Cream Cheese Pound Cake

This cake is truly delicious. Melts in your mouth & is very adaptable. I first read the recipe at Simply Anne's. Had to try it--with a few changes. The original recipe used dried mango & real eggs.

Recipe

8 T butter, room temp

6 oz. cream cheese, room temp

1/2 t salt

1 C sugar

2 t baking powder

2 C cake flour

1 C egg substitute

2 t lemon zest

2 oz. chopped dried apricots

2 T lime juice

Glaze--

5 t lime juice

1 C powdered sugar-sifted

Preheat oven to 350 F

Directions--

Combine flour, salt, baking powder, sugar & zest. In a separate bowl, beat cream cheese & butter until soft & fluffy. Add egg sub 1/4 @ a time, beating after each addition. Add lime juice & mix. Add flour until just combined & fold in dried apricots. Pour batter into a greased 9x5 loaf pan & bake for about 50-60 minutes depending on your oven. Toothpick should come out clean when baked through. Introduce lime juice to sifted powdered sugar & use only the amount that makes the glaze the consistency you desire. Make holes in cake w/toothpick & pour glaze over top.

Note--am already planning different versions of this cake--using all lemon, all lime, w/ cranberries or blueberries or even mini chocolate chips &/or pecans. It is a truly moist & delicious cake that would make a great back drop for fresh strawberries & whipped cream.

Raspberry Fried Pies

After nummerous requests, I finally made fried pies. They turned out well & were light & flakey. I used purchased pie dough & a cookie cutter to make some of the pies & free formed a couple with the dough left from cutting the shapes. The filling was made from cooking 2 cups of frozen raspberries with 1/3 cup of sugar, pinch of salt, 2 tablespoons of raspberry preserves, 1/4 cup of water & 3 tablespoons of corn starch until thickened. Cooled the filling a bit, cut out the shapes, put a spoonful in the centers & closed the top layers with a bit of water around the edges & sealed with the tines of a fork, then deep fried them in canola oil. I don't have a deep fryer so I used a heavy metal pot with a couple of inches oil heated to medium on the cook top. They fried very quickly. After draining on paper towels & a sprinkle of powdered sugar they were ready. Very quick & easy. Family said they would want them again, so, that equals a thumbs up around here. Happy New year!

Potatoes & Ham

Simple Sunday supper for us last night--all on one plate. A bowl of potatoes cubed & fried in olive oil, butter, pepper & onion flakes along with some delicious cubed ham baked for Saturday supper. Added a simple salad of iceburg lettuce & avacado with only a squeeze of lemon juice and a Gala apple for dessert & it was a wrap for our evening meal. Easy & delicious comfort food.

Gingerbread!!!!

Actually, Gingerbread & Lemon Curd Trifle with Blackberry Sauce to be exact. My first attempt at home made gingerbread & my first trifle & it was a hit today. Tangy, lemony & creamy all at once. Great flavor combinations and a thumbs up from everyone at the table. This was a creation of Bobby Flay shown earlier this month on Food Network & one I will make again. The only changes I made from the original were to use pomegranite liquer instead of framboise & egg substutue & it didn't hurt the outcome at all. I assembled the trifle yesterday & refrigerated until it's unveiling at the table today.

Gingerbread Cake:

Nonstick vegetable oil spray

3 cups ap flour

2 tbsp ground ginger

2 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

3/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

3 tbsp minced crystalized ginger

10 tbsp (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp

1 cup brown sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup molasses

1 cup boiling water

2 1/2 tsp grated lemon peel

Lemon Curd Filling, recipe follows

Blackberry Sauce, recipe follows

Position rack in center of oven & preheat to 350 degrees F.

Spray 1 half-sheet pan with nonstick cooking spray. Line bottom of pan with parchment paper; spray paper. Sift flour & next 6 ingredients into medium bowl. Mix in crystalized ginger. Using an electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in brown sugar. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time. Gradually beat in molasses, followed by 1 cup boiling water. Mix in grated lemon peel. Gradually mix in dry ingredients. Transfer batter to prepared pan. Bake until a tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the pan sides. Turn out onto a rack & peel off paper. Cool & cut into 1-inch cubes.

To assemble:

Using a trifle bowl, start with an even layer of gingerbread cubes, top with 1/3 of the lemon curd mixture, and 1/3 of the blackberry sauce. Repeat 2 more times. Top with remaining whipped cream. Cover & refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight before serving.

