Sweet Potato Praline Pecan Cake

I've never made anything praline before, but I must say this turned out delicious!  The sweet potatoes make the cake extremely moist and give it a very nice consistency.  This cake would stand fine on its own as something to have with coffee even without the icing and praline pecans. The icing and pecans take a few extra steps but definitely kick it up a notch and are highly recommended!

Cream together butter and sugar called for in the cake recipe using an electric mixer.

Add eggs and vanilla, then mix until they're combined. Put in the sweet potatoes and mix well. 

In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Mix until combined. Add flour to the sweet potato mixture a little at a time and mix well.

Put the cake batter into a 9" cake pan that has been sprayed with cooking spray.  You could also use a square pan and make bars.  Bake for twenty to twenty five minutes at 350 until a toothpick inserted at the center comes out clean. 

 Now to make the super delicious icing!  Melt butter in a small saucepan along with brown sugar called for in icing recipe over medium high heat.  Turn down the heat to medium low and boil for two minutes.  Add the half and half and return to a boil, stirring constantly, then remove from heat.  I didn't have half and half so I just used milk and everything turned out fine. 

Pour the butter sugar mixture into a bowl.  Add the icing sugar a little at a time. 

Mix the icing well!  I used a spoon but you could probably stand to use an electric mixer here.  I used the entire amount of icing sugar called for in the recipe and my icing was very stiff.  If you would like something a little runnier or that would spread easier feel free to use less. 

Place the butter and brown sugar called for in the praline pecan recipe into a microwave safe container.  Cook for 20 seconds, stir then cook for another 20. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and bake at 350 for about 5 minutes or until deep golden.   If you're pressed for time or just don't feel like it, you could easier use raw pecans on this cake without impacting its deliciousness. 

Let the cake cool for about fifteen to twenty minutes before topping.  Finish your creation by spreading the icing on top of the cake and topping with pecans. 

Cake or Bars
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup mashed sweet potatoes, you could also use canned, fresh mashed or pureed pumpkin
1 cup flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

Praline icing
½ cup butter
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
¼ cup half and half
2 cups powdered sugar

Praline Pecans
2 teaspoons butter
2 tablesoons brown sugar
1 cup roughly chopped pecans

adapted from: The Cafe Sucre Farine

Lemon Apple Cheesecake

This cheesecake is light and airy and incredibly easy to make.  I made my own graham cracker crust but you could use store bought, or use a pastry crust as the original recipe suggested.  The lemon and apple are a delicious contrast.  I kicked this up a notch by adding store-bought caramel sauce which each person eating drizzled on their slice. 

This is a fairly simple cheesecake with only a few ingredients, and only a single brick of cream cheese,  making it thriftier than the large majority of cheese cakes. 

Crush graham crackers into crumbs by hand or using a food processor, then mix in butter and sugar.  

Press crumbs into a spring form pan, both on the bottom and up the sides.  Bake at 375 for about 8 to 10 minutes, or until crust is set. 

Zest the whole lemon.  If you don't have a zester, use a cheese grater to get the peel off. 

Beat eggs and cream cheese together until light and fluffy, adding eggs one at a time.  After this add sugar and lemon zest then beat until smooth. 

Slice apple into thin pieces for garnish.

Pour cream cheese mixture into the prepared crust, then arrange apples on top.  Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.  Allow to cook completely before refrigerating. 

Lemon Apple Cheesecake

Cheesecake

1- 8 ounce cream cheese - softened

1 teaspoon fresh lemon peel

2 eggs

½ cup sugar

1 apple

Crust

20 graham crackers

1/3 cup butter

1/3 cup sugar

Adapted from: The Cafe Sucre Farine

Fudge Mountain Cookie Dough Cake

As you can see, this cake is completely gluttonous and over the top, which is what makes it so fantastic.  I made it for Christmas but it's sure to be a hit at any gathering before people even try it.  There's something about a giant pile of brownies that just gets people going.  Oh, and a cake, too.  I was actually really impressed with this recipe, the buttercream frosting tastes exactly like cookie dough and the cake is very good. To simplify things you could easily use box mix rather than bake your own cake and still come out with a great end product. 

Make the brownies first.  These can be made a day in advance and kept in the fridge.  This is a fairly involved cake so doing it over two days actually makes it a lot easier.  First, melt the chocolate in a double boiler.  

While it's melting, whisk the eggs together in a bowl.  Wait until the chocolate has cooled slightly after melting, then add to the eggs.  If the chocolate is too hot the eggs might start to fry.  I gave it about five minutes before mixing. 

Combine the sugar and flour in a bowl.  Add in the chocolate mixture and mix until just combined.  Pour the mixture into a 9x13 baking pan which has been greased and lined with parchment paper.  Leave some of the paper hanging over the edges of the pan - this makes it easier to remove the brownies once they are done cooking.   Cook at 325 degrees for about 30 minutes or until brownies are set. 

Now on to the cake.  Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.  Here you can see me adding corn starch to regular flour in order to create a substitute for cake flour. 

In another bowl beat together flour and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla and beat again until combined. 

Add flour mixture to egg mixture in two batches, alternating with the buttermilk and ending with flour.

Place the mixture in two separate bowls.  In a third bowl mix cocoa and boiling water until smooth.  Add this mixture to one portion of dough. 

Using a spoon alternate dropping the vanilla and chocolate dough into two cake pans.  These are 8" and the cake turned out fairly thin, so I wouldn't advise going much larger than that.  Pull a knife thru the batter before baking to create a swirl effect if desired. Bake for about 20 minutes at 375 degrees.


Prepare the buttercream.  Beat together butter and brown sugar on high until fluffy. Beat in flour and salt, then mix in milk and vanilla extract until well blended. Stir in the chocolate chips. 

Once the cake is cool apply the buttercream. I found it very difficult to spread and ended up applying it by pressing it on with my hands, which worked pretty well.  

Where did this massive blob of cookie dough come from??? Oh wait, that's the cake. 

Pull out your brownies.  Slice and dice them into about 1" pieces.  You could go larger or smaller on this, I found this size looked the most proportional to my cake.  Pile the brownies haphazardly on top of the cake, creating the look of a chocolate mountain.  If desired, melt chocolate and drizzle over cake.  At this point you could also add nuts, sprinkles, or even more chocolate chips sprinkled over the cake. 

Fudge Mountain Cookie Dough Cake

For the cake:

115g (1 stick) butter, room temperature, plus more for greasing

300g (1 3/4 cups) cake flour (not self-rising, I used 270g plain flour + 30g (3 1/2 tbsp) cornflour/cornstarch as per these instructions)

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

225g (1 cup) sugar (I used caster sugar)

3 large eggs, room temperature

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

2/3 cup buttermilk, room temperature

1/4 cup + 2 tbsp boiling water

1/4 cup + 1 tbsp Dutch-process cocoa powder

For the buttercream:

250g (about 2 1/4 sticks) butter, at room temperature

2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed

2 1/2 cups (about 315g) icing/confectioners' sugar, sifted

2/3 cup (about 85g) all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tbsp milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

200g (about 1 cup) mini chocolate chips or finely chopped pieces of milk chocolate

For the brownies:

200g (7oz) good quality dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

200g (1.75 sticks) butter, chopped

3 eggs at room temp

2 egg yolks at room temp

200g (about 1 cup minus 2 tbsp) caster sugar

115g (3/4 cup) plain flour

35g (1/3 cup) cocoa powder

Adapted from: Raspberri Cupcakes

Eggnog Cookies

Believe it or not, I've only started drinking eggnog the last few Christmases... I was never a fan of eggs and could never get over the 'egg' part of the name to bring myself to try it.  Finally though, this wonderful drink has entered my life.  These cookies have a very strong eggnog taste and are a great alternative to the usual shortbread or sugar cookies of this time of year. 

This is a fairly simple recipe with a lot of impact - great for the holidays when time is short and need to produce impressive baked goods is high!  

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Cream sugar and butter with an electric mixer. Add eggnog, vanilla and egg yolks and beat at medium speed until smooth.

Sift together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg then add to wet ingredients and beat until combined. 

Once your dough is formed roll out on a well floured counter.  I found my dough to be a bit wet following this recipe exactly so I ended up adding about 1/4 cup extra flour to stop it from sticking to the counter and rolling pin. 

Break out your excessively large collection of Christmas cookie cutters (what, you mean not everyone has several overflowing boxes?) and cut out a variety of holiday themed shapes until all the dough is gone.  Bake on parchment paper for 10-12 minutes 

Using the electric mixer again, beat together confectioners sugar, butter and eggnog called for in icing recipe until smooth.   Transfer mixture to piping bag or ziploc with a small corner cut off then drizzle over cookies.  Make sure the mixture is very smooth before transfer or else lumps will get caught in the tip of your piping bag and cause it to clog.  This will make it difficult to drizzle icing evenly.  Garnish each cookie with a sprinkle of nutmeg if desired. 


Eggnog Cookies

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter, room temp
1/2 cup eggnog
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon nutmeg

Icing

2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cups softened butter or margarine
1/3 cups commercial eggnog

Adapted from:  Between He and She

Banana Booze Cake

This was a difficult cake to photograph, but trust me, it's tasty.  Not a recipe of exact proportions and one that is open to additions and interpretation, this variation of it includes pudding, bananas, cookies, and a healthy portion of liquor.  I think that next time I make this I may try a variation with coffee liquor and chocolate pudding.  Be sure to make in advance to allow pudding to saturate the cookies and bananas thoroughly before serving. 

For this you'll need banana liquor, Kahlua and Bailey's Irish Cream, or as close to these as you can get.  Here there are only 2 boxes of pudding shown but to make a cake of the size shown above (approx 18"x9"x4") you will need 4 boxes.  Look for the boxes that call for 2 cups of milk per box as this will give you the correct ratio of liquid to allow the pudding to come together despite the alcohol. 

Put all 4 boxes of pudding powder into a mixing bowl.  Add one cup of milk for each box (4 cups) as well as 2/3rds a cup of each type of liquor. 

Beat pudding with an electric mixer for however long is indicated on the boxes of pudding mix.  Mine called for two minutes at low speed.  Once this is done toss the pudding in the fridge to firm up. 

While you're waiting for the pudding, slice up some bananas very thin, about 1/8 of an inch thick. 

Pull out the pudding and spread a thin layer on the bottom of the the cake pan you are using. In this case I used a tupperware for ease of transport and storage, just pop on the lid and you're ready to go.  You could easily use a loaf pan, brownie pan, or your usual round pie plate. 

Spread a layer of cookies on top of the pudding, then a layer of bananas on top of them. The type of cookies isn't important. I've considered using chocolate chip, vanilla wafers, oatmeal, anything works as long as the pudding will be able to soak into them, so nothing totally coated in chocolate. 

Top the layer of bananas with more pudding, then repeat the pattern of adding cookies then bananas.  Continuing doing this until all pudding is gone, finishing with a layer of cookies.  Put cake in the fridge to allow pudding to saturate cookies and bananas with flavor, about 3-4 hours or overnight. When ready to serve, garnish with whip cream if desired. 


Banana Booze Cake

6 bananas
2 boxes of vanilla pudding
2 boxes of butterscotch pudding
4 cups milk
2/3 cup banana liquor
2/3 cup Kahlua
2/3 cup Bailey's Irish Cream
60 cookies

Pumpkin Pie Cookies

These cookies are like little miniature pumpkin pies!  Each one contains its own small amount of pie filling and is quite delicious.  The original recipe I found these in calls for them to be shaped like pumpkins and have jack-o-lantern eyes and mouths cut into them, however, since it was after Halloween that I made them I went ahead and added white chocolate and caramel as decoration and they turned out just excellent!

No pictures of the mixing stage of the pastry, unfortunately  I realized too late that this dough needs refrigeration for 'several hours to overnight' so I was forced to make the dough quickly to give it time to rest.  It's fairly easy though. 

Mix the flour, sugar and salt with a fork, then add in butter and cut in with pastry mixer (or fork or potato masher if you're without) until there are no lumps of butter bigger than a pea.  After this, mix in just enough cold water until the dough holds together.  Probably best to just use your hands to mix at this point! Then divide the dough into two and wrap in plastic wrap as seen here, then pop it in the fridge for at least 2 hours. 

Once the dough is ready roll it out to about a half to a quarter centimeter thick.

I didn't have a perfectly round cookie cutter handy, so I used this one that was shaped like a Christmas ornament and just sliced off the nub to make round cookies.   You could use a cup if you're without a cutter but it doesn't work quite as well. 

Place the rounds on a parchment-lined baking pan.  Put about a tablespoon of pumpkin pie filling on each one, then top with another and push the edges down with a fork. Be sure to create deep indentations here as the cookies will puff up while baking and if you don't make them deep enough you will lose that super cute "pie" look.  Bake at 350C until bottoms are lightly browned and tops no longer feel soft or wet. 

While those are baking melt white chocolate chips in a double boiler until smooth and runny. 

Use a proper icing bag and tip if you have it and fill with white chocolate. If you're like me and don't have those things, put a ziploc over a tall glass as shown, with one corner pointed towards the bottom and fill it up with chocolate.  This makes for a much easier and cleaner fill up and gives you somewhere to rest the bag if you have to put it down for a couple seconds. 

Snip the corner off the bag and drizzle chocolate back and forth across the cookies.  Repeat the same melting and drizzling process for caramels. Beware that caramel will be MUCH stiffer and take longer to melt, however the process is the same. Just make sure there are no lumps left before transferring to the plastic bag and consider wearing an oven mitt as you drizzle, as I found the caramel to be much warmer than the chocolate. 

Pumpkin Pie Cookies

2 ½ cups flour (whole wheat pastry or all-purpose)

6 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 ½ sticks cold unsalted butter, cubed

~½ cup ice water

1/2 can pumpkin pie filling

1 cup white chocolate chips

1 cup caramels

recipe adapted from: Building Buttercream