Today my hubby and I are celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary.

So, to make it special I made a cake for us.

I had been eyeing this recipe for quite sometime and I am glad I did it. 

This is one of the BEST cakes I have ever tasted,

Find the recipe here at Wilton's site:

http://www.wilton.com/recipe/White-Chocolate-Cake-with-Raspberry

Decorating tips:

*The recipe calls for White Candy Melts but I used white chocolate chips 

which made the icing more of a egg shell color...one or possibly one and a half bags of white chocolate chips should do it..and let them cool sufficiently before adding them to the cream cheese, otherwise you have runny icing that is hard to spread.

*For the shavings get a thicker bar of chocolate, I got a thin bar of baking chocolate and it made shaving this bar into curls very difficult.

**I'm certain this can be modified to use any other berry!**

Pumpkin Spice Cake with Pumpkin Butter Filling:

Cake:

1 box Spice cake mix

6 TBS sifted cake flour

4 eggs

1 c. buttermilk

1/3 c. oil

2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degree's.  Mix all ingredients together, beating for 2 minutes on med. speed.  Pour about 1/4 cup of batter into each cupcake liner and bake for 15–20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cupcake comes out clean. Cool completely on wire racks. Torte and fill cake with filling.
 I have used Dickson's pumpkin butter in mine.

Butter Cream Frosting:

1 c. butter , softened

4 c. powdered sugar, sifted

4+ Tbsp. buttermilk 

2 Tbsp. vanilla extract

1 Tsp. Pumpkin Pie Spice 

2 drops orange food color.

DIRECTIONS:

Whip butter until fluffy. Add in powdered sugar, about 1 cup at a time. Mix in 1 Tbsp. buttermilk after each addition of powdered sugar, repeating these steps until the frosting is well mixed and hold peaks. Add vanilla extract and pie spice, and mix thoroughly. Use additional powdered sugar if needed to thicken frosting. Ice cake as desired. 

*Decorating tips:

-I have a lot of little fondants decorations on my cake as you can see here. Those we done using simple punch outs that you can find on ebay or amazon for cheap.

-Tutorials on how to work with fondant can be found on youtube.

-If you want to fill your cake, this is the link to tell you how to do that:

http://www.wilton.com/cakes/making-cakes/filling-cake-layers.cfm

I made this cake for the home coming even at our church and it was such a huge hit. 

Something this yummy is hard to keep to myself.

Ingredients:

Peanut Butter Cake

One box plain yellow cake mix 

6 TBS sifted cake flour

1 1/3 cups water

1/3 cup smooth peanut butter

1/3 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350. Lightly grease two cake ball pans (inside and outside) with Baker's Joy. Set the pans aside.

Place the cake mix, water, peanut butter, oil, eggs, flour, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.

Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping the sides down again if needed. Spoon cake batter into pans. Bake at 30 for 15 minutes. Cool cake balls then trim the edges off the tops to make them rounder. 

Set these aside until after we get the chocolate cake mixed and ready for pans. 

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Chocolate Cake:

2 cups sugar

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup boiling water

DIRECTIONS:

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). 

Pour a small amount of batter into pans, place cake balls in the batter and pour remaining batter ovr cake balls.

Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. 

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Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Icing:

10 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

5 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

2/3 cup smooth peanut butter

DIRECTIONS:

In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add the confectioners’ sugar 1 cup at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl often. Continue to beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes.

Add the peanut butter and beat until thoroughly blended. *You can thin this out by adding milk to the icing if you feel it is too thick. 

Ice cake and put cake in fridge while mixing up the glaze, this helps the icing "set" a little more.

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Chocolate-Peanut Butter Glaze

6 ounces semi sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

1/2 cup half-and-half

DIRECTIONS:

In the top of a double boiler combine the chocolate, peanut butter, and corn syrup. Cook, whisking often, until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth.

Remove from the heat and whisk in the half-and-half, beating until smooth. Spoon ontop iced cake..it's okay for the chocolate to fall down the sides.

