Saturday, December 31, 2011

Red Romeo Cake

Remember back however long ago when I was craving raspberry cake but was to lazy to make it and made a smoothie instead? Well, when I was over at my cousins house last week, drinking chi and watching Jane Eyre, my aunt conoodled me into  making this cake. I was planing on doing a butter cream frosting, but she had the idea of doing pudding on it instead. What a good idea! It turned out so good!




Ingredients
Cake
Lemon Cake
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for pans
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs plus 3 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup milk

Raspberry Filling
1 pkg (16 ounces) frozen raspberries packed in sugar thawed
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour two 8-by-2-inch cake pans, tapping out excess flour. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and lemon zest.
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar until light and fluffy. With mixer on low, beat in eggs and yolks, one at a time. Beat in 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Alternately beat in flour mixture and milk beginning and ending with flour mixture; mix just until combined.
Divide batter between pans; smooth tops. Bake until cakes pull away from sides of pans, 32 to 35 minutes. Let cool in pans 10 minutes. Run a knife around edges of pans and invert cakes onto a wire rack. Let cool completely. 

Drain raspberries, reserving liquid. Add enough water to liquid to equal 1 1/4 cups. In large saucepan, combine liquid, sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice; mix well. Heat and stir until mixture boils and thickens. Cool completely. Stir thawed raspberries into cooled mixture. Fill cake reserve however much you have left for the top. I did the directions backwards and ended up almost doubling the filling. 
 For the top just get your box of vanilla pudding mix, cook on the stove according to the directions and chill it. Chilling it will make it easier to work with and wont make as much of a mess than if you just let it cool. it wont take to long in the freezer, just make sure it doesn't freeze. 

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Leather moccasins

The other day at Michaels I found a moccasin kit. It was about 15 dollars. Me and my mom have bean looking for ones without soles because they are all around better and last just as long if not longer. This did the trick. It is easy to do do just as long as you follow the directions. They have sizes all the way up to 13. I highly recommend it if you are needing a feeling of accomplishment. I couldn't find any pictures for it, but they are with all the leather craft stuff. Super easy to find.  

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Best Coffee Cake


Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 6 tablespoons Turbinado Sugar. (If you only have brown or even white sugar you can use that but the Turbinado sugar makes a nice crunch on the bottom) 
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup shortening
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons butter, melted
  • 1/4 cup of honey. double that if you use sugar instead
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (If you want to and nutmeg or any other spice like ginger, add with the cinnamon) 

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9 inch square pan, your bunt pan or your buntlet panIn a large bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Cut in the shortening with a pastry blender to the size of small peas.
  2. In a separate small bowl, beat the egg well, then stir in the milk and vanilla. Add the egg-milk mixture to the flour mixture all at once. Stir carefully until just blended.
  3. Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly. Drizzle top with melted butter.
  4. In a small bowl mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Sprinkle on top of cake. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Raspberry Lemon Delight (smoothy)

Caution: This Beverage may make you emit strange noises of glee, never eat/drink anything else ever again, or in case you are allergic to any of the ingredients go into shock and proceed to die. But if you are Luck enough to not have any allergies pertaining to this drink, I encourage you to Consume. :)
In all seriousness, this is by far my favorite smoothie yet.


Ingredients
  • 10 oz of frozen raspberries
  • 1 tsp of vanilla powder (ground up vanilla beans) If you don't have this just use vanilla extract.
  • 1 tbsp of honey
  • 1/4 tsp of lemon zest
  • a couple of drops of lemon oil, or 1tsp to 1tbsp of lemon juice. (depending on taste).
  • Liquid of choice to cover berries. Milk, cow, goat, rice, almond, etc. or just water. (the one in the picture I used regular milk) I find that for in the morning water usually is the best and most refreshing especially when you are getting ready to or just finished your exercises. 
Blend, pore into a glass, and enjoy.