. Put in greased bowl and cover. Let rise until double in bulk (about 1 hour). Punch down. Put on lightly floured surface. Roll out to rectangle. Brush with melted butter, sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar mixture and brown sugar. Starting with long end, roll up. Cut into 1 inch sections and place on greased pan. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or until they start to brown. Let cool for 5 minutes and then frost.


White Frosting
1/4 cup softened butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups powdered sugar
3-4 T. milk
Mix butter, vanilla, powdered sugar and half of the milk together. Slowly add remaining milk depending on the desired consistency.

Cream Cheese Frosting

I've previously posted my Homemade Oreo recipe HERE.  I needed some cookies quick for a church event.  So I made some more.  This time they look a little more like oreo's.  The dark cookie and white frosting help with the look.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1/4 cup butter, softened

4 oz cream cheese, softened

1 tsp vanilla

4 cups powdered sugar

5-6 T. milk

Mix butter, cream cheese, vanilla together until smooth.  Add powdered sugar and half of the milk and mix until smooth.  Slowly add remaining milk until it is the desired consistency.

I also made some chocolate frosting.  They were delicious too!

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

This is an old standby cookie recipe.  I've changed and adjusted it over the years.  It makes a ton of cookies.  They get eaten too fast to count but I would guess 8-10 dozen.  It can easily be cut in half.  Add nuts if you like nuts.  Or stick with all chocolate chips.  This just happens to be the way we like them most.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup shortening
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
3 cups flour
4 cups quick oats
1 package chocolate chips
1 package peanut butter chips

Cream the sugars with the shortening and butter.  Add eggs, vanilla, baking soda and salt.  Mix well.  Stir in oats and flour until incorporated.  Stir in chocolate and peanut butter chips.  Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheet or parchment paper lined cookie sheets.
Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes.