Culinary Concoctions By Peabody's Samoas Mascarpone Filled Layer Cake

Here is where I found this recipe, I love her site.

I followed the recipe above exactly, except I used Keebler cookies (Samoa knock-offs) instead of Samoas, and although this was a lot of work, it was so delicious.  Eat this in small doses though, it is very rich.  Each serving, for 1/16 of the cake, was 861 calories, ouch!  Still, like I said, a little goes a long way.  Owen and Noah and I gave this a perfect 10, and Aaron gave it a 9.  It's so delicious, try it out!

Oatmeal Pie

This was such a fun experiment!  Oatmeal pie sounds weird, but it really tastes good.  It is kind of like pecan pie, but I like it better because it doesn't have nearly as many nuts, and is a little less sweet, which is a good thing ;).  The calories are around 300 for 1/16 of the pie, and we gave it a 9.  It's almost healthy enough to have for breakfast :).  I found the recipe here, and made only two changes, but here's how I did it.

3 whole Eggs
½ cups Granulated Sugar
½ cups Dark Brown Sugar
¾ cups Light Corn Syrup
½ cups Butter, Melted And Cooled Slightly
1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
¾ cups Old Fashioned Oats (uncooked)
½ cups flake Coconut
2 Tablespoons All-purpose Flour
½ cups hazelnuts, chopped
1 whole Unbaked 9 Inch Pie Crust

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. In a large bowl beat eggs until foamy. Gradually add the granulated sugar and the brown sugar. Mix well. Add the corn syrup, butter and vanilla. Mix well. Set aside.
In a small bowl combine the oats, coconut and flour. Add the oat mixture to the creamed mixture and mix until blended. Pour into a prepared un-baked pie crust. Top with chopped pecans and bake for 10 minutes at 425 degrees F. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees F and continue baking for 30 – 35 minutes. Bake until the center is set. Test by touching the pie center lightly to see if it is almost firm. Do not over bake.
Cool completely on a wire rack. Store leftovers tightly sealed in the refrigerator.  

Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake

 Happy Birthday Noah!!!  Noah picked out his cake, and it was probably the most successful and put together cake I have ever made.  Everything came out perfectly, it was moist, light, flavorful, and the frosting and homemade strawberry cherry jam on it were so delicious :).  Everyone liked this, Aaron, Owen and I gave it a 9, and Noah gave it a perfect 10.

 

 

 

 

 The cake was Perfect Party Cake from Dorie Greenspan's cookbook Baking.  This was so worth the time to make it, and like I said, Noah picked it out, so he was super happy.  You can find the recipe here, and the calories for 1/20 of the cake are about 422 calories with the very slight changes I made.

 

 Aren't the layers of the cake so pretty?  I love how this cake looks.  The small changes I made are only to add more jam, instead of 2/3 c I used about 1 1/2 c, and I didn't use raspberry jam, I used my strawberry cherry jam.  Other than that, I followed the recipe exactly.  I love the meringue buttercream, I hadn't ever made that kind of frosting before and it was fun to do something different :).  The cake was a hit, which is what I always hope for on a birthday!

 

 

 

 

Samoa Bars

We tried these samoa bars the other day, and although the taste was amazing, the caramel was too hard, the recipe said to cook it to 260 degrees, which makes hard ball caramel, and that is just too hard for these bars.  I may make these again with the caramel being a lot less firm, and then I think they will be delicious.  We couldn't actually eat these, because of the texture of the caramel.  They are like those caramel chews you get at the store that are quite difficult to eat, and having that as a layer in a bar makes it impossible to eat.   Since we had to throw the whole pan out, I'm giving this a 0, even though like I said the flavor is good.  I'm also not posting the recipe, just follow the link to find the recipe.  I followed the recipe exactly, using a candy thermometer and everything.  I was frustrated at this recipe, obviously, because throwing out that much food really sucks.  The calories per bar for 24 bars was 640, another reason not to make these :).  Anyway, great idea, poor execution.

