Ingredients for Brownies:

1/2 c. butter
1 c. white sugar
2 eggs
1tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 c. all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder

Ingredients for Icing:

3 T. butter, softened
3 T. unsweetened cocoa powder
2 T. honey
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. powdered sugar
1 – 2 tsp. milk or cream

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour an 8″ square baking pan.

In a medium to large saucepan, melt 1/2 c. butter. Remove from heat. Stir in sugar, eggs and 1 tsp. vanilla. Stir in cocoa, flour, salt and baking powder.

Spread in pan. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes. Do not overcook! (I usually test mine after about 16 minutes and rarely let them bake the full 20 minutes.)

To make icing:

Stir together 3 T. butter, 3 T. cocoa powder, honey, vanilla, and powdered sugar. Add milk if necessary to get to spreading consistency.

Spread over warm brownies.

Ingredients:

Double pie crust
2 cups chopped red rhubarb, fresh
2 – 3/4 cups de-stemmed, washed and cut strawberries into quarters
1 – 1/2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons minute tapioca (Plus another 1 Tablespoon for spreading in the bottom of the pie shell)
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon almond extract
3 tablespoons butter, cubed small

Directions: Note: You may want to sit the pie in a large cookie sheet with sides. Mine always bubbles over a bit.

Spread pie crust in pie plate. Sprinkle 1 T. tapioca in the bottom of the pie shell.

Combine the rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, remaining tapioca, flour, zest and juice of lemon, cinnamon, and almond extract. Mix well in a large bowl and pour into crust. Dot the top of the filling with the butter. Add top crust and seal edges. Cover the edges with foil and bake at 425° for 15 minutes. Reduce temp to 375° and continue baking for an additional 45 to 50 minutes.

Let cool before serving. (Dang it . . I always forget this part!)

Ingredients:
1 (18 ounce) package yellow cake mix
3 eggs
1-1/4 cups orange juice
1/3 cup oil
1 (3 ounce) package orange flavored Jello
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup cold water
1 (3 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding
1 cup whole milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1-1/4 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup powdered sugar (I used a little more)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare cake mix as directed on package, using eggs, orange juice, and oil. Spray 13×9″ pan with baking spray and add cake batter. Bake at 350º for 30-40 minutes until cake starts to pull away from sides of pan. Cool cake completely on wire rack.
Using a wooden chopstick (or knitting needle), poke small holes in the cake.
In a small bowl, place 1 box orange gelatin. Pour boiling water over gelatin and stir until gelatin is completely dissolved. Add cold water and mix well. Slowly pour this mixture over the cake, making sure that the mixture gets into all the holes. Cover and chill for 2-4 hours.
In medium bowl, combine the pudding mix, milk, and vanilla and beat well. In small bowl, combine heavy cream and the powdered sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Fold the cream mixture into the pudding mixture and spread over cake. Cover and refrigerate for 4-8 hours before serving.

Since I used one of my smaller cake pans, I was able to make some mini-cakes too and will send those to work with Vince tomorrow.

Chad isn’t a big fan of peaches so when I told him I was making a peach cake, he kinda turned up his nose. Then he said he’d taste it before making a final decision. He tasted it and loved it!

Here’s the recipe:

Peach Cake

2 sticks butter
2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2-3/4 cups all purpose flour (plus 1/4 cup)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups peaches, peeled, pitted and chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a Bundt or tube pan and dust with granulated sugar.

2. Cream together butter and sugar til light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla.

3. Sift together the 2-3/4 cups flour, baking powder and salt. Stir into the creamed mixture.

4. Coat peaches with 1/4 cup flour. Stir into the batter but do not beat or over mix.

5. Pour into pan. Bake for one hour or until tester comes out clean. Allow to cool 10 minutes in pan. Turn onto wire rack to finish cooling. (Or, we served ours warm with Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream).

This cake batter seems a little runny when you pour it in the pans and it always makes me wonder if I left something out but then I remember that last time I made it, it seemed a little runny too and it always works. And, it’s always good and it never lasts more than a few days around here.

I’ve never had this cake turn out less than perfect and anyone who has tasted it loves it.

Chocolate Cake

Cake:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1-1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup hot or warm coffee

Preheat the oven to 350°. Line two round cake pans with waxed or parchment paper. Line with parchment paper. Grease and flour the sides of the pan. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.

Mix together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt on low speed until combined. In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. Slowly add this mixture to the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl, continuing to mix just til everything is blended well. Add the coffee and stir just to combine. Pour the batter into the pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in the pans for 15 – 20 minutes, then remove from pans and cool completely before icing.

Icing:

6 ounces semisweet chocolate
2 sticks butter, at room temp
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar

Melt the chocolate in double boiler. Allow to cool slightly

Beat the butter on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and continue beating for a couple of minutes. Gradually add the powdered sugar, then beat at medium speed, until smooth and any lumps are gone. Add the melted chocolate and mix well. If the icing is too thick, add a little cream or milk. If it isn’t thick enough, add a bit more powdered sugar.

Add icing to the cooled cake.

This is really a no fail strawberry pie and so very yummy.

1 c. boiling water
1 c. sugar
3 T. cornstarch
3 T. light Karo
3 T. strawberry jello powder
1 quart strawberries
1 baked and cooled pie shell

Stir sugar and cornstarch into boiling water and stir til sugar is dissolved. Add Karo and continue stirring til thick. Remove from heat and stir in jello powder.

Set aside to cool and continue stirring every 10 minutes or so or it may tend to get lumpy or have a thicker layer on top.

Half strawberries and spread into pie shell. Pour cooled glaze over strawberries. Refrigerate for at least a couple of hours.