Decorating Tips:

You can decorate your cake like mine by using a 1M star tip in a decorating bag. Pipe some simple swirls and chop 6 mini Reese Peanut Butter Cups to put on top of each icing swirl.

You can also grate some chocolate to put on the bottom and the top like I have here.

Enjoy!

Doughnut Muffins

Ingredients for Muffins:

-You can also make cakeballs with this as well-

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

5.3 ounces melted unsalted butter

1 cup of milk or buttermilk (room temperature)

Directions:

Sift flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg together in a small bowl.

In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla together until smooth.

Add the flour and milk alternately to the egg mixture in three additions folding with a spatula until smooth.

Scoop batter into well sprayed muffin tin with no liners.

Bake at 375 degrees for 12-15 minutes or until firm to the touch in the center of the muffin.

To finish muffins with cinnamon /sugar, first dip the muffin in melted butter then roll in cinnamon sugar.

To finish the muffin with doughnut glaze, 

dip cooled muffin in glaze.

Glaze recipe: 

Stir together 3 cups powdered sugar, 4 ounces melted butter, and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Add 6-9 tablespoons milk and stir until glaze is smooth and the consistency is creamy. You will have glaze left over. You can half the recipe or keep glaze refrigerated for later use. 

*Let glazed muffin dry for a few minutes before serving.

1 box strawberry cake mix 

1  box vanilla instant pudding

3 eggs 

1/4 cup vegetable oil 

1 cup milk

*The box calls for water but substitute milk for a thicker batter.

Cake: 

1 box vanilla cake mix 

1  box vanilla instant pudding

4 egg whites  

1/4 cup vegetable oil 

1 cup milk

1 tablespoon lemon extract 

7 - 9 drops of yellow food color [depending one how yellow you want it]

Frosting: 

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening [I use the sticks because it's not as messy when measuring]

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine softened

1 1/2 teaspoons of strawberry extract flavoring

4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar (approximately 1 lb.)

2 tablespoons milk

5 drops of red food color

Cake balls instruction: 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

 Spray cake ball pans with Baker's Secret Spray. Combine cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, milk and oil in large bowl. Beat with mixer for 2 minutes, or until blended. Spoon batter into pans. Bake for 13 minutes. Cool cake balls in pans on cooling racks for 10 minutes. While cake balls are cooling go ahead and make the other part of the cake.

Cake instruction: 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Spray 2 (9-inch) round cake pans with Baker's Secret Spray. Combine cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, milk, lemon extract flavoring, food coloring and oil in large bowl. Beat with mixer for 2 minutes, or until blended. Place your cooled cake balls into the pans -we used 12 cake balls in each layer.  Poor batter into pans over top of the cake balls. Bake for 29 - 33 minutes. Cool cake in pans on cooling racks for 20 minutes. Invert cakes onto cooling rack and cool completely. 

Frosting Instruction:

In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with mixer. Add strawberry extract flavoring. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add food coloring.

Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use.

Frost the cake when it's completely cooled and you can decide 

for yourself how you want to decorate yours. 

**For the flavor extract we used Watkins brand.

**Since we did a double layer cake we doubled the recipe for the cake balls and cake.

FRUIT COBBLER

2 - 3 cups of prepared fruit

-I have used blackberries, I also added about 3/4 cup of sugar to my berries and let them sit in the sugar mix for a while.

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 cup flour

1/2 sugar

1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Melt butter in a 9 x 9 inch baking dish.

Blend together flour, sugar, and milk.

Pour batter in baking dish over the butter. Sprinkle fruit on top of the batter, do not stir. Bake for 1 hour or until golden brown.

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A few notes about this recipe. This is very versatile. You can use it on any fruit! You can even use canned or frozen fruits too. When I was little mom made these a lot during the summer months. We lived in the country where berries grew wild so this was a quick and easy dessert. 