Sweet and Savory Coconut Rice

Again, we don't have any pictures, but don't worry, the link with the recipe does!  We really liked this rice, Aaron especially.  I found it just a little sweet, so I added more salt to it, but Aaron and the boys liked it just how it was.  The coconut rice is found here, and it was fast and easy to make.  Aaron said it reminded him of Dominican rice he ate there, and he's wanted since.  He actually requested that I make this frequently, which I think scores a perfect 10 from him.  I gave it an 8, and the boys gave it a 9.  We had it with some green beans and this flank steak, which we also enjoyed, just not as much.  I can't serve meat medium rare because I'm preggers, so I had to serve it well done, and steak well done is just not delicious.  Oh well.  It was a great meal and we enjoyed it.  I will hopefully get back on the pictures next week, but I'll have a cookie recipe coming up soon that was pretty good.

Italian Cream Cake

"This was a triumph. I'm making a note here huge success. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction." That's for all my Portal friends out there :)

But seriously, today is my dad's birthday!!!  We had a great dinner out, and then had this cake from The Pioneer Woman called Billie's Italian Cream Cake.  I changed the walnuts to pecans, since I can't stand walnuts, and I find pecans, in baked goods, to be pretty good.  This cake is amazing.  So great.  I love the nuts and coconut in the frosting, and the yummy moist cake.  The calories on this are out of control, but man does it taste good.  My parents, Owen, Noah and I all gave the cake a perfect 10, and Aaron, the cake hater, gave it a 7 :).  The calories for 1/32 of the cake are 401.  Ouch!  Still, birthdays are special, and this was a great cake.  Thanks Pioneer Woman!!!

Tomorrow we're having some chicken and green beans.

Red Velvet Coconut Doughnuts

We had some delicious donuts/muffins today.  They are Red Velvet Coconut Doughnuts and they are too good.  Owen, Noah and I gave them a perfect 10, Aaron gave them a 6, since he doesn't like cake.  He ate more than one of the mini muffins, so he must have liked them okay :).  This was an easy recipe, and the frosting is delicious, although it made way more than we needed for the recipe.  I made a couple of changes to the recipe, I put in one less tablespoon flour, and added an extra tablespoon of cocoa powder, I changed the amount of oil to 1/4 c and added in 1/2 c sour cream, and I added in a lot of food coloring, because I like the deep red color.  I also didn't garnish with coconut, because I didn't think they needed it.  I love how these are traditional red velvet, but still with the coconut extract have something extra.  It really adds to the doughnuts.  Since I don't have two donut pans, I made 6 donuts, 12 mini muffins, and 3 regular sized muffins.  I had a hard time figuring out calories for these, because of the multiple sizes of the food and because we only used 2/3 of the frosting, approximately.  Anyway, if you follow the recipe with my changes and have only 12 donuts, and use all the frosting, the calories are 458/donut.  If not, the calories for the big muffins and the donuts with all the frosting are 367/donut and 229/mini muffin.  Who knows what the calories are with the smaller amount of frosting we used, but it's definitely less than what I put here since the frosting is where all the calories come from.  These are so moist and tender, and worth every calorie.  Yum! 
Tomorrow we're having some healthier muffins and some breakfast food.

Coconut Cake Pancakes

This morning we had Coconut Cake Pancakes.  These were yummy, especially the bananas.  I made 21 pancakes out of the batter, and so with that number our calories were 89 calories/pancake with bananas.  We gave the bananas a 9 and the pancakes an 8.  I like that the recipe uses whole wheat flour as well as all purpose flour, and I like that this was very easy.  Instead of using one egg white and one egg, I just used two eggs, and I used less maple syrup in the banans and added 1 T of brown sugar to the bananas.  Also, I left out the oil entirely.  These were a great Saturday morning breakfast, and we'll definitely have them again!  We're trying a carnitas pizza from the Pioneer Woman's second cookbook tonight.