My Notes:

1. You can get two pies from 1 small box of strawberry jello if you use barely 3 tablespoons (as opposed to heaping tablespoons).
2. Some add red food coloring to the glaze but since I don’t care what color mine is and it looks plenty red to me, I don’ see the need to add extra dye to my food.  I’m sure there’s plenty in the strawberry jello.
3. You can whip a container of heavy cream, sweeten it a bit and cover the pie once it’s cooled but I’ve found that if you don’t eat the whole pie in one day (personal restraint it’s called!), the whipped cream may get runny or discolored from the strawberries so I make it easy on myself and use whipped cream in a squirt can.  Vince doesn’t like as much as I do so it’s easy to get the right amount per serving .. spoonfuls for him . . cupfuls for me!
4. Some recipes call for a tablespoon or two of butter in the glaze and I’ve never added that either.

Ingredients:

1 c. butter
1 c. sugar
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 egg whites
2c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1-1/2 tsp. vanilla
About 1 c.  finely chopped nuts
Jelly, jam or candied cherries, cut in half

Directions:

Cream butter and sugar.  Add 2 beaten egg yolks.

Mix the flour and salt.  Add to the creamed mixture.  Add vanilla.  Mix well.  Chill for a couple of hours.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Roll into small balls.  Roll in egg white (do not beat egg whites).  Roll in chopped nuts.

Place on baking sheet.

Bake for 5 minutes.  Using a thimble, press a hole in the center.

Continue baking for 10 -15 minutes.  Press hole in center again.

Cool completely.  Fill hole with jam or jelly.

If you do not want to use jam, press half of a maraschino cherry in the center before baking and bake 15-20 minutes.

For the cake portion, you can use any brioche type recipe. The “cake” is more like a slightly sweet bread.

Ingredients:

1 envelope Active Dry Yeast
2 T. warm water
1 tsp. salt
4 T. granulated sugar
1/4 c. milk
2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. cardamom (If you don’t have cardamon, use 1 tsp. cinnamon. Cardomom is a bit less common for most of us and seems a bit “mystical” but cinnamon will certainly work too.)
2 eggs, beaten
1 – 1/4 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into very small pieces.

Dissolve the yeast in the water and let stand til frothy.

Dissolve the salt and sugar in the milk. When dissolved combine the milk mixture with the yeast mixture.

Mix the cardamom with the flour.

Add the eggs to the yeast/milk mixture. Gradually add the flour. Knead for about 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Add a little more flour if needed but leave the dough slightly on the sticky side. Just as the dough is almost ready, add the chopped butter and knead only until the butter is incorporated into the dough.

Turn the dough into an oiled bowl, loosely cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 1 hour in a warm spot.

When the dough has doubled in bulk punch it down, cover and place in the refrigerator overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Roll the dough out to a 8 x 20 inch rectangle. Spread the almond filling(recipe below) out in the middle of the rectangle along the whole length, leaving about 1 inch on each side. Fold the length of the dough over the filling and roll up tightly, leaving the seam side down. Turn the roll into a circle, seam side down and put one end inside of the other to hide the seam, and seal the circle. Place the cake on a baking sheet and let rise, loosely covered with plastic wrap, for 45 minutes or until doubled in bulk.

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, or until golden brown (seems to only take about 20 minutes for me).

When the cake cools, spread on some of the glaze (recipe below). Decorate with the colored sugars and drizzle some of the thicker glaze onto the cake.

For the Almond filling:

1 can almond paste
1/2 stick butter
2 c. dry bread crumbs
1/3 c. sugar
1 tsp. almond extract

This gets real thick and it is better to use as stand mixer.

Mix the almond paste and butter. When totally mixed, add the bread crumbs, sugar and almond extract.

Glaze:

1 c. powdered sugar
1 tsp. melted butter
Half & Half to make the glaze the consistency desired
1/2 tsp. almond extract

NOTE: Because I love lots of icing/glaze, I double this recipe.

When I made them, I halved the recipe.  For three eggs, use either 1 very large or 2 very small eggs and it works.  The recipe calls for vanilla butternut extract.  I’d never heard of that and used clear vanilla.   Nita said she ordered the vanilla butternut extract from Amazon.

Ingredients:

6 cups flour
6 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups sugar
2 sticks butter or margarine
1 cup milk
3 eggs
1 oz. vanilla butternut extract

Directions:

Melt butter.  Add extract, eggs, sugar, and milk. Mix well.  Stir in flour and baking powder.  Roll out, cut with cookie cutter.  Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 350° for 13 – 15 minutes.  They will not be brown but a light yellow.

This is one of my favorite cookies.  There are several variations for making these and from what I’ve read, the recipe requiring baker’s ammonia is one of the best, most authentic recipes.  I rarely have baker’s ammonia and we’re perfectly happy with this recipe.

Ingredients:

4 eggs
1 lb. powdered sugar
4 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
2 – 4 drops anise oil

Directions:

Beat eggs til thick and lemon colored.  Add powdered sugar one cup at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add flour, one cup at a time, along with baking powder.  Beat well after each cup of flour.  Add anise oil.  If your family isn’t a huge fan of anise, stick with 2 drops.  A little goes a long way!   We love anise and I usually add more than 4 drops.

If the dough seems a little too sticky, add another 1/4 – 1/2 cup flour.

To roll dough, sprinkle surface with flour and flour the top of your dough.  Roll to 1/2″ thick with a regular rolling pin.  Using a springerle pin, roll and cut the cookies.  Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and allow to sit out overnight, uncovered, in a dry place.

Bake at 300 for 20 minutes.  Do not allow to brown.  It is recommended that you put these in an airtight container and store for one week before serving.  That never happens at our house.