Red Velvet Cake:

CAKE:

2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

1/2 cup unsalted butter - at room temperature

1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk

2 tablespoons liquid red food coloring

1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar

1 teaspoon baking soda

ICING:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

2 packages (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened

8 cups sifted confectioners' sugar - this equals out to be about 2 lbs

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon of Vanilla

Cake Instructions:

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees place rack in center of oven. flour two - 9 inch (23 cm) round cake pans.

***as you can see here I have made cupcakes, this makes about 24 average sized cupcakes.***

In a mixing bowl sift together the flour, salt, and cocoa powder. Set aside.

In bowl of your electric mixer, beat the butter until soft. Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the vanilla extract and beat until combined.

In a measuring cup whisk the buttermilk with the red food coloring. 

-we use Wilton's red red color. 

With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk to the butter mixture, in three additions, beginning and ending with flour.

In a small cup combine the vinegar and baking soda. Allow the mixture to fizz and then quickly fold into the cake batter. 

Working quickly, divide the batter evenly between the two prepared pans and smooth the tops with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon. 

***or spoon evenly into lined cupcake tins, filling about 2/3 full.***

Bake in the preheated oven for approximately 25 - 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean. Cool the cakes in their pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes. 

Place a wire rack on top of the cake pan and invert, lifting off the pan. Once the cakes have completely cooled, wrap in plastic and place the cake layers in the refrigerator for at least an hour (or overnight). (This is done to make filling and frosting the cakes easier.)

Icing Instructions:

In medium mixer bowl, cream butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Add sugar one cup at a time and milk. Mix well. Beat on high until smooth (30 seconds to 1 minute - do not over mix!).

**Don't use light cream cheese or butter substitute, if margarine is used, icing will be softer. 

Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake

For the strawberry puree:

1 – 20 ounce bag of frozen unsweetened strawberries or 20 ounces of fresh strawberries

1/4 – 1/3 cup granulated white sugar, or to taste

For the crust:

2 cups Keebler Graham Cracker Crumbs

1/2 cup margarine or butter, melted

2 tablespoons sugar

For the filling:

4 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature

1 cup sugar

4 large eggs

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup whipping cream

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

To make the strawberry puree:

Place the unsweetened frozen strawberries in a large bowl and thaw. This may take a few hours. Once thawed, put the strawberries and their juice in the bowl of a food processor or blender and process the berries until they are pureed. Pour the puree into a 2 cup measuring cup. You should have about 1 1/4 cups of puree. Add 1/2 cup of the sugar to start and stir until sugar dissolves. 

*Another option is using those already surgared strawberries from the freezer section. This is what I use, and remember when using this you need way less sugar added, if any, just taste your puree before adding any to the cheesecake batter. 

To make the crust:

In medium bowl toss together graham crumbs, margarine or butter and 2 tablespoons sugar. Press crumb mixture onto bottom and 2 inches up sides of 9-inch springform pan. Chill in freezer while preparing filling.

To make the filling:

Position rack in center of oven. Using mixer, beat cream cheese in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in sugar. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Mix in sour cream, whipping cream and vanilla.

Transfer 1/3 of filling to prepared crust. Dollop 4-5 small spoonfuls of strawberry puree atop filling and swirl it through with a knife to distribute the puree into the filling. Repeat layering of filling and and puree 2 more times. Using knife again, swirl puree through filling, creating marbled design on the top layer. Try to make this swirling a more decorative effect. 

Bake until cheesecake puffs around edges, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Turn off oven. 

Let cake stand in oven 1 hour, leaving oven door cracked just a bit.

Transfer cake to rack. Run knife around pan sides to loosen cake. Cool completely. 

Cover cake and chill overnight. Remove pan sides. 

You can serve cake with the remaining strawberry puree on the side.

 Enjoy!

I'm finally getting around to filling in my recipe book. I'm ashamed to say I have been hoarding several recipe books and magazines for the past few YEARS. LOL.. but the good thing is, I have found a bunch of new recipes I want to try out and improve upon.. so more blog posts soon!