Lemon Curd Filling:

2 (11-ounce) jars prepared lemon curd

2 cups heavy cream, sweetened with sugar & vanilla, beaten to soft peaks

Place lemon curd in a large bowl. Fold in half of the whipped cream until combined. Refrigerate if not using immediately. Reserve remaining whipped cream for the top of the trifle.

Blackberry Sauce:

2 pints fresh blackberries, or 1 bag frozen blackberries, thawed

1/4 cup sugar

Pinch salt

2 tbsp framboise (raspberry liquer)

1 tablesponn fresh squeezed lemon juice

Place blackberries, sugar & salt in a medium saucepan & cook until the berries are soft & the sugar has melted. Transfer to a blender & blend until smooth. Poor through a strainer into a bowl. Stir in the framboise & lemon juice. Set aside until ready to use.

Next time I will make half the gingerbread recipe as I had plenty left over after assembly -- which is not a bad thing! If you make the original cake recipe, you will need a VERY large bowl.

July 4

Happy July 4th!

Hope everyone is enjoying the day in a relaxing way. Yesterday was my baking day--Pina Colada Cake baked in the convection oven. Living in the Valley of the Sun when it is 115 degrees, I really don't like using my oven. It heats the house--not to mention the electricity usage. I love my little convection oven.

We will celebrate the 4th quietly. We will feast on the fruits of summer--a compote of blueberries, strawberries & raspberries (maybe served over that cake from yesterday). Ribeye steak, baked potatoes, & corn on the cob on the weber. Some family members are working today so we will watch the fireworks produced at a nearby stadium but still close enough to be viewed from our patio. Makes me melancholy for summers past when we could actually have our own fireworks displays. We all had our own sparklers & "punks" & Dad's that were the masters of orchestrating marvelous roman candle displays--the summer sounds of cicadas, the smell of freshly mown green grass, home made lemonade, chiggers & mosquito bites. It was home & it was safe & delicious.

Even though our celebration will be low key, I will be busy. I am totally immersed in an online course--my first. Required class for teachers in the Copper State. My current "Block" is estimated to take 6 hours. I hope that is an accurate estimate. I'm learning--that is the good thing & proof that an "old dog" can learn new tricks.

Tomorrow I take the day off. Tomorrow is the day that my sister-in-law & I take off every summer & shop. We are Phoenicians & the heat doesn't stop us! We have planned our first stop for a year now. It will be Penzey's. I have read many comments on the wonders of this place & all it has to offer. I'm sure I won't know where to begin. I've read every single listing from their website & have narrowed my list down to an even dozen items. Penzey's is on the other side of the world from where we live. This makes this trip even more special, a sort of mini-vacation to Scottsdale.

If anyone has any suggestions of "must haves" from Penzey's please leave a comment.

Strawberry Tart

Couldn't resist buying those red beauties. I will eat strawberries without dressing them up at all. I love strawberries. My family requested that I "do" something with the huge container I brought home. Had never made a strawberry tart so this was a gamble. It was really delicious. The whipped cream topping didn't hurt. I used the same toasted pecan crust that I had made to go with my chocolate tart last summer. Just enhanced a container of premade strawberry glaze with a tablespoon of Gran Marnier & a couple of tablespoons of wild straberry gelatin to help thicken the glaze. This got the thumbs up last weekend!

Reubens

It has been a week now since many of us enjoyed corned beef & cabbage. If you are lucky , you have an Irish neighbor who supplies you with delicious Irish Soda Bread, hot out of the oven. If you really are experiencing the luck of the Irish you get to share it all with family you've not seen & have a chance to do some catching up. That was our March 17 & it is all memories now. Some captured digitally. Helping a niece make her first batch of "real" lemonade--picking the lemons herself & squeezing the juice & then watching that sweet, toothless, 6 year old smile when we all drank her concoction. The only tangible thing left was that bit of corned beef stowed in the freezer. Couldn't think of a better use for it than to make our favorite hot sandwiches-reubens. Nice marbled rye from the bakery, aged swiss cheese, thousand island dressing, and a bit of crunchy sauerkraut and of course that thinly slice corned beef. They tasted great and I feel like I won't need to eat for about a week--very filling.

(Thanks to Customsigngenerator.com for the sign at the top.)