White Chocolate Cake with Lemon Cream

Easter this year we were in charge of bringing dessert as well as the sacred Prime Rib.  We are in charge of this because when leaving Publix the other day Byrd saw the cover of Women's Day Magazine.  On the cover was a beautiful three layered cake.  A white chocolate cake with lemon cream to be exact.  Although we didn't buy the magazine she found the recipe as soon as we got home, then called her mom, and just like that we are in charge of dessert.  Until recently we never baked, but we were up to the challenge.  There were only going to be  6 of us at Easter so we didn't really need a three layer cake, we decided to just make a 2 layer cake and eat the 3rd layer for a Saturday snack.  Other than that we followed the recipe.  We made the cakes on Saturday to get them done, our oven was going to be taken Sunday morning.  The cake came together beautifully. We couldn't find candied lemon peel, so we opted to cover the top with lemon zest and wheels.

Beautiful cake.

So pretty.

With the cake finished we put it in the fridge to set while the prime rib was finishing.  At this point all was good.  Then we got in the car.  Now we had discussed the short drive, and had a plan.  Byrd would drive and I would hold the cake so there would be no unnecessary jolts.  As we pulled out of our driveway and headed down the street the top layer of the cake started to slowly slide off the bottom layer.  The next 10 minutes were a constant struggle to keep the top layer on, while all of the insides slowly melted on to the cake stand.

Nothing left in the middle.

Lesson learned, when bringing dessert it should only be one layer. or just decorate it there.  That is what Duff does, we watch the show, why didn't we think of that. Not that this is anything comparable to anything on that show, but for us a masterpiece.   Everyone was polite and still said it looked great, but I know what it looks like.  All in all it was a delicious cake and I guess that is what matters in the end.

Caramel Custard

Every once in a while my mother will send me recipes in the mail.  They are usually something she saw in a newspaper or magazine that she thinks I will enjoy making.  She knows me all to well.  I love these packages.  We got one of these the other day, it contained three desserts.  Knowing we are having to watch what we eat, due to Byrd's doctor, one was a "Dessert Without the Guilt".  It is a caramel custard.  The picture of it made it look too tempting not to try.  I would link it to the magazine it was from, but there is nothing on the bottom/top/sides of the copies I have.  I will look into this more and give the creator their due. Start by placing a 1/2 cup of sugar in an 8 inch non stick cake pan, melt the sugar over med. heat until golden.   Take off the heat and let it sit for 5 mins.

While that cools put 2 egg yolks, 1 large egg, 1(14 oz.) can fat free sweetened condensed milk, 1(12 oz.) can evaporated fat-free milk, 3 oz. 1/3 less-fat cream cheese, softened, and 1 Tbsp of vanilla extract into a blender.  Blend well.  Then pour on the sugar in the cake pan.

Place this in a water bath and into the oven at 350 for 1 hour.

My mom always writes notes on the recipes that she sends.  These are things she added, removed, or thinks is a better way to make the printed recipe.  I don't want to discredit the very talented chefs/cooks that come up with the recipes in the magazines, but they should consult my mother before printing.  I say this because I forgot to "cover with foil before baking" which my mother wrote 2 different places on the recipe.  So it turned out looking like this.

But after the 3 hours in the fridge I flipped it out onto a paper plate.  Paper was not a smart choice on my part.

It cracked, but it was delicious.  I have learned that desserts, when they don't come out pretty, are easier to eat.  You don't have to worry about cutting the perfect wedge, you can just take a hunk and go.  Or just eat right from the plate, this is frowned upon when you are not at home( like rolling your corn on the cob directly on the stick of butter). This will definitely be made again.  I think next time, I will pour into small muffin pans, and after cooled top with sugar and broil them.  Like mini brulees.

Byrds Flourless Chocolate Cake

The new diet has been going well, for me, but Byrd is really not enjoying the no sweets.  So she set out to find a recipe for a flourless, sugarless, chocolate cake.  Nothing about this sounds good to me.  I would rather just not have any desert than something that is full of "lesses". However, she wants/needs the dessert, she says.  So she found one.  I am a fan of Tyler Florence and his show Tyler's Ultimate...and after she found this recipe, I remember seeing him make it.  This does not mean that I'm not skeptical, but I am a trooper and willing to help out when needed.  After breakfast, eggs and bacon(did I mention I am loving this diet), I went to the store to get Splenda, in order to have what we need to be sugarless.  We, and by we I mean Byrd, with a little help from me, set the computer up in the kitchen and followed all directions, only changing the sugar to Splenda in order to make it sugarless.  Here are the stages of the semi-sweet chocolate and butter being melted in the double boiler.  This is the smallest metal bowl I own.  It's only use before now was to mix dry rub and make dressing.

While the chocolate was melting I separated the egg whites from the yolks.  This was all the help Byrd needed. I am a bad sous chef I will admit.  I normally try to take over projects, but I sat back and relaxed as this one came together.  Here is Byrd and Baby Byrd (resting on the counter under the apron) pouring the batter in the springform pan.  Same springform pan from the Cheesecake incident of 2010.

 

After this picture she put the batter into the oven for the allotted 25 minutes.  She checked the center with a toothpick and it wasn't quite done, so she put it back in for 5 minutes.

It looked just like the cracked earth it was supposed to.  Then as the recipe said, we waited 10 minutes to allow it time to cool.  I hate waiting for things to cool.  While it was cooling Byrd made homemade whip cream, using the Splenda again to sweeten and added a little vanilla extract for flavor.  I am really proud of my Byrd.

I take back my statement on things with "lesses" in the name.  This was great.  A great treat for anyone, no matter what their diet may be.  Byrd is happy now that there is a sweet treat in the house she can have while we are on the diet.  I am happy that I was actually able to watch and only helped out, when asked.

Byrd's First Cheesecake

So we made it safely to the coast and as planned my wife, Byrd, started her very first homemade cheesecake. We got our most recent issue of Fine Cooking in the mail a couple of days ago and it had a great article on how to make cheesecake. She decided it was going to be the first thing she did when we arrived today. She got off to a rocky start when using the food processor on the graham cracker crust, it exploded on her. But the crust came together as soon as I cleaned up the mess.

The batter was much less eventful it went off without a hitch. I am very proud of her. It took an hour in the oven and then it had to sit for an hour cooling, before you put it in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours. This baking thing takes too much patience. I am ok waiting for a butt to come of the smoker 20 or so hours later, but this doesn't make the entire house smell delicious. I don't know if I can take much more of this baking.
So here is where the pretty, finished picture would be. But there was a slight issue with bringing the nicely chilled homemade cheesecake out of the refrigerator. See as Byrd pulled the pan from the fridge, her hand went smoothly right through the bottom of the pan and the whole homemade cheesecake landed face down on the newly cleaned rug... So there is no pretty picture.

I will say that it was the best cheesecake I have ever put in my mouth. We scraped what we could off the freshly vacuumed carpet, (from the crust incident) and enjoyed every bite. The texture was perfect and flavor even better. This will not be the last time she makes cheesecake, but it will be the last time she gets to serve it!

Candied Bacon and Chocolate Chip Cookies

We have been planning a trip to The Smokin' in the Square BBQ Festival in Pensacola, FL for a month or so and tomorrow we get to leave. I've been to several festivals in my life, but this will be the first time at this one so I am extremely excited about a weekend of great Q. In order to have a few treats to take along with us for the weekend I decided to bake again today. I know this is ridiculous, 2 days baking in a row. I am that bored with no work. This does give me a lot of free time to read all of the great food bloggers that I guess I aspire to be. I ran across a blog that first made me laugh at the title, Accountants can cook?, and then drool at the name of a cookie. It involves my favorite food, BACON. To be exact, candied bacon. I have heard of candy bars that have bacon in them, but have never been able to locate one in the stores. The full recipe from the afore mentioned blog is here.


First the candied bacon: 1/2 a cup of light brown sugar sprinkled on top and baked. Then cooled.

All ingredients mixed together with the chopped bacon and chocolate chips on top.

The cookie dough balls before baking. Yes, that is half the loaf of Chocolate Chip Cornbread Breakfast Cake from yesterday. Yes there is only 2 of us in the house, and it was good enough to eat half in under 24 hours.

Same cookies, I just really liked this picture.

Out of the oven after the 12 minutes and cooled. Well all cooled except the 2 we ate immediately.

This picture actually shows the delicious super food, bacon, coming out of the top of the cookie.

These were some of the best cookies that I have ever eaten, and definitely the best ones I have ever made. I thank you Accountants can cook? I have learned a lot from these last 2 days of baking. I actually can bake if I put my mind to it and have the help of my beautiful wife. If I am to continue baking I need a few more kitchen items. A cooling rack, and something called Silipat to be specific.

Chocolate Chip Cornbread Breakfast Cake

I want to start this off by saying I am not a baker.  I am not great at measuring anything exactly right.  I also have a hard time not messing with stuff while it's cooking.  But earlier today I was reading Noble Pig and saw this one, well Byrd saw it and had to have it.  So I set out to actually bake something today.  I followed the recipe almost to the T.  I did stray on 3 things, only out of me being cheap.  I don't own a metal loaf pan, I have a glass one. I  didn't have yellow corn meal, I had white. Also I had Milk Chocolate Chips, not Semi Sweet.

At this point I was doing well.  I had successfully mixed, but not over mixed, the dry and wet ingredients.  I also got everything into the loaf pan with out a major spill.  I was happy.  After being in the oven for the required time and letting stand for the 10 min here it is.  

The smell from the kitchen was intoxicating.  One of the hardest things I have done lately was to let this sit for 10 minutes after it came out.  As excited as I was, Byrd was drooling.  She started to get a little angry that I had to take pictures before we cut into the loaf of heaven.  

For some reason all of the chocolate chips fell to the bottom.  So here it is upside down.

This was delicious.  As directed we ate it warm with lots of butter.  I can't wait to have this again tomorrow morning with my coffee.  I am glad I tried something new.  I will definitely make this again, but I will follow all the directions.  Lesson learned, follow all directions when it comes to baking.